The Brick People

by Alejandro Morales

  Octavio and Nana were about to enter the house when the ground swallowed the mourners.

  With the new use of electricity, wiring and overloaded female connector terminals became a common cause of fire. Panfilita Cora lived with many hens and roosters in her house. She was blind and at ninety-five simply did not bother to distinguish outside and inside. To her it was all the same; nothing stopped her from being where she wanted to be at whatever time she desired. The women of Simons cared for ancient Panfilita. They chased the chickens and roosters out, cleaned her house and made sure she had plenty to eat. The women asked the men to install electricity in the house. This would enable them to visit Panfilita in the evening, make sure she had eaten, iron her clothes with the new communal electric iron the women had bought, and ensure a relatively comfortable life for the senior woman. The women who visited at night always left the kitchen light on.

  One evening after Panfilita’s friends left the house, she opened the back door for her animals to enter freely. Early the next morning she went into the kitchen to prepare her breakfast. Five chickens roosted on the table and Panfilita sent them scurrying. Three of the five flew up onto the worn wire connecting the bulb over the table. The chickens landed on the wire and a moment later Panfilita smelled burnt fowl. The light went out and the hot wire came to rest on a pile of tissue papers that Panfilita saved to start the stove. Before the residents could organize a bucket line, the house had burned to the ground. Miraculously, Panfilita stood by her stove, stoking the fire to heat tortillas. She had worked through the conflagration, and when the people found her still next to her stove slapping out some thick tortillas in her hands, not a burn marked her body.

  These strange, alarming events were the results of powerful energies maneuvering for advantageous positions at the starting line of a violent primitive race towards complete power over their own lives. The world of labor was not exempted from the violence. In El Monte, Mexican and Filipino farm workers joined together and struck for higher wages, improved housing and better working conditions. The violent strike involved approximately seven thousand men and their families. The news of the strike and the wage gains it won spread throughout Southern California. The victory augmented the confidence that was growing in the Mexican worker in the area.

  Octavio, Armando Takahashi Subia and Caroline Decker discussed the positive and aggressive attitude of the Simons workers who had attended the third meeting of CAWIU at Barrio Margarito. Carlo Lanzetti, a fellow organizer from the Long Beach office of the CAWIU, had spoken about the possibilities of organizing a strike against Walter Simons, and in particular the Simons yard on Rivera Road and Vail Street. Lanzetti described what the workers could expect during a strike. He spoke about how difficult it might become and urged the men to prepare themselves and their families. Lanzetti set a meeting at Simons Brickyard to officially invite the workers who could not show up for the present session. Discussion at the Simons meeting would detail the state of negotiations with the patron.

  Loud cheering, yelling of “¡Viva!” and clapping broke from the forty-five men when they heard the possibility of a huelga and consequently, a victory for higher wages, better medical care and job security. The men’s spirit, confident that they would win a strike, prepared them psychologically for the oncoming confrontation. Octavio was aware that the men would fight. They were more afraid of the results of another Depression-like situation than the silent threats made by William Melone, Jacobo Ramos and Gonzalo Pedroza who had the power to fire but would not execute the threat for fear of a strike.

  If the superintendent and foremen lost control of the workers, they in turn lost their jobs, Walter had declared upon his return from Europe. He had been frustrated in his efforts to spur brick production. The earthquake had stopped the large orders he once enjoyed. Now it seemed that contractors turned away from brick as the main building material and used it mainly as a decorative facade. Walter now faced his militant Mexicanos to whom he had given everything they needed to survive, and who now threatened to stop production completely by declaring a strike.

  Octavio thought that Simons owed the workers compensation for faithful service and insisted on higher wages for more complex, technical work. He remembered the phrase “trabajo complicado y técnico” as he paid the house to enter into a high stake poker game in Barrio Margarito. Jose Revueltas, Guadalupe Sandoval, Juan Juarez and Isidro Olague accompanied him.

  Octavio played until six in the morning. At the table was a man who had lost every cent, had borrowed several hundred dollars from the house and was down to his most precious possession—a pearl-handle pistol—which he put in the pot to call what he calculated to be Octavio’s bluff. When all the cards faced up for the men around the table to see, the man cried in disbelief that he had lost. He sat stunned. Armando, who had joined the group, warned Octavio to leave immediately because the man he had humiliated was a member of a notorious gang of thieves who usually arrived about this time to help their friend make up any losses incurred. The men from Simons heeded Armando’s suggestion and by seven-thirty had turned off Washington Boulevard onto Vail Street.

  Octavio gambled and won obsessively. It was one way he took revenge on the decadent, obscene, diseased world which had infected and murdered his brother Maximiliano. It was the world created by the gringo which tainted everybody with their pleasure-oriented values which he felt caused “un daño en el cerebro,” a wound in the brain.

  “Erfath, erfath, ate, ate. Ama, Ama.” Eight-year-old Arturo spoke in his backward way to his father as he entered the house through the kitchen. He turned and searched for Nana who had gone for Javier.

  Nana returned holding Javier and found Octavio drinking coffee and staring at Arturo happily eating his breakfast. Seeing Octavio sitting there, Nana felt mixed emotions. She was relieved that he was back safe, but she was angered at his carousing, gambling, drinking and union organizing. She would make him breakfast and then send him out to Maravilla for groceries. Nana noticed her husband’s weariness. It’s his own fault! ... She placed breakfast before Octavio who ate with Arturo and Micaela, who joined them. Nana left to fold clothes in the bedroom.

  “I don’t want you to go out to the street,” Nana yelled out to Micaela and Arturo who ran outside to play. Seldom, only when she was present, did she allow them to leave their yard to play with neighborhood children.

  Octavio reached for a clean shirt on the bed. He reached in his pocket and showed Nana a roll of bills which he had won that morning.

  “You know that I don’t want that money,” Nana said and placed his clothes in a standing closet.

  “Seven hundred dollars,” Octavio said.

  “I don’t want it,” Nana said sternly, looking directly at Octavio.

  “But save it for me, please,” Octavio asked.

  “Leave it where you always do.” Nana motioned to the top drawer of her clothes dresser where she had her intimate clothing.

  Octavio felt around and pulled out a cloth bag where he stuffed the money. He pushed the bag to the back and covered it with his wife’s soft, smooth undergarments. As he pushed the drawer shut he smelled the fragrance of cedarwood and Nana’s own orange blossom perfume. He stroked the brass drawer handles.

  Their love-making had not been the same for some time now. Even before Maximiliano’s illness, a distance had begun to grow between them. Octavio’s absence in the evenings to meet his gambling obligations and organization activities caused Nana to become cold toward him. It became obvious to Nana that it was more important for Octavio to spend his leisure time with his union organizer acquaintances and gambling than to be with his family.

  “Déjame en paz” and “No me toques” became a common phrase expressed by both Nana and Octavio. Their dreams for the future, love-making, their marriage, their communication were minimized to the absolute essential level. Octavio seldom stayed at home more than the five hours he needed for sleep. Nana dedicated her energies to the house and her family an
d to Milagros who had also long before begun to suffer the same plight. In these years Nana became a solitary woman, a woman finding energy, inspiration and the will to endure from within herself.

  At about nine in the morning on a foggy June day in 1937, the eighty-five man crew had converged on what used to be Gonzalo Pedroza’s restaurant. Armando Takahashi Subia, Caroline Decker and Carlo Lanzetti received the Simons workers with coffee and Mexican sweet bread provided by the workers’ wives. The men, in high militant spirits, joked and kidded as they drank coffee. Three bottles of whiskey circulated, serving “un piquete” to most cups of coffee.

  That morning Walter’s faithful Mexicans had started working at the normal hour. They cranked up the seven machines, fired a newly-stacked kiln of bricks, revved up five Plymouth locomotives, started up a dozen trucks and commenced to produce brick. At nine o’clock, the workers suddenly stopped and gathered at Gonzalo’s old restaurant. Peregrinación Juarez, Domitila Olague, Mirasol Leco and their daughters carried in nine dozen apple empanadas. The men did not wait for Lanzetti to speak; they went for the empanadas.

  “They’re hot. We must not wait,” a worker commented.

  “Don’t be hogs. Leave some for the men in the back,” a man shouted, making his way to the trays.

  Drinking coffee and munching on empanadas, the workers settled down to listen to Lanzetti who had raised his arms and hands signaling for silence. He began by talking about the history of the ongoing working class struggle and he described Walter as a paternalistic exploiter who lived in an extravagant, luxurious world, known to the workers as the world of “los ricos.” It was a world they had never seen much of, less imagined. Lanzetti told the Simons workers that they had basic human rights.

  “You deserve, you earned, you have the right to demand higher wages for technical work, better medical care for yourselves, your wives, and your children, a pension, Social Security for yourself and family. All of you have worked hard for these benefits and Simons must cooperate, must meet your just demands!” Lanzetti yelled to every person in the large room. He sipped coffee.

  “All of you know that Walter Simons is here today. He came to see if you had the guts to close down the plant. Well, you showed him that you mean business, didn’t you!” Lanzetti exclaimed and raised his right fist.

  Armando and Caroline, standing at diagonal corners, applauded and cheered. The workers, many of whom understood most of Lanzetti’s statements, applauded their agreement. The men who did not understand followed suit. As a group, they understood what they had done and what needed to be done to achieve their demands.

  The meeting place, located next to the general store, made it convenient to walk over to Walter’s office and picket the building. Gonzalo and Jacobo waited with shotguns in hand. None of the men dared approach the entrance. They had completely encircled the building and marched clockwise around it. Lanzetti, Armando and Caroline took a position in front of the entrance. With them stood Jose Ceballos, Juan Juarez, Leon Martinez, Isidro Olague, and Octavio. After approximately twenty minutes of slow, silent marching by the group, William Melone appeared carrying a clipboard, his right hand resting on the handle of a thirty-eight caliber Smith and Wesson.

  “Why don’t you men go back to work? You’re wasting time and losing money,” William called out and stepped down to the ground where the five workers waited.

  “Jose, Leon, Isidro, Juan, why did you stop working? Mr. Simons has treated you and your families very well. He has provided everything that you need. Did you, did any of you, suffer during the Depression? No, because Mr. Simons gave you credit to get what your families needed. Now you owe him a favor. So go back to work!” William took five steps to where Octavio listened next to Guadalupe and Ignacio Sandoval in front of the three union organizers.

  “Octavio, why did you bring these people here? They are troublemakers. Mr. Simons says that they are Communists and that he wants them off his property.”

  The workers stopped marching and crowded around Walter’s three stooges who slowly stepped back onto the entrance porch.

  “We want to talk with Mr. Simons,” Juan Juarez shouted.

  “Hey, Gonzalo, call him. Tell him that we will wait for him here,” Leon Martinez said.

  “We want to discuss our demands,” Isidro Ceballos insisted.

  “The patron will not speak to you today. You don’t appreciate what he has done for you. You are acting rudely. Return to your jobs. I repeat, the patron will not speak to any of you today,” Jacobo spoke angrily with the shotgun pointed directly into the crowd. He gestured to Gonzalo and William to enter the office.

  The workers resumed their silent march. By now the wives and children had joined. The women and children had made the strike a collective family struggle and brought about the feeling of complete unity. The Mexican families marched on into mid-afternoon when William stepped out communicating a different attitude.

  “Mr. Simons has agreed to discuss your demands,” he began and was interrupted by cheering. “But not today, and not with all of you, and especially not with those Communists.” William hurried the sentence and braced for the response which came before he had even finished.

  The workers insisted on seeing Walter immediately. William asked for quiet.

  “He is willing to talk about your demands but he wants to study them. Do you have a detailed list of grievances and demands?” William waited.

  The workers looked around and wondered if anyone had prepared a list. Lanzetti passed some papers to Jose Ceballos who lifted the documents above his head and approached William.

  “Good. Now Mr. Simons needs to review these documents. In a few days he will call your representative. But he also wants you to go back to work while he studies these papers. What do you say?” William watched while the workers caucused.

  “Fine. We’ll give him five days to tell us where he wants to meet,” Jose Ceballos answered for the workers.

  “Who will represent you?” William asked, surprised at how well organized they seemed to be. Jose Ceballos stepped forward again.

  “Leon Martinez, Isidro Olague, Octavio Revueltas, Juan Juarez, and me.” Jose Ceballos at that instant hated William Melone.

  It took Octavio to break the dangerous staring trance which both men had created. Octavio placed a hand on Jose’s shoulder, allowing him to pull away his vision and not lose face with William.

  “We’ll work till sunset. That way Mr. Simons can’t say that we stole hours from him,” Octavio said.

  Octavio led Jose, trembling with rage, away into the afternoon. He threw his jacket over Jose’s shoulders and calmed him. He noticed that the sun had burned away the fog and cleared the day.

  The table that was placed at three o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday, payday, in front of the entrance to the general store was the same one used for years by James Simons. Before he sat down he removed his coat, hung it on the back of the chair and adjusted his shoulder holster and made sure that the thirty-eight caliber pistol slipped out rapidly. Behind him stood William with a shotgun and Gonzalo in his usual place on the right-hand side of the first worker in line. Jacobo, at the right of James Simons, called the men forward.

  Before they approached the table, many of the men adjusted their pistols tucked under their belts. Some had hip or shoulder holsters and a few had a shotgun or a rifle of different caliber. Each man walked forward confidently to receive his pay. Octavio was not armed when he took the brown envelope and moved to where his father counted his money. Octavio repeated Damian’s action without taking the bills out of the envelope. Jose Ceballos came up counting his cash and stood next to Octavio.

  “All here,” Jose said.

  “They’re already stealing from us. They would not dare lower the measly wages they pay!” Damian said for everyone to hear. Octavio smiled and enjoyed his father’s sarcasm.

  “Octavio, Mr. Simons has asked for a meeting,” Jose Ceballos called out.

  “When?” Octavio ask
ed.

  “The representatives received an invitation for Monday, at twelve, his house in Los Angeles. He invited us for lunch,” Jose Ceballos said excitedly and with subtle pride that they had been invited to Walter’s mansion on exclusive Plymouth Avenue in Los Angeles.

  “You have to dress formal,” Jose Ceballos added.

  Damian took the invitation from his son. Octavio grabbed it back and read it. He crumpled it and threw it to the ground.

  “We don’t have to impress him. We must convince him. Monday is a day of work. We’ll be there in work clothes!” he said convincingly.

  “Good idea, Octavio. Meet here at nine. We’ll take my truck. Tell the others.” Jose Ceballos threw his jacket over his shoulder and walked home.

  Octavio’s eyes chased the blue-silver glitter that danced around the thousands of diamond-shaped crystals of the chandelier. They seemed to have been stopped from falling from the beautiful white ceiling by smaller diamonds that spiralled to form a marvelous inverted pyramid. The sparkling apex pointed to the silver bowl filled with steaming vegetables being served by a dark-skinned woman. Octavio glanced at Jose Ceballos, Leon Martinez and Isidro Olague who sat across the elegant table touching the silverware, waiting for Edit Simons to begin to eat. Next to Octavio sat Juan Juarez. At the head of the table, Walter smiled and lifted his glass of red wine. Edit peered at Juan Juarez who, as he chewed his food loudly, banged his knife and fork on the china. Annoyed, she frowned at her husband who cleared his throat and lifted his glass higher.

  “At this time I think a toast is appropriate,” Walter spoke directly to Juan, who continued to enjoy his lunch. “A toast, Juan.”

  Jose smiled slowly and was glad that Juan felt comfortable. Juan daintily patted his lips with the silk napkin. He raised his glass and glanced politely over to Edit, turned and looked at the patron.