The Friendly Stranger: One Man's Struggle to Cope with Pedophilia

By John Veteran

At the age of 16, in 1959, Dalton Henson, an athletic but emotionally disturbed youth living in a small central Florida town, suddenly becomes sexually attracted to prepubescent boys. This attraction gradually intensifies until it nearly completely replaces the attraction he previously felt toward girls and women. As the years go by, he is extremely ashamed of being a “sex pervert” (as he thinks of himself ), and constantly strives to conceal “the way he is” from people he is associating with. This is complicated because he blushes easily and is inclined to do so anytime someone mentions anything pertaining to sex. Despite his sexual attraction, he conceives that sexually molesting a boy would be morally wrong, and he never does so or considers doing so. This book follows Dalton Henson through college, a year of teaching physical education and coaching athletics at a junior high school, a summer as a camp counselor, two years in the U.S. Army—including a year in Vietnam—and the year after he is discharged from the Army, as he lives in a low-grade motel room in Tampa, writing a novel and interacting with a variety of motel staff and guests.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664111585

John Veteran

Author Bio: Coming Soon

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Copyright © 2021 by John Veteran.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/23/2021

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Contents

THE FRIENDLY STRANGER

1

2

3

The Rest of the Story . . .

LEAD ME, MY SHEPHERD

BY DALTON HENSON

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A WOULD-BE ADVENTURIST’S QUEST FOR COMBAT

Chapter 1   Hunter Liggett Military Reservation,

California - A Midnight Bicycle Ride

toward the Ocean

Chapter 2   Dong Ba Thin, Vietnam

The Night the Tet Offensive Began

Chapter 3   Central Highlands of Vietnam - Engineers

Save Dak To from the VC

Chapter 4   Bicycling Across California

THE

FRIENDLY

STRANGER

Preface

My sole purpose for writing and publishing this book was a desire to contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of pedophilia, which I gained through personal experience.

—John Veteran

There is no It Gets Better campaign for

adolescents afflicted with pedophilia.

1

When Dalton Henson was born on July 30, 1942, his father, Johnny, age thirty-six, was overseas with the Navy Seabees during World War II and his mother, Polly, age thirty, was staying in Savannah, Georgia, in the apartment of her oldest sister and her husband, who had no children. Her youngest sister, who was unmarried, also lived with them. Dalton’s father had entered the service several months earlier, having been previously employed as local manager for the power company in Fairfield in central Florida. Dalton was his parents’ only child.

Dalton called his oldest aunt Titto, his uncle B’ross, and his youngest aunt Argie, because those were the results of his first attempts to pronounce their names, Sister, Brother Ross, and Margie.

From the time Dalton began speaking, they often talked to him about Daddy, and he would often speak about Daddy, although he only vaguely understood the word.

The night the war ended, when Dalton was three years old, they all sat on the screened porch, listening and watching as cars jammed into the streets with blowing horns, and people swarmed on the sidewalks shouting and clanking pots and pans together.

Is Daddy coming home today? Dalton asked, excitedly. They had often told him Daddy would come home when the war ended.

Not today, honey––in a few weeks, his mother said. You see, he’s way across the ocean.

Oh, Dalton is going to be so happy to see his daddy, Sister said, in her gentle, kind voice, and his daddy is going to be so proud of him too.

During subsequent days Dalton would often ask excitedly, Is Daddy coming home today?

When the day finally came, they met him at the train depot. Dalton, wearing a navy suit and polished white shoes, his hair combed neatly, watched while his parents embraced. Then his father suddenly looked down at him, smiling. He was tall, thin, and ruddy, and had dimples and prominent cheek bones. Dalton felt frightened and tense.

"So you’re the one I’ve been hearin’ so much about," his father said.

His father bent over and lifted him, smiling proudly, but Dalton looked pleadingly toward his mother. When his father lowered him, he ran to his mother and hugged her legs, burying his face into her wool skirt. The adults all laughed.

The poor little thing, Sister said. All he’s been asking ever since the war ended is, ‘Is Daddy coming home today?’ He’s just a little too excited now.

Dalton and his parents remained together in Savannah a week, and Dalton continued feeling frightened and tense in his father’s presence. There was a good-humored harshness in his father’s behavior toward Dalton, which contrasted with the gentleness and kindness with which his mother, aunts and uncle treated him.

His father continued attempting to approach him.

Hey, boy, come here, he said, smiling, sitting alone on the living-room couch.

No! Dalton shouted.

Go over to your daddy, Dalton, honey, his mother, sitting in a chair, pleaded in her gentle, kind voice.

No! Dalton shouted again.

They would go for walks in the park, but Dalton always kept his mother between himself and his father.

Alone with his mother in the apartment, Dalton said, Don’t talk to him anymore.

Dalton, he’s your daddy, Mommy’s husband, his mother explained gently. Just like B’ross is Titto’s husband. You wouldn’t want Titto not to talk to B’ross, would you?

Dalton began crying and hugged his mother’s legs. Don’t talk to him anymore, he said, angrily.

His father left for Fairfield to reclaim his job. He planned to stay in the hotel until finding a house to rent, when Dalton and his mother would move there.

Has he gone? Dalton asked his mother hopefully.

He’s gone to Florida to find us a house, his mother said.

Is he coming back?

No, honey, but we’re going down to live with him. You see, we were just staying with Titto and B’ross until the war ended.

Dalton did not understand, and he was very happy that the stranger, Daddy, was gone. When he went to bed, he used to finish his prayer with, God bless Mommy and Daddy and Titto and B’ross and Argie, but now he would omit Daddy.

Don’t you love Daddy? his mother asked, in a sad voice.

No! he replied angrily, and he hit her arm.

Then one morning they left on the train to Florida. Dalton’s father met them, and they went to a one-story white wooden house in Fairfield with a screened front porch. When they went inside, late in the afternoon, Dalton was excited and ran from room to room, climbing on furniture, bouncing on beds, opening drawers, and crawling through a closet. But as night approached, he became sad and tense. He sat on the living room couch beside his mother, while his father sat in a chair.

When are we going home? he asked his mother.

"This is home now, honey," his mother said.

I want to go back to Titto and B’ross and Argie, Dalton said angrily. I don’t want to stay here with him.

An angry expression came to his father’s face, and his father said harshly, Now listen here, I don’t want to hear any more talk like that out of you!

Dalton was startled and frightened. No one had ever spoken to him in such a harsh manner. He looked up into his mother’s face, and she smiled and ran her fingers through his hair.

Oh, Johnny, he’s just a little h-o-m-e-s-i-c-k, she said.

As Dalton’s childhood progressed, whenever he was with his father, he typically felt tense dread and fear, and he would only speak to him briefly in a rude, mimicking manner. Occasionally his father would become violently angry and painfully whip him with a belt and curse at him, and Dalton would become intensely frightened.

He deeply loved his mother, and when alone with her, he would feel happy and peaceful. He would often hug and kiss her. They would take afternoon naps together, and she would read stories to him until he fell asleep. She would also tickle him and wrestle with him, lying on the bed, and when she would stop he would beg her to continue.

In school, he was successful in forming friendships with his classmates and in his school work. However, some of the older boys considered him a sissy and would tease him, and he feared and disliked them.

Dalton went to Sunday school at the Methodist Church, where his mother was the Sunday school teacher for eight-and nine-year-old children. His father did not attend church or Sunday school.

There were some times when Dalton would feel a weak fondness for his father, and when he was seven years old, in the second grade, he began good-humoredly calling his father Paw, after he saw the movie, The Yearling, in which the boy called his father Paw.

During the summer after he was in the fourth grade, when he was nine years old, he began playing Little League baseball, and he subsequently became very fond of athletic competition.

One day in May of 1954––when he was eleven years old and in the sixth grade––as he started home for lunch, walking across the school yard, he heard a girl’s voice call out, Dalton!

It was a girl in his class named Guy Nell. She was sitting with her mother in a car parked beside the curb. Dalton walked to the car.

What? he said.

The Little Woman’s Club is giving a party Friday night, and I’d like you to go with me, Guy Nell said.

Dalton felt a surge of unpleasant emotions––dread and shame. Although some of his friends had girl friends, and would take them to the picture show, Dalton had never had a girl friend although he had secretly liked various girls.

What kind of party? he asked.

Oh, it’s going to be games and things, and there will be lots of refreshments––cookies and punch . . . .

Well, I guess I will, Dalton said, reluctantly.

After school on the day of the party, his mother seemed cheerfully nervous and enthusiastic, ironing his short-sleeve white shirt and his good pants, which he wore only to Sunday school, and he felt the unpleasant emotions––dread and shame. As the time to leave approached, he put on the clothes and his mother carefully combed his hair.

Shortly before dark they left in the car, with Dalton sitting in the back. Guy Nell lived in a two-story white house with a large lawn. They parked beside the curb.

Go knock on the door and tell her we’re here, his mother said.

Dalton felt a renewed surge of dread and shame.

No, he said.

"Dalton, she has to know we’re here," his mother pleaded.

"Then you go," he said, angrily.

His mother seemed frustrated.

Oh, Dalton! she said, and she blew the horn.

Guy Nell came outside, wearing a light-blue full skirt, and smiling. She walked toward the car.

Open the door for her now, his mother said.

Well, she can open the door for herself, Dalton said.

His mother reached back and opened the door from the inside, and Guy Nell got inside.

Hi, the girl said, smiling.

How are you tonight, Guy Nell? his mother said, in a friendly voice.

Fine, Guy Nell said.

As they drove to the Woman’s Club building, Dalton remained silent as his mother made conversation with Guy Nell. The Woman’s Club was a one-story white wooden building on Main Street, just beyond the downtown area. Dalton had often been there with his mother, who was a member of the club. They parked out front beside the curb, and Dalton and Guy Nell got out.

Have a good time! his mother said cheerfully.

Dalton and Guy Nell walked together inside the building, where a group of boys stood against one wall and an equal number of girls stood against another wall. Dalton joined the boys, and Guy Nell joined the girls. Many balloons of different colors hung from the ceiling, and the windows were decorated with crepe paper. There was a long table, covered with a white cloth, with a bowl of punch and several plates of cookies.

Several more couples arrived, and then a seventh-grade girl who was president of the Little Woman’s Club walked to the center of the floor and called out, Would everybody come over here?

Everyone gathered around her, and she smiled nervously. Tonight we’re going to do something a little different, she said. It’s . . . well . . . it’s a little bit like dancing.

One of the boys said, Oh, no! in a laughing, reluctant voice, and then all the boys turned and walked rapidly away in a group, talking excitedly and laughing. They went out the front door, down the steps, across the lawn, and congregated beneath a chinaberry tree in the side yard. The girls followed them, and began pleading with them to return, and grabbing their arms, trying to pull them. The chaperon, a woman who was a friend of Dalton’s mother, smiled in a good-humored disgusted manner and said, Oh, boys, come on back inside!

After a few minutes, the boys returned. Dalton felt intense dread and shame. The club president stood in the center of the floor, smiling nervously.

Let’s all form a big circle, she said. Everybody stand by the person you came with.

Dalton stood between Guy Nell and another girl, and they joined hands. Music began playing and everyone walked in a circle. They reversed the direction, walked toward the center, and then reformed the circle. When the music stopped, everyone dropped their hands and stood silently.

Okay, now we’re going to try dancing with your partners, the club president said. She and another girl demonstrated the dance step, and then she said, Boys, you don’t have to dance with the girls until you’ve practiced with each other.

Dalton’s partner was a boy in the seventh grade. Dalton was confused and could not understand the pattern for moving his feet, although his partner tried to explain. Dalton had always had difficulty learning patterns of that sort.

Gradually the boys started dancing with girls.

I’m going to try it with Robin, Dalton’s partner said, and he walked away.

Dalton stood alone, feeling dread and shame, until the music ended.

The club president announced they were going to do another group dance, and everyone joined hands and danced in a circle again. Then she said they were going to dance with their partners again.

I think I’m going to sit this one out, Dalton said to Guy Nell, repeating an expression, sit this one out, that he had heard people say at dances in the movies.

Another boy, who was in Dalton’s class, was sitting in a chair against some bookshelves near the entrance, and Dalton walked over to sit beside him. The boy’s name was Buddy, but Dalton comically called him Private Eye because he said he wanted to become a private eye detective. His family had moved to Fairfield during the previous school year, and they lived in a rural area. He stuttered, wrote humorous poems, and often used unusual, sophisticated words when speaking.

Now, he sat with his legs crossed, looking studiously at a book, and he looked up as Dalton approached.

Isn’t th-this preposterous? he said, frowning disgustedly. Dalton sat beside him.

It certainly is! he said in the same manner.

Why don’t you find a good b-b-book to read? Private Eye said.

Yes, I think I shall, Dalton said.

He took a book from a shelf, opened it, and began scanning the words without any comprehension. He felt a strange mixture of intense elation and panic, which caused surges of chill-bumps on his face and neck.

This is a v-very in-interesting b-book, Henson. How is yours? Private Eye asked.

Very interesting, Dalton said.

Guy Nell walked up to Dalton.

Will you dance with me, Dalton? she asked, in a timid, polite voice.

I can’t, Dalton said.

The other boys are, Guy Nell said.

The girl who had taken Private Eye to the dance also walked up. Her family lived out in the country, and the boys from in town joked about her and teasingly accused one another of liking her.

Come on and dance with me, Buddy, she said to Private Eye.

Private Eye looked up from his book and frowned disgustedly.

You’re c-certainly not g-going to talk m-me into going out there and behaving in such a r-ridiculous m-manner, he said, and he began reading again.

Three or four other girls and the chaperon came up and began trying to coax Dalton to dance, ignoring Private Eye. One of them was the girl whom Dalton secretly liked. She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him from the chair, but he jerked free.

Oh, come on get up and dance, Dalton, the chaperon said, smiling. You’ll have a good time once you get started.

Then three or four women, including Dalton’s mother, entered the building. Dalton’s mother was carrying Dalton’s camera. She looked across the dance floor with an anxious expression and then spotted Dalton sitting in the chair, and a startled, distressed expression came to her face. She walked toward him.

Dalton, why aren’t you dancing? she asked, in a bewildered voice.

We’re going to talk him into getting up, Polly, the chaperon said.

The girl whom Dalton liked again grabbed his arm and tried to pull him from the chair.

You’d better get up and dance, Dalton Henson! she said.

Dalton jerked his arm free again.

Let me talk to him a minute, his mother said.

The others backed away and his mother leaned close to him.

Dalton, don’t you know you’re hurting Guy Nell’s feelings? she said quietly, in a sad voice. She invited you to the party, and now you won’t even dance with her.

Dalton felt a surge of anger.

You knew this was going to be a dance! he said, quietly.

No, I didn’t, honey, his mother said innocently.

What have you got that camera for?

Why . . . I just thought I’d take some pictures of the party, honey.

The chaperon returned, smiling. Have you talked him into getting up and dancing yet, Polly? she asked.

His mother smiled. No-o-o, she said, adding a polite, sympathetic laugh.

She and the chaperon went to the refreshment table and joined the other women, and Dalton continued looking at the book, feeling a mixture of intense elation and panic. After a few minutes, his mother and the chaperon approached him again.

Do you want to dance with me, Dalton? his mother asked, with a teasing smile.

No, Dalton said.

Oh, come on, his mother said, teasingly.

No! he said, angrily.

He and Private Eye continued sitting there the remainder of the party. Then Dalton, his mother, and Guy Nell got back into the car, and as they drove along Dalton sat silently while his mother and Guy Nell discussed the dance.

After Guy Nell got out, Dalton and his mother rode around the town a while, as they often did at night. His mother seemed in a strange, peaceful, dreamy mood. They did not speak for several minutes, as they drove to the edge of a lake and then started back for the downtown area.

That’s all right, Dalton, if you don’t feel like you want to start dancing yet, his mother said gently.

"I’ll never start!" Dalton said, with a tinge of anger.

"Well, Dalton, you’ll have to start sometime, his mother said. You’ll learn that you have to do a lot of things in this world that you don’t want to, if you want to get along. Why, how about if when you were in high school you didn’t go to the freshman frolics or the sophomore hop? Or even the prom?"

From then on, Dalton’s friends would often give dances for their birthday parties, and whenever there would be a dance, his mother would attempt to persuade him to go––pleading with him and speaking disgustedly when he would refuse.

Dalton began constantly dreading the dances. As the day of a dance approached, the dread and shame he felt would intensify. When one of his friends would mention dancing, he would blush deeply and this would add to his shame.

His mother continued attempting to persuade him to go to dances. Often he would become violently angry and would shout and curse at her. His father would generally ignore their arguments, but when he did say anything, it would be in Dalton’s defense, telling his mother that she should stop trying to persuade him to go to dances if he didn’t want to.

Then, in the latter part of Dalton’s eighth-grade year, his mother suddenly stopped trying to persuade him to go to dances.

Also during his eighth-grade year, he began feeling sexual attraction toward girls and women. Although he had an intense desire to see girls and women naked, he only had a vague idea of what a girl’s or woman’s sex organ looked like. When he would envision a girl or woman naked, she would be positioned so that her sex organ was not visible, like pictures of naked women he had seen in magazines.

In the ninth grade, most of his friends got driver’s licenses and began going on dates. Dalton’s mother would attempt to persuade him to get a driver’s license, but he would refuse. The idea of getting a driver’s license caused him to feel the same vague dread and shame as the idea of dancing.

Dalton became increasingly tense and ashamed in the presence of girls, and he would seldom speak to them. He secretly liked a girl who was one grade ahead of him, and whenever someone would mention her name, he would have a tendency to blush.

He was tall for his age and became very fond of basketball. By the time he was in the ninth grade, he was six feet two inches tall and was a good enough basketball player for the coach to put him on the varsity team even though ninth graders usually played on the junior varsity team.

The summer after Dalton was in the ninth grade, he and his parents moved to another house on the other side of town.

In the tenth grade, Dalton’s shame concerning the way he was––not going to dances, not going on dates, not driving a car––intensified, and he also began feeling more intense and persistent resentment toward his mother. He no longer loved her, as he had so intensely when he was a child. He began speaking to her only briefly in a disgusted voice, saying only what was necessary––the same way that he had always spoken to his father.

Also in the tenth grade, he had grown to six feet four inches tall and became the star basketball player on the high school team. He began envisioning himself going on to be a star basketball player at the University of Florida and then in the professional basketball league.

Also that year, hairs began growing on his chin, and his father bought him a razor. But the thought of shaving made Dalton feel ashamed for some vague reason that he did not understand, so instead of using the razor, he would sneak into the bathroom with his mother’s scissors and use them to cut the hairs.

His tendency to blush became more of a worry, as he would nearly always blush when someone mentioned going on dates or dancing. When this would happen, he would feel intensely ashamed and angry. Therefore, whenever associating with anyone except his closest friends, who he knew would not mention those things, he would feel a persistent tense dread that they would mention going on dates or dancing and he would blush.

By his eleventh-grade year, he was six feet five inches tall and was such a good basketball player that he was acclaimed in newspapers throughout his region of the state.

During the summer after his eleventh-grade year, he would often go to the high school gymnasium to practice basketball by himself. There was a summer recreation program at the gymnasium, and there would be children playing nearby as Dalton shot baskets.

One afternoon as he was shooting baskets, two boys about nine years old entered the gymnasium. They both wore short pants and T-shirts and were barefooted, and Dalton was suddenly sexually attracted to them.

From that day on, he continued to be sexually attracted to boys who had not reached puberty. He felt no sexual attraction for boys who had reached puberty. He also continued to be sexually attracted to girls and women, without having any desire to have sexual contact with them––wanting only to look at them.

2

(The following account was written by Dalton Henson. He originally wrote what he intended to be a novel about this period of his life, mixing truth and fiction, but at the age of twenty-seven he decided to make it an entirely truthful account, as accurate as his memory would permit.)

Early in May during my freshman year at the University of Florida, I received a letter from my father that was destined to cause me much mental anguish during the next month and a half. He was local manager for the power company in Fairfield, and he asked if I would be interested in a summer job on the company’s line construction and maintenance crew in Capshaw, a town nineteen miles east of Fairfield.

The source of my apprehension about taking the job was threefold. First, it required a high amount of mechanical aptitude, and my mechanical aptitude was virtually nonexistent. Therefore, it was inevitable that I would make a bumbling fool out of myself. Second, I had never been on a date with a girl, and I was very ashamed of that and knew that the men on the crew would talk about going on dates and having sexual relations, and I would blush and they would realize the way I was. Third, I didn’t have a driver’s license, and that was extremely peculiar for a boy my age, and I dreaded that they would find out.

But I knew when I received the letter that there was nothing else I could do but accept, because I knew my father wanted me to so badly; and from that day until my first day at work, I constantly felt a dull dread that would frequently intensify. I would be worrying when I went to sleep at night and when I woke up the next morning.

I took a week’s vacation between the end of the school year and my first day on the line crew, and we drove to Capshaw early one Sunday afternoon in mid-June 1961. Paw drove, Mama sat beside him on the front seat, and I sat in the back. All the way there, I kept hoping we would have a wreck and I would be injured and couldn’t go to work the next morning.

Capshaw was where Mama was raised, and her father still lived there, as did her second oldest sister and her husband, who was a railroad conductor. Like my uncle, the majority of men in Capshaw were employed by the railroad. The company’s main terminal in the central part of the state was located there, and Capshaw was the pivot point between Jacksonville and Miami. Since the railroad yard was the sole industry, and just enough people lived there to keep it operating, Capshaw was a stagnant town. The population of slightly over two thousand probably hadn’t varied over a hundred or two in the last twenty or thirty years, and many of the railroad workers were sons and grandsons of railroad workers.

Another strong impression I had about Capshaw was that its high school consistently produced powerful football and basketball teams. The most satisfying experience of my athletic career, and probably of my entire life, was upsetting their basketball team in the championship game of our conference tournament when I was a junior. I was the star player for Fairfield.

Arriving in Capshaw that Sunday afternoon, we visited my grandfather and then drove out into the country to the line crew foreman’s house.

The foreman, Dick Skinner, had just returned from fishing with his two young sons, and he greeted us in the front yard. He was tall––about six-two––and had muscular forearms and brownish red hair that had thinned out considerably. He spoke in a friendly rural drawl, and his overall mannerism was relaxed and good-natured. When he grinned, his eyes seemed to sparkle. He and Paw discussed some work the line crew had been doing, and his two sons were playing underneath a tree, taking turns climbing inside a large cardboard box and rolling one another across the yard.

Then we drove back into town, to a small wooden house about a block off Main Street where one of the crew members, Billy, lived. He came out onto the front porch when we drove up, and Paw and I got out of the car. He had also just returned from fishing, and he was only wearing a pair of dungarees, without a shirt or shoes.

Billy, this is my boy, Dalton, Paw said as Billy stepped into the yard, which was sandy and shaded by an oak tree. He was about five feet nine inches tall, heavily built, and there were distinct lines on his upper arms and chest where the pale skin normally protected by a shirt met the sunbaked skin that wasn’t.

His son, about four years old, followed him onto the porch and down the steps, and stood beside him in the yard. He was wearing a red bathing suit, and his face and the rest of his body above the waist were tinted pink with a mild sunburn.

Billy looked up at me, smiling, and said in a friendly rural drawl, I believe he grew kind of tall, didn’t he? He had thick lips, rounded cheeks, and friendly squinting eyes, and he was nearly bald even though he was only about thirty years old. How tall are you? he asked me.

About six-six, I said, trying to appear friendly and normal.

Paw and Billy talked a while and suddenly Billy’s son, who had been standing silently, exclaimed, "I caught a fish this big!" He was spreading his hands apart about half as far as he could reach and was smiling happily.

The purpose of our stop at Billy’s house was twofold. On his way to work every morning, he drove by the hotel where I was going to stay, and Paw arranged for him to pick me up the next day. And also, Paw asked him to look out for me until I got used to things.

The Majestic Hotel, an old two-story stucco building, was on a corner downtown, with one of the sides bordering Main Street. An adjacent side had a long front porch that overlooked the city hall block, which had a smooth lawn shaded by mossy oak trees and was much nicer looking than any other portion of the downtown area. The store fronts were mostly old and rusty looking.

Paw had told me the previous week that he had once stayed at the hotel, when he worked for the power company in Capshaw before World War II. That had been in the hotel’s more prosperous days, and he had stayed on a sleeping porch along with several other men. In fact, he met Mama while he was working in Capshaw.

The owner of the hotel was a widow, and she knew Mama, although they hadn’t seen each other in quite some time. Mama had telephoned her several nights earlier to reserve a room for me, and they talked five or ten minutes.

When we got to the hotel, a man was sitting in a chair on the porch, and he turned out to be an old friend of Paw’s whom Paw hadn’t seen in a number of years. His name was Red Nicholson, and he lived alone at the hotel. Paw introduced us and then stayed on the porch and talked as Mama and I went inside through a screen door.

In the lobby two elderly men were sitting and the television set was playing. One man sat beside the door, and he craned his neck to look up at us. The other sat in an easy chair against the back wall, and he looked toward us by turning his head slightly and sliding his eyes to the corners.

The lobby was dim and stale, and the sections of two or three Sunday newspapers were scattered across the room. There was a carpet on the floor, but it was worn so thin that the wood showed through in places.

Mama smiled and spoke to both of the men at once. Hello . . . We’re looking for the manager. Do you know if she’s around anywhere?

I he’p Miz Boros when she’s not around, said the man beside the door, pushing himself up. I’ll see if she’s in her room. He walked across the lobby to a closed door and started knocking. He was thin and bald, with a protruding Adam’s apple and a thin face with sunken cheeks. He was wearing brown pants and a long-sleeve white shirt rolled up to the elbows.

It’s a little warm today, the other man, still sitting, said to Mama. His name was Mr. Brandenwine, I later learned.

Yes! Hasn’t it been hot? Mama said. Just then she noticed that he was attempting to push himself to a standing position, and she quickly added, Oh, don’t get up!

I was about to get up anyway, he said. My legs are a little stiff from sittin’.

When he stood, his upper body tilted forward and his knees trembled, and his overall balance was so unstable that he had to momentarily raise his arms to avoid falling back into the chair. He was several inches shorter than the other man. In fact, stooped over like he was, he was slightly shorter than Mama. His face was flushed and wrinkled, and he had pure white hair, combed neatly and parted on the side. He wore glasses without borders on the lenses, and had on gray pants and a short-sleeve white shirt with a black bow tie. He had thick, firm forearms, indicating he had probably been quite strong in his younger years.

The other man continued knocking. He would knock four or five times, pause, and then knock four or five more times.

I’ll bet you’re retired, Mama said to Mr. Brandenwine.

Yes’m, he mumbled. I used to work for the railroad. I retired in fifty-two.

Oh, I think I remember you! Mama exclaimed cheerfully. I was raised over here. My daddy is W. D. Jarrell.

The man looked pleasantly startled in a weary sort of way. Oh, are you one of Mr. Jarrell’s girls? he said.

I sure am! Mama said. I’m the third from the youngest––Polly.

Well, I’ll be, he muttered. He’s a fine man. I haven’t seen Mr. Jarrell for some time now. I reckon it’s been several years.

He’s ninety-one now, Mama said.

Ninety-one, the man repeated. He intended the statement to be an exclamation, but he couldn’t quite muster the energy. Well, I’ll be seventy-three myself shortly.

"My goodness, you certainly don’t look that old!" Mama said.

About a minute after the first knock, the door opened and the manager stood there, smiling, still dressed for church in a tight blue skirt and matching coat and high-heeled shoes. Her gray hair was tied neatly into a bun. Her name was Alma Boros, and she was in her late fifties or early sixties.

You probably don’t even remember me, Mama said, smiling and biting her bottom lip.

Mrs. Boros stepped into the lobby, smiling, seeming in a mild nervous daze or as if she had just awakened from a long pleasant sleep. (I eventually realized that was her normal expression.)

Why . . . Polly! I should have recognized you! I remembered you’d called the other night . . . . Than she noticed me. "Why, that isn’t your son, is it? Why, my goodness, the last time I saw him, he was just a tiny little fellow."

He isn’t so tiny anymore, is he? said Mama, laughing.

"My goodness! How tall are you?" Mrs. Boros asked.

About six-six, I said.

Gracious! she exclaimed. Well, I think that’s wonderful!

I don’t know where he got his height from, Mama said. His daddy is only six feet and I’m only five-six. I guess they’re just growing taller now days.

Isn’t that the truth! Mrs. Boros agreed. "Why, some of the kids around Capshaw are so big . . . Why it’s hard to believe . . . even the girls."

I blushed and worried that she would notice.

He’s going to work over here this summer,