The Brick People

by Alejandro Morales

  The war in Europe was ending; Hitler and the German armies suffered defeats on all fronts. On May 8, the war ended in Europe. By late July the Japanese were brought to the brink of surrender, but the Japanese Emperor would not capitulate to the United States, a country, he had declared, whose intelligence was dragged down by Mexicans, Negroes, Puerto Ricans and other mongrel races. The first ray of peace came when the Japanese military was assured that Japan would not be enslaved as a race nor destroyed as a nation. The emperor did not change his mind and the next light his people saw was dealt by President Harry S. Truman. On August 6 and 9, atomic bombs took their toll of life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Pacific war came to an end on August 14, 1945. On the next day, the United States began to celebrate. The news traveled slowly throughout the Pacific until finally, weeks later, on September 2, it was hoped that nowhere in the world were American boys dying. And along with all the rest, the Mexican boys from Simons were coming home.

  Three months after the end of the war, William Melone and Gonzalo Pedroza repeated the threatening promises they had made to certain workers. The world was now at peace, and the United States celebrated victory. The December holidays were exuberantly religious, faithful and kind. The new year, 1946, opened the doors to the United States, the most powerful national force in the world. The American soldier symbolized the national collective consciousness of the time. Walter insisted again that past union organizers be ousted from Simons to reward jobs and housing to the brave Mexican boys who had fought for their country.

  Octavio was approached and ordered to leave Simons housing no later than March 1, 1946. When Octavio faced William and Gonzalo, he simply nodded to acknowledge that he understood. When the middle of January came around, Octavio still had not found a home for his family. He was ignored, refused, and insulted everywhere he inquired about the rental or purchase of a home in Montebello. Racism, segregation and discrimination were the banners of victory in Montebello.

  “We don’t want Mexicans on our street.”

  “There are very few Mexican children attending our schools and we don’t want to encourage more.”

  “I don’t care if you can pay or not. I don’t care if you or any of your tribe was born in the United States. I won’t sell to a Mexican.”

  “Hell, you can’t even speak English well enough to keep up with people around here. Your kids probably only speak Mexican. They can’t get along with the English-speaking children in the neighborhood. Selling to Mexicans only means trouble.”

  “I don’t give a damn if your children can speak English well. You’re nothing but a bunch of Indians and Mongolians. We don’t want Indians and Mongolians in our neighborhood or in our schools. Get out!”

  “We don’t sell to people that are not of the American race.”

  “Hey, amigo, this part of Montebello is not zoned for you.”

  “Mr. Revueltas, you don’t want to buy here. It will be impractical since your children will be automatically transferred to the Simons school.”

  “Get out of here, greaseball! We don’t want your kind around here!”

  “True, the Hidalgo family does live in the area, but Mr. Hidalgo is one Mexican with the type of outstanding economic influence and quality upbringing that is rare. The Hidalgo family has credentials that allow them the privilege to live among us.”

  “Sorry, but we don’t want any spics near our women. We believe in one God, country, language and race.”

  “For generation after generation we haven’t allowed Mexicans here. We don’t give jobs to them or to niggers. Our churches are not open to their worship. The Montebello plunge is off limits to them and we don’t like them to visit the city park.”

  “You can’t buy in Montebello. Go to Simons. There’s where you belong. Old man Simons has provided everything there for you. He’s created a real Mexican paradise. Now get out of my office, you pachuco breeder.”

  After he had been verbally assaulted in his last attempt to buy housing, Octavio passed several houses recently built by Simons workers who had left the brickyard for factory jobs. These men had been fellow workers who advised him to purchase land on Date or Español Street and not to be so proud as to want to live among the gringos who rejected him. ... Pride, shit! Don’t I have the right? Why did our kids die in the war? When our boys return, don’t they have the right to live wherever they want? ... Octavio walked home from work at one o’clock through the cold and drizzly morning of February 1, 1946.

  The driving rain against the bedroom window awakened him. He opened his eyes and made his way out of bed. He stood over Nana who slept a little longer, not yet quite sensing his movements. The baby in the small crib at her side slept cozily. In white jockey undershorts, his right hand on his genitals, Octavio went to the window. Since he had arrived early that morning the rain had fallen constantly. Now the wind whipped the water against the wooden Simons house. Octavio felt a chill and returned to bed to cuddle.

  He woke up to the smell of bacon, eggs, tortillas and chili. As he washed, shaved and dressed, he realized that he had slept well into the late morning. He would have to hurry, for he had promised one of the workers that he would work half of the young man’s shift so the young man could go to a party with his friends. Octavio did not mind. The extra money would come in handy for gambling purposes, especially now that he would have to buy property to build a home. When he saw Nana’s face that late damp morning he had already decided that he would build on the lot that Don Sebastian Pantoja had offered for three hundred dollars.

  Nana served breakfast and smiled. She left to check the baby and returned to flip tortillas heating on the yellow wood-burning stove.

  “We’re going to buy a lot on Español, the lot that Don Sebastian offered us,” Octavio said and waited.

  “And? ... ” Nana waited for him to finish the sentence.

  “And there we will build a home,” Octavio said.

  “Whatever you say, Octavio. But where are we going to live while you build the house?” Nana asked, somewhat annoyed.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it.” Octavio paused. “Make my lunch because I have to go in early.”

  “What time do you go in?” Nana asked, already wrapping the tacos.

  “When you finish making those tacos.” Octavio thought about walking by the bachelors’ quarters for a few hands of poker.

  Nana finished with the lunch and placed the bag on the table and picked up the dishes to wash.

  “Where did Arturo go?” Octavio asked.

  “He went with Alberto. I’m not sure where. He said he was going to buy something to go to a dance tonight,” Nana answered and noticed Octavio’s face tightening with anger.

  “Javier went to work,” Octavio stated.

  “Yes, Octavio.” Nana affirmed her husband’s thinking out loud and for a moment saw him as a psychologically exhausted man.

  “Micaela?” Octavio murmured.

  “She has to study catechism. Soon she makes her confirmation. You know that, Octavio. What is wrong with you?” Nana stepped toward him.

  “Nothing.” Octavio reached for the lunch and bundled up with a sweater, jacket, overcoat, heavy scarf and grey English sports cap.

  Nana smiled and shook her head. “Flor is playing with Gregorio.”

  “Take care of them for me, like always. See you tonight.” Octavio closed the door behind him and entered the damp and drizzly afternoon.

  Chapter 20

  Everything was normal. Micaela saw her mother finish stacking the diapers on the sofa and sit in the rocker. Nana stretched her neck back and breathed deeply, an instant rest. After a few moments she pulled out the pins that held her molote in place. The right side of her hair tumbled down over her back and right breast. With two pins in her mouth she reached for the left side and released the rest of the obsidian waterfall.

  “Micaela, we’ll check the bread and then go outside.” Nana pushed off the rocker and led her daughter to the stove.


  “This damn stove gets too hot!” Micaela exclaimed.

  Nana placed the bread on the table. Micaela sprinkled a little more cinnamon on the golden brown bread.

  “It stopped raining.” From somewhere deep in her mind Micaela heard her mother. Faint voices muffled by the thick moist air came to the women.

  “What’s that?”

  Nana shrugged her shoulders. Micaela rubbed her hands and put her coat and galoshes on. She and Nana moved away from the warmth and exited through the back door. The wooden outhouse sat in a corner toward the South Montebello Dairy property almost against the back wooden fence that marked the limits of each lot. Nana thanked the heavens for the brick walk leading to the privy and around the house. Momentarily both women focused their flashlights on the brick basin around the water fountain. Octavio had made these improvements and many others in his spare time to make life a little easier for his family. Nana felt a chill as the flashlight cut through the dark and projected a beam on the handle of the outhouse door. She was instantaneously confounded by the blinking, flashing and flaming of a light that should not have been there. In an instant she froze as her mind translated the silhouetted, undulating code: fire!

  Nana turned toward the panicked voices of neighbors. Over and beyond the apex of the adjoining house, flames danced and cracked from the wooden walls and tar-papered roof of the third residence away from where she stood. Micaela held her hands to her heart as she watched the black cloud pierced by fire rise in the moist air. She stared at the leaping, advancing flames. At her side, her mother gazed at the raging heat-full, bright-flame energy.

  “Micaela,” Nana shouted. “Our house is going to burn!”

  Nana began to perspire heavily as she grabbed Micaela and looked directly into her eyes. Nana’s heartbeat, rapid and intense, traveled through her arms to her strong hands and shook Micaela by the shoulder once.

  “I’ll go for your sister and brother. You go to your Uncle Elias and tell him to get your father at work and move Arturo’s car out because it’s full of gasoline. Run!”

  Micaela repeated the instructions in her mind and on her lips as the last powerful word from her mother’s mouth made her run along the side of the house to the street where she yelled for her uncle. Nana watched her oldest child run to the gate where neighbors met her. Smoke and sparks caused the electrical wires carried by high posts planted along the front fences to jump and squirm. The fire would soon be upon all she possessed in the world and all she loved in her life. Flor and Gregorio lay in their beds asleep. Not the hottest flames imaginable could stop her from getting to her children. Her five-foot-two body, drenched in perspiration, threw the doors open. Her face was firm with anger and determination. She wept without crying as she passed the objects she and Octavio had worked so hard and long to accumulate. Her peripheral vision seemed to capture everything as she moved quickly to where the baby slept. She wrapped the sleeping Gregorio in a blanket. As she entered the girls’ room, her vision caught family photographs, dressers, her wedding ensemble, and the children’s toys. Nana held the baby with her left arm, went to Flor and maneuvered her to a sitting position.

  “Flor! Get up, Flor. It’s time to go. Put your jacket on,” Nana spoke calmly.

  She took her youngest daughter by the hand and guided her to the front door from where she could hear voices screaming for her to get out. The baby slept in her arms. Flor held back an instant and then clung to her mother’s hip. Nana reached for the door; it opened. Relieved, she stood on the small front porch and waited. On the right, Uncle Elias’ house began to burn. His sons and daughters ran in and out, saving what they could from the intensifying flames. Micaela came to her, embraced her, took Flor and guided Nana from the house to the middle of the street where people watched the conflagration.

  Of the ten houses on the street, eight were burning. Three were rented by the Revueltas family. Octavio and Nana’s was the middle home, Uncle Elias lived on one side and on the other side, in the last house on the street before Vail Street, lived Damian and Milagros. Nana felt someone tug at the baby. She recognized a niece, who took Gregorio to where Micaela and Flor sat on chairs that had been saved. Nana thought of Arturo’s car and saw it parked far down on the opposite side of the street, safe. Damian’s sons and daughters carried furniture out; theirs would be the last house to burn, which gave them plenty of time to save most of their belongings. Uncle Elias’ house was aflame and forced the family back. It was difficult for anyone to believe that even in this cold, extremely wet weather the houses were burning like tinderboxes. Although the fire leapt and advanced rapidly, Nana’s house had not yet started to burn.

  ... The children’s clothes ... Nana bolted through the front door. She grabbed what she could and ran out. Neighbors attempted to stop her, but she broke away again, still holding on to the children’s clothes that she had taken out. The second time she ran to the boys’ clothes chest and took the shirts she could carry. Outside she threw them on a table, started toward the house again, but was held back by Damian.

  “Nana, don’t go in! Look, the house is burning. Sit here with Milagros and your children.”

  Damian helped Nana sit next to her mother-in-law, who sat on a kitchen chair, tapped her fingers on the kitchen table and shook her head at the incredulity of the whole scene that evolved about her. Their bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, and intimate objects had been spilled onto that muddy street in Simons, California. Now neighbors and strangers walked through, sitting and touching the furniture as if they were customers strolling through a furniture store showroom. But the primary attraction was the spectacular fire whose illumination could be seen for miles. Nana’s house burned slowly and intensely hot. She could feel the heat from where she sat. Damian moved his family back away from the fire. For a moment, Nana’s sight strayed from the burning house and searched up and down the street for the firemen. Had not Walter Robey Simons assured the residents that they would have the protection and services to meet any emergency? Nana could not find one fireman. If they had come, her house and Milagros’ surely would have been spared. Her house was not that far gone.

  The people did what they could. Earlier, to fight the flames, a bucket brigade was formed and garden hoses were used until the pressure subsided to a trickle of water. ... If only the fire department would come! Nana thought. She noticed Milagros staring into the night toward the top of the Español Street canyon at two Montebello fire engines parked with headlights on, red and yellow lights flashing. Nana’s house was in full flames and Milagros’ would soon follow, but the fire trucks stood poised, not a move to help. Some of the older children ran to call them down to the fire, but the fire chief refused to help.

  “I was ordered to stay put here,” the chief laughed at the end of his response. “I’m making sure the fire doesn’t jump to the Montebello side.”

  He pushed his hat back and pointed to Nana’s house. “That house is gonna go any minute,” he laughed as the children ran back to communicate his message.

  The workers of Simons would never forget the negative and devastating decision that condemned them to watch their homes burn to the ground. Nana placed her hand over Milagros’ hand, stopping her nervous, angry tapping on the kitchen table. The fire chief’s message in children’s voices echoed in Nana’s mind. ... Why did they come to the edge of the barranca? Someone stopped them at the last moment, someone from Montebello and someone from Simons ...

  For the past few months, Walter Simons and the City of Montebello had waged a feud over the location of the Simons Brickyard at Mines and Maple streets in Montebello. Walter wanted to build on-site housing for the workers at the Montebello yard. The City refused to grant the building permits on the grounds that that kind of housing would bring undesirable elements into Montebello. Confronted with an impasse, Walter asked the City to incorporate the main Simons Brickyard located on Sycamore and Vail which had housing for three hundred families and bachelors’ quarters. The City again r
esponded in the negative, repeating that it did not want to introduce that kind of element—Mexicans, as permanent residents. Walter countered, refusing to finance part of the bridge and drainage rebuilding expenses on Maple and adjoining streets. He also refused to water down the dust at the brickyard, a decision which resulted in major consequences. The dust rose, formed clouds and penetrated through the windows and door screens, settled and covered walls and furniture north of Olympic Boulevard.

  Rumors and facts spread concerning the effects of the uncontrolled red dust. Three elderly ladies found dead in their beds covered with red dust made headline news. Autopsies performed by Los Angeles County pathologists found large amounts of red dust in the victims’ lungs. The Red Lung Disease, coined by the workers, caused the women’s death. To offer proof of the danger of the brickyard, the survivors of the victims came to a city council meeting with three jars filled with the red, dust-infected, stained lungs of the loved dead ones. Following the directions of a doctor, the sons and daughters of the deceased unfolded the congested human bellows in front of the city council. The council members gasped at the doctor’s explanation of the women’s suffering and at the fact, according to the doctor, that the Mexicans were able to breathe the red dust and survive. The presentation provided the necessary convincing evidence to allow everyone in the council chambers to conclude that the Mexicans were subhuman creatures, cockroaches equipped by nature to be unconsumed in such horrible living conditions. The city and the people were in danger of being polluted by Walter Robey Simons, the brickyard, the Mexicans and the red dust. Better to let them burn.