The Brick People

by Alejandro Morales

  “No, Walter, I don’t believe in your damn Mexican superstitions! Orin Elmer will have the best medical care that money can buy. He will survive!” Joseph’s voice was insane with fury and hatred for Walter who dared to offer a witch to cure Orin Elmer.

  At ten in the morning the frowning left and a great wail came from the wooden heart of Joseph Simons’ house. Melissa cried over the atrocity of her son who lay dying, being strangled by brown insects that flowed from his mouth. Walter had asked Joseph a third time to call for a curandero. Joseph’s response was to insist that Walter leave. Walter declared that he would go for the curandero despite Joseph’s denial. Upon hearing this, Joseph physically and violently threw his brother out. While the violence between her sons intensified and her cry became a loud gagging shrill, Melissa observed, fascinated, as the brown insects covered the body of her beloved Orin Elmer. The beasts crawled in and out of every orifice in his face and torso.

  At eleven in the morning Orin Elmer drowned in a cocoon of brown insects. His engulfed body gave off putrid odors and gushy popping sounds. His family was never able to brush the plague off his body. As his mother undressed him, the insects insistently clung to the skin and left his clothes immaculate. When Orin Elmer was placed in a casket, millions of bugs surrounded his corpse. Only when the box was closed forever did the multiplication of insects seem to subside.

  Orin Elmer was buried at Pasadena’s Christian Presbyterian Cemetery. Only the immediate family attended the service. After Orin Elmer’s death, a deep silent hatred remained between Joseph and Walter. From that moment on, Melissa was silent and blind, seeing secretly into the future forever.

  In the third week of October of 1913, the first official Mass of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church was celebrated. What should have been a joyous event was converted into a solemn moment to celebrate the entering into paradise of Orin Elmer Simons. It began early in the morning with the arrival of Bishop Connaty, accompanied by Father de Fives, Father Juan Zarrutia and Father Arcan Rose. By eight that morning a red-faced William Melone, the chief usher for the occasion, saw to it that Walter and Sara Simons, Joseph, Laura and James Simons were seated. Mrs. Arcadia Bandini de Blake, a benefactress, joined the Simons family in the front pew. As the Bishop prepared for the High Requiem Mass he was reminded of the grant of land and donation of construction materials and labor given by the Simons family. He was informed of Mrs. Arcadia Bandini de Blake’s funding of the altar, its artifacts and the images and paintings that decorated the church’s interior.

  The Bishop, satisfied that he and his assistants were ready, gave a signal to William to allow the Simons folk to enter. Few of them knew that they were about to hear a Requiem Mass in Latin, but as the word circulated here and there, sobs were heard. The cries and sobs multiplied and half-way through the Latin Mass most of the older women mourned the death of Orin Elmer Simons, a man whom none of them had ever met.

  After the Mass, Bishop Connaty paid tribute to Father Rafael de Fives for his excellent missionary work. He thanked Mrs. Arcadia Bandini de Blake for her generous contribution that would never be forgotten by God’s servants. He acknowledged the great sacrifices made by the Simons brothers and he urged the Mexican people of Simons to follow these unselfish, self-sacrificing examples of Christian love. The Mexican women, who understood very little of the Bishop’s comments in English, thought that he continued to talk about the departed Orin Elmer and they sobbed loudly in between sentences. The Bishop urged them not to cry but to show their gratitude to the Simons family, Mrs. Arcadia Bandini de Blake, Father Rafael de Fives and the other Benedictine fathers who loved by being obedient workers and faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

  After Walter and Joseph and their families rode away to their homes in Pasadena and Mrs. Arcadia Bandini de Blake was escorted to the Simons depot to catch the mid-day train to Los Angeles, Bishop Connaty gathered the Simons faithful outside their new church and announced that Father Rafael de Fives would be their pastor. He then blessed them and left for Montebello.

  That afternoon, Father Rafael de Fives, William Melone, and Gonzalo Pedroza organized an impromptu fiesta to honor their new pastor and church. All of Simons cooperated and they organized the first of many gay and exciting jamaicas. At one in the morning Malaquías and Lorenza de León took their family home. They walked under a sky blanketed with stars that lit their path. Nana, happy and content next to her mother, skipped all the way home.

  What seemed large and mysterious became smaller and familiar to Nana as she explored the Simons Brickyard and the company town. She roamed the company grounds and the agricultural fields and discovered a baseball diamond in the meadows of wild flowers on the north side of Vail Street. Every day at three in the afternoon twenty men practiced throwing and hitting the ball. The men ran to the points of the diamond and at times were able to make it back to where they started.

  Nana often watched the team practice. Each man performed superhuman feats. They ran faster, hit the ball farther and threw the ball harder than Nana could imagine. These men were giants who surprised her every day. On Saturday and Sunday, when the Simons team hosted visitors, Nana coaxed her father into taking her to the ballgame. She never fully understood the game but enjoyed the spectacle and excitement. Nana liked the Simons baseball players’ uniforms: baggy green shirts and short pants tucked with garters below the knee. The shirts had red rounded priests’ collars, and lettered in white down the front was the company name “Simons.” The men wore long white socks with red tops and green caps with short bills.

  There were times when Nana, Paquita and their father were astounded at the rowdiness of the crowd watching the game. At times the fans became drunk and threatened the players and each other. Nana had witnessed several fights break out. Most often the men were silly, so inebriated that they could not harm themselves. However, on one occasion that Nana never forgot, blood flowed heavily.

  The Simons team had a black first baseman, Glory, who was called “La Gloria” by the Mexican players and fans. Nana had never seen a black man. The first time she saw Glory she was astonished by his deep blackness, wide, flat nose, thick lips, big bright eyes and shiny, curly hair. She stared at him in amazement. Glory noticed the little girl scrutinizing him. He walked up to Nana, looked her right in the eye and said “Boo!” and laughed loudly, celebrating his joke. Nana, surprised and scared, felt his laugh and began to giggle. She never stared at anyone else again.

  Glory would always say hello and Nana would sit with her father or Paquita next to Glory’s family. During a game when his wife, two daughters and son were present, two members of the opposing team called Glory ugly names and made obscene motions toward his wife. Nana saw the Simons players calm Glory and sit him on the bench. His wife took her children in her arms and turned their sight away from the obscene men.

  When Glory came to bat, the insults began again and the visitors’ fans joined the name calling. The first ball pitched to Glory was at his head, causing him to fall. William Melone protested vehemently. Glory got up again to face the pitcher and once again the horrible words were directed at him and his wife and children. The pitcher threw the ball and hit Glory on the shoulder and neck. Glory fell, grimacing in pain.

  “I got me a real black nigger! After the game I’ll get that big-titted black bedwarmer over there,” the pitcher yelled proudly while the visiting players and fans cheered and applauded.

  Glory’s wife ran to her husband. The children remained seated next to Nana and regarded what was occurring. From the Simons bench bolted the players who went right at the pitcher and knocked him down. Glory got up and charged his attacker and beat him about the head. Both benches emptied and the visitors’ fans started for the field when five Simons men blocked their way. They drew their revolvers and fired above the visitors’ heads toward the empty fields. The melee suddenly stopped.

  Gonzalo Pedroza, who had come by at that moment, was told what had happened. He ordered the visitors to retreat and walk
ed over to where Glory sat on the pitcher. Gonzalo turned to the visitors’ fans and fired his gun into the sky and screamed at them to leave. He turned to Glory and the bleeding pitcher.

  “Hit him until you’re satisfied,” Gonzalo said to Glory, who sent his mighty fist crashing three times into the defeated pitcher’s face.

  Glory raised the battered man over his head, walked to where some visiting players waited surrounded by Simons fans and flung the pitcher at their feet.

  “Thanks for the game, boys,” Glory said and went to his terrified family.

  Nana waited next to Glory’s children. She never forgot the hatred she saw in the faces of the visitors and she always remembered the horrible words in Spanish and in English that were directed at the Mexicans for allowing a black man to play on the Simons Brickyard Baseball Team. The hatred went beyond the surface of what she had seen. It was directed at the color of their skin.

  Glory’s blackness and Nana’s brownness were shades of light that floated in her mind as she and her father walked home by the new Vail School building. The fields were covered with purple, yellow, and white wildflowers which reminded Nana to water her flowers on the doorsteps of the front porch. Walking with her father was a silent affair. He never said much to his daughters. The morning and evening greetings and commands communicated few real feelings stored in his heart. Nana observed that silence was the dominant nature of father-daughter relations.

  They were next to Vail school now. Nana’s feelings towards school were ambiguous. She enjoyed the academic, intellectual exercises that she understood in spite of the impatient teacher. Nana attended school with the other Simons children. Among them she found many friends and a few treacherous teasers, such as the five Pedrozas: Francisco, Maria Pascuala, Ramon, Jesus, who was as old as the six-year-old Nana, and Elvira.

  During the first few weeks of school, the children who had recently arrived in Simons were always the center of curious attention. The new kids seemed to move in the middle of a circle of children. Nana was placed in the second grade and as she walked to her class, Jesus, Elvira and Francisco watched and giggled close behind. Glad to see each other back in school, the smiling veterans entered the class.

  Nana took a seat at the front, not by choice but because she was one of the last to enter. She sat by the window at the head of the first row of desks. The crisp-warm autumn morning, clear and beautiful, invited Nana to enjoy nature through the window. She deliciously contemplated the birds outside flying from trees to swings to monkey bars.

  Suddenly Nana sensed that it was her turn to present herself to the class. The teacher realized that Nana was a recent arrival and called her up to the front. Once more Nana glanced to where the birds flew freely. She had no alternative but to obey. Acting automatically, she followed the teacher’s hand-motion to the front of the room from where she saw seventy eyes peering at her. From amongst those orbs Jesus and Elvira Pedroza smirked and giggled with delightful malice at observing Nana’s nervousness and embarrassment. Wearing a light rose dress, hair parted down the center with pigtails and white bows, she stood alone. Nana, with hands together, gazed at the floor while she heard the teasing comments of the Pedrozas. The teacher placed her hand on Nana’s shoulder. From the teacher’s red smile came words that Nana understood but did not particularly want to hear.

  “And what is your name?” the teacher asked.

  Nana fell into her self; shoulders caved into her chest, arms stiffened, hands clasped and pushed against the inside of her thighs. The wry-faced Pedrozas leaned forward to hear. Everyone waited through the silence.

  The teacher nudged Nana forward. “Look at the class and tell them your name.”

  Jesus and Elvira Pedroza regarded the other children, and with mouths half-opened on the verge of hilarious laughter, leaned over their desks again and exaggeratedly turned an ear to Nana. Without moving her head, she saw the Pedrozas for an instant. From deep inside she slowly pronounced her name with a fearful, embarrassed child’s tone.

  “N-a-n-i-t-a,” she said, her eyes searching the floor for an object to concentrate on for safety.

  “N-a-n-i-t-a,” Jesus Pedroza mimicked.

  Elvira laughed and imitated the name with a baby voice. Now the entire class mimicked and laughed at Nana.

  “You may sit down now, Nanita.” The teacher placed her next to Elvira, who could not sit still nor contain her laughter.

  Jesus repeatedly leaned over to see Nana. He opened his mouth wide, bobbed his head and enjoyed a silent guffaw which brought laughter from the class.

  Nana and her father now moved down the hill, through part of the Vail School playground, toward the arroyito which always had water. They crossed easily and moved up the hill to their home in the Hoyo. There was no reason to go home by this way. In fact, the route was longer. Her father chuckled to himself. What made him laugh, Nana wondered. They passed by a house with a heavily and colorfully burdened clothesline.

  “I brought some coats for the girls,” Malaquías told Lorenza as he placed the shopping bags on the kitchen table.

  “They need them. It’s getting colder,” Lorenza said, unwrapping the package and holding up one quilted, multicolored, butterfly-patterned bathrobe. “How pretty, Malaquías! Tomorrow they will wear them.”

  Lorenza took the three bathrobes to the girls’ room.

  “Look, Nana, the coats that your father bought for you,” she said to Nana, who reached for a red bathrobe with chromatic butterflies. It fit her. Paquita was fitted into yellow and Jesus received a green bathrobe. Nana dreamed of the next day when she would wear her brand-new quilted red coat to school.

  Nana’s mother, an early riser, had awakened Paquita at five. Today Paquita would stay home from school to help with the house chores. Paquita wore her yellow bathrobe. She lingered awhile, wondering why she had to arise at this hour of the morning while her sisters slept. She knew the answer—being the oldest, it would always be this way. Although disappointed about not going to school, Paquita was excited for Nana who would wear her beautiful red coat. Paquita was sure the children would comment and the Pedrozas would be envious. Tomorrow Paquita would wear her yellow coat and walk proudly next to her sister.

  By seven-thirty, Nana stepped out the back door and waved good-bye to her mother and Paquita, who cried silently. Nana moved down the dirt street through the Hoyo already bustling with workers. Simons Brickyard was growing rapidly. Nana ran to feel the wind through her hair. Soon she reached the downgrade to the arroyo. Below, about to cross the water, Jesus, Elvira and Francisco Pedroza teased three of their followers. Jesus threatened to throw the smallest boy into the water. Elvira and Francisco grabbed the boy’s legs but he resisted, yelled, cried and ran off. Nana had reached the Pedrozas during their attempt to teach the boy how to bathe.

  “Look who’s coming! La Nanita!”

  “And wearing a clown’s bathrobe!” Elvira pointed out as Nana started to cross the arroyo.

  “Why did you bring that bathrobe? Don’t you have a jacket?” Francisco asked Nana who stood on the other side of the arroyo.

  Puzzled by the remarks, Nana pulled together the lapels of the coat.

  “My papa bought me this coat,” Nana answered angrily.

  The Pedrozas ran across the arroyo. Jesus caught up to Nana and tugged at the red bathrobe.

  “This is not a coat. It’s a bathrobe for wearing after a bath!” Jesus broke into great laughs.

  By now other students had noticed the girl, Nanita, with her red, quilted, butterfly-covered bathrobe. Nana ran to her classroom and joined the line with the rest of the children who stared and giggled. Jesus and Elvira butted to the front of the line, joking all the while about Nana and her sobretodo. Nana now understood that the garment she wore was not supposed to be used as a coat since it was something called a quimona, a garment related to taking baths. Clothes that you would put on to cover the naked body immediately after bathing you would never wear in public. It was like wearing underwe
ar. Nobody must ever see it. Paquita would probably wear the bathrobe to the store. Nana stacked the embarrassing thoughts in a precarious tower in her mind as the children marched into the classroom. The teacher stopped her.

  “Why are you wearing your bathrobe, Nanita?” the teacher asked, half-angered and amused. And with a wry expression of disbelief she put a hand on Nana’s shoulder and slightly pushed her back to study the multitude of chromatic butterflies. Nana did not look up. Embarrassed and humiliated she only shrugged her shoulders.

  “Go in and sit down, Nanita,” the teacher ordered.

  As Nana went to her seat the Pedrozas struggled to contain their laughter. Other children followed the Pedrozas’ lead and chuckled.

  “Look what a pretty bathrobe Nanita is wearing,” a child commented.

  “I like the colors,” another added.

  “And the butterflies! Be careful they don’t fly away with you!” a boy shouted from the back of the room.

  At this comment, general laughter flooded the room. Nana sat silently crying. She wished that the butterflies would fly her away. The teacher brought the class to order. Before the children stood for the flag salute, Nana turned with teary eyes and wet cheeks, stared right into Elvira’s pupils, and noticed her face and the great difference in skin color. Elvira’s skin was as dark as chocolate. Elvira turned to face the flag. Nana scrutinized the face of Jesus and Elvira Pedroza, faces she would never forget.

  During the first recess the teacher offered Nana a sweater from the lost and found box, but Nana embraced her quimona and walked out to the playground to suffer the teasing that would surely come from the Pedroza children and their cohorts. Nana did not pay attention to them and soon the children forgot about the quimona and invited her to play.

  After school, still wearing her quimona, Nana ran home and found Paquita waiting in yellow and covered with butterflies. Nana described what had happened and both girls hung their quimona behind the bedroom door. Lorenza had already placed her daughter Jesus’ quimona there, for early that morning she had discussed with one of the neighbors the purchases which Malaquías had made the day before. In the conversation Lorenza discovered that what Malaquías and she thought were “sobretodos” were “quimonas.”