One foot on earth and one on water, an angel pours eternity from cup to cup.
IN THE parking lot the Maryland sun beat down, flashing from rows of windshields, from chromium handles and the smooth curves of enameled mudguards.
Cincinnati Burns eased the battered convertible into line while Molly, standing out on the gravel, shouted, “Cut her left, honey. More left.”
He drew out the ignition key and it was suddenly snatched from his hand and hurled out between the cars. Cincy said, “You little devil! You’re mighty sassy. Ain’t you? Ain’t you?” He boosted the child high in the air while it screamed with joy.
Molly came running up. “Let me hold him, Cincy, while you get the key.” He passed the baby to her and it grabbed a damp handkerchief from the gambler’s coat pocket and waved it triumphantly.
“Come on, precious. Let’s let Daddy get the key. Hey, quit kicking me in the tummy.”
The big man set the boy on his shoulder, handing Molly his hat for safekeeping, and they headed for the grandstand. The gambler shifted the baby and looked at the stop watch on his wrist. “Plenty of time, kitten. The third race is our spot.”
They stopped to buy paper cups of raspberry sherbet and Cincinnati whispered suddenly, “You hold the bambino, Molly. There’s Dewey from St. Louis.”
Treading softly, he approached from the rear and squatted down behind a glum, lantern-jawed man in a seersucker suit. Cincy took a pack of matches and holding his thick fingers, knuckles covered with red hair, as delicately as if he were threading a needle, he stuck a match between Dewey’s shoe sole and the upper. Lighting the match, he sneaked back a few steps and then strolled over to where his wife and son were watching from behind the refreshment stand.
When the match burned down the long-faced horse player shot into the air as if hoisted by a rope and began smacking at his foot.
Molly, Cincy, and young Dennis, peeking around the corner of the stand, began to shout in unison. Molly dropped her cup of sherbet, and Dennis Burns, seeing it fall, threw his after it gleefully.
“Hey, what goes on?” Cincy rattled change in his pocket and said, “You go on. I’ll catch up to ye’s.”
When he joined them he held four cups of sherbet. “Here, kids-one to suck on and one to drop. Dewey is sure a sucker for the hotfoot. This must be a thousand times somebody gives him the hotfoot. It’s a dozen times, at least, that I give him the hotfoot myself. Let’s get up in the stand, kitten. I’ll get you organized and then I’ve got to get the roll down on that hay-burner in the third; he shouldn’t drop dead, kennahurra. You wouldn’t know that, that’s Gaelic. If he breaks a leg we’re going to have to talk fast back at that fleabag. What the hell, it’s time we was pulling out of that trap anyhow. Every time I wake up in the morning and get a glim full of that wallpaper I feel like I ought to slip you five bucks.”