The Marrowbone Marble Company

by Glenn Taylor

  JULY 1968

  THE PARKING LOT OF Veterans Memorial Field House was nearly full. The sun hung orange over the dye factory next door, where men finished their shifts and stepped into the street. They walked past the Ford dealership, smoking and gripping lunch pails. Their hands were stained blue.

  Inside the field house, area boys knuckled down and narrowed the competition. Ham Maynard was too old to compete, and everyone wanted to see who’d take his place as champion.

  There’d been a power outage, so floodlights hung on basketball rims, extension cords snaking to a generator. Two men were on their knees inside the Ringer circle. They ran concrete floats across the surface to certify it was level. A big man in a suit vest walked around them. He called out the semifinal matchup on a whistling microphone. On his head was a piss-cutter hat with USMC Korea 1st Marines monogrammed in red. He’d sweated through his shirt. “Let’s give these boys a hand,” he said. The crowd responded halfheartedly. The big man looked at them, bent-backed on wooden bleachers. He’d expected more and couldn’t figure why the crowd had shrunk as the day went on.

  The answer was in the parking lot. Sixty or more people had heard whispers that Orb Ledford was going up against Ham Maynard once and for all. They gathered in a bunch at the parking lot’s northwest edge. Some sat on the hoods of cars, others on the roof of an abandoned body shop. A dozen boys pressed against the chain-link fence in the alley. There was a patch of dirt in the body shop’s side yard, perfect for Ringer. Fury and Stretch had worked on it all afternoon. The lines were painted. The cross rack was loaded with thirteen marbles.

  Orb stepped to the pitch line with Chester behind him. “You got nothin to worry about,” Chester said.

  Orb was sweating, wiping at his forehead with the backs of his hands.

  Ham Maynard toed the line next to him. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt, and his arms were the circumference of Orb’s thighs. Ham hadn’t said a word since he pulled up in the bed of a truck full of football players.

  Over at the fence, Willy had Tug on a short leash. “Sit,” he told the dog. Orb had insisted on bringing him. He never went anywhere without Tug in those days. Willy regarded the two boys. Ham had lost all his baby fat and sprouted to six feet. Orb was tall and skinny as ever, frail some might call him. It had surprised Willy that Orb wanted to face Ham at Ringer after all this time. He’d been hard to figure ever since the raid.

  Fury leaned a chalkboard against the brick wall. It was the size of a record album. He stepped to it and marked changing odds. He kicked at a rusted sign lying face up in the yard. Drink Royal Crown Cola, it read.

  Fury held up a fistful of dollar bills. “Anybody else?” he called. “Last chance before we start.” Nobody answered. “Scared money never wins,” Fury said. He had energy to spare. He’d been off dope for three months, but he’d doubled back on small-time gambling. “Okay fellas,” he said. “I’ll ask one more time after the lag.”

  It was quiet. From across the parking lot, the generator could be heard through an open field-house door.

  “Lag!” Fury hollered.

  Ham tossed first, and his black taw rolled within an inch of the lag line.

  Orb followed suit, his cicada taw rolling a hair closer.

  There was a low cheer, some mumbling. One boy fell from his perch on the chain-link. In the bed of the truck, two others cracked open beers and whooped and hollered.

  Orb and Ham retrieved their taws for the match.

  A car swung into the alley. It was Shorty Maynard’s police cruiser. “Shit,” one boy said. “Put up the beer.”

  Ham squinted at the oncoming car. “It’s my dad,” he said.

  Charlie Ball was in the passenger seat, Noah in the back. The three of them knew that Ledford and Mack were at the Friday meeting of the West Virginia Human Rights Commission. It was an important one, a fund-raiser in memory of Bobby Kennedy.

  They wouldn’t run into Marrowbone brass, Charlie had told Noah. They were tired of hiding, and they were drunk. Had been since an Independence Day party the night prior.

  The car rolled to a stop in the alley. The sun was getting low.

  Tug stood and tested the leash. A low rumble started in his chest. Willy gripped the leash tight.

  Charlie Ball stepped from the open door in a three-piece white suit, fat as ever. “Evenin boys,” he said. He smoothed his thinning hair and pulled up his pants. “I hope nobody’s into anything illegal around here.”

  Shorty stepped from the driver’s side and propped his arm on the roof. He wasn’t in uniform. Noah stayed in the car.

  Stretch felt his blood rush. He hadn’t seen Shorty Maynard since the night he beat him into the ground. Nobody had. In the fallout from the theater riot, Shorty had been shamed out of running for sheriff. He’d kept his job as deputy, but most days, like this one, he just drove around. Drunk. Trouble in his eyes. His family had left him.

  Charlie had been nearly as scarce. He made public appearances when he had to, won the primary, along with Noah, but otherwise he’d taken to hiding behind his curtains, just as his frail cousin had before him.

  He walked through the fence gate and regarded the Ringer circle. “Regular dirt engineers around here,” he said. “I heard the two best marble men in the state was having a side match. I guess I found it.”

  “You want to lay a little down?” Fury asked.

  Charlie laughed. He up-and-downed the young man, his long hair, his sandals. “Hippies know how to count paper money?” he said.

  Fury laughed too. “When they grow up the son of a Chicago bookie they do.”

  Charlie swallowed. He hadn’t recognized the boy. “Oh,” he said. “Well, your daddy and me go back a ways.”

  “Maybe you want to consider wagering on this match,” Fury said.

  “From what I hear, you could use the scratch.”

  Shorty whistled a signal. “Excuse me,” Charlie said. He walked back to the alley.

  Some in the crowd got nervous and left. Others whispered about boxing and bench presses and who would whip who in a fair fight.

  Tug’s snout twitched, his eyes on the police car, his hackles halfway up. “Sit,” Willy told him.

  The two men at the cruiser called Fury over. “Don’t do it,” Stretch said.

  Willy just stared at Shorty Maynard. He didn’t advise either way. “It’s cool Stretch,” Fury said. He strode to the alley alone.

  When he got to the car, Shorty asked him, “Ever hear of a barber?” His breath smelled of whiskey on an empty stomach.

  “Ever hear of Lavoris?” Fury answered.

  “How much can we put on Ham to win?” Charlie asked.

  “As much as you got.” Fury looked from one of them to the other.

  “As much as you believe he can beat the likes of Orb Ledford.”

  Shorty laughed. “The retarded one?”

  Fury didn’t like the word. He’d come to marvel at Orb’s concentration inside a Ringer circle. He knew he couldn’t be beat. “What do you want to wager?” he asked.

  “I don’t know if you can cover it.” Charlie took out his billfold.

  “I can cover it,” Fury said. He was lying. He was flat broke.

  He walked back to the circle with two thousand dollars in his back pocket.

  Orb knuckled down. He shut one eye and cocked his elbow. Pressure built inside his thumb, and he shot.

  The cicada taw zipped across the ground like a bullet. It struck a center marble, sent it to the grass. But something was wrong in the sound of the strike. It was too loud. It turned Orb’s stomach.

  The cicada shooter lay in the center of the circle in pieces. There had been an unseen air bubble somewhere. Glass lay in shards next to the tiny clay wings.

  Orb crawled to it on his knees. He nearly cried, seeing the clay insect like that. Exposed, artificial. One bent wing, same as his favorite cicada. He stuck it in his pocket. He’d had enough.

  “I forfeit,” Orb said.

  “What?”
Fury couldn’t believe his ears.

  Orb stood up. “I forfeit.” He walked for the parking lot.

  Chester followed. “Orb,” he called. “Orb, you can use my taw.”

  Orb would not use anybody’s taw but his own, that was known.

  “You owe us four grand,” Shorty Maynard hollered from beside the car.

  “Hold on a minute.” Fury tracked down Orb. Chester did the same. The three of them stood between two pickup trucks and talked in whispers.

  Fury came back with an offer. He stood at the police cruiser again, between the state senator and the deputy, who took slugs from a brown pint bottle between cigarettes. “In the event of a forfeit,” Fury said, “it’s customary to allow an alternate player.”

  “Spit it out,” Shorty said.

  “Chester will go against Ham.” He pointed to Chester. Shorty smiled.

  “The colored boy?” Charlie said.

  Fury nodded.

  “Deal.”

  They strode to the circle.

  Ham won the lag, and on his first shot, he knocked a marble clear of the ring line. Then another, and another. He was meticulous. But on his fifth shot, his angle was off, and the marble stopped short of the line.

  Chester got down in his stance. One leg was straight behind him, toe pointed. The other was tucked under his chest. His sneakers gripped the dirt, his armpits dripped sweat. He blew on his hand and knuckled down.

  Chester never missed a shot. He knocked the remaining nine marbles out of the circle with ease, and then he knocked out Ham’s shooter.

  “He was hunching!” Charlie hollered. “His thumb came over the line.”

  A chorus of low mumbles moved over the crowd. “No he wasn’t,” some said.

  “This is a goddamn fix,” Shorty Maynard said. He spat out his words.

  “It’s a setup. That fuckin hippie’s a yankee hustler, and this boy’s his nigger sidekick!” His chest heaved.

  Tug shot forward on the leash. A current came through Willy’s elbow and shoulder, tendons wrenched, but he managed to hold on and dig in. The dog erupted, bellowing from deep, his front paws off the ground.

  Shorty Maynard’s hand went to his gun. Everyone watched as he kept it there, frozen under his shirt in back.

  Noah stepped out of the car’s backseat and watched from the alley. “All right,” Charlie said. “Let’s get going now.”

  “We ain’t goin nowhere,” Shorty said.

  Stretch had his hands fisted.

  Chester hadn’t moved. He stayed on one knee by the ring line.

  Orb walked to Tug and tried to calm him.

  Boys in the crowd were wide-eyed. One ran down the alley. “C’mon!” Noah hollered. “We got to go.”

  Ham Maynard stepped to his father. “Daddy,” he said quietly, “he beat me fair and square.”

  “The hell he did!” Shorty felt their eyes on him. He wanted to smack his boy for talking to him like that. “Get in the car Ham,” he said.

  “But I came in the truck with—”

  “Get in the fuckin car fore I kick your ass over there to it!”

  Ham did as he was told. His chest sunk and he hung his head. Orb thought he saw tears welling.

  “Boys, you all go on home now,” Charlie said. He was trying to smile, trying to go on pretending his life was in control. He gave Fury a look and followed Ham to the cruiser.

  Shorty worked his jaw. He stared at Stretch Hayes, then Fury, then Willy. “You’ll all get what’s comin to you,” he said.

  Tug growled low. “You keep that dog away from me,” Shorty said.

  The sun had set behind the dye factory’s outbuilding. Boys walked away in near darkness, retelling what they’d just seen.

  While Shorty strode backwards to his car, Orb searched the ring’s perimeter for Ham’s shooter. He knew it was Ham’s favorite, the big black onyx.

  He found it in a patch of greased-over grass. He started toward the alley to return it. “Hold on,” he called, holding up the marble. He jumped a rotten railroad tie in the lot.

  “What’s he doing?” Fury asked.

  Chester stood up and brushed off the knees of his blue jeans. “Orb don’t play for keepsies,” he said. “Never has.”

  Inside the cruiser, Shorty Maynard stuck the shifter in first and turned to the backseat. He eyeballed his boy. “You make me sick,” he said. He let off the clutch and mashed the gas before he’d turned back around.

  Ham and Noah yelled, “Wait,” but it was too late. There was a crunching sound at the front bumper.

  For a moment, it was still inside the car. Then the screams came from over at the circle.

  Shorty’s face went white. “It was that dog,” he said. “I told em to keep that dog lashed.” He knew it wasn’t the dog. He shifted into reverse and howled backwards down the alley. He jerked the wheel hard when he got to Twenty-sixth Street, straightened, and gunned it up Fifth Avenue.

  The car’s grille had hit Orb in the legs and buckled him forward, then back. His head had struck the alley bricks, dull and hard. When they got to him, he was out cold. A pump knot was already rising on the back of his head, big as a tennis ball. Willy put his hand under it. He screamed for someone to call an ambulance. Chester ran for the Field House.

  THE NURSES AND doctors called it “the bird,” but Rachel hadn’t asked them why. She stared at it, a small green box on the rack next to Orb’s bed. It had knobs like those on her old radio. A tube ran from its side, across her lap, and into Orb’s mouth, where the tape had caused a rash. Rachel listened to the little green respirator blowing and sucking. She watched her boy, his eyes unmoving under the lids, his chest rising and falling unnatural. His hand was warm in hers, and she rubbed her thumb there, squeezed once in a while, hoping he’d squeeze back.

  She sang to him. Mostly “Shortenin Bread” and “Twinkle, Twinkle,” like she had when he was a baby.

  They’d cut a piece of his skull bone away, and they hadn’t put it back. A tube ran from his brain to another little machine. It measured pressure, let them know if the swelling came back.

  When they’d looked at his pupils, one was a pinprick. The other, a planet.

  Rachel looked at the stack of books on the side table. Mary had brought them from the house. Comic books mostly. Doctor Dan the Bandage Man was in the middle of the stack. They hadn’t read it in years. Rachel picked it up and opened the front cover. Mary had taped two fresh Band-Aids inside.

  “Dan is a busy fellow,” she read. In one hand she held the book at the spine, in the other, Orb’s hand. “He is always on the go, but one day in a big backyard cowboy fight, he fell.”

  Ledford stood in the open doorway, arms across his chest. Behind him, in the hall, an old man pushed a walker and shuffled along, an inch at a time. Ledford didn’t speak to him.

  Orb had been in the hospital for four days, but to Ledford, it seemed they’d lived there a year. The sound of the respirator orchestrated his dreams.

  When he wasn’t in Orb’s room, he was outside, lighting the next cigarette off the one in his mouth. The Bonecutter brothers had been looking for Shorty, Charlie, and Noah for three straight days. Mack brought their reports to Ledford at the hospital. No sign of any of them. Not at their homes or hangouts. All three men were on the local news nightly. It was widely known that drink was a problem in both the Ball and Maynard clans, and now there had been a hit-and-run.

  In the lobby, Mary poured coffee from the pot to the Thermos. Her eyes were red as blood.

  Fury stood behind her and asked again if there was anything he could do to help.

  “No,” Mary said. She walked toward the elevator.

  Fury watched her go. He wondered where Willy was.

  In his billfold was a slip of paper. On the paper was a telephone number. Erm had given it to him years before, told him, “You call this number if the shit ever really hits the fan.” Fury had tried it twice a day for the last four days. No one had ever picked up.

  He paid
for a pack of Teaberry in the gift shop and regarded his billfold. He slid the little paper out and walked to the bank of pay phones. He had a feeling this time. His fingers found the holes, 3, 1, 2. He’d memorized it by now.

  On the fifth ring, someone picked up. “What is it?” he said. “Dad?” But Fury knew it wasn’t him. “Who the fuck is this?”

  “Loaf?” Fury asked.

  “Who wants to know?” He blew his nose.

  Loaf the associate, still around. They’d gotten to Uncle Fiore, but not his henchman. Fury had never been so happy to hear that voice. “It’s me, Fury,” he said. “You’ve got to get Dad.”

  HAROLD SAT IN the chapel’s first pew, reading the paper. The radio was on beside him. Hank Aaron had hit his five-hundredth home run in Atlanta.

  Harold checked his watch. It was almost eight p.m.

  Herchel walked through the chapel door. It was his first time back at Marrowbone. Everyone had advised him to stay away until his arrest was sorted out. It had been. The original search warrant was deemed bogus by a circuit judge. There’d been no probable cause, he’d said. The warrant was based, he’d told the court, “on nothing more than hogwash and palaver, and a bunch of old boys gettin too big for their gun britches.”

  “Evenin Harold,” Herchel said.

  “Evenin.” Harold turned off the radio.

  “Where is everybody?” Herchel sat down in the second pew and thumbed at a hymnal left on the seat.

  Ledford came through the sanctuary door and nodded to them. He’d been in Staples’ old quarters, reading and writing.

  Ledford had called this meeting. From Orb’s hospital room, he’d told Mack to spread the word—“Sunday, eight p.m. I want every man there,” he’d said. “But listen, let’s try to keep the young ones out of it.”

  Orb had been in the hospital for nine days. He showed no signs of waking. Twice, he’d had to be resuscitated.

  By 8:15, the front two pews were filled. Mack, Harold, Herchel, Jerry, and Fury. Dimple and Wimpy had declined. They wanted to guard the gate. “There’s women and children still about,” Dimple had said.

  The men sat and talked to one another quietly about Hank Aaron, about Vietnam, Tet. Ledford stood and faced them. “Harold,” he said. “I believe you ought not involve yourself in this. You’re a man of the law.”