Lean on Pete

by Willy Vlautin

  “I’m going to put three on the hotwalker so you’ll have three stalls to clean right off.” He took a can of Copenhagen from his pants and put in a fresh chew and began getting the horses out and we hardly talked the rest of the day.

  When I got off work I went back to the house but even in the daylight it made me nervous. I went up the drive where my dad’s truck sat parked, and unlocked the door.

  “Is there anyone in here?” I asked and stuck my head in. “Hello?”

  I stood there for a minute but I didn’t hear anything so I went inside. I walked through each room and checked the windows to make sure they were still locked and I checked that the sleeping bag still covered the broken window alright. Then I locked myself in the bathroom and took a shower. After that I left. I took the bus downtown and went to the library and found a Wyoming phone book. I looked in the white pages under the city of Rock Springs for my aunt’s name, Margy Thompson. There were a couple M. Thompsons but there were no Margys. I wrote down all the numbers that were near it and then I wrote down all the Thompsons in the whole state, dividing it up by the city.

  I remembered one of the jobs she had at an auto parts store in Rock Springs. It was a place called Scottish Sam’s and I got the number for that as well. I put the list in my pocket and decided I’d try to find somebody’s phone that had long distance and if I couldn’t I’d wait until I got paid and use a payphone. After that I used one of the library computers and put in her name and the state of Wyoming but nothing came of it.

  Five years before that we were living in Green River and she was living in Rock Springs, and we used to visit her and she would visit us. But after a while my dad and her didn’t like each other. Then when we moved to Spokane he told me she had moved as well but he wasn’t sure where. Before that she’d always sent me cards and things like that but it stopped. I knew she didn’t know where we were ’cause when we moved to Spokane we didn’t leave a forwarding address, we just snuck out. We didn’t even have a phone for the first year.

  When I left the library I walked to the hospital but my dad was asleep and he wouldn’t wake up. I stayed with him for a couple hours, then the nurse came and she told me he wasn’t doing very well. She said a doctor would be by to talk to me, but I never saw one. I just sat there and got more and more worried. It was midnight when I was told to leave and I walked all the way back to the house.

  Everything was the same when I got there but just being inside made me so nervous that I changed into my work clothes, rolled up my sleeping bag, and took it and my alarm clock and headed towards the track.

  The backside was shut down and dark except for a few overhead lights shining off the buildings. The main guard was there sitting in his shack so I walked along the chain link until I couldn’t see him and found a place to crawl under. When I got to the other side I went as fast as I could to the shedrows and in near darkness went past the horses in their stalls until I came to the end and Del’s horses.

  His tack room sat next to Pete’s stall and was shut with a padlock that I had the combination to. I opened it and went inside in the dark, closed the doors behind me, and turned on the light. I plugged in my alarm and set it for 5 a.m. and laid my sleeping bag down on the floor and turned off the light. It was completely black in the room and every once in a while I could hear a horse move or kick or make a noise but it all eased my mind more than worried it and before I knew it I had conked out and the alarm was going off.

  When I got up I hid my things behind a metal filing cabinet. The morning wasn’t cold and I walked out into the shedrow. I locked the tack room and visited Pete and said good morning to him. I pet him for a long time and he just stood there calm and still and I told him that I was living next door to him now and that I’d visit him every night. When I’d woken up enough I walked over to the caf. I went inside to the bathroom and washed my face and combed my hair with my hand. I went to the counter and ordered breakfast.

  It was just past five thirty when I went back to Del’s horses. I put a halter on Pete and led him out to the hotwalker and cleaned his stall. I did the same for all the horses and by the time Del showed up at six forty-five I was almost done.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he said in a huff when he saw me. He was wearing jeans and there was a wet spot around his crotch like he’d pissed in his pants.

  “I’m cleaning out the stalls,” I told him.

  “Don’t ever start before me getting here.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “What are you doing tonight and tomorrow morning?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “I’m heading to a place near Richland, Washington. I’m leaving in a couple hours. They don’t start the race until five. I can’t drive long distances at night or I’d come back. We’ll get up in the morning and be back here by ten. You want to go?”

  “Do I get paid if I go?”

  “I’ll pay you.”

  I didn’t want to go with him, I really didn’t. I wanted to go back to the hospital but I didn’t know what else to do because I needed the money to get by on.

  “Okay,” I told him.

  “Finish cleaning out the stalls and then be ready to go. We’re taking Lean on Pete and Broken Blue. We’ll load them in an hour or so.” I nodded and Del turned around and walked away. I finished working, then I called the hospital from the caf phone, but my dad wasn’t awake and they didn’t say anything different about how he was so I just left a message with his nurse telling him I would be gone for a day if he woke up and wondered where I was.

  We loaded the horses and drove to a trailer park. We pulled to the side of the road and Del shut off the engine. He turned on the radio and found a station and we sat there for a while until a guy came up to the passenger side door and knocked on the glass.

  “Let him in,” Del said, and so I opened the door.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”

  “I was down the street,” the man said and threw a duffel bag in the bed of the truck. I moved to the center of the seat, next to Del, and the man got in and set a paper sack on the floor.

  “This is Charley,” Del said and looked at me.

  “Hey, Charley,” the man said, and he put out his hand and we shook. “My name is Harry Durand.”

  “He’s too fat to be a real jockey anymore,” Del said and laughed.

  “That’s the only reason I’d work with you,” Harry said back. He was short and thin and dressed like a cowboy with boots and jeans and a Western shirt. He wore a baseball cap and I’d guess he was probably in his thirties. He had a long scar on his chin and a missing side tooth.

  “Are you related to Del?”

  “No,” I said. The truck and trailer lurched forward.

  “I can smell you already,” Del said. “If you get too drunk to ride I’ll leave you out there.”

  “I ain’t drunk. I spilled a beer on myself. I was eating a bag of chips and reading the paper and I reached for my can without looking and it went all over my lap.”

  “What the hell are you eating chips for?”

  “A guy’s got to eat.”

  “Where were you?”

  “The Chinese Village.”

  “What time did you go there?”

  “I was already done working, if that’s what you’re asking. You’re like an old lady.”

  We got on the highway and stayed in the right lane and Del turned up the radio. Harry looked out the window and everyone was quiet. Then after a while Del took a can of Copenhagen off the dash and opened it.

  “I’ve never seen a guy chew as much as you.”

  “Well,” Del said, shook his head, and paused. “Look, I ain’t gonna have this conversation with you. I’m tired of it.”

  Harry laughed. “Then I’m gonna have a beer. You want a chew and I want a beer. You want a can of beer, Del?”

  “Might as well,” he said.

  “What about the kid?”

  “He’s under age,” Del said. />
  Harry handed a beer to Del, then knocked me on the side. “How about it?”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  They both drank their beer and then they had another and I fell asleep. It wasn’t until we were in Umatilla that I woke up. We were parked at a gas station. Both Del and Harry were gone. I got out of the truck and could hear banging coming from the horse trailer. I walked behind it but I couldn’t see anything really. It rang out and the trailer rocked and everyone around the station noticed.

  Del and Harry came out at the same time. Del had a cup of coffee and Harry was carrying a paper sack.

  “You’re up?” Del said.

  “They’re beating on the trailer.”

  “It’s alright,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Is it okay if I go into Wendy’s and get something to eat?”

  “I ain’t gonna wait long.”

  “Okay,” I said and ran inside. When I got back they were waiting on the side of the road. Harry was leaned against the passenger side door and he looked asleep. I knocked on the glass and he looked over. He opened the door and got out so I could get back in.

  “I bought you guys some fries,” I said and handed Harry the bag. He took it and Del put the truck in first. He turned on the radio and Harry started eating.

  “You want any, Del?” Harry asked.

  “No,” Del said. “And you shouldn’t either.”

  I opened up my sack. I had two cheeseburgers, a jumbo fry, and a large Coke.

  “Why do you eat so goddamn much?” Del said when I was done.

  “I’m trying to gain weight,” I told him.

  “Why the fuck would you do that?” Harry asked.

  “I play football.”

  “Where?”

  “I played in Spokane. I was on the freshman team there. We won eight games in a row.”

  “What position?” Harry asked.

  “Safety,” I told him. “But I can play cornerback or wide receiver. I’m too little to play anything else and I’m waiting to lift weights until I’m done growing but I haven’t grown in six months and I’m almost as tall as my dad so I’ll start lifting when I start my new school.”

  “You’re probably too young, but Spokane had a great track called Playfair,” Harry said.

  “I hated Playfair,” Del said.

  “You hate every track I ever mention,” Harry said.

  “That ain’t true. I liked Longacres.”

  “I’ve never mentioned that one and you know why.”

  Del shook his head and took the chew off the dash, looked over at Harry, and put in a dip.

  “So why’d you move down to Portland?” Harry said, ignoring him.

  “My dad wanted to work here.”

  “What kind of work does he do?”

  “He works for a trucking company, Willig Freight Lines.”

  “I always wanted to play football,” Harry said, “but I was too small. I was barely five-four when I graduated from high school. I weighed about a hundred and three pounds. Hell, I couldn’t grow a moustache until I was thirty.”

  “It didn’t stop you from betting,” Del said and let out a laugh.

  “I can do that, sure,” Harry said.

  “Not too well, either.”

  “I ain’t seen you quit and you’re worse than me.”

  “Maybe,” Del said.

  “I used to be a runner, though. In high school before I started riding I ran the mile. I did alright too.”

  “I go running every day,” I told him.

  “I never really liked it,” Harry admitted.

  “You’ve never liked anything but drinking and watching TV.”

  “Del, I ain’t talking to you,” Harry said. “I’m talking to the kid. I was tired of talking to you twenty minutes after I met you ten years ago.”

  “That’s a good one,” Del said.

  “I just tell it the way I see it.”

  “Well I’m trying to concentrate on driving, so keep it down,” Del said, and then he turned up the radio and hunched over the wheel. Harry knocked me on the ribs and I looked at him and he smiled and shook his head, then he leaned back against the door and the window glass and fell asleep.

  When we parked the truck and trailer we were at a ranch near Pasco, Washington. There was a house and a huge white barn and a couple other outbuildings. Del got out and went up to the house and knocked on the door and went inside. Harry and I opened the trailer, got the two horses out, and led them into the barn and to a couple empty stalls. There was a black and white dog walking around. He came up to me wagging his tail, and I pet him for a while.

  Harry went out to the truck and got his duffel, then came back in and changed his clothes across from me and the dog. He was in his underwear when I looked up at him. Even though he was thin and bony he had a small gut. There was a scar on his left leg that ran from six inches above his knee to a few inches below it. There were two scars on his shoulders, and when he turned around I could see a long scar running down his back.

  “Do any of the scars hurt?” I asked him.

  “They all do a bit, but my knee’s the worst and I didn’t even hurt that one riding. I did it when I wrecked my car.”

  “You wrecked your car?”

  “I fell asleep and went off the side of the road and ran into a tree.”

  “And you didn’t get hurt except your knee?”

  He nodded. “The worst part was that they took my license away. I like having a car.”

  The dog pulled on my pant leg with his teeth.

  “You’ve got a friend,” Harry said.

  “I’ve never had a dog,” I told him. “But I’d like one.”

  “They’re a pain in the ass, but I like them too,” he said as he put on a T-shirt and a padded vest. He put on jockey pants and boots too, then a long-sleeve Western shirt. He went over to a sack and took a beer from it and sat down across from me.

  “So what do you like about football?”

  “I like that you can hit people,” I told him.

  “I always thought I’d like that part of it.”

  “Plus you’re a part of a team. Everyone helps everyone else. And if you do, if you do act like a team, then you win, and if you don’t, you lose.”

  “What the hell are you doing hanging out with Del?”

  “I’m only fifteen,” I said. “I tried applying for a real job but no one would hire me.”

  “Don’t let him bully you and watch out. He’s tight, he’ll rip you off.”

  I nodded.

  “And don’t listen to half of what he says.”

  “Alright,” I said.

  “Does he still lecture on and on about the Daily Racing Form?”

  “He tests me on it sometimes.”

  “I’ve never met a guy who hates the Beyer number as much as he does,” Harry said. “You can learn from Del, but watch out, alright?”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I heard somebody at the track say Del runs his horses into the ground. Will he do that to Lean on Pete?”

  “Is Pete the black one Del brought?”

  I nodded.

  “If Del’s broke he has the tendency to run his every week or every other week, but Pete’s probably alright ’cause the season hasn’t even started yet and I don’t think Del did the fair circuit this year. Plus he’s a quarter horse so he’s got that going for him, and he’s probably been laid off all winter. Once it gets going, who knows. Del runs them sore, that’s for sure. A lot of guys do. But listen, don’t get attached to a horse. They ain’t like that dog over there. If they can’t run they ain’t worth a shit to anyone.”

  We sat there for a while longer and then the dog went over to Harry and sat on his lap and tried to lick him in the face. Harry laughed and pet him for a while, then asked me to call the dog back and I did.

  Del came into the barn and told me to clean out the trailer and handed me the keys. I mov
ed the truck behind the barn, in a clearing, and cleaned it and from where I was I could see a saddled horse tied to the side of a red horse trailer and six Mexican men standing near a round pen. There were three horses in it. They were talking in Mexican so I couldn’t understand anything they said.

  A car pulled up and a kid got out. He didn’t look much older than me and he was small and skinny and wearing jockey boots and carrying a helmet and a whip. He went over to a guy who looked like the main boss and started talking to him. Then another guy went into the round pen, took out a horse, put a bridle on him, then a racing saddle, and they led him out onto the dirt road.

  It wasn’t much after that I saw Del and Harry coming out leading Broken Blue. Del and one of the Mexicans began talking and Harry held on to Blue until two men came on horseback. Del gave Harry a leg up, and I saw another guy help up the Mexican kid. Del handed the lead rope to one of the men on horseback and they headed down a long dirt road away from the house.

  Del and I leaned against a fence near the finish line to watch the race. The starting gate was nothing but two-by-fours, and it was old. There was no finish-line camera, and Del said that his horses had to lead by a full head to win. If they didn’t, it was the same thing as a loss.

  He let out a long sigh when the horses left the gate. It seemed close for a time but as they neared the finish you could see Broken Blue was trailing by half a length. Harry was whipping the horse and yelling at him but it was no use.

  “He’s always been a fucking pig,” Del said and spit on the ground.

  He looked over at me, and you could tell he was upset.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Watching the race,” I told him.

  “I told you not to leave Lean on Pete alone.”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “You don’t know how to listen,” he said, looking at me.

  “I know you didn’t tell me that.”

  “Just get back there. Who knows what these motherfuckers will do.”

  I turned around and went back to the barn and stood by Pete.

  He looked at me and moved closer against the gate. I just stood there scratching him and talking to him. His dark eyes stared off and every once in a while he’d yawn or shake his head up and down. I told him that he was the fastest horse there today and the fastest horse in the whole state. I told him to be careful and not to get hurt, and that he should win ’cause then everyone would be nice to him and Del wouldn’t be such an asshole on the ride back. Then Harry came in trailed by Del and Broken Blue. Blue was put in an empty stall and the saddle and bridle were taken off.