Ghetto Cowboy Read Online Free PDF Page A

worry. Meanwhile, eat up, then come on out and ask for me. Name’s Tex.”
    I watch him shuffle out, and I just sit there, shakin’ my head.
Great. Texas in Philly now.
I finish up my bowl, and just when I start thinkin’ about what I’m gonna do next, Harper walks in.
    He has a brush in one hand and a rake in the other. He hands the brush to me. “If you gonna be here today, might as well make yourself useful.”
    I look at the brush. “I don’t think so.”
    He acts like I didn’t say nothing. “It’s a horse brush. Go out front and help brush down the horses. The kids’ll show you how.”
    I shake my head. “Nah-uh. I ain’t going near them horses. I seen how you almost got stomped on this morning.”
    He smirks. “That’s whatcha call re-starting a horse. Some of ’em that we bring in are pretty nervous and out of control ’cause of what they been through at the tracks.”
    I can see he not going to go away. “What’s wrong with ’em?” I ask.
    “Nothing, they just been abandon —” He catches himself, starts again. “They’re old racehorses that normally get sold off for meat. We pool our money to buy what we can at auction before the slaughterhouse gets ’em. Then we bring ’em here so they can live out their days — the kids learn to ride, and we get a few more horses to race with. ’Course, with money being tight an’ all . . .”
    But my mind’s still stuck on the meat part. “People
eat
horses?” I ask.
    “Dogs. They get sold for dog food.”
    I feel like I been sold for dog food, but I still ain’t getting near them things. “I’ll just stay here, thanks,” I say.
    He shakes his head. “The heck you will. If you here, you gotta help out. Everybody works. All those kids work and so will you.”
    I don’t say nothing, just stare hard at that brush.
    He can see I really got my mind set, ’cause after a few seconds, he holds out the rake. “Fine . . . then go muck the stalls in the Ritz-Carlton instead.”
    I’m confused until I find out the Ritz-Carlton is what they call the main stable. They call it that as a joke ’cause it’s definitely
not
a luxury hotel. In fact, when I see it, I know this as far from luxury as a horse can get. It looks more like a dungeon, all dark and cramped. And a homemade dungeon at that, since it’s held together by old doors and scrap wood from torn-down buildings.
And
it smells funky.
    When I see what needs cleaning up, I think,
No way.
There’s piles of muck all over — and I mean the kind that come out of a horse. Man, these things must eat a lot. Harper leaves me there, with the rake and a wheelbarrow and says I got till sundown to finish picking up all this crap.
    I stand there for five minutes, then decide I’ll do what he says for
today
 . . . but tomorrow, I’m outta here. I don’t know how, but one way or another, I’ll get back to Motor City. But the second I step into one of them stalls, I know I made the wrong choice to work in the barn. My white Nikes is all covered in greenish-brown you-know-what in about a minute. I’ll never get ’em cleaned.
    I start working. Even though this sucks for sure, I just keep going, nonstop, ’cause if I stop, I’ll start thinking about how my mama just up and left me with a stranger. And a strange stranger too, even if he supposed to be my dad.
    So I work and feel the burn in my arms, the sweat on my back. I don’t care. I’ll make her feel sorry for leaving me behind to clean up this stuff.
    The only good thing right now is all them horses is outside. But just doing the one stall takes me ’bout a hour. When I fill up the cart, I wheel it out to find out where to dump it. I run into Jamaica Bob.
    “Where do all this go?” I ask him. He waves me to follow him, but don’t offer to help me push. We turn the corner, and my jaw drops open.
    Behind the barn is a mountain. Not a mountain like with snow on it and stuff. This is a mountain of
horse crap.
I ain’t kidding you.