Concrete Cowboy

by G. Neri

  Harp asks me if I ever had a Philly cheesesteak. I don’t know much, but I know steak, and it ain’t made of cheese. But I seen a place in Detroit called Philly’s Cheesesteak, so I guess it’s not a joke.

  He takes me to this place around the corner, and we stand in line in front of this little shack. He talks to the guy and then turns around with two gigantic sandwiches. “Gotta have the complete Philly experience.”

  We sitting on the curb, and even though this sandwich got a weird name, I dig in . . . and it’s sooo good! Where I’m from, we got Coney dogs and deep-dish pizza. But I ain’t had nothing like this.

  Both of us is chowing down when a cop car pulls up in front of us. The window rolls down, and this black cop with a shaved head stares at us through his mirrored glasses.

  “That your horse?” he asks, looking at Lightning, who’s tied up to a sign.

  Harper don’t even look over, acts all innocent. “That isn’t my horse, Officer,” he says.

  Cop seem to know he lying, and I’m thinking maybe you can’t ride a horse on the streets.

  “Heard you did a little racing down at the Speedway this morning.”

  Harp looks up and gives him major ’tude. “Yeah, and what’s it to you, pig?”

  I think now is as good a time as any to start running, but Harper grabs my sleeve and holds on.

  The cop shakes his head. “You have any idea how fast you were going in that race? Because I got a good mind to give you . . . a speeding violation!”

  With that, he whips off his shades and grins like a fool. Harper starts laughing, slapping his leg and elbowing me, and I get it now, they friends. He reaches out and gives the cop a fist bump.

  “So where were you?” Harper says. “I coulda used that speed gun, ’cause Lightning was flying for sure.”

  The cop sighs. “Yeah, so I heard. Next time you crawl outta that hole you call a stable, let me know and I’ll be there. Last time I heard you raced was a while back.”

  Harp wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Yeah, yeah. So how come you don’t ride that horse of yours our way no more?”

  The cop shrugs. “Had to move him to Jersey. That was the only place that had room after they closed the Bunker stables. But if you up for a race, I could make that trip. . . .” He smiles, like he knows that ain’t never gonna happen.

  His radio goes off, and he responds. “Gotta go, Harp. North Philly can’t last two minutes without something bad going down. Duty calls.”

  “Later days, pig!” Harper laughs. “I mean, Leroy!”

  Leroy laughs, turns on his flashing lights, then hits the road, siren blaring.

  Harper watches him go and says, “Good guy, that Leroy. We used to ride a lot back in the day.”

  I ask how he knows a cop, and he says riding brings together all kind of folks: electricians, trashmen, bus drivers, teachers, mailmen, even cops.

  “So what is your job? What do you do?” I ask him.

  He looks at his feet. “Survive,” he says, all grim. “Survive.”

  On the way back to his house, Harp tells me he done just about everything. Used to work at the racetrack, Philadelphia Park, as a training assistant. But since he was laid off, he been in janitorial, construction, fast food, newspaper delivery, even dug graves at a cemetery once. He still takes any stable work he can get, but spends most of his time caring for the horses on Chester Avenue.

  “They pay you for that?”

  He laughs. “Nah, we pay the stables. It’s like a co-op — we all pitch in and help, but we gotta pay for everything too. You know how much it costs to feed a horse?”

  I shrug, but Harp ain’t even looking.

  “I can barely hold on,” he says to no one. “And now I got you to think about too.”

  We ride up to his place in silence. The sky is getting dark, some clouds coming in.

  “Looks like rain. Might help cool things off,” he says.

  We get to his front door, and he glances back at me.

  “You coming in? Or maybe you like staying at the Ritz better.”

  “I guess I’ll come in,” I say.

  He nods, then lowers me offa Lightning before climbing down himself.

  “Look, I been around on this earth a bit, and one thing I know is, life ain’t fair. You get dealt the hand you get dealt and you get on with it. So if you wanna run away, be my guest. I understand. I was your age once.” He sees me smirk. “Yeah, go ahead and laugh. All I’m saying is, if you wanna stay . . . we can try and make it work.”

  I nod. “We’ll see.”

  I take a step, then ask, “Maybe we can call Mama again?”

  Harper sighs, looks doubtful. “Wait a few days. . . . Let things simmer. But don’t get your hopes up.”

  He leads Lightning up the stoop past me and ducks into the house, the hoofs echoing on the wood floor. Harper pulls him into the hole in the wall, and I stand in the doorway and think about Mama and what she doing alone in her apartment. Now that I got people all around me, it makes me wonder if she feels all lonely now. Is she sitting by the window, hatin’ on herself for leaving me here? Or maybe she at some club thinking she got her life back now.

  I blink. Feel water on me. It’s starting to rain. Harper’s standing inside looking at me.

  “You just gonna stand there or you coming in?”

  I step inside.

  “I wanna play you something,” he says.

  I sit down on the one chair in the room. He goes over to a record player sitting on a wood box, digs through a pile a records, and pulls one out. They look like giant black CDs. He puts it on.

  This horn comes on, loud and strong. Then it settles and a drum and bass join in. It’s moody and dark, like I’m feeling.

  “That’s John Coltrane, your namesake,” Harp says. “He lived around here, ya know. A Philly man.”

  He sits on the floor, his back against the wall, and closes his eyes. I lean back and let the music take over. I never really listened to jazz before. Maybe now I can understand why he named me this way. I feel like this music.

  The rain comes hard, beating down on the roof above. The world gets dark, and we just sit there listening. That horn blowing thick and heavy like falling rain turning into mud. I let it wash over me and drift off. . . .

  When I wake, I don’t know where I am. Then it dawns on me that I’m in Harper’s bed upstairs.

  How’d I get up here? I can’t remember.

  Harper ain’t around. I sit up and slowly the world comes to my head. It’s day outside but dark, ’cause I can still hear the rain falling on the roof. There is some kinda commotion going on outside, and I go to the window to check it out. The rain is coming down harder than I seen in a long time. I hear a buncha noise and look down to the street in front of us.

  Jamaica Bob has his truck pulled up, and he and Harper is loading stuff into the pickup — wood, hammers, and stuff. They must be crazy doing this in the pouring rain. I go to the top of the stairs. Harper comes back in to grab some rope. He already soaked and the day’s just starting.

  “Why you working in the rain?” I ask.

  He looks at me, shakes his head. “Stay here.”

  He heads back into the downpour. I go downstairs and see Jamaica Bob grabbing a toolbox outta Lightning’s room.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Storm tore a hole in the Ritz. Gotta move some horses and try to patch that roof before it gets worse.”

  “Is Boo okay?”

  He grimaces. “He got out in time, but he’s a little . . .”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Well, you know. He’s a bit out of control.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I say, looking for my shoes.

  Bob shakes his head. “Harper wants you to stay here. Says you’ll just get in the way.”

  He shuts the door behind him as he leaves. I stare at the doorknob, thinking of Boo, and getting madder by the minute. Get in the way? What am I, a baby? If helping Boo means getting in the wa
y, then the heck with Harper.

  I get dressed. Outside, it’s really pouring now. From the window, I can see a small river moving through the street. I find a old rain poncho in the closet, but my shoes ain’t gonna help me none. I look by the door and there’s them cowboy boots Harper gave me.

  Better than nothing.

  It take me five minutes to figure out how to get them dag boots on my feet. I pull and pull and finally, I get my foot all the way in.

  I stand up and I feel five inches taller. It’s kinda weird walking around in these things. They squeeze on my toes. They sound loud walking on the wood floors. But they’ll do.

  Next thing I know, I’m trudging through the rain. The only plus is it ain’t cold out. I keep moving, crossing the street where I can and getting out the way of passing cars so I don’t get drowned by a wave.

  When I get to the stable, it looks like a war zone. It’s a real mess — mud everywhere. A lot of guys, some I never seen before, is moving horses, hauling wood, soaked to the bone. Must be twenty of ’em come out to help. I head over to the Ritz, and the second I walk in, I see it: a huge hole opened up over Boo’s stall.

  I panic. “Where’s Boo?”

  Harper spots me and looks pissed. “Go home. He’s okay. Damn thing busted out before it all fell down. Lucky he ran into the corral. Tex is trying to calm him.”

  The last thing I’m gonna do is go home now. I head back out to the corral. Boo is running in circles, and Tex and another guy is trying to rope him.

  “Boo!” I shout.

  Tex sees me. “Stay out, kid. He’s spooked.”

  The rain is coming down so hard, I can barely see. My feet is sinking into the mud, so I scramble up onto the fence around the corral. Boo’s actin’ crazy, the whites of his eyes wide and a kind of foam coming out his mouth. Tex tries to calm him, but Boo jumps every time he gets near and just keeps running in circles.

  Tex and the other guy slowly corner him against the fence, and I see Boo’s hoofs getting itchy like he gonna bust right out. But then a funny thing happens.

  Just when I thought he was gonna run over Tex, Boo suddenly sees me sitting on the fence and stops. Just plain stops and stares at me. It’s spooky, like he trying to speak to me through mind talk or something. He looking at me, and I swear, it seem like all his fear disappears.

  Tex slowly clumps his way through the mud and gets a rope on Boo. Boo don’t fight back but starts moving closer to me, dragging Tex with him. I’m kinda scared, but I reach out ’cause it looks like he wants me to pet his head since we on the same level.

  Boo stands there staring at me, totally calm as my hand touches his mane. And it’s like everything stops; all the craziness disappears. It’s just me and Boo.

  Tex laughs. “That is the darndest thing I ever saw. I think you got a friend.”

  I don’t know if he talking to me or Boo, but I don’t argue. After a few minutes, I let Tex lead Boo out the corral to a little overhang thing in the side yard. He ties him up and says, “Stay, Boo.”

  I ask, “You just gonna leave him out here?”

  Tex looks over at the Ritz. “Got to. No place to put him until we get that roof closed up. He’ll be okay.”

  Boo looks like them homeless guys you see on street benches, all dirty and scruffy, hair going every which way. At least he outta the rain.

  I run into the clubhouse and find a coupla carrots in Tex’s stash. When Boo sees me with them, he gets all excited, tugging on his rope. I hold them out, and he chomps them one at a time. I pet him on his neck as he chews away. He calms down and starts chewing slower, just looking at me. I tell him he be all right. I think he believes me.

  I’m standing next to him when he finishes, and then he moves his head until it’s resting against mine. We just stand there, listening to the rain fall on the metal roof over us.

  I hear a shout. The wind kicks up, and someone jumps off the ladder that was going up to the roof of the Ritz.

  Harper.

  A blue tarp up top whips about in the wind. I hear him shout to Jamaica Bob, “That roof ain’t gonna hold me. I’m too heavy to get up there.”

  Bob’s trying to look up into the rain and wind. “We can’t fix it till this rain stops! But we got to get that tarp tied down.”

  Suddenly my mouth opens. “I can climb up there.”

  Harper, Tex, and Bob all turn and look at me. They wouldn’ta been more surprised if Boo had spoken up. I don’t know why I opened my big mouth. Maybe I was just trying to show Harper I ain’t totally useless.

  But they don’t say no.

  Bob shrugs. “Kid might be light enough. We could tie a rope to him.”

  I can see Harper thinking hard, and it feels like maybe he don’t want me to get hurt. But then he asks me, “Can you climb?”

  I think, Yeah, I can climb. I hopped enough fences in my time. I can climb up onto a old barn.

  I nod.

  Next thing I know, Harper is tying a rope to my waist. Tex stands there, holding up the ladder leading to the broken roof. The blue tarp whips about, the rope ties flying in the wind.

  Harper leans in close. “If you feel like you’re falling, jump. I’ll catch ya.”

  I give him a look, like, Yeah, right, but it’s better having him down here than not.

  I grab on to the metal ladder. It’s cold to my hands. I feel like one of them fire-rescue guys, only there ain’t no flames.

  Bob give me a thumbs-up, but he starting to look worried. He trades words with Harper, who seem even more worried. They stare at the tarp whipping around and shake their heads. I know they gonna change their minds, so I start climbing before they can say anything.

  About halfway up, I feel the rope tugging on me. Harp is yelling something, but I can’t hear him ’cause the rain and the wind is so loud. I wave him off and keep going.

  The ladder is shaking from the gusts. I hold on tight, afraid I’m just gonna slip off. The rain keep blowing in my eyes and blinding me. Them cowboy boots I’m wearing got no grip, so they keep slipping off the ladder too. Then there’s the tarp and the ropes, snapping around my head like whips. I think one of ’em might cut my head off.

  What was I thinking?

  I look back down. Everyone’s staring at me. But I don’t wanna wuss out.

  Once I get up to the edge of the roof, I can see why Harp jumped. The hole looks like someone dropped a car through it. I look down into the void and see Boo’s stall, crushed by the missing piece of roof. Man.

  What’s left up there seem real rickety. I can hear it squealing as it moves around in the wind. A big gust hits me, and I almost lose it — grab on with all my might and shut my eyes tight. When they open again, I can see the three guys holding the ladder still and Harper waving me back down.

  I look away. I can see the lay of the land from up here. The whole place is a mess, like it’s been hit by a tornado or something. But the worst thing is seeing that dead horse lying there in the mud — this is the tarp they was using to cover it.

  I take a deep breath and pray for the wind to die down for a second. When it does, I take the last three steps and then I’m up on top.

  I keep my eye on the ropes whizzing around me. I use to catch flies all the time, so I pretend they just a couple a of bugs buzzing around my head. The first time I reach for one, I almost fall off. I end up on my stomach looking down into the darkness. My mind goes blank, and I hold on like my hands is made of glue. But just as I start thinking of jumping, one of them ropes hits me in the head and I snag it, wrapping it around my arm.

  Now what? I see Harper pointing to something. I follow his finger and see a wood beam sticking out from the edge of the building. He making motions like I should tie it around that beam. The only problem is I got to crawl along the edge of this roof about fifteen feet to get to it.

  With the rain and the wind and all the noise and spooked horses and guys shouting . . . somehow I just start moving. The building creaks and squeals; pieces fall off left and
right. But all of a sudden I’m there. I just have to hold on with my legs, reach down, and pull that rope tight around the beam till the tarp stops flapping about and lays down over that hole. I don’t know how to tie no knot, so I just wrap it and crisscross it till it sticks.

  I hear a cheer go up and them guys down below is all smiles. And suddenly, I don’t feel scared no more.

  I make my way backwards to the ladder. When I get there, the other rope is just lying there, like a present or something. I grab it and look down, where they waving me back. The rope seem long enough, so I just pull it down with me. The ladder don’t seem as rickety going down.

  When I get back to earth, they all treat me like I had just won one of them races. All slaps on the back and guys saying, “Way to go” and stuff. Even Harper has a different look in his eyes.

  For the first time since I got here, I feel all right.

  They tie that rope nice and tight around a post, and looking into the barn, I can see the blue tarp has stopped the rain for now. Hopefully, it’ll clear up and they can fix it for real tomorrow.

  In the meantime, we all head back to the clubhouse to get out of the storm. When the door opens . . . man, something smells good.

  Some of the old-time cowboys been cooking up something tasty, and we have us a big ol’ party. There must be thirty guys in here now, and the funny thing is, they all treatin’ me like I’m no different than them. We eat and drink (well, I don’t have no beer, but they brought out root beer for me) and complain about the craziness of this storm, an’ how global warming is making the weather all backwards.

  When things get good and toasty, Tex starts telling us some of his stories from the olden days, back when he was a rodeo star in Texas (that’s why they call him Tex, duh), one of the first black cowboys to make his mark on the circuit. Everyone says he was the best in his day, but he says his daddy and granddaddy was even better.

  “Back in them days, they used to roam the open country, herding cattle on the Chisholm Trail.” The guys nod, like that’s something they heard about the Old West.