"Eugene was born in Cuba. He was raised in Miami, and later made his way to New Jersey. He told me he remembers cooking barefoot over an open fire with his grandma in Cuba, animals running all around. It’s a happy memory he tells me about as he sets up a propane burner and prepares some shrimp.
We are living in his memory as he tells it - cats and ducks and rabbits are all around us, there are tomatoes and corn growing in the garden, the place where we are is next to the railroad tracks but everyone here is a trucker. The dominoes table is set up and a couple of the guys are having beers, waiting for Eugene and the other players.
The cars could be more guys coming for dominoes and food, sometimes it’s someone heading to AJ’s or an Amtrak worker, but usually the sound of tires crunching on gravel means more beers. A train whooshes by and in the echo of it’s path there is a brief stillness, a silence only noticed by the geese bobbing in the marshy waters of Penhorn Creek. A red winged blackbird sings, and Euegene smiles at the birdseed he hung from the trees - 'they love it here.'”
- Nicholas Pollack