‘Why are you wasting your time, Mr Reese?’
‘Because you’re my friend, Horace. Because I think of you as my son.’
‘I wish I was your son, but I’m not.’
‘You are to me and Mrs Reese. You’ve always been that to us.’
‘But it’s not true.’
‘It is to us.’
‘My life’s over, anyway.’
‘It’s not, it’s just starting.’
‘But I don’t care anymore, Mr Reese. Every night I’m here, I hope I get run over or stabbed or shot or thrown in prison. That’s how I feel.’
‘I’d be tired too, if I were you,’ the old man said. ‘It’s hard to hate yourself every single day, and it’s hard to try and be something you’re not. Both of those take their toll. I know it took a lot of effort for you to try with your boxing. It took a lot out of you.’
Horace looked at the old man. ‘I’m just a drunk Indian now.’
‘I don’t think you’re a drunk.’
‘I am,’ he whispered.
Mr Reese paused. ‘Maybe … Maybe you are now. I don’t know. But even if you are, it’s not just the Indian that’s the drunk – it’ll be the Irish in you that makes you a drunk just as much. So you can’t even be a drunk Indian without trying to be someone you’re not. Because every time you’re a drunk Indian you’re also a drunk Irishman, a drunk American and a drunk Nevadan.’
‘You’re wrong about all this, Mr Reese.’
‘What you don’t understand, Horace, is you don’t have to be one thing. You can take all the best things you are and be them. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to tell you all the great things that come from being a Paiute and all the great things that come from being from a small town and all the great things that come from being part Irish and one hundred per cent Nevadan.’
‘No one thinks like that,’ Horace said and shook his head.
‘That’s where you’re wrong. That is how people think. That’s how people are. You can be a cowboy and listen to Slayer, Horace. You can be a cowboy and have long hair. Just as you could have been a boxer from Tonopah who was part Indian. It’s all just up to you to be you. You just have to be strong enough to be yourself.’
‘But I’m not strong enough, Mr Reese. That’s what I’m trying to say.’
‘I can help you.’
‘No one can help me with that.’ Horace finished the can of Coke and wiped his eyes with his hands. ‘Please just tell Mrs Reese you couldn’t find me and forget about me.’
‘What about the dogs and the horses?’
‘I miss the horses more than anything,’ Horace said, and again tears streamed down his face and his voice became barely audible. ‘And Little Roy.’
‘They all miss you.’
Horace shook his head.
‘I have to tell you something,’ Mr Reese said. ‘I sold the sheep.’
‘You sold them?’ Horace wiped his eyes on his coat and looked at the old man.
‘My back can’t take it. I can’t ride anymore and Pedro has moved on.’
‘You sold them?’
Mr Reese nodded. ‘For a while after I did I was feeling sorry for myself. I was lost. I had trouble getting out of bed. But I had forgotten about The B.O.A.T.’
‘I don’t think like that anymore, Mr Reese. That’s how kids think. It’s stupid to think that way.’
‘It’s not stupid, Horace. It reminded me that I need, for who I am, to keep building. So I went out and bought fifty cows from Morton. Ander gave me his four-wheeler and I’m going to run a small-time cow/calf operation.’
‘Cattle?’
‘The new well will make sure we have enough hay, and I have the tractor running better than ever. It’s going to be a good thing for both of us. Why don’t you come back and help me for a bit? We’ll fix up the barn so you can have your own apartment. You can be your own man and do what you like. You could live in Tonopah if you wanted. We’ll get you a good truck.’
‘I don’t have it in me anymore,’ said Horace.
‘Please,’ Mr Reese said. ‘You don’t look well, Horace. Why don’t you come back and heal up and give it a try? If you don’t like it, you can come back here. I’ll drive you myself.’
‘I just can’t.’
Mr Reese looked out across the street and was silent for a long time before he cleared his throat. ‘Then I’m going to be honest with you, Horace. I told myself I wouldn’t tell you this, but I feel I have to … What I’m trying to say is that I have cancer, liver cancer, and that’s an aggressive kind – an incurable kind. What that means is I don’t have long to live. It might be a month, might be two. But the doctors say for certain that it’s not much more than that. What I need is some help to get things in order before I pass. To help Mrs Reese. She’ll be all alone out there. I’ve never begged anything from you, but I’m begging now. As a friend, I need your help.’
*
The sky was blue and cloudless as Mr Reese and Horace walked together down Fremont Street. The sun warmed the cold winter day and Mr Reese took Horace to the truck and helped him into the cab and shut the door. He then walked across the parking lot and went inside the Four Queens Casino, ordered two ham-and-cheese sandwiches to go from the restaurant and got his things from his room. He paid the bill, picked up the food and went back to the truck to find the cab empty. He put his luggage in the truck-bed toolbox, waited in the cab, and five minutes later Horace stumbled out from the Four Queens Casino, hunched over to his left and moving slowly.
Mr Reese got out of the truck and went to him. ‘Are you okay? Why are you walking like that?’
Horace nodded. ‘It’s nothing, Mr Reese. I’ve been hurt worse. It’s just, drinking gives me the runs. I tried to wait so you wouldn’t think I left, but I had to use the toilet pretty bad and once I got in there I couldn’t get off. I guess I’m not feeling too good.’ He leaned against the truck.
‘Drinking whiskey is hard on your body. Especially when you don’t eat.’
Horace nodded. ‘You think it would be okay if I just slept in the back? I feel like lying down and I don’t know if I can sit up for much longer.’
Mr Reese nodded. ‘I was thinking we could stop by Ander’s before we head home. He’s out of town and I figure we can get you sober and washed up before Mrs Reese sees you.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Horace.
The old man went to the cab of the truck and behind the bench seat was an old, thick, canvas sleeping bag. He laid it out flat in the bed and helped Horace get inside. He gave him a sandwich, a bag of chips and a bottle of water.
‘Try to drink some water and eat a little bit,’ Mr Reese said. ‘That will help you get going again. It will help soak up some of the booze.’
Tears welled in Horace’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry I let you down, Mr Reese.’
‘You didn’t let me down.’
‘I know earlier I said I wanted you to leave, but I’m glad you came and got me.’
‘I’m just so relieved to have found you, Horace.’
‘It’s hard to be alone all the time.’
‘It is,’ Mr Reese said.
‘We’ll be cattlemen, huh?’
‘My dad was for a while – I don’t see why we can’t.’
‘I’m sure we can,’ Horace said and closed his eyes.
Mr Reese moved the rear-view mirror to show the bed of the truck. He kept one eye on Horace and drove fifty miles an hour in the right lane, and they left the city at dusk. When the last suburb passed and the traffic thinned, he called Mrs Reese.
‘I got him,’ he said.
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s in the bed of the truck in a sleeping bag. He’s in rough shape, but I think he’ll be okay. He’s been drinking.’
‘Drinking alcohol?’
‘Yes,’ Mr Reese said. ‘I don’t think he’s been eating either. I’m going to take him to Ander’s for a couple days. I don’t want you to see him like he is and I know
he won’t want you to see him in the shape he’s in. First thing tomorrow I’m going to take him to the clinic and get him checked out.’
Louise began to sob. ‘You really found him?’
‘I did, but the only way I got him in the truck was to use your cancer trick. You’re so smart about people. You knew he wouldn’t come unless we forced him.’
‘It’s a good kind of force,’ she said.
*
The night was cool but not cold, and Mr Reese stopped only once to use the toilet and get coffee. When he checked, Horace was on his stomach inside the sleeping bag with his eyes closed. It was just past 9 p.m. when they arrived at Ander’s shack on the outskirts of Tonopah, with its white siding and red trim, its ramshackle roof and his three old non-running trucks in the drive. Mr Reese found the hidden key underneath a gas can, unlocked the front door and turned on the porch lights.
When he walked down to the truck and opened the bed, he put his hand on Horace’s foot and squeezed it through the sleeping bag. But there was no response. He did it three times and still there was nothing. With great difficulty, he climbed into the bed of the truck to find Horace not breathing. There was no vomit, no signs of distress. He was just not breathing. Mr Reese rolled him over and pulled him from the bag as tears leaked down his face. He held him in his arms and rocked him back and forth, and the night went along.
Acknowledgements
I couldn’t have let Don’t Skip Out on Me go without the help of my gal, Lee. Same goes for Lesley Thorne. She can always see the cracks in my work and is kind enough and tough enough to tell me where they are. Thanks also to Amy Baker and Angus Cargill for reading the book again and again and again. I’d also like to thank Anna Stein for her tremendous help, as well as Helene Fournier, Francis Geffard, Jane Palfreyman, Lisa Baker, Silvia Crompton, Chris Metzler, Kate Ward, and everyone at Bakhåll and Berlin Verlag.
The Story Behind the Soundtrack to the Novel
I had always imagined a soundtrack accompanying this novel. Its landscape as well as its characters, particularly Horace Hopper and Mr Reese, felt like music from the very first sentence. Even when I was just sketching out ideas for the novel, the songs came. Richmond Fontaine’s ‘Whitey and Me’, ‘Don’t Skip Out on Me’ and ‘The Blind Horse’ being a few that I wrote for a record called You Can’t Go Back If There’s Nothing To Go Back To.
As I worked on the first draft of the book I began to notice that I was taking breaks to write instrumentals for the characters. Songs like ‘Meeting Billy in El Paso’, ‘Mr Reese’s Place in La Jolla’ and ‘Night Out with Diego’ began to show up. With each draft of the book came more songs. After the novel was in working shape I met with the guys in Richmond Fontaine, showed them the tunes, and we decided to make the album. And what a fun one to make. It was recorded in a two-day snowstorm at Flora Recording and Playback in Portland, Oregon. A desert record made in a North-west blizzard.
I want to thank the guys in the band for reading early drafts of Don’t Skip Out on Me and for being so damn kind to do the session and all the practices that went along with developing the songs. Richmond Fontaine are the coolest guys I know: Paul Brainard, Dan Eccles, Sean Oldham, and Freddy Trujillo.
I’d also like to thank John Morgan Askew, who engineered and produced the record, Joe Powers for his great harmonica playing, and Cory Gray for his keyboard work.
It’s not my intent that you listen while you read. I wrote the music so that when you hear it you might be, for a few minutes, transported to the Little Reese ranch, to Tonopah, Tucson, El Paso, Tijuana, Monterrey, and into the world of Don’t Skip Out on Me.
Don’t Skip Out on Me
1) Horace Hopper: An introduction into the world of Don’t Skip Out on Me and to Horace Hopper, a ranch hand on the isolated high-desert Little Reese ranch in central Nevada. Horace is lonely and scarred but also hopeful and ambitious. We wanted to capture all those emotions as well as the landscape of the ranch in this song.
2) Víctor Gets on the Bus: Horace is watching the failed sheep-herder, Víctor, get on a bus to Las Vegas. It’s early morning in Tonopah, the sun is just coming up, and no one is on the streets. Víctor, who speaks no real English or Spanish, is leaving by himself hoping, eventually, to get to Los Angeles. Such a bleak and rough situation. A lost and troubled man alone in a country where he doesn’t understand the language.
3) The Dream of the City and The City Itself
Part One: The Dream of the City: On the ranch, in the safety of isolation, Horace fantasises about what he’ll be when he gets to Tucson: first a Golden Gloves champion, then a world-champion professional boxer, and then, finally, he’ll come back to the Little Reese ranch a saviour. The song is fast and upbeat because in the privacy of his own mind Horace is full of swagger and success and ambition.
Part Two: The City Itself: Reality. Horace arrives by bus and sees, from the outskirts, the size and sprawl of Tucson. He’s overwhelmed and his confidence quickly fades.
4) Living Where You’re Not Wanted: Horace stays in his aunt’s guesthouse, an aunt who is, at best, indifferent towards him. He has moved from the ranch and the love of Mr and Mrs Reese to a city he doesn’t know and a home where he knows he’s not wanted.
5) Horace and the Trophy: The image that inspired this song was that of Horace leaning against the back wall of the Mesa Convention Center after he becomes the Arizona Golden Gloves state champion. The trophy is next to him. He’s won! He closes his eyes and feels his old life fading. He’s no longer a failure or an outcast. Finally, after so many years, he’s leaving Horace Hopper and his old identity behind him. He’s becoming his dream, the future Mexican boxing champion, Hector Hidalgo.
6) Rescue and Defeat in Salt Lake City: Horace arrives at the Golden Gloves national tournament in Salt Lake City. As he goes to the Salt Palace to check in, all his ambition and confidence crumble. He sits by himself looking at the other boxers from all over the country and he knows he’s nothing. He knows he’ll lose. Mr Reese arrives unannounced and finds him. A friend to the rescue.
7) Horace Decides to Go Pro: In the motel room in Salt Lake City, Horace tells Mr Reese he’s turning pro, that he can’t come back to the ranch until he’s made something of himself, until he’s proven to everyone that he is a somebody: a champion.
8) Mr Reese’s Place in La Jolla: We wanted a romantic feel. A melancholic beach tune, both in melody and tempo. A song that Mr Reese could live inside and reminisce about a life and a woman he once had in La Jolla. A life and love that were taken from him when he was forced to go back to the Little Reese ranch after his father’s death.
9) Hector Hidalgo: Hector is Horace’s dream-self, a Mexican boxing champion. A man who is never frightened, who never backs down and who never stops fighting. We made the song fast and tough and strong in tribute to Hector. Only towards the end, when the band breaks down, do you see hints of Horace’s melancholy. But soon enough Hector is back and the song sprints to the finish.
10) Meeting Billy in El Paso: Horace meets the homeless man, Billy, late at night on the streets of El Paso. Billy’s bleak situation goes alongside Horace’s sadness that he’d been swindled by Ruiz. All around them the night carries on and Billy tells him of his life and the story of Ernie ‘Indian Red’ Lopez.
11) Night Out with Diego: Horace wins his fight in Tijuana and Diego takes him out to celebrate. But Horace is unsettled by the city, unsure of the food, and unable to understand Spanish. The streets are wild and unruly. The song starts with the idea that Horace is seeing the city from the outside, an observer. The music is clean and upbeat and full of adrenaline. Slowly, however, the city seeps into him. He stops looking at it from the outside and becomes a part of it. He eats local food, gets drunk and visits a prostitute. The mariachi-influenced ending is drunken and a bit off, and finally, collapsing, like Horace at the end of the night.
12) Waking Up with Broken Ribs: The morning after Horace wins the fight in Monterey, Mexico, he wakes up at dawn in a sma
ll hotel. The sun is coming through thin yellow curtains. Horace is so beat up he’s unable to get out of bed. He takes codeine tablets and tries to go back to sleep. There’s the yellow light, the dreaminess of the codeine, the warmth of the early morning sun, and again Horace’s relief that he’s won. But that morning there is also a growing sense of loneliness and confusion. Does he really want to be a professional boxer? And why if he wants to be Mexican, does Mexico scare him so much?
13) The Fight with Raymundo Figueroa: This is old-school Richmond Fontaine. The band, in its early days, was faster and half-crazed, both country and punk and full of odd and weird stops and starts. That’s what we have here. The first section is the build up to the fight and then into the first rounds when Raymundo Figueroa overwhelms Horace and lands dozens of brutal punches. The following melody lines are when Horace comes back – his resilience and toughness and strength – maybe he could really win. The song goes back and forth, the up and down of the fight. The end, however, is when Horace loses and realises he won’t fight again. His life as a boxer is over. The music, like his life, is crumbling and in pain. It’s angry and brooding and lost.
14) Horses in Las Vegas: A young cowboy trailering horses to Reno gets off the highway in Las Vegas to see the Strip. While he’s there a tire on his horse trailer blows out. He’s on the side of the road in Old Town trying to put on a spare when Horace sees him and helps. Afterwards the cowboy offers him money but Horace only asks if he can pet one of the horses. While he does the horse looks out of the trailer door, both nervous and curious, at the lights of the casinos and the people walking by. A lonely and simple tune set to the image of a ranch horse seeing the spectacle of Las Vegas.
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