PTSD 3b by Edward Supranowicz

“Tomorrow’s a new day, Lad, and another rainy one for sure. Mark my words: fifth race, Belinda’s Girl. The filly has a lightning start but no wins. The odds will be long. A fast starter, Boy. That track will be hock deep in mud.”

“Oh, I get it. A fast starter, hooves throwing mud.”

“Yes, and?”

“And the other nags won’t want to pass her, won’t like mud flung in their eyes and all.”

“You’re a smart lad, s’truth. Very well, off with you then. I don’t have time to chew the fat all night.”

“Right then, Madge. Thanks, and all.”

Released, Ollie ducked from under the awning and back into the rain. As Madge pretended not to watch and did, the young man sloshed a short way up the sidewalk to a Pullman diner. Ollie disappeared up the stairs and then reappeared through the rain-streaked windows.

Madge saw him sit at the counter, yank his hat off, try to smooth his straw-yellow hair. All for her, of course, that wee snip of a waitress scared of her own shadow. Madge watches the two of them and snorts. Just look at those two moonstruck bumpkins, will you? Both of them mooing like calves and too shy to say a word to each other. Rubes, cabbage heads!

She pawed around under the counter, found her pipe and tobacco tin. She filled the bowl of the pipe, tamped it, struck a lucifer with her thumbnail, and puffed the pipe to life. Smoke wreathed her head in gray swirls. Wet draughts stirred the smoky cloud, pulled it into the night, and beat it to the pavement.

Madge smoked her pipe and watched the incessant rain. Her mind wandered across the ages, past the many names she’d carried, back to a cozy cottage nestled under the shade of an apple tree. The great warm rock beside the road where she sat in the sunshine. A lovely place to await the next earnest farm boy mounted on a plow horse, the next simple shepherd seeking his fortune. They came to her not knowing, hopeful simpletons who stopped to seek the clue, the token, the magick charm.

Yes, My Girl, sunshine back then, hot and bright on a dusty road. Here and now, nothing but dark and wet, and no dawn in sight.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Not that you were ever that mighty, but you were no one to be trifled with, that was certain. Still, you’re lucky to be alive, rain-soaked pit or no. Might be the only one of our kind left. All the others dead and gone, roasted in their own ovens, hung from gibbets like carrion, or cast out onto the trackless ice. But not us. Old Madge is still here, still breathing.

The next night washed over Madge’s newsstand wetter and darker than any before. Puddles splashed up from Ollie’s boots as the rain pounded down. He ducked into the sliver of dry in front of her newsstand, shedding water like the goose he was.

Madge gave him a hard eye. Before she could say the words, he swept one hand from his overcoat, then landed the offering on her counter. He opened his hand with a clumsy flourish, revealing a small porcelain gnome.

The little fellow’s face was squinched into a permanent smirk, one eye forever winking. His beard was white, his pointed cap red, tunic of green, and shoes of blue. Madge picked up the gnome and ran a rough thumb over its round little belly.

“Aye, he’s a right fine little chap. We must find a special place for this one. Does this mean your luck ran true?”

“True enough for a fella with no stake. Belinda’s Girl came in fair in the fifth, just as you said. The odds were good, but a two-dollar bet can only stretch so far, long odds or no. I won enough coins to eat and cover the price of the gnome.”

Ollie looked to the Pullman diner, then back to Madge. The old woman pushed tomorrow’s racing form across the splintered counter. She rapped a fingertip into the damp newsprint, once, twice, thrice. Then she waved her gnarled digit under Ollie’s nose.

“Mark my words, Ollie, and mark them well. I know you’re holding back on me. Gather your every penny. Search that hovel of yours. Pawn what you have, borrow and steal. You’ll be putting everything, and I do mean everything, on a trifecta.”

“But Madge!”

“I will hear no buts, young Ollie. Seventh race, Mermaid’s Daughter, Giant Slayer, and Beauty Sleep, in that order. I’ll not say it again, so just nod your head.” Ollie nodded, frightened and hopeful at once.

“Now scat!”

The skinny fool tottered backward into the rain as if he’d been singed. Then he turned and scurried away through the wet. Madge watched the oaf clamber into the Pullman diner, saw the mousy wench greet him, then pulled her eyes away.

Night slogged into day and day into night, and not much to mark the passage between the two. No sunrise and sunset in this cursed city, only the gloom grew lighter and then pitched back to blackness. And still the rain fell.

Madge heard his boots splashing up the sidewalk, almost running, and she knew the simple fool had won before he burst into the light of the newsstand. He stood with hands cupped in the dank air, and in them, she saw a pile of silver and gold coins.