A HALF HOUR BEFORE I was supposed to ride Bad Boy Rising, the clerk of scales paged my name over the loudspeaker, “Gaston Giambanco Jr., report up front.”
I passed through the swinging doors, and Dag was standing there.
He put an arm around me and walked me out of the jockeys’ room into the hallway. I was already wearing his black silks with the coiled-up cobra on my chest. Then Dag settled us alone and out of sight behind a vending machine.
“This is for you, Gas,” said Dag, handing me a betting ticket. “I plunked down fifty bucks to win on Bad Boy Rising for you. He’s thirty-five to one right now. That’s eighteen hundred you’ll get back when he wins. But the odds are sure to go up before the race.”
“So he’s got a chance today?” I asked.
“He’s got more than a chance,” he answered. “Just make damn sure you hold on to him. That’s all.”
“If he’s such a good thing, how come I’m riding?” I kept at Dag.
“Think there’s any other reason you’re in the saddle except that I’m looking for a big score?” he said low. “After the horses I’ve set you up on, and you falling off left and right, people wouldn’t bet a dime on Gaston Giambanco Jr. if he was riding the only Thoroughbred in a pack of mules.”
I felt like an idiot, and smaller than a bug. I couldn’t stand the sight of myself in Dag’s mirrored shades anymore, so I dropped my eyes down to El Diablo’s boots with the covered-up flames.
“You don’t look away when I’m talking,” said Dag, slapping my face.
I could feel the fire start to rage inside me. I thought about tackling Dag on the spot. But I knew everything he held over me, like how old I really was, living in the dorms, and my job at his barn.
“Now, you just deliver for me today, Gas,” he said in an easy voice, rubbing his fingers across my stinging cheek. “Because you’ll really be delivering for yourself, too. Comprende?”
I nodded my head, thinking how Bad Boy Rising was probably milk-shaked to the top of his stomach.
Then Dag walked off, and I stuffed that betting ticket into one of my boots.
As I entered the paddock, Parker had just finished helping Dag saddle Bad Boy Rising. Then I watched Dag check the saddle twice, making sure it was tight enough not to slip.
Parker started back in my direction.
“Moment of truth, boss,” Parker said, walking past. “Just hang on to what you really want.”
Bad Boy was so pumped up that he couldn’t keep still. His eyes were wild and his nostrils flared. Then he began bucking like he’d just been fed an entire case of Jolt cola.
Nacho already had him on the walking ring, but nothing outside of racing three quarters of a mile on the dead run was going to burn off what was churning inside of Bad Boy.
Paolo was bouncing around too, probably waiting to cash in on his bets. Only Dag was playing it cool on the surface.
“Riders up!” called an official.
Dag never shook my hand for good luck. But the last thing I felt before I climbed aboard Bad Boy Rising was Dag’s coldblooded grip on my leg, hoisting me into the saddle.
Nacho was shaking almost as much as Bad Boy.
“This no good, Gas,” said Nacho as we got out of Dag’s earshot. “My family no treat horses this way. Es muy malo.”
As we headed for the racetrack, I saw Tammie outside of the paddock fence looking in. I knew she could read the signs all over Bad Boy Rising.
Tammie shook her head at me one time before she turned away, and I couldn’t remember when I’d felt more ashamed.
Then Nacho turned us loose on the track, and I was left to wrestle with Bad Boy Rising on my own.
I saw we were 73–1 on the odds board now.
I thought about that ticket Dag gave me. How it was burning a hole in my boot. I couldn’t even begin to multiply seventy-three times fifty. But I knew that kind of money would solve lots of problems for me.
I couldn’t control Bad Boy in the post parade past the grandstand, and he just galloped off ahead of the other horses.
But I heard every catcall from those bettors.
“It’s ten to one that you can even stay in the saddle, Giambanco.”
“Ten? I’ll give you twenty to one this bug don’t make it out of the gate.”
I wanted to show them all. I wanted to win by the length of the stretch and send them all home broke while I filled my own pockets.
Only, I knew that would make me the same as Dag.
We reached the starting gate, and Bad Boy Rising was so hyped up the assistant starters couldn’t get him inside of it. Finally two of them stood on either side of him, locking their arms together behind his rear end.
Then they tried to bum-rush Bad Boy into the gate.
But Bad Boy reared up on his hind legs.
He went up so high I had to jump off his back, afraid he’d flip over.
“Stay there. That’s where you belong, bug,” cracked Samuel as I picked myself up off my ass.
“It’s his home away from home,” laughed Gillette.
All the other horses went in without a problem, and everyone was waiting on us. I kept my feet planted on the ground until the assistant starters won their tug-of-war with Bad Boy and got him into the gate.
An ambulance pulled up, ready to follow behind the field.
I looked just over the inside rail and saw a single yellow rose growing on a bush there. It was stretching toward the sky, with its petals opened wide, shining in the sunlight.
And right then I remembered the best part of who I was.
I was Gaston Giambanco Jr., with a name that sounded like music if you said it right. The way Mom did.
So I kissed the tattoo with Mom’s name on it, right through Dag’s silks. Then I climbed that iron monster and got back into the saddle on Bad Boy Rising.
The sound of a bell split the air and the metal doors sprang open. Suddenly, I felt like I was on a rocket sled instead of a racehorse. Bad Boy exploded to the lead, and only a sparrow flying off my shoulder for the first forty yards was ever close to him.
The wind was rushing at me so fast I had to clench my teeth closed to stop the breath from being sucked out of my lungs.
There were nine other Thoroughbreds strung out behind us as I shifted my weight left, leaning into the turn.
I was holding on for my life more than I was riding.
I could feel every muscle in Bad Boy’s body twitching, and I would have believed he was hooked up to a car battery. And even if some other horse did try to run us down from behind, Bad Boy Rising was so juiced up on that illegal junk he’d probably savage him, tearing into that horse’s throat with his teeth.
We straightened away into the homestretch at nearly forty miles per hour, and I could hear the track announcer’s echoing voice: “They’ve all got Bad Boy Rising to catch at big odds!”
I shot past the grandstand in front by five lengths, and I knew those big-mouth bettors would be choking on their words now.
But in my mind I could hear Gillette saying how I’d never win a race, not unless somebody handed it to me.
I remembered the smack Dad gave that horse on the behind before it ran off and dumped me. And I could almost feel the sting of Dag’s slap across my face again.
So I squeezed the whip tight inside my right hand. Out of pure anger I raised that whip up, ready to crack Bad Boy Rising a good one for no reason except maybe to feel better about myself.
But something from deep inside me fought that feeling back, pulling the whip down just as quick.
An eighth of a mile from the wire I peeked over my shoulder.
No horse was getting any closer.
In fast-forward I could see Mom smiling as she galloped a horse along a trail, the shame in Nacho’s eyes, and Tammie turning away from me in disgust at the paddock fence.
I took a deep breath, and then seventy yards from the finish line I jumped.
Bad Boy Rising went scorching down the track without me.
For a second I swore I’d sprouted wings.
Then the ground came rushing up fast, hitting me hard in the mouth. A sharp pain shot through my neck and shoulders as I skidded to a stop, with my face plowed into the dirt. On my arm I could feel the tattoo of the cross with my mother’s name burning.
I heard the hooves of the other horses rumbling toward me, like an earthquake about to hit. I couldn’t tell the trembling of the ground from my own.
I felt the first hoof hit my helmet. And as I went rolling, the next slammed me in the chest, shaking me to the core.
After that I must have blacked out.