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ground. “Pipe down, college boy.” He kicked popcorn at the empty seatback in front of them and sat down. “Choke those fuckin suits with their binocular straps,” he mumbled.
    Ledford said he wanted to go to the paddock and see the horses running in the fourth.
    Erm looked at his wristwatch. “You go on,” he said. He’d set up a three-thirty meeting with his uncle and needed to be in his seat.
    Down by the paddock, the horseplayers tried to blow their cigarette smoke above the heads of the tourists’ kids. It was hot and drizzly. Undershirt weather. A track made soft by summer rain. Ledford was in the bag and it wasn’t yet three o’clock. He drew another circle around the number nine in his short form, put it up over his head like a rain canopy, and walked inside, away from the paddock. He chewed cut-plug tobacco. “Homesick Dynamite Boy,” he said as he walked. It was the name of the number nine horse, and at 7 to 1 it was an overlay if he’d ever seen one. He looked at his short form again. His left shoulder knocked against the side of a pillar, so he sidestepped, and his right shoulder knocked against a man in a black shirt and matching derby hat. There were no Excuse me ’s. This was expected. Ledford felt the man’s eyeballs on him as he walked away.
    He had a fifty, three twenties, and a ten left in his billfold.
    Since the war, Ledford had been lucky at the races. He’d once paid a semester’s tuition with a single day’s payout. Erm had helped him along with tips from men with no names. Ledford didn’t ask questions. He stayed drunk much of the time. He’d finished college and proposed to Rachel and taken a desk job at Mann Glass. His life was a game of forgetting.
    Housewives from Homewood were logjamming the betting lines. Ledford chewed the plug hard between his eyeteeth and studied his form while he parted all of them, instinct taking him where he needed to go. He stepped up to the counter and said, “Five dollars to win on the nine.” There was no response.
    Ledford looked up. A kid in a green golf hat looked back at him. His voice cracked when he spoke. “This is the popcorn cart,” the kid said.
    Ledford tried to recollect the previous half hour of his life. He remembered sitting inside a stall on a toilet that had seen too much action, drinking the last of the bourbon in his pint flask. But, like all memories, this one was a sucker’s bet, because once he was in the bag, time and place were wiped and gone. He ended up wagering on three-year-old geldings at popcorn stands.
    â€œDid you want some popcorn?” the kid asked. A red-rimmed white-head pimple on his nose threatened to blow wide open of its own accord.
    Ledford thumbed at the bills in his hand. The dirt under his nails reminded him of Henderson Field, digging. “I’m a college graduate,” he told the kid, who was getting nervous because the man in front of him was relatively big and radiating alcohol and possessed eyes that had seen some things. “Getting married on Saturday,” Ledford told him. “Beautiful girl.”
    He looked at the people going by. So happy. So unaddicted to booze and playing horses. So empty of parasitic memories. A short woman with legs like a shot-putter’s rolled by a handtruck carrying a beer keg. It was held tight with twine. “Hell of an invention, the handtruck,” Ledford said to no one in particular. “Dolly, some call it. Roll three buckets a cullet around with one, no problem.” He watched the stocky woman go, her beer destined for some bubblegum-ass in the VIP Room.
    As he walked away from the popcorn stand and the acned teenager who could no longer hold eye contact with him, Ledford’s insides ached. He spat heavy.
    He walked to the betting line and made it to the window with one minute to post. “Five dollars to win on the nine,” he said.
    He held the