I met up with Billy D. Harris at the country store in Aubrey, Arkansas, then followed him out into the cotton fields. There was a slight breeze before sunrise, but once the mist and shadows lifted, it grew so hot that everyone on his work crew was dripping with sweat. When the men all around him began to cover up against the sun and mosquitoes, Billy pulled his shirt off, as if he could assert his power over the elements. And I saw him right then not as a fieldworker but as an aging prizefighter, a spirited, even fearsome man whose chances for a better life were beginning to dim, no matter how hard he fought. Billy stood motionless for maybe