Read The Marrowbone Marble Company for Free Online Page B

ticket between his thumb and forefinger. Kissed it. “Come on, Homesick Dynamite,” he said, wedging himself through the crowd, jackpot sardines with dollar signs in their eyes. Ledford stood tall at the rail and waited.
    Homesick Dynamite Boy came out of the clouds on the three-quarter turn only to falter at the wire. He placed by a head length.
    Ledford littered his ticket for the stoopers to pick up.
    Back at the seats, he was introduced to Erm’s uncle Fiore, a short man with bags under his eyes and a tailored black suit. He had a large associate called Loaf.
    â€œErm tells me you busted his teeth out,” Uncle Fiore said.
    â€œYessir,” Ledford said.
    â€œAnd you’re from Virginia?”
    â€œWest Virginia.”
    â€œYou like to play the horses?”
    â€œYessir.”
    â€œAll right, son.” For the entirety of this exchange, Uncle Fiore had been grasping Ledford’s hand, looking him hard in the eyes. He finally let go and said, “I’m a patriot, by the way. I got the Governor’s Notice for helping secure the port docks.”
    Ledford nodded. “How’s the shin? Erminio tells me you took some shrapnel bad.”
    â€œIt’s healed up fine. Little limp left.”
    â€œGood. Good. My nephew’s brain I’m not so sure about, but that didn’t have nothing to do with the shrapnel.” Erm tapped the scar on his forehead where it spread beneath his hairline. They all laughed, except Loaf the associate. He had his hands crossed in front of him and kept shifting his stance. His feet were too small for his frame. “Anyway, son, you stick with Erminio around the track. He knows a little something about ponies.” Uncle Fiore winked, and his eyebags seemed to disappear for a moment. He embraced his nephew, whispered something to him, and was gone.
    Erm convinced Ledford to put everything he had on Busher in the mile race. Both men emptied their wallets, and both men cashed in four-figure tickets. They walked out of the racetrack feeling as good as two medical discharges living on military pensions could feel.
    They hit a nightclub, then Erm’s mother’s place for a meal. In the driveway was an Olds Touring and a red Packard sedan with suicide doors. After she had kissed him six times, called him “country handsome,” and complimented his appetite, Ledford asked Erm’s mother how much she wanted for the Packard. Without missing a beat, she answered, “Five hundred cash for a marrying man.” It was a done deal. Instead of taking the train back to Huntington to be married, Ledford would ride in style.
    Before he left the next morning, he phoned Rachel. She sounded tired. “Well, we’re in the money,” he told her. Said he’d be home earlier than planned, and that he had a surprise.
    â€œMe too,” Rachel said. “I’m pregnant.”
    Ledford didn’t know whether to howl or have a heart attack. But he smiled, and told her he was doing so. Then he told her he loved her. He meant it.
    â€œA springtime baby,” she said.
    â€œNice time of year.”
    He fired up the Packard and waved goodbye to Mrs. Bacigalupo. In the passenger seat, Erm nodded off within three city blocks. He was coming to West Virginia to be Ledford’s best man.
    Crossing the flat expanse of Indiana, there was peace inside the car. Neither of them knew that across the world, the city of Hiroshima had already been erased by the atom bomb. Gone, all of it. One hundred thousand men, women, and children had been evaporated.
    The war was nearly over.
    Â 
    T HE RECEPTION’S BUFFET table was as long as a limousine. Folks who’d grown accustomed to rationing during the war lined up to get their fingers greasy. Here was a spread not grown in any victory garden. There was an apple and salami porcupine, chicken livers and bacon, cocktail sausages, dried beef logs, bacon-stuffed olives swimming in dressing,