The Brick People

by Alejandro Morales

  He marched away from the large sugarcane field bathed in the golden radiance from the core of the sun. The painted yellow sky brushed a haze, a vibration which he had felt many times when he walked on the earth alone. He breathed deeply. He lacked the words for what he felt: exaltation and ecstasy were not in his vocabulary. Behind his right shoulder, far off in the horizon, a blue house, a red roof and two meager trees grabbed onto the field against the sun’s brilliance. Trees, towers, stacks, buildings stood far off to his left, silently repelled by the powerful advancing sunlight. From the direction in which he was headed, diagonally to his right hip, came a golden path that trailed off to the left of the sun.

  Octavio moved in a sea of colors which he enjoyed. He took a deep breath and looked around at the beautiful world, a beauty that brought images of his beautiful wife. He had no doubt that he was a fortunate man. Nana would soon deliver their first child. Their constant love had proven pleasurable and fruitful.

  In those days Octavio and Ignacio had been assigned to the work crew which was constructing the Simonses’ retreat cottage on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California. The house was a four-bedroom, large kitchen, dining and living room entertainment getaway for Walter and Edit. Walter had planned this second home for some time, and upon closing the deal with his nephew James, he had decided to build it. He searched for a lot near the beach where there would be future development. Newport Beach offered quiet seclusion and promise of a profit in years to come.

  Octavio had worked on the construction since the house began to rise. He learned all that he could about building a home for he realized that, although he would be perfectly happy living the rest of his life with his parents, someday he would build his own house. As Octavio neared his parents’ house he could almost see himself and his sons working on the Revueltas family casa. He opened the gate and wondered about Nana ... Would it be tonight or had she already given birth ... With his last thought he was overcome with excitement, for at the front door waited Tati with a smile that almost hid half of her lovely face. The smile transferred a genuine joy to his mouth and face. Tati hugged him and whispered the child’s gender. Octavio moved to the bedroom and heard an infant’s wail ... What a screamer! he thought. He laughed with joy when he saw Nana, pale and tired but proudly holding the infant.

  “She is beautiful!” Octavio said, not remembering that he had wanted a male for his first-born.

  “Oh, Octavio!” Nana cried softly and disappointment vibrated in her voice.

  Octavio shook his head no. He could not speak. Tears welled in his eyes. He sat beside Nana and held her and his daughter. He did not speak while Nana cried in happiness but also frustration at not presenting him a man-child. He knew why she cried and felt she was funny for that, but if he dared laugh he would let out a wail for the wonder of it all. Tati had observed quietly for some time. How she envied Nana.

  “I’ll bring you some hot tea with honey,” Tati said, waiting for a response.

  Octavio and Nana nodded yes. As she left the room, Tati glanced once more at the beautiful couple and their daughter, Micaela. She entered the kitchen where her husband Ignacio had arrived. Milagros had started some tea, Damian ate dinner, and Maximiliano, Jose, Rogaciana and Felicitas had gathered in the exciting warm heart of that hogar.

  Chapter 12

  December of 1927 promised to be a cold and dry Christmas season. The temperature dropped to below freezing several times during the first week of the month. The dry cold weather created hope that perhaps it would snow in Los Angeles. The possibility of snow, the excitement of it all, was sufficient to tolerate the real state of economic affairs that dominated not only Southern California, but the entire country. Misery and want were beginning to walk throughout the country. The poor were becoming poorer; the rich, richer. Nonetheless, the United States population was enjoying the highest standard of living ever attained anywhere.

  Walter’s Mexicans lived well compared to other poor in the country and compared to their own kind in Mexico, they lived like the affluent. The Mexicans of Simons worked to their utmost capacity for Walter. However, they were never trained to slow down. Their diligent and effective work was so productive that their capacity to make brick had outrun the capacity to consume it. The brickyard slowed, but did not lay off any workers. Everyone still had work and lived in relative comfort, although some workers were better off financially than others who did not share in the general prosperity of the company. These economic levels were brought about by the maldistribution of profits. Walter’s profits and dividends had risen much faster than the wages he paid his workers. The time of great gains was becoming the age of disillusion and despair for the general population living outside of Simons. People became desperate with the fear of losing whatever they had saved. They feared the possibility that there might be no tomorrow.

  With the advent of the Christmas season, strange and horrible deeds began to occur. Young people who looked expectantly toward the future were the most affected by this spirit of doubt. The weather, by changing radically to an uncommon warm, enhanced this feeling of uncertainty. And in that mid-December heat there appeared in Simons a woman who looked about fifty-five-years old, but was in fact only thirty-five.

  As if coming out of a slit in the canvas of reality, the woman walked down Vail Street. She wore a black hat with white inverted triangles, a black velvet dress, black stockings and shoes and a long black fur coat. With her right hand she clutched a small black handbag against her breast. With her left hand she held the black leather handle of a bright silver leash attached to a golden collar around the neck of her seventeen-year-old son, William Edward Hickman. The young man was impeccably dressed in a black suit, white silk shirt and black tie, hardly the attire of a distraught poor boy. As the boy walked along, he placed his hand in front of his face when people stared. He hid his face as if he were hiding the thousands of freckles that gave his countenance an angelic sigh. Innocence had been carved on his face. But he walked afraid of the look of other people.

  Mother and son moved in the direction of the house of Doña Marcelina Trujillo Benidorm who waited at the entrance. Hickman’s mother had earlier asked Doña Marcelina if she would cure her son of the horrible visions he observed at night. Insanity was a unifying blood vessel that ran in William Edward Hickman’s family. His grandmother was known to be insane, and two uncles manifested an irrational religious calling to heal the well and destroy the sick. A male and female cousin were imbeciles who toured with a foreign circus. His mother, in her opinion, was seriously but gloriously disturbed throughout her life. She, like a black widow spider, had been accused of literally devouring Hickman’s father by killing, mincing and eating him as meat patties throughout the year that she nursed Hickman. Charged with murder, and while never convicted of the crime, she was institutionalized in an asylum for one year of observation until declared perfectly sane by the psychiatrist. She then returned home to raise Hickman.

  Mrs. Hickman brought the boy to Doña Marcelina to erase an image that the teenage boy had described repeatedly to school officials. He had visions that his mother, thinking he was asleep, regularly stood over him at night with a butcher knife in her hand contemplating and praying for God’s instruction for either her death or his. In the morning she would lick the boy’s face to place spots of Christ which, according to her, had been pricked on her tongue throughout the night by God. It was not uncommon for the boy to suffer epileptic attacks on his way to school. Children and adults would gather round him and watch until the seizure subsided. If he suffered the attack at home, his mother would remove his clothes and lick the boy’s body until he fell asleep exhausted from struggle.

  Doña Marcelina spent the morning analyzing the boy. She rested to regain her energy, for the child’s condition proved to be multiple and severe. She dedicated the afternoon to experimenting with various resolutions, but none was successful. When the sun began to set, she turned to Hickman’s mother and declared that
the boy had won, that she, Doña Marcelina Trujillo Benidorm, could do no more, that her energies had seen the boy’s destiny and it was irreversible.

  “He is one of the chosen. I can only pray for you,” Doña Marcelina said to the mother and son as they prepared to leave.

  “He has been chosen to do God’s work,” Hickman’s mother laughed as she proudly helped her son with his coat and locked the gold collar round his neck. Both mother and son knew that it was impossible to cure their destiny. She was the mother of a Judas and he would carry out his betrayal terrifyingly well.

  Doña Marcelina walked the Hickmans to the edge of her property and pointed to Telegraph Road in the direction of Los Angeles and hoped that there Hickman and his mother would find in the vale of reality a rip to step through. Doña Marcelina watched them disappear. That evening the great curandera wept for the sure victims of these miserable people, victims whom, although she could see, she could not warn.

  On a warm Thursday, the fifteenth of December, Octavio returned from work early and told Nana to get the baby ready for an excursion to Los Angeles. Nana prepared a lunch, diapered Micaela and wrapped her in light blankets. She placed the lunch and extra diapers and blankets in the back seat of the 1923 brilliant blue, four-door Rekenbaker sedan that Maximiliano and Octavio had recently purchased. Maximiliano arrived with Ignacio and Tati, who carried a lunch basket. Tati immediately went to the baby.

  “How is my precious baby, comadre?” Tati held Micaela.

  Nana noticed how Tati had addressed her—comadre—Tati’s way of indicating that she wanted to baptize the baby. Nana had not considered anyone but Tati, who had accompanied her throughout the ordeal of labor for the honor of being a godparent. Nana went to Tati and put her arm around her.

  “Secure in your arms, comadre,” Nana smiled.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” Tati asked, satisfied. She took Micaela out to the car where the men waited. Nana went for her purse and joined them.

  “And Octavio?” Ignacio asked.

  “Here he comes. He was in the bathroom,” Maximiliano answered jokingly but factually, for from where they waited he could see the outhouse.

  “Well, how much did you confess to the spiders, Octavio?” Ignacio drew laughter from the family. Octavio opened the door and handed the keys to Maximiliano.

  Maximiliano pulled away from the fence and drove slowly toward the general store. As the car passed Guadalupe Sandoval’s house, they saw Milagros sitting in the garden under the giant alcanfor at the side of the house chatting with her brother and his wife. Maximiliano stopped the car.

  “Mama, we’re going to Los Angeles to see the Christmas lights,” he called out and waved goodbye.

  Milagros nodded her approval and made the sign of the cross in her goodbye wave.

  By the time they broke through the Los Angeles city limits, Nana and Tati had indirectly received the evening’s agenda. At first, all Nana knew was that they were going to Los Angeles. Then she heard that they were to see the city Christmas lights and finally eat at the plaza, where there was to be a performance of Christmas carolers. It would have been nice if Octavio had told her a day before of the plans. She remembered Tati’s calling her comadre. Had the godparents of her child been decided without her opinion? Tati still held Micaela in her arms. Nana sensed how much Tati desired a child of her own. With that thought Nana’s anger subsided. Nonetheless, she felt strongly that Octavio should consult with her about whatever plans he wanted to make concerning their family. Octavio and Ignacio conversed all the while; seldom did they address Nana or Tati. Maximiliano drove carefully, fascinated by the rapid growth of the city of Los Angeles.

  “Los Angeles has more than a million people now,” Maximiliano thought out loud.

  “Yes, a million gringos and perhaps a million Mexicans that the gringos don’t want to see,” Ignacio rejoindered.

  “They think they all work in Simons,” Octavio chuckled.

  “Did you know they fired five men today?” Maximiliano stated.

  “The most recent arrivals and with family. It’s because there is less demand. They are reducing production everywhere,” Octavio said.

  “That’s why Federico is leaving,” Maximiliano said. “He thinks work is more secure at the other Simons brother’s plant”

  “It’s the same as here. Federico is going because Celia says there are better schools, a house to buy, also because Celia has relatives over there. There is no job security at any brickyard,” Ignacio responded, somewhat bothered by what Maximiliano said.

  Nana thought of having her own house.

  “That’s why we need a workers’ union to protect the workers and their jobs,” Octavio said in a strong tone.

  “If you start on about a union they will fire you,” Maximiliano replied. “Old man Simons is against any kind of union. He has said that unions are only good for creating dissatisfaction among the workers.”

  Maximiliano started to lower the sun visor. Suddenly he stopped. He looked out the window toward the Montebello hills, past them through the time and space housed in his mind, and from a corner of his left eye from infinite miles away he saw traveling across the vast whiteness a brown insect reaching out to him. Perfectly calm and pale, Maximiliano contemplated the ever-laboring insect. Unafraid of the enormous beast that approached, he waited without breathing.

  “The old man thinks that by treating us like pet children he blinds us from what is happening outside of Simons,” Octavio said, interrupting his brother’s vision. “No, Maximiliano, times are bad. Lots of people are out of work. What or who is going to stop Simons if he decides to throw us all out to the street and then gives our jobs to the gringos?” Octavio stated with anger.

  “Look at the little angels, the candles, Santa Claus, such pretty decorations.” Maximiliano braked for a red light and then drove through the main downtown streets. Finally he stopped before the railroad station and turned into the parking lot. “From here the plaza is not far,” he said and stepped out of the car.

  As the group neared the plaza, individuals, couples, families—all Mexican, only a few Anglos—paraded before Nana’s eyes. These people were moving in every direction around Octavio and her. They seemed confident, far from what she felt about her married life at the moment. Married life was a necklace of discoveries which Nana experienced every day, both alone and at times with Octavio. Often Octavio returned home only to change clothes, eat and go off to work. Survival was the rule of every day and night.

  Nana could feel Octavio as he walked next to her. She looked for the best place to sit down for their picnic dinner. An open space was on the right of the stage that had been built by the city Recreation Department for the entertainment that would step forth shortly to sing about Christmas cheer. Maximiliano spread a blanket on the dirt. They all sat down and Nana and Tati passed out food. Octavio and Ignacio drank wine. Nana and Tati refused to drink and sat with Micaela, who had fallen asleep at the moment that the Department of Parks and Recreation’s three hundred volunteer carolers began to march in and vibrate the Los Angeles basin with the lyrics of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” Nana, amazed at the size of the choir, took in the beauty of the voices which seemed to be singing to her. She held her baby next to her heart, rocked gently, and hummed the Christmas songs which she heard for the first time in her life.

  The melodies danced in Nana’s mind throughout the intermission when a woman whom Octavio, Nana, Ignacio, Tati and Maximiliano should have known came up on the stage. A priest spoke of her as a friend of the community.

  “And why not say it? A friend to the Mexican community of Los Angeles. I give you Edit Marin Chalk Simons, the organizer of this year’s Christmas Carol concert,” the priest said.

  “That’s old man Simons’ wife?” Ignacio asked.

  “Yes, she is, and here comes Mr. Simons.” Octavio pointed to a large man walking up to the stage to stand next to Edit. They did not speak to the public, only bowed, shook hands with s
ome of the carolers and exited into the warm December night.

  Earlier in the afternoon, about two o’clock, a young man appeared at the Mount Vernon Junior High School and spoke with the registrar. He gave a false name and identified himself as an employee of Mr. Perry Parker, the manager of a local bank. The innocent freckle-faced young man with black curly hair communicated that Parker had suffered a serious automobile accident and that the family had authorized him to pick up the Parkers’ twelve-year-old daughter, Marion. The young man sat up properly and waited. His calmness caused the school personnel to act immediately, for the boy’s words and tone announced that Parker was in imminent danger, that death lurked close by his hospital bed. Without question, the believing school officials released the child.

  Parker came out of a staff meeting and was confronted by a Western Union messenger who handed over a telegram. He thought of his parents or in-laws who were well advanced in age. The first death of his young family, and during Christmas, he thought as he entered his office to open the envelope privately. When the messenger had left, the office staff was alerted to the possibility of an untimely death in the manager’s life. The staff became worried when after half an hour Parker did not come out of his office. His secretary entered and found him crying like a child. A few minutes later, the office was taken over by Los Angeles police. The bank closed when the police arrived, and shortly after, the news of the kidnapping began to leak out to the public.