The Brick People

by Alejandro Morales

  His no-name invention was a faster method of building stronger and cheaper brick walls. He believed that his invention would solve the problem of expansion and contraction of steel-reinforcing bars used in brick walls. His method provided for a structure erected at a low cost and assembled rapidly and efficiently. The unique way the metal reinforcing bars were connected was the key to the invention. He had invested thousands of dollars in architects, engineers and lawyers to prepare his statement to the patent office. Walter, convinced of the efficiency of his invention, claimed that a structure, no matter how large, made by his method would resist the greatest shock without a complete collapse. The invention included not only the general wall construction method but also specific individual bricks designed especially for the Simons method. Walter declared that his invention was not limited to the specific construction described, and illustrated in the patent petition some of the variations that could be made for the adaptability of any structure desired.

  Walter had decided that his Mexicans at the Simons Brickyard were not only going to produce the material for the invention, but would also serve as the builders of the projects contracted. In late January of 1933, William, Gonzalo and Jacobo explained to the fifty-five workers present the new deal that Walter had outlined and declared it to be the direction that the brickyard would take. The men listened and glanced at one another as William detailed the brick walls they would produce. Jacobo stepped forward and explained the wages that the workers were to receive. There were no raises, no improvements in anything. During the past three years most of the workers had borrowed from the company store and had a substantial debt. The patron had helped them through depressed times and now he expected his Mexicans to cooperate with him in launching the new direction of the Simons Brickyard.

  Octavio, who stood among them, received the news with disdain. Why should they have to work without a raise or improved family benefits? Octavio did not owe the company one cent. He paid his bills without fail. He and his family were financially free of debt. Only fifteen other men found themselves in the same envious position, most of them Revueltas and Sandovals. Not even the square-faced Gonzalo could claim financial independence from Walter Robey Simons. Gonzalo, Jacobo and William owed everything they possessed, accomplished and desired to Walter, and consequently they carried out his bidding.

  Octavio, dissatisfied with Walter’s offer of work in order to rebuild the economy and the country, recalled what he had heard at a meeting of the Congress of Spanish-speaking People, that the patrons would attempt to pay lower wages because of the Depression or maintain the salary scale implemented before the bad times came. Octavio became annoyed at the suggestion that the Mexican workers, who had been working hard all along, should work harder for no additional compensation to maintain a flame of hope for a better society in the future. He disliked the word hope. Hope, he believed, was a concept of oppression used by the dominant society to rule the mass of people. Hope represented non-movement, never advancing forward, never bettering the workers’ economic state. Hope was a void, a holding zone used to control. Octavio would not be controlled. He rejected hope and searched for a plan of action against Walter.

  Octavio disengaged from the group and signaled to his brothers that he was leaving the union meeting. Organizers from the Cannery and Agricultural Workers’ Union as well as three men from the newly-formed Confederacion de Sindicatos de Campesinos y Obreros had previously visited the Simons Brickyard. Octavio had attended all the meetings. ... Who will survive will be Octavio Revueltas, he reassured himself as he walked away.

  Jose now walked next to him. After a few minutes, Octavio stopped. He knew that Maximiliano followed behind, but he would never catch up to his brothers. Octavio sensed that a negative energy seethed in Maximiliano’s body. For six years this burning had fed on Maximiliano’s will to live. Most of the time his condition was normal, but at times a heavy weakness took hold of his body and nearly incapacitated him. Recently, after the coming of the new year, the seizures of fatigue multipled in occurrence and intensity. Maximiliano had sought medical help but the doctors concurred, after examining him for tuberculosis, that he was simply overworked or perhaps malnourished. He cut back on his hours at the brickyard, which angered Gonzalo who accused Maximiliano of being un huevón, lazy. Milagros took the doctors’ comments about malnutrition as a personal insult as well as an order and a challenge to feed and save her son. She began to make enormous meals and practically force-feed him. However, these efforts did not change Maximiliano’s condition. He deteriorated relentlessly and no one knew why or how to stop the process.

  “Hurry up, man!” Jose yelled, insensitive to Maximiliano’s effort to walk faster, to catch up to his brothers, not to slow them or their lives down.

  Octavio needed only to give Jose one stern look to tell him that he was dangerously out of line. Octavio reached for Maximiliano, who took his arm and leaned on his older brother the rest of the way home. Maximiliano became rubber-legged and Octavio struggled with him, encouraging him that home was not far. Jose ran home to tell his mother that Maximiliano had suffered another attack. That afternoon as Maximiliano slept, Octavio discussed his brother’s state with Milagros and Damian. Obviously something dreadfully powerful attempted to take over his body. That energy had to be destroyed, equalized and balanced. Milagros decided to take Maximiliano to Doña Marcelina Trujillo Benidorm for her analysis.

  Early the next morning Octavio awoke with concern for Maximiliano uppermost in his mind. He did not disagree with his mother about taking Maximiliano to see Doña Marcelina, but he felt that Maximiliano needed a complete physical analysis which would require a stay in the hospital. Maximiliano was in a battle to live. This unexpected turn of events in his brother’s life convinced Octavio that better salaries and benefits as well as improvements in working conditions were long in coming. Simons workers had inhaled red dust for decades and no one had ever complained when a worker coughed and spit up his lungs in puddles of blood and globs of red pebbles.

  Octavio and Nana walked along Southworth Street toward the giant oak that rose on top of the hill overlooking the arroyo on the back side of Vail School. They stopped and looked toward the dairy. The cows mooed; their huge udders swayed as they headed toward the milking barns. Octavio and Nana laughed at the lumbering cows constantly mooing. She was grateful, happy to have gotten out of the house. Being with children, talking to them all day and cleaning house made for a long day. Their second male child, Javier, seemed to demand too much of her. Javier, born on April 23, 1932, seemed insatiably hungry to Nana. On their stroll they talked about Javier’s birth and how perhaps they should have only one more child. Throughout the conversation Nana relived the day of the birth. She recalled how the event had been exactly the same twice before. The same people were present to help, she lay on the same bed, the water boiled in the same white porcelain pot, and the same white towels and linens were used by Tati, who had not yet conceived her first child. But there was something different.

  “Maximiliano was very worried. Do you remember, Octavio?” Nana remembered.

  Octavio looked out over the Vail School.

  “He constantly asked Tati about my condition. ‘Has Nana given birth yet?’ he would ask. I remember his strong voice just outside the room. But now his voice is very weak. Maximiliano should live, Octavio.” Nana clenched her hands and shook them, imploring the firmament.

  “He’ll recover, he’ll recover.” Octavio embraced Nana and kissed her neck. “What did Doña Marcelina have to say?”

  “That day Mother returned very scared. She did not mention the fear she carried within, but it was so heavy that it showed in her expression, in her movements, in her voice. I asked her to tell me about Maximiliano’s examination. Your mother was tranquil, but with an iron stare told me that Doña Marcelina discovered millions of black spiders circulating in the oceans of blood in Maximiliano, and that the black spiders are burning him internally. And that Maximiliano
will be devoured by the fire of his own life. That’s what your mother told me.” Nana smiled as she saw her daughter.

  From the Vail School kindergarten classroom, children excitedly ran across the playground. Among them ran Micaela. Nana walked down the hill to the arroyo to help her daughter cross the brook. Octavio waited under the giant oak at the top of the hill. As Nana and Micaela carefully crossed the brook and walked up the hill, he thought of how easily people and events are forgotten. Nana had only moments ago described the death of Maximiliano whom they both loved but whose existence was now blanked out by the sudden overwhelming presence of their beautiful first-born. In watching them come nearer to him, Octavio thought about how much he loved his children and how they would get the best that his work could afford.

  And Maximiliano would get the best medical treatment possible. There was still a life before his children, but for his brother there was only one choice: to go to Whittier Presbyterian Hospital for a complete physical and series of tests to find out if Doña Marcelina’s painful road of death was true.

  Nana picked up Micaela and handed her to Octavio.

  “How did it go today?” Octavio kissed Micaela and put his arm around Nana’s neck.

  He looked toward Simons Brickyard. Screw old man Simons. We need a union here. Screw this place. We have to change it. He silently cursed the place which he could never leave, nor be far away from. He saw himself like the old oak tree under which minutes ago he had stood. The oak struggled to grow, breaking the ground around it with enormous roots. The old oak would never move. It would die there where it grew.

  Chapter 15

  The stars began to wink in the dark grey blue of the sky. From atop the hills overlooking Los Angeles, from Barrio Margarito, Octavio noticed that the red hue from the setting sun hung on for a long time. He walked down the outside staircase leading from a second-story room where he had just won one thousand dollars from a man who did not know when to quit. Octavio had left the man with empty pockets, pitifully crying. The man cried out that his children would not eat because of Octavio.

  Ignacio and Guadalupe Sandoval and Vicente Limon met Octavio at the bottom of the stairs. The three men moved across a large plaza which sloped down to a fountain in the center of Barrio Margarito. They went to a small second-hand shop which sold books, statues, lamps, furniture and paintings. In a room at the back of the shop were hundreds, perhaps thousands of Oriental paintings. Octavio heard someone say Japanese woodblock prints. Ignacio, Guadalupe and Vicente followed Octavio to a large terraced room. A long table took up the center of the upper part of the room, and beyond that windows displayed the evolving night sky and its dancing stars. As Octavio and his group walked up to the table, a man whom he had seen before across poker tables in Barrio Margarito passed him carrying one of the Japanese paintings. They acknowledged each other and moved on. The evening’s host, Armando Takahashi Subia, pronounced the man’s name Stewart Josia Teaza, a patient gambler and a great admirer of Japanese woodblock art. He was returning to Tokyo where he resided. Armando spoke of the man with great respect as he guided his Simons Brickyard guests to the dinner table.

  That evening the four men from Simons listened to Armando explain the need for workers to be organized. He presented the history of the Cannery and Agricultural Workers’ Industrial Union as well as the historical process of worker organization. When dinner was being served, a young woman entered the room. The woman looked up to where the men dined. The night sky and the stars showing through the windows created the feeling that she would be dining among the stars and that the stars were not so big and far away as humanity thought. Armando waved her up.

  “Caroline Decker. She has been with us ever since we started organizing.” Armando introduced the woman without male and female formalities, which he believed were obstacles to social progress. He treated Caroline Decker with respect and confidence. He explained that her task for the evening was to talk about the organizers that offered to help the men, women and children of Simons.

  “Actually, most of the young people in the CAWIU ... ” Caroline paused and observed her listeners’ eyes. “I’m sorry. Do you understand English?” she asked and looked to Octavio for an answer for the men who accompanied him.

  Ignacio smiled. Guadalupe and Vicente leaned back in their chairs and indicated yes with long vertical movements of the face. They did not want to give the impression of boredom and ordered another beer from the waiter who waited close by for orders.

  “Well, good. I’m glad,” Caroline continued. “We are a group of people dedicated to our mission to save the exploited workers of this country. We are poorly paid and overworked. If someone were to ask me if we had Communist affiliations, I would have to say yes, we do. We are ideological communists, progressive Americans with a social conscience who believe that with the organization of workers we can achieve equality. People will not suffer hunger, will not lack medical help, will not lack decent housing, nor an education, nor a job, nor clothing. Equality means freedom from the lack of basic human necessities which capitalism inherently denies to eighty percent of the people who live under its exploitive economic system.” Caroline considered her beautiful, powerful words. She scratched her nose.

  “We can help you. We can organize you into a strong successful union that will guarantee equality and freedom from not being able to meet your basic needs.” She searched Armando’s eyes, perhaps for approval, perhaps for an indication that he was going to speak.

  “It won’t be easy and it might be dangerous, depending on how the boss reacts to your efforts,” Armando added.

  “What do you say? Can we help?” Caroline directed her questions to all of them.

  Octavio and the rest of the Simons brigade consulted through looks.

  “Yes, we need your help,” Octavio finally said.

  “Good. Begin to talk to the workers at the yard. Tell them to expect us in three weeks. By then the owner will have made his first move to stop you,” Caroline finished.

  As Armando walked the Simons proles to the door, Caroline waved from the top tier of the room. Octavio wondered about what he had done and what the consequences would be.

  By the fountain at the center of Barrio Margarito Plaza, Octavio saw the man from whom he had won one thousand dollars. The man seemed to be in a drunken stupor. Octavio studied him for a while. His light complexion, his suit, tie, and shoes were those of a smart gringo. The man opened his eyes and reached up to Octavio.

  “Ignacio, give him the flask,” Octavio suggested, smiling. Ignacio pulled out a flask of bourbon from the inside pocket of his coat. The man grabbed the bottle and gulped down the whiskey.

  “Drown, you imbecile,” Octavio whispered.

  The man put down the almost empty pint. Ignacio looked at Octavio in disgust for having to waste a full bottle of good whiskey on a drunkard. Guadalupe and Vicente walked away, laughing at Ignacio’s ironic anger. Octavio stared into the wino’s eyes.

  “Thank you mister, you’re my friend! You’re my friend!” the man did not stop yelling.

  From Barrio Margarito, down toward the ocean, Octavio saw a strange red glow and sparks rising and jumping from the earth. Now he could barely hear the man’s words.

  Micaela, Arturo and Javier, comfortable in warm, clean clothes, waited for dinner. Nana had decided to have a light meal since, to her anger, Octavio had gone to Los Angeles to gamble or to do something with the union that the workers wanted to start. She felt vulnerable because Octavio persisted in his involvement with these strange people. The Japanese-Mexican and the woman Caroline Decker had visited the brickyard on several occasions. They had talked to the men and had influenced them by the manner in which they spoke about the workers of the world. These gatherings had been kept secret, but now that the workers planned to meet in the company amusement hall, Nana feared that trouble would find her husband and that the Simons foreman would retaliate. Somehow Gonzalo Pedroza had found out about the secret meetings and had rep
orted them to William Melone and Jacobo Ramos. They, in turn, had communicated the union activity to Walter Simons who was vacationing in Europe. William had received a reply indicating that Walter would return in two weeks and that they should find out who the leaders were of the union activities.

  Nana stirred the simmering albóndiga soup and worried about Octavio. She went to the small front porch and tended to her potted plants. Next door, in the room that Octavio had built for them, lay Maximiliano, weak, resting to accumulate energy to be active in the morning. He usually tired easily but at times he felt strong. Nana felt guilty worrying about her husband and the relationship with her father in comparison to what Maximiliano must be feeling about his health, but she could not control her thoughts.

  She loved her parents and on several occasions had seen her mother at Paquita’s house. She had forgiven her mother for not being strong enough to defend the rights of her daughters. Nana admitted, however, that she could not find the place where forgiveness for her father was hidden. She needed to forgive Malaquías for his attitude toward her marriage, her elopement, which he had condemned as a disgraceful abandonment of Nana’s sisters, brothers, mother and father when they needed her the most to help support the family. It was as if Malaquías would have never allowed Nana to pursue a life of her own.

  Bitterly, Nana realized that she could never forget how Malaquías had acted when she went to him at her uncle’s house to ask for forgiveness. She compromised the fact that she had done nothing wrong in order to bring peace and unify the de Leon family for her mother’s sake. On her knees, Nana asked for forgiveness only to have Malaquías totally ignore his daughter’s presence. Never looking the child in the eye, he held his granddaughter Micaela for a moment and quickly handed her back to his sister-in-law. He had humiliated Nana and left her sobbing on the floor. At that instant Nana’s respect and love for Malaquías gave birth to a powerful parallel hatred that she sadly carried in her mind as a horrible memory.