Concrete Cowboy

by G. Neri

  Some scenes were best viewed from the video tent, where the producers sat. And since I was now an executive producer, that’s where I sat, too. When I saw some scenes play out in real time on the monitors, I was kind of surprised at how much it looked like a real movie. Every shot was gorgeous and cinematic; I was immediately sold. One tense scene between Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin had everyone riveted all afternoon — even teary-eyed — despite the scene being divvied up into many different angles and takes. Another shot, the coup de grâce, was played out through the longest telephoto lens I had ever seen: this thing must have been four feet long. It’s a backlit sunset shot of Cole and Harper and all the gang riding their horses toward us, the heat rising from the asphalt, bordered by super-compressed row houses and telephone poles. It took the actors a good two minutes to ride the whole distance. We were all convinced this shot could be the trailer — just stick music over this epic western shot and the people will come!

  I couldn’t have asked for a better first-time movie-making experience. The excitement from the local media was palpable, and the city seemed to embrace our presence. The other producers kept saying that things never go this smoothly: this was a passion project for everyone involved, all of whom, both in front of and behind the camera, were truly the A Team doing their best work for almost nothing. There were no disasters, and no one had attitude.

  Strangely, no one in the real world seemed to know we were filming till a shot of Idris riding a horse popped up online. Suddenly the news helicopters found out where we were and swooped in to get shots for the evening news. I stood there and marveled: all this attention for a neighborhood long neglected by the city and certainly never seen in a movie. It was time for the black urban cowboys of North Philly to get their close-up.

  There seems to be real gratitude from the community for being portrayed as the good guys for once. Not criminals, not the impoverished, but real people, with real pride and love for their community. They are forming a new nonprofit riding academy (Philly style), working with a city councilor (who happens to be a black cowboy) to build a new stable for the neighborhood. But more important, it feels like Philadelphia has finally realized this is a culture to be celebrated as part of the City of Brotherly Love.

  All I have to say is: it’s about time.

  I need to get my head together.

  Am I sure about this? Move to Philly for real? I ain’t even asked Harp about this yet. I just been playing it out in my head.

  “Looks like you two had words,” says Harp, like he’s had a word or two with her hisself.

  I nod, but I ain’t ready to get into it. “I’m sure you’ll hear all about it before she head back tonight.” I expect more grilling, but Harp don’t say nothing.

  “You mind if I take Boo out?” I ask.

  He sees I don’t wanna talk. “See ya back at the Ritz.”

  Whenever things get too much for me, I escape deep into Fairmount Park. This is me and Boo’s favorite place. You can wander for miles, escape all the noise of the city, and just disappear into that forest — riding alone, listening to the leaves in the wind or the sound of the creek trickling by. Whenever I come here, I forget all my troubles and feel whole again.

  I don’t wanna sound corny or nothing, but Boo is, like, my best friend now. I can tell him anything and he don’t judge.

  “I don’t know why she trippin’. I kept up my end of the deal. Passed eighth grade. Stayed outta trouble. Am I right?”

  Boo don’t say nothing, which feels like a “Right.”

  “Principal even shook my hand and said, ‘I wasn’t sure you could do it, but you made it.’ Mama should be happy.”

  Boo kinda nods . . . but he do that when he walks.

  “Maybe I can make a new deal. Maybe switch it around and spend the summer in Detroit and the rest of the year here? Whatchou think about that?”

  Boo stops and looks back at me.

  I know a guilt trip when I see one. “Don’t you give me a hard time too, Boo. I know it sucked when I was gone. You don’t think I know what it feels like to be abandoned? I know.”

  I let out a sigh, then look around to see where we are. There’s a clearing up ahead where I can see the end of a metal fence. When we get up close, I see it’s a corral fence.

  Then it hits me.

  “Oh, dang, Boo. You know what this is? It’s that police barn I broke you out of.”

  His ears rise up in high alert. I can feel his body tense. I wonder if he really remembers that week when the city inspectors took him away and locked him and the other horses up in here. He musta been so scared, just like I was when I watched them cart him away. Seem like a million years ago when we busted them out in the middle of the night and hid in the park like we was train robbers in the Old West.

  “Easy, Boo,” I say, looking around. “Somethin’ looks different.”

  What’s different is that the whole place is emptied out like a ghost town. We trot around the edge of the corral till we come to the barn. But there ain’t no horses. No people. No equipment. Nothing.

  “Looks like they moved out.” I get down and walk Boo around. I try the main barn door, but it’s locked. I peek in through the crack. With most barns, the smell of horses hits you, and it’s like being home. Here, nothing.

  Empty.

  “Man, they really is gone. Good — no more horsenappers!” I karate-kick the gate to the corral, and it opens. “Boo, check it out! Wanna go for a spin?”

  I lead him into the corral, then chase him till he’s galloping around in circles along the fence. We play tag for a bit, but he keeps running long after I’m outta breath.

  I climb on top a the fence and watch him. He looks happy. Running here ain’t like running around the empty lot across from our stable, which is full of holes, weeds, and broken glass. This is like real dirt that has been taken care of.

  Boo peters out and stops at a trough with some rainwater in it. I pet his neck, and he gets his drink on. “Man, imagine if we lived here, Boo. Wouldn’t that be dope? You could sleep in that barn in style and run out here every day. That’d be livin’.”

  I feel for Boo — his stable is dark and old and made up from broken doors and scrap plywood, and the air is thick with dust and cobwebs, and sometimes there’s even rats running around. Being here feel like . . . heaven.

  I’m sitting there dreaming what I could do with the place when I hear some kinda strange noise.

  Thwack — bang! . . . Thwack — bang! . . . Thwack — bang!

  What’s that?

  I leave Boo at the trough and follow the sound out the corral. It seem to be coming from the other side of the barn.

  The barn is big, so it takes me a few minutes to walk around its edges. The sound is getting louder, and then, when I come up on a corner, I start hearing a voice too. A girl’s voice, counting.

  Thwack — bang! . . . “Twenty-two.”

  Thwack — bang! . . . “Twenty-three.”

  When I peek around the corner, I see the weirdest thing: a girl sitting on a sawhorse with a piece of cardboard for a saddle, holding the reins like it’s a real horse or something. She’s hitting red softballs with a long wood hammer.

  She takes a swing at one of them balls — thwack! It sails through the air and hits a square chalked on the side of the barn — bang!

  “Twenty-four,” she counts.

  I have no idea what she’s doing, but I watch her hit a few more. She’s dressed funny too — wearing a helmet and on her arms and knees is leather pads. On her feet she’s wearing long black boots that cover her calves. She got on white pants and a dark shirt that says one word: CHUKKERHEAD.

  When she runs outta balls, she climbs down offa that thing and starts collecting the loose ones in a basket. But then she puts the basket at the foot of her “horse” and takes off her helmet —

  Oh — dang.

  She about my age, but her face — it looks like she’s made up for Halloween or something. Her skin is dark, lik
e mine. But around her eyes, nose, and mouth is painted like . . . white.

  Like she just dipped the front of her head into a bowl of paint or something.

  “It’s not polite to stare,” she says suddenly.

  I look around and realize she talking to me.

  “I wasn’t starin’,” I say (even though I was). “I mean, I just heard a noise and came around to check it out.”

  She looking at me, but the whole mask thing is freaking me out, ’cause it ain’t paint. It’s her skin. I try to change the subject.

  “What happened to the mounted police?” I ask. “I mean, last time I was here, they kept all a their horses in the stable.”

  She dumps the basket of balls. “They’re gone. Closed the program.”

  “Really? Why?”

  She climbs back up on her wood horse. “Mom says it cost the city too much to feed them and clean up after them.”

  She aims and takes a swing at a ball. Thwack — bang! . . . “Twenty-six.”

  “I think you was on twenty-five,” I say.

  She ignores me, but on the next hit — Thwack — bang! — she says “Twenty-six!” with attitude.

  I watch her take a few more whacks. “What’re you doin’?” I ask.

  “What’s it look like? Practicing my half-seat trunk rotation.”

  “Your what?”

  She laughs. “Polo, dummy.”

  Only polo I know is them shirts some kids wear around. “Like . . . Ralph Lauren Polo?”

  She stops and looks at me like I’m stupid. “If you gonna stand there, make yourself useful. Get those balls for me, will you?”

  I don’t know why, but I do it. I hustle over to where a couple balls sit near the barn wall. “Can I ask you a question?”

  Thwack! A ball sails by, just missing my head. BANG!

  “Hey!” I shout.

  She stares me down, hard, then points to her face. “It’s called vitiligo, if you gotta know,” she says. “It’s a disease that causes the loss of skin color. So, no, I’m not dressed like a clown for Halloween, and I’m not part Dalmatian. Okay?”

  I pick up the balls and walk over to where she is and dump them. “I was just gonna ask you what a chukkerhead is,” I say.

  She kinda laughs like she ain’t sure if I’m lying or not. Finally she says, “A chukkerhead is anyone who loves polo.”

  “I never seen anyone play polo except for a polo game I saw on TV once. But it was in a pool, and there weren’t no wood horses or hammer sticks,” I say. “I did play Marco Polo once, but that was in a pool too.”

  Now she just looks sorry for me. “Are you, like, simple in the head or something? And by the way, these aren’t hammer sticks. They’re called mallets and —”

  She suddenly stops talking and her expression changes. I hear Boo amble up behind me. He starts nibbling at the back of my head.

  “That your pony?” she asks. I take his reins and climb up till I’m eye level with her. “He’s a horse, not a pony. And his name is Boo,” I say.

  Boo don’t seem to care, ’cause he goes right up to her like he knows her. “Hey, Boo . . .” she says, like they old friends.

  I interrupt their moment with a little dig. “So, what’s your horse’s name?”

  She looks at her wooden ride, with a makeshift saddle on it. “We call them ponies in polo.” She thinks. “I think his name is . . . Woody. So, you a rider, then? Boo belongs to you?”

  She seems surprised for some reason, so I set her straight. “I’m a cowboy, I guess. From over on Chester Avenue?”

  She nods. I try not to stare at her, but being face-to-face, it’s hard not to. “You know what’s gonna happen to the barn?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

  She shrugs. “I dunno. Seems stupid to let it go to waste, though. I been using it to practice. Nobody bothers me here.” She’s looking at Boo, and then acts like a light bulb went off in her head. “Hey, you wanna scrimmage?”

  “‘Scrimmage’?” I’m not sure what she means or that I wanna spend any more time here. “Uh, not today. I kinda hafta get goin’ now.”

  She nods, looking at Boo. “Well, next time. We’ll go one-on-one. Boo likes it.”

  I don’t know why she talking about Boo like they go way back, but it’s getting on my nerves. “Whatever,” I say. I pull on Boo’s reins and back him out to show her what I can do.

  “See you when I see you,” she says.

  “Not if I see you first,” I say.

  This is one of those books that I tinkered with for years before figuring out how to truly crack it. But I couldn’t have done it without the following folks, so thanks to:

  Doug Ertman, who sent me a Life magazine article about the Philly crew many years ago and said, “Here’s your next book.” I didn’t believe him at the time, but what do I know?

  My critique groups, who helped turn me into the writer I am, for reading my many different attempts over the years and quietly steering me in the right direction.

  Jennifer Fox, my editor on Chess Rumble and Yummy, for her kindness and gracious support on this project.

  Gail Ruffu, cousin and one of the unheralded advocates for horse rights in the racing world, for reading an early draft to make sure it would pass muster with people who know a thing or two about horses.

  Martha Camarillo, whose amazing photography book Fletcher Street captures the real spirit of that community and confirmed for me there was a great story to be told here for teens.

  The countless writers and videographers who have highlighted the black urban cowboy experience all over the U.S., and groups like the Federation of Black Cowboys for spreading the word by helping to get kids into horses instead of guns.

  Ellis and the horsemen of Fletcher Street for really caring about these kids and the community. Long may you ride.

  Michelle Shuman, tireless champion of the Fletcher Street guys, for her steady stream of e-mails, confirming rumors and thoughts, and for introducing me to Ellis and his posse down there while standing out in the cold rain as I asked questions.

  Edward Necarsulmer IV, my main man. For his endless support and enthusiasm, and love of Dylan — thank you. I couldn’t ask for a better agent.

  Jesse Joshua Watson, collaborator in books and old-school hustle. My posse wouldn’t be complete without him. Can’t wait to hit the trail again, bro.

  Andrea Tompa, my editor, who really fought for this book and made me feel like a writer of worth. You deserve a gold star for this one.

  And finally, thanks to my family, who make it possible for me to even be a writer. I couldn’t survive without them.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2011 by G. Neri

  Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Jesse Joshua Watson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic movie tie-in edition 2021

  Originally published as Ghetto Cowboy, Candlewick Press (2011)

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Neri, Greg.

  Ghetto cowboy / G. Neri; illustrated by Jesse Joshua Watson. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Cole’s behavior causes his mother to drive him from Detroit to Philadelphia to live with a father he has never known, but who soon has Cole involved with a group of African-American “cowboys” who rescue horses and use them to steer youths away from drugs and gangs.

  ISBN 978-0-7636-4922-7 (hardcover)

  [1. Fathers and sons — Fiction. 2. Horses — Fiction.

  3. City and town life — Pennsylvania — Fiction. 4. Conduct of Life — Fiction.

 
5. Moving, Household — Fiction. 6. African Americans — Fiction.

  7. Philadelphia (Pa.) — Fiction.] I. Watson, Jesse Joshua, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.N4377478Ghe 2011

  [Fic] — dc22 2010007564

  The illustrations in this book were done in pencil, ink, and acrylic on illustration board, processed digitally.

  Candlewick Entertainment

  an imprint of

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  www.candlewick.com