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Magic City Mortgage Co., 1951 Approaching Wytheville’s boundary sign, although the heat’s so hard the bruise-blue mountains wobble, the well-informed crank windows up, shut wings. They speed, if white. They’ve heard how polio broke out with summer here. Half suffocating already in the close car and her girdle, one woman wraps a towel around the burden of baby in her lap, to guard its face. She tells her son to pull up his cowherder bandanna, knots a handkerchief in place across her husband’s muffled “thanks,” then draws her own scarf down to block her mouth and nose. Three red lights. The lap baby frets at each, but unenthusiastically. Across the boot-scuffed fabric of the wide back seat, Rich scrambles from one window to the other and spells out Main Street: Churches, Umberger Hotdogs, two Hardwares, Beauty Carousel, The First Virginia Bank. The bank . . . His father blooms for him, from VP for Clientèle to cool-eyed wheelman, masked as if they’ve made their biggest heist, blown up the safe, sashayed 34 HadawayRevisedPages 8/15/06 3:09 PM Page 34 out to the car, a healthy gang of robbers all smug and sweating through their getaway from Wytheville with its iron lungs and no cure. 35 HadawayRevisedPages 8/15/06 3:09 PM Page 35 ...

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