The Marrowbone Marble Company. Glenn Taylor
someone you might speak a little freer with than myself.” He put the glasses back on and turned to Ledford, who stifled a burp. “He’s just over at the college here. You may have met him in your time there. Don Staples?”
Ledford shook his head in recognition. “I had him one semester. Best teacher in the place.”
“Then you know he’s a genuine theologian. Used to be with the Episcopal Church but he broke away and went to work for the CCC in the thirties. He’s dedicated his study to the work of William Wilberforce.”
Ledford nodded. “He spoke a good bit on Wilberforce in class.”
“Did you know he published a book on him?”
“No.” Ledford wondered why Staples had not laid claim to such a thing.
Reverend Thompson leaned in and spoke soft. “The man is more committed to securing rights for Negroes than anyone you’re likely to meet. Wears his beard lately in the style of John Brown. A true eccentric.”
“You think I ought to bother him?”
“Oh sure. He’d enjoy your company, just as I have. But he’d speak your language a little more fluent than I can, I’d imagine.” The Reverend, though older than Ledford, had not seen what the younger man had. He’d not lost so much for so long. He cleared his throat and signaled for the bill.
“How’s that?” Ledford looked at the circle-shaped smears on the Reverend’s lenses.
“Well, he spent time overseas in the First War, and he knows a great deal about a great many things.” He left it at that. It seemed enough.
After they shook hands, Reverend Thompson walked back to his church, and Ledford walked the length of Fourth Avenue to campus. He appreciated Rachel making the appointment with her Episcopalian man. The Reverend was a good sort, the kind who did not judge on attendance at God’s Sunday meeting.
At Sixteenth Street, Ledford nearly knocked over a small boy selling newspapers. He wore no shirt, just a full satchel, bandolier-style. He squinted at the sun. Ledford bought a paper and walked on. A woman crossed in front of him, holding something wrapped in butcher paper. She smiled at him, and when he looked back to see her from behind, she looked back too.
It took three people to correctly navigate his path to Professor Staples’ office. Its location was the basement of Old Main, just beyond the furnace room. An orange light emitted from the half-open door. Ledford knocked.
“Come on in.”
He pushed on the heavy steel door and stepped inside. “Professor Staples?”
“Just call me Don, son.” The man looked at Ledford over spectacles worn low on his nose-bridge. His beard was full and long. Blocked in black and gray like the coat of some animal. In his hand was a book. Everywhere were books. Stacked in rows on his desk, the floor, in front of the full bookshelves. “What can I do for you?” he said.
“Reverend Thompson from Trinity Episcopal said I might speak with you.” Ledford had trouble reading the man’s eyes, which were locked on him but elsewhere simultaneously. The left one was lazy, off kilter.
“The Very Right Reverend,” Staples said. “The crème de le crème, the cream of the cash crop.” He kept up his staring, sniffed hard. “Oh, Thompson is a good man of God. I’m only pullin your leg.” He smiled. “I had you in class once before?”
“Yessir.”
“Where you from?”
“Here.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ledford.”
Staples thought for a moment. “You have people in Mingo?”
“Yessir. My grandfather was from Naugatuck.”
“You have people in Wayne County?”
“I believe I might.”
“Ledford,” the older man said, considering the surname. He sniffed again, then set his book down and wiped at his nose with his thumb. “I knew a Franklin Ledford up at Red Jacket.”
“My great uncle, I believe. Dead.”
“Oh yes, dead. Matter of fact, all the Ledfords in those parts are long dead, aren’t they?”
“That or moved away.” He was still holding the door’s edge in his hand. “You’re from Mingo?”
Staples shook his head no. “Spent some time there as a young man. But I’m a McDowell County boy. Keystone.” He smiled again. “Come on in and sit down. Just move those books off to the floor there.”
Ledford did so and sat. The seat of his chair was half-rotten. Under his backside, it felt as if it might go any time. “I hope I’m not bothering you,” he said.
“Depends on what you’re here for.” Staples leaned back and crossed his long legs. He took off his glasses and folded them shut. Held them two-handed across his belly.
“Well,” Ledford said. “That’s . . .” He couldn’t spit it out. “I . . .”
Staples did not move an inch. He sat and stared and breathed slow but noticeable through the nose he kept snorting. It whistled. The lamplight flickered under the orange scarf he’d laid across it.
“I have questions about God. And man.” Ledford cracked his knuckles against his thighs.
“Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm,” Staples said. “And the Very Reverend, he didn’t give you answers on those?”
“Well, he thought maybe I’d understand them a little better if they came from you.”
“Is that right? Well . . .” He came forward suddenly, slapped both his shoes on the floor. From his desk drawer he pulled a pipe and tobacco pouch. “What’s the weather doin?”
“Sunny. Hot.”
“You want to go for a walk?”
“Sure. Yessir.”
It was Sadie Hawkins Day, and coed girls chased boys across the green like they’d heard a starter gun salute. Staples ignored them and walked at a quick clip and talked with his teeth clamped around his pipe, which looked to be on its last leg. “Are you married?”
“Yessir.”
“How long?”
“A year next month.”
“Child?”
“Yessir.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Girl.”
“Have you kept your pecker in your pants otherwise?” He did not break stride. They cut across the grass, dry and patchy.
“Yessir.”
“Good.” Staples stopped dead and pointed to a big maple tree ten yards off. “This is the tree,” he said. The skin on his hand said he’d seen a good bit of sun. Long fingers. He was roughly Ledford’s size, and he’d not stooped with age.
Ledford followed him to the tree. Staples sat down Indian-style next to a surfaced root. Ledford looked around. A Sadie Hawkins girl squealed and hurdled a green bench. In the distance, the GI dormitory trailers sat quiet and squat, brown rectangles in the sun. Ledford took a seat on a wide root.
Staples knocked his pipe on the tree trunk. “You were overseas, I’d imagine?”
“Yessir.”
“Pacific or Atlantic?”
“Pacific. Guadalcanal.”
“Navy?”
“Marine Corps.”
Staples looked down at the black ash and made a strange shape out of his mouth. He’d