Billy Donovan arrived first. Billy was a construction worker who had drifted in from the deep South. He wore bulb-toed, clodhopper shoes, bib overalls, a gingham checked shirt, and a ratty straw hat. He sucked on a long shaft of barley grass from the shock his country kin included along with a Baggie of homemade grits, a plug of prime chawing tobacco, and a Mason jar of white lightning in their weekly Kentucky Special Care package. Whenever he won a hand, Billy slapped his knee and said “Aw, shucks.” On any given night he said it a lot. For a down-home hillbilly, he played a big-city brand of
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