The Brick People

by Alejandro Morales

  The BRICK PEOPLE

  Alejandro Morales

  Publication of The Brick People was made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

  Recovering the past, creating the future

  Arte Público Press

  University of Houston

  4902 Gulf Fwy, Bldg 19, Rm 100

  Houston, TX 77204-2004

  Cover design by Mark Piñon

  Alejandro Morales, 1944– / The Brick People.

  p. cm.

  1. Simons Brick Factory — Fiction 2. California — History — Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3563.0759B7 1988 863 88-10409

  ISBN 978-0-934770-91-0

  CIP

  The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

  © 1988 by Alejandro Morales

  Printed in the United States of America

  12 13 14 15 16 17 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5

  For Delfino Morales Martínez and Juana Contreras Ramírez

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  The world dissolves when someone

  ceases to dream, to remember,

  to write.

  Carlos Fuentes, Terra Nostra

  The Brick People

  Chapter 1

  From the east where time began, the wind blew hard through the canyons and cold off the snowy mountains as Rosendo Guerrero waited in the early grey morning for Joseph Simons to emerge from his office. The morning brought back memories to Rosendo of his mother and father who were murdered by a deranged Frenchman who believed that the Emperor Maximilian was imprisoned near the Guerreros’ home. He was thirteen when the demented man broke into his home, demanding to know the whereabouts of Emperor Maximilian, a man whom neither Rosendo nor his parents had ever heard about. The crazed man shot wildly at the Guerrero family: Father, Mother and five children of whom Rosendo was the eldest. His brothers and sisters did not scream, but watched and turned into small brown rocks. The room filled with the screams and hand defenses of his father and mother attempting to stop the bullets with torn voice and bloody hands, and the insistent questioning and firing of the Frenchman. Rosendo overcame fear and leaped out through the doorway to survive in the blackness of the North.

  For many days, perhaps weeks, there was only blackness before his eyes. He kept advancing on the Flint Knife of the Northern axis of the ancient Aztec coordinates his parents had taught him. He could not go toward the Red Reed axis of the East, nor to the White House of the West, nor dare to look back at the Blue Rabbit of the South. At this time, these colors and images were hidden deep in his mind. Traveling through the pure blackness for seven years, Rosendo followed the brilliantly sharp Flint Knife that opened a path to the North.

  Rosendo arrived in Los Angeles to realize that most of his young adult life had been spent journeying to a place that he knew nothing about. He had followed a directional mandala that his parents had inculcated in his psyche.

  At the Simons Brickyard in Pasadena in 1892, he now traced the directional mandala in the soft red earth. The morning was one of complete loneliness as he finished the last oval figure of the mandala, which consisted of a center and four ovals interrelated in a continuous unwinding infinite spiral of energy, time and space. The figure symbolized Rosendo’s perception of the cosmos. It represented the pattern Rosendo would follow to construct the buildings on the six acres where the brickyard evolved.

  The men had worked for two hours. They had started early and would soon finish a complete order of bricks for a small house to be built on Fair Oaks near the intersection of Glenarm. The Simons Brickyard had achieved the capacity to produce fifty thousand bricks per day. The constant demand for brick projected a lucrative future for the brick business. Joseph Simons, the owner, had given Rosendo the authority to hire and fire the workers. At this time the yard had forty men, interviewed and selected by Rosendo. Most of the men hired were from Guanajuato, Rosendo’s home state.

  Rosendo tossed away the stick with which he had traced the figure on the clay. He looked at the door of the office from which the patron would emerge. He waited and observed the men at work. He, Rosendo Guerrero, did not labor; he directed and ordered. He, the privileged foreman, felt powerful. Physically, he feared no one. He respected Joseph’s business capabilities and the abilities of the labor organizers who mounted strikes against men like Joseph. Rosendo’s job was to keep the Mexicans producing constantly and remaining content with what they had, as well as function as sheriff of the town of Simons. Thus far no trouble had arisen and Rosendo did not expect any.

  Bricks were in demand and production continued to expand daily. Although Joseph knew a great deal about the production of brick, it was Rosendo who had taught him about clay and formulas for the preparation of mud, information which Rosendo had acquired from John V. Simons, Joseph’s cousin. Joseph listened carefully and experimented to improve his company’s products. For the first year and a half, he labored side by side with Rosendo and the workers. He built molds, trays, and long-drying racks; mixed, poured and formed red mud into bricks; dried and stacked the bricks into monolithic kilns for firing. Joseph acquired knowledge and business sense from Rosendo, whom he recognized as a business mentor.

  Inside the office as he prepared for the day, Joseph remembered the strange story he had heard the first time he met Rosendo. The waiter had offered the menu, but Joseph was not concerned with breakfast. Waiting for his coffee and reviewing some financial statements, he noticed a painting of a man and woman on the wall.

  “Who is that woman?” Joseph asked the waiter as he poured the coffee.

  The waiter casually glanced over at the painting. “That’s Doña Eulalia. She used to own lots of land around here. People say she still roams and haunts the countryside, especially the road that leads up to this hotel.”

  “How old is she there?” Joseph queried as he studied her dress.

  “That’s the mystery of la Doña. Nobody knows her real age. In 1836 or so, according to some kind of census, she was said to have been fifty-seven. Then eight years later, she gave her age as forty. When she lost her land it’s written that she was one hundred and fifty-five years old. And finally when she died in 1878, the doctor said he saw documents that would make her, on her dying day, one hundred and seventy. Some people think she is still alive.”

  “Absolutely astonishing,” Joseph said.

  “What’s more astonishing is what happened to her,” the waiter replied.

  Doña Eulalia Perez de Guillen married Juan Marine and became a guiding force in their life. Together they petitioned for a parcel of land known as El Rincón de San Pascual. Doña Eulalia had been active in the affairs of Mission San Gabriel where she attended to the Indian women, teaching them personal Christian hygiene and how to look after the infirm and dying. She grew to love the land which she and her husband developed. As a symbol of her love she planted an oak near the beginning of the road that leads to the Raymond Hotel in Pasadena. Her husband was present when she gently placed the tree into the ear
then womb that she had dug and formed with her hands.

  “Juan, I am this oak. It will grow as certain as my love for you and the land. The day they chop it down, I will die and I’ll become an insect of the land.”

  Doña Eulalia and her husband covered the tree with earth, watered it, and placed several large rocks and a wooden cross around it for protection. They mounted their horses and moved on to their house on the other side of El Rincón de San Pascual.

  She kept nurturing her oak tree and it sprouted three main branches—her sons. Soon after the birth of their third child, Juan Marine suddenly fell ill. He lasted seven days in bed. He lost hair, could not eat and his skin turned reddish as if it were burned. During his agony, he stated that he had seen strange objects coming from the sky which had surrounded him and left. The three sons became terrified of their father, and the people who saw him were convinced that he was bewitched and that the family had been cursed. Immediately after the death of Juan Marine, proceedings were initiated to take El Rincón de San Pascual from the Marine family.

  Over the years, Doña Eulalia fought each petition which threatened her legal right to the land. Throughout these long psychological battles she continued to care for her oak tree that grew stronger. One day upon her return from watering the tree she discovered that her three sons had abandoned her. They indicated in a note that they had lost interest in the fourteen-thousand acre ranch and that they preferred to seek their fortune in the city. The letter was not signed. Of course Doña Eulalia could not believe that her sons were capable of such an unexpected action.

  She began to search for her sons. She traveled to Los Angeles and inquired in all the outlying communities. She sent messages to the newspapers and asked at the various churches and missions. As she ventured further away, it became obvious that she was under surveillance, and the fear that her home was in danger was born in her heart.

  On a Sunday she had gone to early Mass and then to Los Angeles to inquire about passage on a ship to San Francisco. When she returned home, certain that her decision to go to San Francisco was the correct one and convinced that surely her sons had gone to that mighty city, she found her house ransacked. Doors, windows and furniture had been broken. The criminals had taken everything of value. Food and every article of clothing were gone. Doña Eulalia realized that she had absolutely nothing but the clothes on her back and her oak tree.

  Shocked by the devastated house, she ran through the rooms and glanced out at the world through each window. Suddenly she understood that the oak tree was in danger, and bolted out of the house and ran in the direction of the tree. She struggled to keep breathing. Falling and ripping her dress and undergarments, she advanced. Crawling, she moved forward, thinking that under no conditions would she ever give up. Her arms and legs felt like rocks, her mouth was dry, and yet she continued to get closer to the tree. She knew that they had been watching her for some time and were probably observing her now. Soon she would arrive at the place.

  Doña Eulalia stumbled on one of the rocks guarding the oak and fell before a large wound in the earth. With the last illumination of the sun she noticed the stripped root system of the fallen tree. They had chopped it down and cut the tree into four main pieces. The trunk was in front and perpendicular to her; the three principal branches were cut where they joined the tree trunk and then placed like a head and two arms forming the symbol of a man.

  “¡Mi familia! ¡Mi vida!” Doña Eulalia’s scream tore into the coming night.

  There on the ground she saw her husband and three sons and beyond them was the cross that she and her husband had placed so many years ago for the protection of the tree. On her knees she grabbed fistfuls of earth and rubbed it on her body. She ripped at her dress, exposing her flesh to the elements of nature. She faced the pit and allowed herself to fall forward.

  Three weeks passed before a local farmer and his family discovered the remains of Doña Eulalia’s clothes in the pit. The farmer went for the authorities in Pasadena. Hundreds of people from the town returned to see the clothes of the tragic Doña who had been reported missing by neighbors the day after she discovered the severed tree. No one was willing to touch the clothes. Finally one of the local roughnecks jumped into the hole and grabbed the dress and threw it out at his friends, whose faces suddenly communicated terror. The man in the pit looked at his feet and saw hundreds of indescribably large brown insects. The insects began to crawl onto his pant legs. Many people were paralyzed. Others ran screaming that the Doña had turned into millions of insects. Horror choked the people as they watched the insects overtake them, spread out and cover El Rincón de San Pascual.

  “Absolutely astonishing,” Joseph repeated.

  “Yes,” the waiter agreed. “It’s unbelievable that she turned into millions of brown insects, and yet people saw it happen. She understood the earth in a special way and possessed powers of the earth. She is the soil and those insects are her.”

  Shaking his head in disbelief, Joseph put his coffee cup down and walked outside to the front of the hotel. He strained his eyes to see but in the distance there was no sign of horses, wagon or driver. Irritated, he checked his watch—eight-thirty—and remembered that John’s reply had indicated eight o’clock. He returned to the hotel dining room and ordered more coffee. No telling when the wagon would arrive. Hours passed and by ten-thirty he had had enough. He decided to go looking for the wagon. At the moment he rose to go to the room to leave his luggage, a ruckus broke out in the lobby. Joseph moved nearer to see what had occurred. The reception clerk shouted at a dark man wearing grey woolen trousers, a white shirt, black vest and a grey wool cap who stood calmly in front of the counter.

  “You can’t be here! If you have something to sell, go to the back entrance. No Mexicans or niggers are allowed! Get out!”

  In his compact and strong stature, the dark man projected the image of power. The clerk’s aggressive insults failed to perturb him. He expressed no fear as he stood his ground. From under his vest he slowly and deliberately pulled out an envelope addressed to Joseph Simons and handed it to the belligerent man. The clerk turned to find Joseph by the dining room entrance. Joseph sensed that this was the wagon driver and was relieved that he had arrived. He was not angry at the driver but at the clerk. The Mexican works for John but could easily work for me, he thought as he was handed the envelope. The driver turned and walked out the main hotel entrance.

  “Mr. Simons, I ... ”

  Joseph raised his hand indicating that he did not want an explanation from the clerk. The Mexican was not much older than Joseph, but his face and demeanor revealed waves of experience. Outside, tending to the horses he waited for his orders. With a growing smile Joseph pushed the door open to see the unexpected. To his surprise John had sent a team of four large horses pulling two wagons. The horses were of obvious excellent stock and the wagons were new, the best and the biggest of their kind. The driver studied Joseph for a moment and stepped up onto the seat. Joseph nodded yes. The Mexican nodded yes. Joseph and Rosendo drove four horses and two wagons down Fair Oaks toward Glenarm Street. As they paced along confidently, men and women scrutinized them. Rosendo had turned out to be an excellent carpenter, handyman and shrewd businessman, a key factor in the success of Joseph’s brick company.

  Rosendo glanced at the office door and shook his head in disgust when a man interrupted.

  “Don Rosendo!” the large man who moved parallel with him called from a distance. Rosendo waved.

  “Some friends would like to speak with you. They are interested in a little job. If you would please, Don Rosendo.”

  Rosendo stopped at the barn where workers laughed and prepared horses, mules, wagons and tools for the day’s deliveries. The man who made the request stood twelve feet away and waited for an answer.

  “Why, of course. Tell them to be here tomorrow at eight in the morning for an interview. At exactly eight,” Rosendo spoke sternly, eye-to-eye.

  The man lowered his sight to
the ground. “Thank you, Don Rosendo. Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome. Now back to work,” Rosendo said, motioning the man to the pits where he would put in a twelve-hour shift digging red clay. Rosendo turned his attention to the barn and to his surprise he saw Joseph guiding a favorite horse saddled and prepared to be ridden.

  Joseph let go of the reins and approached Rosendo. “I want ten more men hired. Remember, no Chinamen.”

  “Yes, we have a lot of work.” Rosendo crossed his arms.

  “Within a year I’ll double the crew,” Joseph smiled.

  “The ten men you want to hire, where will they sleep?” Rosendo asked cautiously.

  Joseph laughed. “They can sleep in the barn or share the bachelors’ quarters. You don’t expect them to complain, do you?”

  Rosendo shook his head, but with eyes, mouth and hands communicated that to prevent their leaving, the men should have something better.

  “I’ll order wood to build cottages. Meanwhile, they can live in tents. You suggested a place for the cottages. Where?” Joseph waited.

  Rosendo stepped out in front of Joseph for a better view of the place in question. “The west side of the yard. In the White House of the west.”

  Rosendo made statements that Joseph could not comprehend; however, he respected the meaning and importance Rosendo gave to them. There was always an abstruse logic which Rosendo brought to the surface. Joseph had a high regard for Rosendo’s linguistic ability. Since the time that they had met, Rosendo had spoken English well.

  “Why the west side? Aren’t we going to dig there?” Joseph asked.

  “No. The pit in the south is rich. For many years we will get clay out of it. We will dig towards the north from the furthest point in the south. Towards the center of the yard. From the center we will gradually go down, deeper. The deepest point will be the furthest away from the center. We have houses on the east now and we should build more on the west separating the workmen. We will have two sources of energy, two sources of labor. The brick works and the new machines will be on the north side of the center, on the north side of the east-west axis. The office is located at the center. From there you can observe the world you create.” Rosendo seemed satisfied.