“I’m not sure. I’ve always been Albert Rivers. I don’t need anything else, label or brand, to know who I am. Do I?”
“But you know so much about Mexicans.”
“I get that from my Uncle Sol.”
“Your father speaks Spanish and you speak some Spanish. I’ve heard you. He saved the Abelardo Ríos Adobe. He’s dark like you. Look at these people, Albert. These people see you and they see one of their own. I think they do.”
“My mother is Anglo. She is a Banac. The Banacs are a powerful and rich Los Angeles family.” Albert caught himself almost panicking. He felt strange that such a question should raise in his mind so many more questions. He sipped at his horchata.
“I have never asked my father those questions, Louise.”
“I think it’s a good thing to know who you are, to learn about your ancestry.”
“What if I am Mexican?”
“Then you are Mexican and you are mine and I love you.”
Louise touched his face and rested her head against his chest. She listened to his heart. Albert noticed people staring at them. He spotted Sol watching them from his pickup truck parked across the street. Louise suddenly realized that they had been discovered. Thank God it’s Sol, she thought as she climbed into the Sun Construction Company truck.
Dear Albert,
Your uncle Sol saw us in our embrace and probably saw us kiss. I wonder how long he had observed us. Do you know his feelings about our feelings toward each other? Does he know we are in love? Or does he consider our caresses the puppy love of children? During the ride home we hardly spoke a word. I believe he was uncomfortable about what he had seen. I don’t think he knew then or knows now how to deal with what he saw. It has been about two weeks, and my parents haven’t said anything or asked about you. I don’t think that Uncle Sol told your parents, and of course he wouldn’t tell mine. Nonetheless, every time they come into my presence I sense they know something, but they don’t speak up. If they were to separate us, it would be a separation of my soul from my body. We would never allow that to happen. Albert, you would not allow our separation. I know you would defend our right to be in love and be together. I will work even harder now to learn from you, learn in every way more from you, my mentor. I will keep my grades at the top of my class. I will be valedictorian because of your teaching and counseling. I will do so well that my mother could not possibly think of separating me from you. She wants me to succeed and attend the university. I will, Albert. I will fulfill her dreams because of you. I will follow you to USC. I will be an engineer and graduate from USC as a woman engineer, like the two women in your class at USC. My mother will be so proud. All this will happen, Albert, because of you! I will graduate as a civil engineer like you and work for my father’s company and for your father’s company. Our parents will be so proud, Albert.
Sol must not tell anyone about us. It is not the time, not yet, Albert. Let your uncle know how important it is to keep our relationship of love a secret. You must confide in him. I know you trust him. You speak so highly of him. Following your example, my beloved Albert, I will trust him as well. I know he will not fail us. He is so kind. A few days ago I saw the most marvelous thing that he did in our garden. Mother had asked him to come to repair the broken pergola. I saw him resting on the ledge of the birdbath when he slowly lifted his arm and pointed to the newspaper on a table right below my window. He kept pointing, birds slowly gathered, a swarm of birds circled above the paper. Suddenly they flew down, grabbed the paper and flew over to your Uncle Sol, and dropped the paper in his lap. Sol got so much enjoyment from doing this amazing trick. He reached into his pocket and threw seeds and bread crumbs on the grass and watched the birds, all kinds of birds, gather to eat. Your Uncle Sol seems to have a gift with animals, at least with birds!
Now I must confess that my questions, about who you are, about your family, did not come from me directly, but they have been inspired in my mind and heart by my Uncle Philip. Albert, my Uncle Philip is not like your Uncle Sol, who has been your kind, generous and good mentor in life. My Uncle Philip has been and is a strict and precise and insistent mentor in my life, who has, for the last six months or more, criticized your father and mother, and you. He says that you, like your father, are not who you say you are. I hear these ugly, hateful declarations in the conversations he has with my parents. These talks occur when he thinks that we children are not listening. He scolds my father for doing business with your father, and he criticizes my mother for encouraging you to be my tutor. My father listens. He hardly says a word. Mother, on the other hand, responds to Uncle Philip’s criticisms of you by showing him my academic reports and giving you all the credit for my success. My heart races with joy when she defends you! She puts Uncle Philip in his place by talking about your great progress at USC. “He is a natural engineer, a top student,” she states, proudly. My mother’s defense of you galls Uncle Philip to no end. He often talks about his intellectual and powerful friends who are all associated with your university. He repeats to no end his ideas that Los Angeles must be developed for the Aryan race. I have never heard anything about the Aryan race. He says that we must be aware of mixed-breed infiltrators who will bring down our race. He believes in the pushing away, the separation of all foreign people to what he calls foreign sections of the city. Uncle Philip’s ideas and talk are so full of hate. When I hear him talk, I sense from him a feeling of deep bitterness and anger. I don’t understand why. My parents, out of respect, allow him to have his say. It is my uncle who strikes the most fear in my heart. I think he wants to and would keep us apart.
I confess my feelings in a letter because I needed time to organize them, because when I am with you I can only think of being with you. I write my thoughts because I do not want to cry in your presence and because I don’t want to hurt you. Albert, I love you. You are the only man in my life now and forever.
Your faithful love,
Louise
SOL ALWAYS ENJOYED working in the backyard garden at Oakley and Agatha’s house. He supervised the three hired gardeners who came without fail on Saturday. Theirs was a family enterprise. When the job was extra big they simply brought more family members to help with the job. Sol made sure that, depending on the season, several varieties of flowers were blooming. The property Oakley and Agatha purchased turned out to be larger than what they thought. The original land survey had indicated the parcel to be a few square feet under a full acre. When the escrow closed, the realtor noticed errors on the original land survey and found that the Rivers’ property was actually one-and-a-half acres. On that half acre Sol planted orange, avocado, apricot, pomegranate and guava trees. To one side of his orchard he built a small functional house to live in. He and the gardeners dug a well, installed plumbing and a sewer system for his little house.
Agatha often went to see how he was improving or adding on to the cottage. Sol amazed her with his talent for construction and carpentry work. On one occasion, on a hot summer morning, she walked back to the orchard to pick fruit and found Sol and several Sun Construction workers digging a pit. She prided herself on knowing just about all the workers employed by her company. She watched for a while and then went about picking fruit. When she returned that evening, she found that Sol and the workers had dug a five-foot-deep by three-and-a-half-foot-wide pit that they lined with bricks from bottom to top. Agatha read the Simons trade mark on several unused bricks. Their neighbor Mr. Walter Robey Simons had asked them to take the left-over bricks from a barbecue he had built in his backyard, and Sol had built a Mexican-style barbecue pit, with an opening covered by a heavy, round iron disc with hooks that could be locked to the iron rings cemented around the opening. He also designed a patio that extended from the mouth of the fire pit. It was large enough to hold several tables, benches and chairs. The area had several avocado trees that would provide plenty of shade during the summer months.
“In a couple of days it’ll be dry. I’ll place a heavy table over
the lid. No one person or kids will be able to move the lid off. Don’t worry! It takes at least three men to lift that heavy lid,” Sol informed his sister-in-law as she stood with her hands on her hips and a pleased look on her face. Sol so enjoyed it when he made Agatha happy.
SOL HAD STAYED up all night, excited about the celebration to take place during the day. He had tended to two goats that he and the workers had chosen for slaughter. Sol had told the workers that he would stay with the animals throughout the night. One of the men stayed and watched Sol embrace and pet the goats. It looked like Sol was praying and consoling the goats about their fate. The two goats never struggled or attempted to run off. Even when he released them the animals stood very near. Sol went to his knees, bowed his head, remained in that position until the goats moved closer and bowed their heads, almost touching his. Sol and the animals did not move. The workers stood transfixed by Sol’s behavior. After a long wait the workers stepped away quietly so as not to disturb Sol’s prayer.
The next morning the workers arrived at seven and immediately started several fires to boil water for cleaning knives, long trident tools and the tables. Three of the workers’ wives had already gathered from the garden several varieties of onions, squash, tomatoes, green, red and yellow peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, lettuce and herbs. While the women were washing the vegetables, three men had removed the lid and tossed in kindling, rolled-up newspaper, pieces of dry oak and chunks of charcoal into the bottom of the pit and ignited them with flaming newspaper. In two hours the charcoal and the pit would reach the right temperature for the meat. At the side of the pit, two men cleaned the thorns from cactus leaves and trimmed maguey leaves, placing them in a neat pile ready for use.
All items were in place when the time came for the preparation of the meat. The goats were brought under a gallows-like structure built several days before. Two workers knocked the goats to the ground. The animals kicked and bleated. Sol placed his hands on each one, and the animals seemed to calm down.
“¡Ay Dios mío, qué milagroso eres, Sol!” a woman cutting onions remarked on Sol’s miraculous talents. Everyone laughed.
The goats’ front and back legs were tied together separately. Alive, the animals were hung on the gallows by their hind legs. Hanging there, the circulation of their bodies’ blood made its way down to their heads, until their bodies settled and did not struggle to get free. A tall slim man accompanied by two women carrying large deep pots stepped up to the animals. Several other men approached to assist. The tall man took a knife and punctured the side of each neck, quickly opening a stream of blood that poured into the large pots below. For about twenty minutes the blood drained. The tall man then sliced the goats’ necks from ear to ear. The blood rushed out now in a stream; then, large heavy drops became smaller.
The tall man proceeded next to cut through the neck flesh, muscle, cartilage and bone, severing the head neatly from the body. The head was placed in a large deep pan and prepared for the pit. Then the man went over to the second goat and repeated the procedure. Once both heads were gone and the animals had drained out properly, he went to the first animal and made a deep incision around the upper part of the hooves. He took the knife and cut down the upper legs and down the center of the body to the open space of the severed head. He continued to slice through the coat down to the hooves of the forelegs. Then he slowly peeled off the goat’s coat, leaving the animal bare of outer skin. He carried out the same procedure with the other goat. The animals hung there, slowly turning, in their light reddish flesh. The people who had gathered to watch the slaughter applauded the butcher’s clean and precise skill. He acknowledged them with a smile, drank a cup of water and gestured to the rising sun. Next, he started the offal phase of the butchering. With one deep and fast stroke, he opened the animal’s torso cavity, almost completely expelling the viscera into an awaiting basin below the carcass. To express his disappointment at the botched cut, the man raised the seven-inch blade, scolding it: “¡Maldita!” He sharpened the blade before attempting to cut open the second goat. As he approached, the partygoers applauded and cheered him on. Confidently, he went to the goat. The women placed another tin basin underneath the carcass and moved away. The butcher now placed the tip of the blade at the top of the goat’s abdomen, just below the sternum. He pushed slightly, penetrating deeply, and stroked downward, opening it up, this time smoothly, exposing the animal’s ribs and allowing the offal to fall precisely into the center of the basin. He bowed to the people applauding his fine butchering. As he accepted the recognition from the crowd, men and women cleaned inside the carcass, cut it down and placed it on the tables for final butchering. An hour later both animals had been cut, dressed and taken to the pit.
Agatha watched intently the careful slaughtering and skinning, the disemboweling and dismembering of the goats. She had seen the procedure previously at other fiestas that her family had attended in the Mexican barrios on the east side of the river. Agatha was fascinated each time she witnessed the slaughter of goats. Allison had quickly walked away from the slaughter stage to encourage the girls to help display the crackers and cheese they had brought for the tables. The girls carried soda pops and added them to large wash basins filled with ice and water and drinks. Ernestina took Agatha from the slaughter spectacle over to where the rest of the family gathered, to watch Sol and the other men place maguey leaves over the coals at the pit’s bottom. They placed the goat meat on the leaves and then added another layer of maguey leaves and then several filleted roasts on top. The women put in potatoes, sweet potatoes wrapped in corn husks and corn, then covered it with more maguey and tender cactus leaves. Deep holes vented the pit to circulate air. To raise and lower the temperature the men opened or closed the opening of individual holes. Now it was time to relax, enjoy the snacks and drinks, and wait for the barbecued food to cook.
Inside the house the girls played records on a new Victrola. They danced the popular flapper dances. Albert sat outside with his father and Ernest, listening to Uncle Philip describe how it was a good business practice to let these people slaughter their animals in their primitive rituals. The doorbell rang and Albert immediately went to answer it. Uncle Philip’s habit of demeaning the Mexican workers had become an old repetitive harangue to Albert. He remembered Louise’s question about the Rivers’ family heritage. Albert opened the front door to welcome Gerald Fisher and Aikens MacLeash, two of his favorite people, visiting the Rivers’ home for the first time. As the Fisher and MacLeash families were being welcomed and introduced, Franco Morretti arrived with his family. Albert held the front door open as Paolo approached; he reached out, embraced Albert, and kissed both sides of his face in the traditional way that Italian men greet one another. Since he had left Sun Construction, Paolo Morretti had been working for Keller Construction for several years now. How quickly time had passed, thought Albert, while remembering that Fisher, MacLeash and his mother had recently written the Sun Construction proposal and bid for one of the bridge projects offered by the Los Angeles city council.
Albert had been told all the details about how it happened that the Rivers and the Kellers had agreed to form a working partnership, which would likely create an even closer bond of friendship between the two neighboring families. He knew the City of Los Angeles had called Sun Construction and invited Agatha, Oakley and the two engineers, Fisher and MacLeash, to come by the city business office. They had been so excited about what the city might offer. And meeting their expectations, the city had offered them one of the Fourth Street and Lorena viaduct contracts approved by Merrill Butler, booster of the City Beautiful Plan and the city’s number one engineer. Sun Construction was again in the bridge-building business. Two days later Ernest Keller had also received a call from the city. Ernest went to City Hall, accompanied by his Uncle Philip. And Gerald Fisher was there, assigned by Oakley and Agatha to attend the meeting as a consultant. Keller Construction accepted a contract as one of the construction companies to build the First Str
eet viaduct. After accepting the city’s offer, Ernest, against Uncle Philip’s advice, went to meet Oakley and Agatha for assistance.
Ernest had come right to the point: “I need labor and machines. You have all that. We are not quite there yet for the bridge job. I don’t want to lose the contract. I need a little help.”
Oakley’s response was immediate: “Give Agatha a list of what you need. Sure, we’ll help, but we need an official request on your company’s letterhead. We’ll draft an independent contract with Keller Construction.”
Ernest extended his hand. Agatha smiled as the two men shook hands.
Oakley made a recommendation as he walked Ernest to his car. “Paolo Morretti is a good worker. You can trust him with the crew. He knows what to do. He knows engineering.”
Agatha called her father, who had worked with Merrill Butler on previous building projects. Mr. Banac immediately drafted the contract.
Today they were together to celebrate their good fortune in obtaining big city contracts. The celebration brought the Rivers and Keller families together in a new way that Agatha and Allison genuinely enjoyed. In the early evening after dinner, the adults sat around the long table that Sol had built, enjoying illegal California wines and a Spanish brandy, while the children enjoyed apple pie, homemade ice cream and flan. Allison and Agatha stood together, paused to take a breath, a short rest. They both observed Albert and Louise’s hands down by their sides, their pinky fingers innocently touching. Agatha took a step toward her son, but Allison, with a slight smile, held her back.
“Un brindis, a toast!” Oakley, holding a glass of brandy, motioned to everyone to stand up. “Today we celebrate our successful bids. Tomorrow the hard work begins. Most importantly, we must be grateful for God’s blessings on our families and friends, and for the love that unites us all. ¡Salud!”
River of Angels Page 16
