Spanish guy.(Lowest Ebb)(Dagoberto Gilb)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 22-APR-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

I've driven across three deserts from my home in El Paso, where there's no work, to Long Beach, where, I'm told, there's so much. So what if I see only two tower cranes in the skyline? At the union hall, the business agent could care less that this journeyman carpenter has arrived. But I sign the long out-of-work list and then drive out to one of the cranes and ask. The superintendent there gives me the old "check back in two weeks," which might be a kind no, but when you're not working you have to keep positive. You tell the man thank you very much, and you shake his big, crusty hand firmly.

The next two weeks I sleep on couches, imposing...

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