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ribs, still not forget that she ain’t nothing but a five-buck-an-hour riding horse.
    I slap my thigh. “Give me your foot.” I lift her foot. Scrape doo-doo and dry grass out from under her broken shoes with a hoof pick. I ask if she remembers the time Jason bit her. “I wanna see if she tastes like chicken,” he told my dad. He was three. We came to the stables once a week to ride then. My father figured five bucks an hour was a good deal, even for a horse with fleas. But when he started bringing us two and three times a week, my mother complained about the money. That’s when my father struck a deal with Mr. Zingerfeld, the owner, that we’d clean the stalls, keep Journey brushed and fed, and ride her as much as we wanted.
    After I got done cleaning Journey’s shoes and cleaning her stall, I went to check on the other horses. One horse got worms, I seen ’em in his stools. And his black coat was eaten away in some places. I gave him a drink and the last of the hay. He lay in the corner, too tired or hungry to stand. I sat down next to him in all that stink, and rubbed him. He lay his head in my lap. “Why everything around here die?” I asked. Then I got up and took a shovel and cleared the mess away.
    The third horse, Maiden Lucy, was the strongest. So I opened her stall and watched her run for the grass. She snatched it out the ground, swallowed it, then ate till she pooped.
    It was dark when I got home. I came in the back way, leaving my clothes and shoes in the basement. I showered and put on my pajama bottoms. My mother was in bed asleep. My father was sitting in the living room with the lights off, with a bottle of Scotch and no glass. I thought he’d be mad at me for being gone all day long. He wasn’t. “I figured this once,” he said, “you had a right to take off.”
    Him and me sat there, not talking, but listening just the same. Me, I was listening for Jason, because when I walked in the house I thought I heard him say, What you get me for my birthday ? I pulled out a little green soldier from my pocket. It had been sitting on the washing machine this morning, right next to Jason’s favorite red shorts. I said good night to my dad, went to my room, and locked the door. I opened my drawer and took out the picture I had drawn late the night before when my mother wouldn’t stop crying. “Happy birthday, Jason,” I said, staring at a picture of him sitting on Journey, riding back home with a grin on his face.

Chapter 14
    FIRST THING the next morning, I told my father about what I seen at the stables. He called the police. They said they would go over there right away. “If I had money, I’d buy that place,” he said. “Always wanted to own a horse. Always wanted to teach boys to ride and respect living things.”
    My dad said that on Tuesday. The County found a safe place for the horses to live by Friday, and another kid got shot round our way on Saturday. She was sitting in a car talking to a friend. A jet-black coupe pulled up. The window rolled down. Bullets went everywhere. I ain’t see it for myself, but it was all over the TV. The girl who died was sixteen—ready to graduate school and go down south to college. She won a full scholarship to Spelman and was gonna work in the mayor’s office for the summer. So when she got buried, seems like everybody in the whole city came to her funeral. The picture in the newspaper was real sad. But I didn’t cry. You can’t cry for everybody who gets shot—otherwise you’d cry your life away.
    Today’s the day after that girl’s funeral and my dad just said he was sending my mother away.
    “What?”
    He pours milk in my glass then puts the carton down before the glass is full. “Pour your own milk.”
    I pick up the carton of chocolate milk and drink out of it. He shakes his head. He says my mother needs a rest. I think she’s just getting on his nerves. Since he threw me on the porch, she’s been on his case. Telling him to watch how he