A heavy set women in her fifties rented room five for a short time. She was sick and produced a body odor that was powerfully offensive. Room five was in the back corner of the building next to a bathroom. Neither of us liked to go beyond room four as the noxious smell penetrated the whole area. No one else cared to go there either. I believe she went back to the hospital shortly thereafter, and I never heard anything more. We felt a guilty relief at her departure.
Many of the short timers were single men, itinerate drifters, who stayed a few weeks looking for work, catching their breath, or settling business. One was a young man of Mexican descent. He was in his early twenties, gregarious, always smiling, and outwardly friendly. He stayed for a month or two. I don’t know where he came from. He never mentioned family or friends, and seemed to have magically materialized into the flatlands of Indiana.
The guy was the first native Mexican we ever met. Mexican farm workers showed up in August every year. They came to pick tomatoes - one stop in their itinerate circuit through the states harvesting crops. We had seen them in other years working fields during the day, and sitting outside camps in evenings. They had always been nameless shadows until he came along. He was the first to have a human face
Don and I stopped to visit nearly every Saturday. We noticed he had a book on English grammar, another on math, and a notebook filled with his self-study. His effort seemed futile - maybe because he had such a distance to go, or maybe because he was alone, and had neither guidance nor support. His claim to fame was a broad smile that showcased a mouth-full of large white teeth. He bragged of being able to snap the caps off two beer bottles at the same time. - one at each side of his mouth. He demonstrated his prowess by opening a coke bottle one day, but I never saw his double play.
GO TO: Part 7, The Finale
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