America Is in the Heart

by Carlos Bulosan

  I remembered a place that was a rendezvous of gamblers down the block. It was crowded with the outcasts of Temple Street. I stood patiently behind a lucky gambler; when he had counted his money, I showed him the diamond ring. His dull eyes sparkled. I sold the ring to him with the understanding that I would redeem it when I had the money to pay him back. I knew I could trust a gambler because I had been one of them.

  When I arrived at our apartment, I sent for a doctor to examine my brother. In the morning I bought enough groceries to last him for three months, paid the rent, and gave the rest of the money to my brother. I knew that I had to go away for my own sake, because if I did not escape now, I would probably steal again. I had come to the end of the road; in spite of my reading and my association with educated people, I had only become more confused and desperate.

  One night, deep in meditation, I was aroused by my brother’s sudden stillness. I was seized with panic. I switched on the lights. He was sleeping soundly. How old he had grown! My brother who had never worked in the Philippines! I switched off the lights and went downstairs. Oh, my brother who gave me light in the dark of night!

  I sat at the bare table in the kitchen and began piecing together the mosaic of our lives in America. Full of loneliness and love, I began to write.

  CHAPTER XLII

  When our campaign for Filipino citizenship was broken up, Rios and Lacson tried to convert the CPFR into a separate unit of the Communist Party. Anna Dozier was indefatigable: she sought the different members of our committee. Then she and Lacson drove to San Francisco where, after converting our members there, they proceeded to Portland. But from there Lacson came back to Los Angeles alone, silent about Anna Dozier, secretive about his activities.

  A week afterward an attractive middle-aged American woman, Lucia Simpson, began appearing at our meetings with Lacson. Almost at the same time another woman from San Diego came to see me. She had an amazing intuition. Sometimes, when it was raining, we sat in the apartment and discoursed for hours. I would stop in the middle of a sentence to listen to the gentle patter of rain on the roof (how it reminded me of years long gone!) and resume our conversation unperturbed. And Jean Lawson, for that was her name, would discuss mankind, smiling, so that every building, stone, face—yes, even a blade of grass loomed large with a new meaning.

  Why were there so many strange women all of a sudden? Was there something going on among Filipinos that I did not know about? But my unflagging interest in people drew me close to Jean Lawson. While I was interested in the fundamentals of abstract ideas, I was not blind to the emotional urgencies. It seemed that Jean had been married to a man prominent in the labor movement in Seattle.

  “But that was when I was young,” she said. “I went to the Philippines and taught at the University of Manila. But my participation in the boycott against the entry of Japanese products aroused the anger of some native fascists. I was forced to resign. I was too naïve at first. I didn’t know that Philippine capitalists were closely tied up with the Falangist movement in Spain.”

  “I think the Falange gets its orders direct from Berlin,” I said.

  She looked up at me, curling up like a little doll on the couch. “I went to the peasant provinces of Luzon,” she continued. “I worked with the people there, taught their children, and helped some of their women. But I was chased out by the vanguards of absentee landlordism, the enemy of the peasantry. I went to Manila and helped in the formation of the Philippine Writers’ League, an organization of artists and writers with progressive ideas. Then my health began to give way; so I came back to the United States.”

  Jean’s interlude among Filipinos in California touched me more deeply than the others. I later discovered that she had been sent by an educational director of the Communist Party to guide me. But by then she had gone. She died later in New Mexico.

  * * *

  —

  Lucia Simpson took it upon herself to put new life into the dying CPFR. She rented a house and persuaded Lacson and Rios to live with her; but sometime later Rios, jealous of Lacson, stabbed Lucia in the arm. Rios fled, and Lacson took possession of Lucia’s household. But when Mariano was introduced in our group, Lucia asked him to take the place of Rios. When she had an argument with Lacson and Mariano, she drove them off and took an innocent Filipino newspaperman into her house.

  I was disgusted and broken-hearted. José proposed that we should affiliate the CPFR with the American League for Peace and Democracy. It seemed to me that it would have been a good move, but I was losing interest. I was tired. At night when I came home from work, I sat by my brother’s sickbed and read to him. There was one book that he wanted me to read over and over—Thomas Wolfe’s Of Time and the River. I read the beautiful passages about October and death, and Macario turned away from me, deep in thought, his gaze far away.

  When I was reading Michael Gold’s Jews Without Money, Macario stopped me.

  “It’s not impossible for a man with very little education to become a writer,” he said. “You can do it, Carlos.”

  “I’ll do it,” I told him.

  “I’ll wait, Carlos,” he said.

  * * *

  —

  Macario was growing worse. I wanted to locate Amado; although he had gone out of my life, I felt that he must conciliate with Macario. I wanted him to know that in the face of death, in this alien land, we could hold onto each other. I tried all my resources, but he had vanished completely. Then, as a last recourse, I made contacts with the Filipino underworld. It was from this attempt to locate Amado that I uncovered the most sinister influence of Filipino gangland upon the Filipino people.

  I was frightened. There was Eileen Odell—she would understand my thoughts and feelings. But I did not realize, until she told me, that I had not seen her for one whole year. I did not realize that my work in the organization had kept me away from her.

  I also discovered that Lucia Simpson was now in full control of the CPFR. She was again living with Lacson and receiving money from unknown sources. Was her interest in Filipino problems a blind for her emotional demands? I was amazed at her insatiable thirst for the company of men.

  I deliberated with myself. I felt that Lucia’s participation in our cause was merely a front. I was convinced of it when she ran off to Honolulu with Lacson. It was the last time I saw her. But Lacson came back to the United States after two years, bitter toward the Communist Party which was, according to him, the embodiment of all that was evil in Lucia Simpson.

  But Lacson was diabolical; he had the characteristics of a primitive who might run berserk, upon slight provocation. And Rios, one of Lucia’s disciples, practiced tribalism. I could not understand their “proletarian feeling of superiority.” They sneered at me because I was now showing signs of being an “intellectual”—this was the word they used contemptuously behind my back. I tried to explain that my fraternity with them was genuine and rooted in a common ground, that what they termed the “rapid liberalization of my radicalism” was not necessarily a sure sign that I would ultimately betray the working class.

  I felt that their distrust would draw them away from me. I felt that we could work harmoniously together if only they would discard their mask of “proletarian pretense”—a phrase I used to describe their working class arrogance. And they hated me more for it. I knew, then, that I must rise above them: that I must consolidate our gains in my own way.

  Lacson and Rios were immature, stupid, ignorant, and useless. They paraded as members of the Communist Party although they had no actual membership in it. The Party had little use for the Filipinos as a group because they were too few. But the time came, later, when a better type of Filipino took up their people’s cause and thereby contributed positively to the prestige of the Party.

  I can say now that communism among Filipinos had a false start. It was propagated by stupid little men, anti-Filipino. The principles for which the P
arty stood were nebulous and inspiring. If they were subscribed to by little men like Rios and Lacson, the unavoidable result would be confusion and misunderstanding. And confusion it was: the educated Filipino understood the Party, but the ordinary working man was afraid of it.

  But the Communist Party had contributed something definite toward the awakening of Filipinos on the West Coast. Even when it had entirely forsaken them, a few of the more enlightened members gathered the carcass of their hope in socialism and tried to breathe a new life into it. I felt that I belonged to this second phase of the Communist movement among Filipinos, that I would draw inspiration and courage from it to withstand the confusion and utter futility of my own life.

  With this last hope, I looked toward the north once again. I wanted to run away from the stifling narrowness of Temple Street. There in the broad fields, under the wide skies, there in the wide world of grass, trees, and stars my mind would stir and radiate with a new light. I was obsessed with looking across vast lands and staring into the sky. In vast spaces I found a nameless relief from the smallness of my world in America.

  I had saved enough money for my brother to last him two months. I bade him good-bye, but I was afraid to shake his hand. I wanted him to understand that my farewell was like his farewell, years ago. I was not running away from him because he was sick and helpless. I was running away from myself, because I was afraid myself. I was afraid of all that was despairing in that swamp of filth—that dark dungeon of inquisitional terror and fear.

  CHAPTER XLIII

  On a cold winter day I went to the freight yard and boarded a boxcar to Bakersfield. I coughed violently. I remembered bitterly my years of flight across the continent. I had been young and strong then. Now I felt tired and old. There were no hoboes any more. The unemployed men of another decade had gone. I felt my whole youth slipping away from me.

  I sat in the dark corner of the boxcar and reviewed my life. The cold could not touch me any more. It came to me that poverty was the thread of my life, that it gave it a rounded meaning. It was toward midnight when I arrived in Bakersfield. I went to Chinatown hoping to find someone I knew. The gambling houses were closing and the farm workers were returning to their camps.

  I was cold and hungry. I went to a Mexican beer joint. I sat in an empty booth, close to a gas heater. I must have dozed off, because when I looked up a man in a large overcoat stood near me. I was startled when I saw him. It was my brother Amado! My heart sank, not because of his sudden appearance, but because of his condition. He had grown old and haggard. There was a long scar on his left hand. He looked as though he had been roughly handled.

  “Amado!” I said.

  He looked down at me. “What are you doing here, Carlos?”

  “I just arrived by freight from Los Angeles,” I said.

  “I thought you were dead,” he said tonelessly. “I heard that you had died at the hospital.”

  “It was a false alarm,” I said. “I’m not dead yet. Not yet. I’ll let you know when the time comes.”

  “I was in Los Angeles at the time of your last operation,” he said. “I gave a pint of my blood and left.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “I knew that some man gave his blood for me.”

  “I told the doctor not to tell you. I wanted to see you when you were better, but later I heard that you were dead. So I left Los Angeles and wandered here and there.”

  “You should have told me,” I said.

  “It’s all right now,” he said. “Let’s go to my room.”

  We walked three blocks to an old building, and climbed up the dark stairway. It was the smallest room I had ever seen, probably six feet by five. We sat on the cot. When I mentioned that I had not yet eaten, Amado looked down at his hands and fell silent. I saw the length of scar on the back of his hand.

  As though he wanted to justify himself, Amado looked at me pleadingly. He said: “This room is only fifteen cents. I have to have a place to sleep. I can’t stand the cold any more, Carlos! I’ve been away in a cold, hard place—” His voice trailed off in a whisper.

  “You shouldn’t have sent me the money when you were in Arizona,” I said.

  “Did you send it to mother as I told you?” he asked.

  “I did. But it was too late. Luciano was already buried when the money reached Binalonan. Mother gave it to his children.”

  “I’m glad,” Amado said. And then: “I cough at night. There is something tight in my chest when it is cold.”

  I was angry with myself again. I wished I had not come upon him. When I fell suddenly asleep on the cot, Amado covered me with an old army blanket. He slept in his ragged overcoat on the floor. In the morning we agreed to meet at a gambling house. I went to several Filipino camps near by. When I met him at our rendezvous, Amado was jubilant. He had two dollars. We rushed to a chop suey house and ordered enough food to last us for two days.

  When the feast was over we sat in the sun. At three in the afternoon, when the gambling houses opened, I took his last twenty-five cents. I almost lost it, but after two hours of careful playing, I made one dollar. Amado pulled my arm vigorously. He wanted me to stop. But I played on until I had five dollars. I began to believe that if I took up gambling as a profession, I could probably be a great success.

  In the evening, on my way to the freight yard, I told Amado about Macario.

  “I’ll look for a job, Carlos,” Amado said seriously. “If you say Macario is ill, I’ll go to Los Angeles and look for a job.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” I said. “Here is the rest of the money. Go to Los Angeles now.”

  He grabbed the money and looked at me as though he wanted to cry. His mouth trembled.

  “Thank you, Carlos,” he said. “Thank you for being my brother.”

  I saw him in the pale light waving his hand with the long scar. He was weeping—not because I was going away from him, but because of the swift, frightening years. His eyes, when he looked at me for pity and understanding, were haunted with the terror of those years. They were the same eyes that had looked at me kindly in the heavy rain of Mangusmana. They were the same eyes that had looked startled when my father had struck him sharply across the face—the same eyes that cried with a deep brotherly love when he shouted to me in the heavy rain, “Goodbye, Allos!”

  It seemed so long ago that Amado had waved his hand to say good-bye. When I remembered him waving at me with his mud-caked hand, I was startled when I discovered that it was now scarred. All my hate and bitterness had turned to pity for him. When I told myself that I had gone out of his life entirely in Hollywood, when I asked him to help Macario go to college, I was angered only by my own inability to help either of them. But now I knew that in a strange way we were together again—that no terror could ever make us hate each other.

  * * *

  —

  When I arrived in Portland snow was falling. I phoned Nick at the office of the UCAPAWA, where he was still secretary-treasurer. He came immediately and drove me in his car. We went to his room. I was eager to know about his work, but he was very quiet. Finally, when I had pressed him, he confessed that the CPFR had completely disintegrated in Portland.

  “It’s dead, Carl,” he said.

  “There is no hope then?” I asked.

  “We need new men to work with us,” he said. “Our forces are deeply entangled in the labor movement. We need new men, that’s all.”

  I felt that it was true. But I stayed on in Portland hoping to proceed to Seattle. One night, on our way back to Nick’s room from a meeting of John Reed College students, who were members of the Young Communist League, an avalanche of snow fell upon the car. It took us hours to dig it out, but it was not damaged. We cursed the dark sky and drove on, feeling desolate with cold.

  When I woke up in the morning to put some wood in the stove, I was stricken by a fit of coughing and
began to hemorrhage. My chest ached. My eyes were bloodshot. Nick was alarmed: he walked ten blocks to get me something to eat. Then he rushed to his office, coming back again in the afternoon to give me what I needed.

  Was this it? The doctor had told me it would be five years. Was this to be the end of my life? I was not afraid to die, but there were so many things to do. Every day for a month Nick ran back and forth between his office and the room. I thought I should never live to see California again.

  CHAPTER XLIV

  This was the third time Nick had come to my rescue. He knew that wine would irritate the lesions in my lungs. But he knew too that it was not only the disease that was weakening me, but also the black frustration that wrapped my life. Nick brought a bottle of wine one evening and drank with me. The wine dulled the edges of my pain, and my loneliness was temporarily forgotten. I put my head against the wall and wept, so deep was my hunger, so great my loneliness.

  I decided that I would live under any compromise with death. To laugh and shout and sing in the world, facing ultimate death, was dramatic and violent. I had what I wanted at last: a physical violence that evoked the cruelest mental violence. From now on, death or life, I would squeeze every minute to the last drop of activity, rushing toward millions of moments of death in the world.

  I cried and drank wine with Nick while the snow fell upon the city and melted in the street, while the sky darkened and clouds massed together above Portland, while the winter slowly slipped away and gave flashes of the momentary light of spring. After a month I felt strong again, and the thought of California sunshine consoled me. Nick drove me to the bus station, shook my hand in grave parting, then rushed back to the union office where a charge of mismanagement of funds was awaiting him.

  * * *

  —

  I transferred to another bus in San Francisco, and sat at the back with a girl of about nineteen. Her hair was light brown, her skin milk-white. But her eyes were deep blue and frightened. Her name was Mary.