Read Online Homestretch by Paul Volponi - Free Book Online Page B

Use your legs for balance,” he demanded, with his face two inches from mine, and the smell of beer heavy on his breath.
    I was pumping away when Rafael came over with a handful of feed and offered it to my hay bale.
    â€œNo fucking joke!” snapped El Diablo, raising his whip toward Rafael for a second.
    He turned back to me and said, “Bug, you learn to ride right or you kill somebody out there. Somebody with kids, you know. I ride a million times better than you, and I kill my own brother on the track in my country—Peru.”
    Then El Diablo poured some beer into the dirt, watching it seep into the earth.
    â€œThat’s for
him
—
mi hermano
,” El Diablo said. “
Por el muerto
. For the dead.”
    â€œHow’d it happen?” I asked, cautious.
    â€œHow?”
he answered, stopping to take a slug of beer. “His horse break a leg on the first turn. So my brother jump off. He lying on the ground, but my horse no see. Steps on him. Puts its hoof through his skull.
That’s how!
”
    I just stared into his glowing eyes.
    â€œI know right away he dead. But I finish the race, not to face it for another minute. I beat my horse with the whip till somebody take it away from me. That’s when they give me this name—the Devil.”
    â€œBut it was an accident,” I said.
    â€œThat’s what I say to my ma-ma when I tell her how I kill her son. That no stop her tears,” he said. “Being a jockey ‘bout waiting your turn to get hurt, or paralyze, or killed. You know ‘bout those things, bug?”
    â€œI know,” I answered.
    â€œWhat you know?” he exploded. “Pick up you shirt! Pick it up! Show me!”
    I started to lift my shirt, and El Diablo yanked it quick up to my chin, feeling around my shoulder blades on both sides.
    â€œHah! Too clean!” he sneered, pulling up his own shirtand pointing to the bumps beneath his shoulders. “I break each collarbone twice. That’s what happens when you go flying from horse. It’s a badge of honor for riders. I got four. It say I know ‘bout being jockey, ‘bout what can happen. You got none, bug. You know nothing. You no even got a pair of leather boots. You ride in joke sneakers your ma-ma buy for you.”
    I was somewhere between being ready to break down bawling and wanting to fight. Then I thought about those jockeys on the racetrack and how they seemed bulletproof to all that shit people said to them.
    That’s when Nacho yelled at El Diablo in Spanish.
    I heard him say my name, the word
“madre,”
and
“no.”
    But El Diablo just laughed him off.
    â€œWhat else you got to teach me?” I asked, trying to sound strong.
    â€œYou know how to use this?” he came back, shoving the whip at me.
    I closed my hand around it, and the inside of my palm started to burn.
    â€œProve to me,” said El Diablo.
    I hit that hay bale as hard as I could, still pumping with my other arm.
    I could hear the
swoosh
of air and almost feel the whip’s crack.
    â€œNow, switch whip to your left hand,” he ordered. “That surprises horse. Lets him know you mean business.”
    But I didn’t have nearly as much strength from that side.
    â€œHarder! Hit harder!” he hollered, grabbing my left arm and squeezing until it hurt.
    Then he swung my arm up and down, again and again, until I thought he was going to break it off.
    But I wouldn’t give in or tell him to stop. I just stared right through him.
    Nacho and his brothers came rushing over, pulling El Diablo off me, screaming,
“Para! Para! No!”
    El Diablo just shoved the three of them to the floor, with the horses in the barn raising their voices too.
    I jumped off that bale of hay and stuck my chest out in front of his, with every muscle in my body trembling.
    â€œBack off!” I shouted in the strongest voice I could find.
    Then he looked into my eyes, nearly