'KAZUKO' First page.

Part one being happenings on and near the New York Central Rail Road Tracks: A prelude of things to come.

A thousand people line the tracks
Back to nose and nose to back
All come to see
The old steam train
From way back when
It took our boys
And made them men
The very same train
Then brought them back
Some on foot
Some in sacks.

Excerpts from the book I might never write.

The first story I might put in the book I might never write.

The Man That Could Not Shave.

He is a black man. I say that because it is true. He came up from Florida with the Byrd Company buying and processing green tomatoes grown by the local farmers. The black man works for the Byrd people. So do I.

We work in an old abandoned railroad terminal located next to the New York Central tracks. The building constructed of wood is very long and narrow.

The black man is living in a small room that was once an office. His bed is a discarded ragged and dirty mattress laying on the bare floor.

The black mans face is terribly scarred from the pox he once suffered. There are mountains and valleys of tormented flesh on his face. The tormented flesh is covered with a thick growth of graying whiskers. I watch him one day apply a white cream to his face; the cream like an acid melts the whiskers away. The process must hurt because there are tears in his eyes; or perhaps the tears are there for another reason. If I were he I think I would cry a lot.

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Thanks!

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