Riding Invisible (9 page)

What Tavo said a few seconds ago when he glanced over my shoulder: “Good work,
MUCHACHO. ¡MUCHO TALENTO!
But where is the face on this
MUJER
?”

And he grinned while I turned a bright shade of red.

9 p.m.—inside the trailer

Today as part of the training schedule, Tavo and I went on a trail ride.

“You gotta nice quarter horse! I hope this filly learn something from Shy today.” Tavo had to shout over the wind while Mr. A's four-year-old Arab pranced around, her body all tense and her light flaxen mane and tail whipping against the air.

Shy kept trudging forward, head down, calm and focused, and when a plastic bag fluttered like a trapped bird against a yucca plant, he didn't even look at it. The spooked filly snorted at the bag and darted to the side, hopping over a small cactus, but Tavo didn't move an inch off that English saddle seat. He had both hands busy, one controlling each rein since he was using a gentle snaffle bit in the filly's mouth, riding with a two-handed English style. I wondered out loud where he learned so much about horses.

“MI PAPÁ
, he have horses and I help when I am a small boy.”

“But you've got great hands on that snaffle bit! And you're riding English. Did your father teach you that?”

“No, this I learn from Mr. Arnold's trainer. He show me each thing for the horses, and so I learn. And you? You sit on the horse good. The trainer, he ride like this. Centered riding, no? Who teach you?”

“Oh, my friend back home. An old guy named Frank.”

About then Shy stopped and raised his head, fixating on something in the distance. Good eyes, ol' boy. Check it out!

This galloping white horse, a beautiful mover with a rocking-horse gait practically floating across the slopes, melting into the trail. I couldn't see much of the rider, just long black hair, but I could tell she was riding bareback. Plus I was pretty sure, even so far away, that the hair matched that nice ass I spotted yesterday. And then she disappeared.

Tonight, about an hour ago, Tavo and I went out to blanket the horses in the barn.

“Maybe I talk to your parents,” Tavo told me, and then he fastened a buckle under a mare's belly, and God, she pinned her ears and raised a hind leg before I could react. “Look out!” Tavo shouted, and I was already leaping away when her shod hoof missed my shin by an inch. “You gotta pay attention around the horses,” Tavo said with a slow shake of his head, and by then I'd forgotten the comment he'd made about my parents until he said it again.

I started thinking,
SHIT. WHY DO WE HAVE TO GO THERE?
But instead I said, “If you contact them, Tavo, they'll make me go home.”

“Listen, son, maybe this not so bad a thing for you to go home. You need the school, no? Maybe your brother, maybe he get better by now.”

And that made me laugh. “No way, man! Not him. Other kids with the same disorder, maybe they get better, but not Will.”

Tavo stared at me hard. “Okay, for now, you stay. I gonna give you a break.
¡PERO NO ES PARA SIEMPRE!
You need to think about things, Yancy. Think about your parents. They love you
MUCHO
. They miss you
MUCHO
. And they love the other son,
TU HERMANO, ¿NO?”

I didn't answer. I just latched the stall door so we could move to the next horse. Tavo pulled a red blanket off a metal bar. “Your papa, he no use the belt?”

“Ha! You mean like give Will an old-fashioned whippin'? I wish he'd use the belt, but the method they learned discourages parents acting in anger. I'm not kidding. Like my dad is an angry guy sometimes, but he's really not over the edge. Not ever. I mean, he used to smack Will once in a while before they taught him all these Anger Control Techniques. But now my dad has to keep himself calm around my brother. He's supposed to give him time-outs, which did help for a short amount of time when Will was younger, but if you ask me, Will behaved better when Dad paddled him now and then.”

“And your
MAMÁ?
She is good with your brother?”

“Well, my mom is way calm and quiet and she wants Will to do good, but she's not much of a disciplinarian. He sorta gets away with a lot when she's in charge. Listen, Tavo, my brother's smart and he's sneaky like a…like a…”

And then Tavo laughed. “
COMO UN ZORRO
. In English? Like a fox!” He paused, then hooked the buckles on the red blanket underneath the horse's belly. “You think you got a bad life, Yancy, but your mama and papa, they have a more bad life, no? This boy is their son just like you. They want the best for him even though he is so sneaky like a old fox.”

WILL'S NO CUTE LITTLE FOX
, I started to say.
HE'S A KOMODO DRAGON
. But before I could get the words out, Tavo started singing a hearty ballad in Spanish. With no one to talk to, I got involved in a weird mental conversation. My Self spoke to My Other Self.

YANCY 1: Tavo's gonna send me home one day. If he does, Will might stuff me in a meat grinder or something.

YANCY 2: God, I hope not. I mean, shit! Those parents of yours don't pay you any attention. You're invisible, dude.

YANCY 1: Exactly. And now this guy Tavo here, he seems to think my parents have a “more bad life.” Worse than me, even. Crazy, huh?

YANCY 2: It's worse than crazy. It's demented! I'm on your side.

YANCY 1: But maybe Tavo has a point. I mean, who wants a son like Will? It's not very rewarding.

YANCY 2: Maybe not, but your life totally sucks. That's my opinion. You're the person everyone should feel sorry for.

After blanketing the last horse, we headed back to the trailer. Tavo paused outside the door under the dim light and he tapped his toe in the leaves. I watched his boots.

“It don't make sense,” he said, “but maybe now I start to understand and maybe when I think of horses, then it make sense this brother and you.” The toe tapped faster. I wondered what he meant. I didn't say anything. Finally Tavo continued.

“Back in Mexico,
MI AMIGO
, he raise many horses and sell them to his friend in U.S. for racetrack. One day he show me two horses. He tell me that this one is smart and very quiet and he learn fast. He is the horse that gonna win the race. Next my friend point to another horse, same color, almost a twin, a beautiful blood bay,
MUY BONITO
. Now this animal, my friend say, this one
NO ES MUY INTELIGENTE
. He never listen and he is very stubborn. He is not gonna make it out the gate when the race start. ‘Look here at my arm,' my friend tell me. He roll up his
CAMISA
and he show me a big, red, ugly bite with horse teeth marks. ‘That son of a bitch bite me!' say my friend.” So then Tavo turned toward me and took hold of my shoulders. “And you know what, Yancy? These two horses are brothers. Same sire, same dam. The bad horse, he is one year older, and the young horse, he is the smart colt. So when I think about this, then maybe it make sense. Sometimes the good breeding? All the training? All the care? It no count for much. Maybe God is the one who form the personality. He is the one who have the plan.”

So, Adventure Journal, maybe shit just happens. We're like the horse brothers, Will and me. He's not okay. I am. And that's just the way it is.

12:00 p.m.—sitting under a tree by the pasture

So finally! I met the mystery woman. Dracula's Bride started checking me out all over, top to bottom, and since she's a little rich girl, I felt like crawling in a corner or something.

“So who are you?” she asked, and the lids on those two-hour-paint-job eyes fluttered. I decided that she might actually look beautiful under all the mess, and she's got a hot body for sure, no denying it. Then she glared at me just like Will does. I started thinking,
WILL! DUDE! I HAVE FOUND THE PERFECT WOMAN FOR YOU
!

“Do you have a name or not?”

“Sorry. I'm Yancy. Tavo's nephew.”

DING!
The expression on her face transformed into something I think they call SUPERIORITY, and her eyebrows wrinkled, and she squinted at me like she was staring at a bug under a microscope. I could feel myself being lifted by giant tweezers, examined, and then filed in this lowlife category, the one reserved for Mexican laborers. Hired Help. Maybe from her POV, if Tavo's my Uncle in Real Life, wouldn't I be a so-called second class-citizen?

“Well, I'm Grace Arnold, but my friends call me Grass. Just don't use that name around Daddy!”

“Mr. Arnold's your dad?”

She stared at me like I'm dog poop after that question, so I figured the answer must be YES. Then I asked her why she's not in school.

“Got kicked out.”

NOT a huge shocker. “So you're not getting an education, then?”

“Bein' homeschooled—by Daddy.” Big sigh, exaggerated-roll-of-the-eyes type of stuff. “And what's
YOUR
excuse? Why aren't
YOU
in school?”

Hmmmm, pretty good question, so I told her how San Diego has this year-round schedule and we're offtrack right now until after Christmas. Then I said, “And your friends call you Grass because…”

She shook her head and started to walk away, kind of slow (and sexy). Kept walkin' and lifted a ziplock baggie of marijuana out of her pocket. Mumbled, “Cuz I love to smoke it.” Still moving, without looking back: “You understand, li'l cowboy?”

Yeah, baby. I do understand! I do realize you are Big Trouble, capital B + T , for sure.

When Grass marched around the breezeway corner, this gust of wind whipped her black flared pants against her skinny ankles while all that hair circled her head like wild loose feathers on a binge. Ooooooh, the perfect explosive Manga character! And I bet I dream about her tonight.

4 p.m.—tack room

Fun Day. All morning Tavo let me drive the tractor, a small skip loader with cool gears and a scoop on the front. Mr. A wanted four potholes fixed in the driveway, so I hauled gravel to the holes, filled them in, and then leveled everything. For a while it was way confusing, and the scooper turned upside down and all the gravel would come pouring out, but I coped. Tavo said I did good.

Operating Mr. A's tractor got me to thinking about driving. Thinking about driving immediately made me remember Will and his ridiculous reward chart and how much he loves cars. Cars! Waaaay dangerous, especially when I'm trapped inside one with him.

Six months ago, just Mom and Will and I were flying south on the 405 to one of his shrink appointments, and he flashed one of his most adorable smiles, asking Mom if he could please NOT go to therapy that day. Mom said he
HAD
to go, so Will tried The Nice Approach again because that works so well with Mom but she held firm—parents of children with conduct disorder must do that—hold firm—even though maybe it's not in some parents' personalities to act that way.

“I'm sick of the motherfuckin' shrink!” he told her, kind of punching his fist against the dashboard, and Mom said sorry, he'd just lost another point on the reward chart for saying a bad word.

“Frankie invited me to go bowling with him and Jarvis. I'd rather be there!” Will's voice, so edgy, making my heart beat too fast and maybe Mom's heart, too.

“Calm down,” she said (good job, Mom), and then she told Will that he definitely needed to keep this date with the shrink, and after that Will started breathing hard. Then he unsnapped his seat belt and…BAM! His left foot rammed the brake pedal and I knew we were gonna die, and our 75 mph Toyota Prius swerved and we almost hit the center divider, and then Mom screamed just as the car straightened and skidded to a stop. My brother laughed because this was soooooo amusing, and then he fastened his seat belt again.