Free Damaged Goods by Heather Sharfeddin Page A

color, though, saying it was “omosekswal.” The landlord had gotten a deal on the paint down at Columbia. An order that was never picked up—probably because the customer had come to his senses at the last minute.
    “It’s too much,” Yolanda said, her face alight with surprise. Yellow light glowed through Yolanda’s open door, and the smell of fried tortillas wafted out into the damp Oregon morning. “It’s too much. I can’t take it.” Her frame took up the entire doorway as she clutched the KitchenAid to her chest with her doughy fingers. Her dark eyes twinkled with delight, and she held it out again to inspect it.
    “You can. It’s for you.” Carl’s voice was strong, stern even. He had to work to hold back the smile that was fighting its way up from his center.
    “No, no,” she said in her heavy Mexican accent. “I can’t pay you.”
    “Have I ever asked you for money?”
    “Carlos,” she said, resigning herself to the fact that he would agree to nothing but total acceptance. “Santa Carlos.”
    “Make some cookies or something,” he said, throwing his hand up and stepping off the stoop. She would, whether he supplied her with a used mixer or not.
    “You are so kind,” she called after him. “I will make you wedding cakes.”
    Carl trudged through the muddy yard between the cabins, scattering large spotted hens and gaining the attention of an enormous gray rooster. They eyed each other balefully for a moment, the rooster’s guard feathers rising in preparation for attack. But Carl rushed the bird and sent it retreating behind one of the shacks before it could make its move.
    A small boy was huddled on the step of the same shack with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders against the cold morning. He watched apprehensively as Carl intimidated the rooster.
    When Carl noticed the boy he said, “That one’s mean. Don’t let it get the upper hand. Chase it off before it thinks it can take you.”
    The boy stared, and Carl knew that he didn’t speak English. His face was dirty and his jeans were torn at the knees. The warmth Carl had carried from Yolanda’s porch dissolved as he was reminded of the overwhelming need in this place.
    He nodded at where the bird had gone and flapped his hands, making the child smile. The door came open suddenly and a short, work-worn man with a hard expression stepped into the light behind the boy.
    “Adentro,”
he said, and the boy rapidly scuttled past him into the dark interior. The man leaned against the doorjamb and lit a cigarette, appraising Carl.
    Carl nodded a greeting. When the man didn’t respond, he turned toward his own shack, just past the picnic table, across the small yard.
    “Cabrón,”
the man said in a barely audible tone.
    Carl walked on without looking back. A new crew had arrived the previous day while he was working. The ten shacks at Campo Rojo were full again, and a handful of tents were set up in the adjacent field. Fresh from who knew where. California? Arizona? Straight from Mexico? They were here for the fall pruning of fruit trees and vineyards. It was always this way when a new bunch of workers arrived. Suspicious stares and muttered racial slurs. They assumed that he worked for Arndt, the landlord. They believed Carl was stationed there to keep an eye on the goings-on in camp. Yolanda would fill them in. They wouldn’t believe her at first, thinking she’d been duped, but over time things would bear out and they’d see that he was just a resident, the same as themselves. Then they’d move on and a new crew would arrive, and it would begin again.
    Inside his one-room house, Carl shook the rain off his jacket and hung it on a peg next to the door. A small potbellied woodstove put out a generous heat, and he kicked off his muddy boots and warmed his fingers.
    He craved. Today it was severe—worse than most.
    He tried to shut the thoughts out of his mind, turning them to Silvie. She’d been constant on his mind since he