Glenn Taylor: The Marrowbone Marble Company

Ledford was apart from this world, and yet the people followed him. “Tell you what,” he once said to them. “We can stir the creek and wake up the trees. We can be a people freed.”

I A Line in the Dirt I - A Line in the Dirt October 1941 November 1941 December 1941 August 1942 September 1942 October 1942 November 1942 August 1945 May 1946 June 1946 September 1947 October 1947 November 1947 February 1948 May 1948 July 1948 September 1948 November 1948 April 1949 October 1951 June 1953 II - A House on the Sand June 1963 August 1963 September 1963 December 1964 February 1965 March 1965 April 1965 May 1966 June 1966 February 1967 June 1967 July 1967 September 1967 October 1967 February 1968 March 1968 April 1968 July 1968 December 1968 January 1969 Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Glenn Taylor Author’s Note About the Publisher Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

October 1941 October 1941 November 1941 December 1941 August 1942 September 1942 October 1942 November 1942 August 1945 May 1946 June 1946 September 1947 October 1947 November 1947 February 1948 May 1948 July 1948 September 1948 November 1948 April 1949 October 1951 June 1953 II - A House on the Sand June 1963 August 1963 September 1963 December 1964 February 1965 March 1965 April 1965 May 1966 June 1966 February 1967 June 1967 July 1967 September 1967 October 1967 February 1968 March 1968 April 1968 July 1968 December 1968 January 1969 Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Glenn Taylor Author’s Note About the Publisher Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

SIX BRICK CHIMNEY STACKSstood at a hundred feet each. This was the Mann Glass Company, a ten-acre factory tract straddling the C&O Line at Huntington’s western edge. Machine-made wide- and narrow-mouth bottles had been blown inside since 1915, and later, prescription and proprietary bottles. Eli Mann had opened the doors of a handblown specialty shop here in 1908. Now, at ninety, he owned a factory with one thousand employees and two 300-ton furnaces.

Inside, Loyal Ledford worked the swing shift, four to midnight. He’d done so since graduating high school in June, and before him, his father had done the same.

Ledford was a long, sturdy young man with big hands. At thirteen, he was a Mann Glass batch boy. At eighteen, he bid on and got his job as furnace tender. It suited him. He was careful to respect the fire, as heat will sometimes break even a young man down. Inside a glass factory, a furnace roared at 3,000 degrees.

Ledford squinted hard. Checked the gauge and eyeballed the furnace fire one last time through the barrier window. As was his custom at the end of a shift, Ledford stared at the fire until his peripherals went white. Then he closed his eyes and watched the little swirls dance across the black stage of his eyelids. He pushed his scoop shovel into the corner with his boot tip and walked blind down the dark east aisle. The wall bulbs had surged again. Popped open like fireworks, muted by the rest of the racket inside. Ledford clocked off at a minute past midnight.

Saturday turned into Sunday, and Ledford sat alone in the dark in front of his work locker. The sweat sheen on his body dried up. His wetcollared shirt turned cold and stuck to him. He coughed. Pulled off his split-leather work gloves. They rode high, all the way to the elbows.

Inside the factory cafeteria, Ledford looked for Rachel. She was the plant nurse on the four-to-midnight shift, and they’d been eating together for two months. Rachel’s mother was Mary Ball, formerly Mary Mann, Eli Mann’s daughter. Rachel’s father was Lucius Ball, plant manager.

She was three years Ledford’s senior. She’d grown up easy in a big house on Wiltshire Hill. He’d grown up hard in a little one next to the scrapyard on Thirteenth Street West.

She was easy to spot. Her posture was spike straight and her hair was coal black. Ledford followed her from the milk bin to the table, put his tray down across from hers. “What say, Jean Parker?” he said.

“What say, Pittsburgh,” Rachel answered. They’d had a date to see The Pittsburgh Kid a week prior. After, she told him he looked like Billy Conn, the Pittsburgh Kid himself. He told her she looked like Jean Parker, only younger. They’d kissed.

“Tired?” he asked.

“A little.” She wore a purple flower on the breast of her nurse’s uniform. Her silver watch was loose on her wrist, thin as twine.

“Hungry, I take it.” Ledford cut his steak, as she did hers. They always ate the same meal. Steak, eggs, chocolate cake. It was the second thing he’d noticed about her.

“Did you read about the Navy destroyer? The torpedo attack?” Rachel chewed while she talked, blocked his view with her napkin.

“Off of Iceland? Didn’t sink it though, did they?”

“No.”

She liked to talk about the war raging in Europe and in China. He didn’t. Always, with wars, Ledford had liked to read, not talk. And so he did, in the paper, each day as he ate breakfast before class. But mostly, his reading came by way of books. History books, like the big old red one that had been his father’s. The Growth of the American Republic it was called, and Ledford had read it thrice before enrolling at Marshall College as a history major.

The sound of stacked glass shifting echoed loud from the kitchen. Mack Wells walked past. He was the swing-shift janitor and the only black man at the plant. He nodded to them and they nodded back. Rachel had bandaged his hand the night before. He’d been scorched by a valve exhaust.

“Mack Wells’ wife is pregnant,” Rachel said.

“How do you know?”

“He told me while I wrapped his hand. She’s due at springtime.”

“Is that right?” He shook hot sauce onto his eggs. “Yes.” She’d stopped chewing and clasped her hands together on the table. “I think springtime is the finest of the seasons for a baby, don’t you?”

“I don’t know.” He didn’t look up at her. His pinbone sirloin was cut to gristle.

“What season were you born? I know you’ve told me, but I’ve forgotten.”

“July the eighth,” he said. He looked over at Mack Wells, who sat alone, his back to them. A line of sweat traced the spine of his coveralls.

“A summer baby,” Rachel said. “Your mother must have hated carrying that weight in the heat.”

Rachel wanted to get married and she wanted to have a baby. Sometimes, she talked in ways that betrayed those facts. But when it went quiet, as now, she quit her talking and let it lie. They didn’t yet speak on serious things. She hadn’t told him of her mother’s cancer, and she knew not to ask much on his family, his boyhood. He’d asked her on their first date if she knew what had happened to his mother and father, his older brother. Yes, she’d answered. “Well,” Ledford had told her, “good. We don’t have to talk about it then.”