Part One: The Golf Ball.
01/25/2010
‘What else am I supposed to do’, he says, his voice angry and cracking. ‘You expect me to sit in front of some cafe with a bunch of the boys and await my own death? Is that what you want?’ He rattles the back of his hand at me, in the tell-tale Italian way. As the tears spill down his cheeks, I swallow hard and reach down into my pocket, turning the tiny digital recorder into the ‘off’ position. I spin my camera around onto my back and close my notepad. I put the cap back on the pen. Our eyes connect, and it’s such a moment of intense intimacy that it triggers my flight response: I want to turn away, or even run. And there it is again, the golf ball. Lately, it won’t seem to go away, no matter how hard I try.
I’m starting to wonder if it’s my fault that he’s upset, that this is the fourth time today I’ve had some old man in tears. I’ve seen anger too, and profound frustration, the kind that borders on the suicidal. And all of this has come about from the same question, a question that I thought was so innocuous that no one would really think to answer it, that no one would take me seriously. My question has been this: How long have you been working these olive fields?
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