River of Angels

by Alejandro Morales

  To obtain the best medical care and, when the time came, to contract day and night nurses, Consentido sold acres of land until the day his parents died. Then he arranged a simple funeral on what was left of the vineyard that contained Il Castelluccio, at his mother’s favorite place to read and rest—the pergola mandala that Don Elegante had carefully built for her.

  Consentido was content that he had provided his parents the best medical care that money could buy. As for the land he sold, he was happy that the city made part of it a public park, naming it Il Castelluccio Preserve. The other acreage was bought by housing contractors who constructed homes and schools. On the parcel that Consentido held were located Il Castelluccio, the pergola and La Rosa del Trinoro Winery’s remaining vineyards. Consentido continued his parents’ tradition of producing superb wines. The police, the state and federal agents kept their hands off La Rosa del Trinoro Winery. Consentido’s parents’ creations thrived, and his friendship with Sol became even stronger.

  Sol became Consentido’s go-to man when he needed building materials and repair work on the infrastructure of the vineyard. Sol provided the labor and obtained the materials from his brother Oakley, who agreed to fulfill Consentido’s requests. Oakley and Agatha had visited Il Castelluccio several times and thought of it as a beautiful memorial to Don Elegante and Ceritzia and as a monument to Italian culture.

  THE RUMBLE OF Sol’s 1929 Ford Model A pickup truck’s four-cylinder engine lulled Albert and Louise to sleep as they leaned on each other while riding south on San Fernando Road to Hancock Park. Sol stopped the truck suddenly and looked over his shoulder at the baskets and wooden crates of fruit and produce in the bed of the two-tone black and maroon pickup. He looked again and made sure that six cases of wine were still securely tied down at the front of the truck bed. No sign, signal or any kind of indication warned motorists that railroad tracks crossed the road ahead. Sol was aware of several fatal accidents that had occurred at this crossing. About half a dozen ranch hands had been killed there. Late in the afternoon the tracks became difficult to see. Only a train’s whistle warned of its approach. This point on the track was located before a long turn, and the train slowed down there to maneuver the bend successfully. Albert and Louise sat up and watched the train coming—heavily, slowly—to pass by them. The train slowed down almost to a stop, but then it kept moving ever so slowly. Behind the engine there was only one passenger car, overcrowded with Mexican families; behind it five cattle cars were jammed with more Mexican men, women and children. This was a one-way deportation train to the Mexican border. Sol, Albert and Louise watched as the Send them back to Mexico cattle cars, jammed with brown bodies, crawled south. The train passed, leaving a clear road home.

  As the deportation train accelerated and Sol, Albert and Louise traveled home, Oakley and Agatha Rivers walked out of the bank after having signed purchase contracts for real estate. The reality of the times dictated that some people’s economic situation worsened while others’ wealth rapidly improved. Those who had lost money were now anxious to unload properties and businesses. Their misfortune allowed Oakley and Agatha to select the best properties: commercial buildings, houses in foreclosure and land. Agatha’s father and brothers held many outstanding loans on property that they eventually would own outright. The Banacs, the Rivers and the Kellers, including Uncle Philip, were given a golden opportunity to invest. Led by Agatha’s father, the families purchased large blocks of stocks in companies that they were convinced would make a steady recovery to full operation and profitability. Ernest and Allison Keller helped Uncle Philip recover financially. They owned his house and they allowed him to keep a small percentage of the business, enough to sustain him through retirement and old age. Moments ago, Oakley and Agatha had purchased three vacant parcels in Hancock Park, confident that the properties were bound to rise in value. The Banac brothers had researched income levels in parts of Los Angeles and found that in Hancock Park the average household income of residents ranked among the highest in Los Angeles, perhaps in California. Even in these harsh times, Hancock Park grew to be an even more desirable haven for the wealthy.

  OAKLEY AND AGATHA entered the main ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel, where they met Ernest and Allison Keller. Both the Rivers and the Kellers had been invited by the Honorable John C. Porter, mayor of the City of Los Angeles, to attend a charity banquet to raise money for the Los Angeles County Orphanage. The crowd was animated, at times a burst of loud laughter rising out of the groups gathered in the ballroom. Agatha and Allison engaged in conversation with a group of women they worked with at the orphanage. Ernest went to the bar for drinks, and Oakley remained standing alone. He looked around at the crowd. As he stood there, some people pushed him aside as if he were no one, not even a living body worthy of any kind of acknowledgment. Men reached in front of his face to shake the hand of a politician, a Hollywood movie maker, an oilman, a railroad tycoon—the upper crust of Los Angeles. Oakley was solvent but not wealthy or famous. In the eyes of these rude, self-centered “movers and shakers,” he was as invisible as the waiters.

  Suddenly a large pulpy hand extended toward him. Oakley immediately recognized Walter R. Simons.

  “Good evening, neighbor! Good to see you here.”

  “Likewise, Mr. Simons.”

  “I’m after a brandy. Then I have to catch the wife.”

  Mr. Simons walked off, almost immediately finding another person he knew.

  For a few seconds Oakley felt he was someone. As the ballroom became more crowded, it was more difficult to maneuver around the large gowns that left only enough space for a woman standing erect, smiling and appearing comfortable in the middle of all that expensive cloth. Oakley worked his way toward the bar. Having lost sight of Agatha and Allison, he kept smiling, thinking that maybe he would find Ernest. Now he wandered among them, wondering who was solvent, who was genuinely wealthy and who was an imposter, a formerly wealthy individual who had lost everything except his wife and reputation and one or two tuxedos or tailored suits, parading around with his elegantly dressed wife as she, too, saved face among their social class. Oakley did not know these men and women, but he suddenly realized, as he heard their names in passing, that he was aware of their financial status from conversations with the Banacs. He now stood still in the middle of the Ambassador’s plush ballroom and considered himself under a different light, one much brighter than that of quite a few of the guests present. Oakley smiled at some of the fakers who still did not acknowledge him.

  Agatha was working her way toward him, shaking hands with many of her father and brothers’ clients. She knew them all, having maintained their accounts at the bank. She went out of her way to be polite to every one of them. These clients knew that Agatha knew, that her father and brothers knew their financial status. Agatha conversed with them in a light-hearted manner, making them relax and laugh. Their gestures, their stares and faint but tense smiles, their overall behavior silently begged her not to reveal in the slightest way their state of affairs. Wherever the Banacs stood, a greeting line formed.

  Agatha reached Oakley and pecked him on the cheek.

  “God! I finally made it. I didn’t know so many of our customers would attend.”

  As the guests came to say hello to Agatha, they made it a point to greet Oakley in a polite and cordial way.

  Unable to have his wife to himself, Oakley made his way to the garden. As he entered the reception area again, he noticed that the color of the service employees had changed. Registration clerks, information assistants, bellboys, doormen, bartenders, waiters and waitresses were all white. He headed to what he believed to be an exit and crossed an unmarked borderline. He found himself in the kitchen, where the men and a few women were so focused on their work that they didn’t notice him walk slowly toward the side door that led outside to the garden. Oakley saw their brown faces and hands—like his. The unseen workers at the Ambassador were Mexicans, diligently laboring. The Ambassador hotel’s profit motiv
e justified retaining the trained and proven brown faces and hands laboring loyally beneath its grandeur and glitter.

  He wandered through back hallways and office spaces hidden away, unseen by guests. Elegantly dressed, he felt that nobody here would question his presence. He admired the rich dark paneling along the narrow hallway displaying framed photographs and oil paintings. He opened the door to a strangely shaped room, a high octagon with a stained-glass ceiling that allowed refracted sunlight to descend in a rainbow of colors. The room was furnished with a desk and a round table on which sat a humidor and a small vase filled with matches and flints. There were four wing-backed chairs, several rolling library carts filled with books and four tall floor lamps. Oakley studied the photographs and paintings along the hall. He stopped and craned his neck to see the elevated ceilings. He looked closer at the photographs, hundreds of fixed visions of a time and place. He read the history of the Ambassador Hotel and the City of Los Angeles. In the construction scenes, in photographs of the building crews, he recognized Chinese, Indians and Mexicans. He gazed back at the faces that after a while seemed to be from the same family. We all share the same roots, the same family, he thought as he finally found himself in the midst of the Ambassador’s garden.

  WEEKS LATER OAKLEY remembered the Ambassador Hotel’s garden, but he laughed thinking that the garden’s plants were not edible. The garden was not like Ernest’s or his own vegetable and fruit plots. He pushed himself up from his knees and tossed weeds into a large basket. He waved to Sol, who instructed several Sun Construction workers on how to harvest oranges and strip the branches of dead wood. Oakley carried the basket to the garden shed at the very far corner of his property, where a thick wooded area of oak trees and high brush formed a border between the Rivers’ property and the two adjacent acre parcels. He heard rustling coming toward him from the thick wild brush in the little border forest. He froze, silent, expecting a wild animal, a coyote or a mountain lion. He waited, hugging the basket with one hand. He adjusted the hoe just in case he might need it to fend off the beast. Voices broke his fear, familiar voices, people pausing, walking, running—the neighbors, he thought. He took a breath and started toward the shed again. For an instant or two he watched a young couple embracing, kissing and then gleefully running into the forest. Oakley went to the edge of the forest but did not enter. From there he recognized the couple. The boy had his shirt open and helped the girl pull her blouse over her head. Behind him he heard Sol and the men walking toward the shed. Oakley turned. “Are the guys coming tomorrow?” he yelled so loudly that his voice was probably heard inside the house.

  LOUISE AND ALBERT were surprised to hear Oakley’s voice and the rattling of garden tools. The leaves of the low-hanging branches formed a tapestry that prevented them from seeing Oakley, Sol and the men working in the garden and orchard. The couple immediately ran toward the little refuge that they had visited so many times before. It was nature’s place, hidden away, covered with walls of thick green plants and two majestic old oaks that spread their thick, round branches low to the earth, reaching out, touching, weaving and forming a bower for the young lovers. Louise and Albert crawled under the lowest branches, out of breath, not holding back anymore. They quickly removed their clothes and laid them down to make their bed. They sat down facing each other, their legs straddled, and they embraced and kissed. Albert was so excited, he struggled to hold back his rush. Louise leaned back on her arms, and Albert kissed her breast, her belly and licked further down until his mouth, lips, tongue made love to her warm woman’s desire. She arched her back even more, raised her hips, offered herself, and Albert lost himself in her.

  Nothing held them back anymore. They eagerly explored all possible ways to make love, reaching sensual heights that exhausted them for only a moment before they started again. Albert wanted her and Louise wanted him, and there was nothing they could not do for one another. In their joy, they fortified each other. Their love was their nutrition and they craved to banquet every chance they could. They had been seizing every opportunity that offered itself, everywhere they could, and on several occasions they came dangerously close to getting caught. They worked so hard to find the time and place.

  Louise was losing weight, having little appetite for anything else. Albert also became gaunt, a result the family thought was from studying too hard. There came a point when the youngsters wished that somebody would discover them, but that thought did not last long as their love encounters intensified. They lived that way for months, meeting every other day, trying not to be obvious, but wondering if their parents had any idea of their love, of their indulgent behavior.

  A slight guilt feeling began to prick Albert’s shoulder. He felt as if something, someone was next to him or behind him. One day after coming home from work at a housing construction site in East Los Angeles and looking forward to being with Louise, he sensed someone behind him and found Dame Marie standing there.

  One Friday evening, both sets of parents had left town, the Kellers to San Diego to visit friends and the Rivers to a beach house in Malibu. Louise and Albert planned to be together every minute of every day that their parents were gone. Dame Marie warned them that Uncle Philip might drop by to check on the Keller sisters. But the young lovers didn’t worry much about Uncle Philip anymore—they had become immune to his tirades.

  Dame Marie stood against the background of the garden and, beyond it, the thick grove of trees where Albert and Louise had escaped too many times. Her face stern, she blocked Albert from entering the house. Albert was tired, and now he was annoyed.

  “Dame Marie!”

  “You have to listen to me, Albert. You must!”

  Her manner, her voice, made Albert realize that his little sister was no longer a little girl. She stood there an adult, demanding that he listen to her.

  “Yes, Dame Marie, what?” he said as he made a move to enter the house.

  “Not inside. It’s better that we talk out here in the open.”

  “Fine, tell me. I’m listening.”

  “Albert, I know what you’re up to … what you and Louise are doing. Emily and Gloria know, too. It’s obvious to us. Every other day you two sneak away. Somehow you come together, meet somewhere. I think our parents know as well, but they can’t talk about it yet. What you’re doing is going to get you into trouble. Tell Mom and Dad that you want to marry Louise. Don’t you want to marry her? You must want to! You can’t keep your hands off her! If you don’t stop and do what’s right, something terrible’s going to happen. Emily and Gloria are upset. They want you to tell their parents. They are upset with you, Albert! They see their sister suffer because she wants to be with you every moment she’s awake. At night she cries herself to sleep. She tosses and turns. She’s restless and she wakes up asking for you. She cries ‘cause she’s afraid of being discovered. And she’s getting worse, losing weight. She doesn’t eat, Albert. Louise wants to be with you always. Please do the right thing before it’s too late.”

  Dame Marie did not shed tears as she did as a child when she was upset.

  “I understand, Dame Marie. I heard every word you said. I’ll talk to Louise tonight.”

  OAKLEY’S GARDEN, TENDED to by Sol and their workers, had produced beyond their expectations. They were ready to harvest vegetables and fruits in abundance to divide among the family and the workers. The large garden provided food and a place to work and to get together for the workers. They could discuss work, job opportunities and how to support each other during those difficult times. In the garden, on their own the workers decided to construct a fountain, not at its center but among the trees where they had strung hammocks from thick branches and placed three long family-size tables and a variety of chairs built on site. With stones excavated from the field, they also constructed a barbeque pit. The Rivers were quite happy to allow the workers to bring their families to help maintain the garden and picnic on the property.

  On one of those days when the workers’ families ha
d worked all day, a sudden cold wind pushed into Southern California late in the afternoon. As the children started to complain about being cold, the families stored tools away in the shed, cleaned the area and packed up to leave. Oakley, Agatha, Ernest and Allison came looking for Albert, who had been watering all day. After Sol had said good-bye to the last of the workers, he sat down at a table next to the fire pit that still contained burning wood. He watched Albert approaching, wearing tall mud boots and carrying several hoes and shovels over his shoulders. Oakley and Agatha, Ernest and Allison sat down at the table.