At last we came to some mountains, tall frowning mountains, and deep, narrow rivers rushing down the canyons. I counted thirteen short tunnels before we came out to the border of California, rolling across a wide land of luxuriant vegetation and busy towns. Then there was a river, and not far off the town of Marysville loomed above a valley of grapes and sugar beets, all green and ready for the summer harvest.
I wanted to stop and walk around town, but some of the hoboes told me that there were thousands of Filipinos in Stockton. I remained on the same train until it got to Sacramento, where I boarded another that took me to Stockton. It was twilight when the train pulled into the yards. I asked some of the hoboes where I could find Chinatown, for there I would be sure to find my countrymen.
“El Dorado Street,” they said.
It was like a song, for the words actually mean “the land of gold.” I did not know that I wanted gold in the new land, but the name was like a song. I walked slowly in the streets, avoiding the business district and the lights. Then familiar signs glowed in the coming night, and I began to walk faster. I saw many Filipinos in magnificent suits standing in front of poolrooms and gambling houses. There must have been hundreds in the street somewhere, waiting for the night.
I walked eagerly among them, looking into every face and hoping to see a familiar one. The asparagus season was over and most of the Filipino farmhands were in town, bent on spending their earnings because they had no other place to go. They were sitting in the bars and poolrooms, in the dance halls and gambling dens; and when they had lost or spent all their money, they went to the whorehouses and pawed at the prostitutes.
I entered a big gambling house on El Dorado and Lafayette Streets, where ten prostitutes circulated, obscenely clutching at some of the gamblers. I went to a stove in the middle of the room where a pot of tea was boiling. I filled a cup and then another, and the liquid warmed my empty stomach. This was to save me in harsher times, in the hungry years of my life in America. Drinking tea in Chinese gambling houses was something tangible, and gratifying, and perhaps it was because of this that most of the Filipino unemployed frequented these places.
I was still drinking when a Chinese came out of a back room with a gun and shot a Filipino who was standing by a table. When the bullet hit the Filipino, he turned toward the Chinese with a stupid look of surprise. I saw his eyes and I knew that the philosophers lied when they said death was easy and beautiful. I knew that there was nothing better than life, even a hard life, even a frustrated life. Yes, even a broken-down gambler’s life. And I wanted to live.
I ran to the door without looking back. I ran furiously down the street. A block away, I stopped in a doorway and stood, shivering, afraid, and wanting to spit out the tea that I had drunk in the gambling house. When my heart ceased pounding, I walked blindly up a side street. I had not gone far when I saw a building ablaze.
“What is it?” I asked a Filipino near me.
“It is the Filipino Federation Building,” he said. “I don’t agree with this organization, but I know why the building is burning. I know the Chinese gambling lords control this town.”
I did not know what he meant. I looked at him with eager eyes.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “I’ve just arrived in the United States.”
“My name is Claro,” he said, extending a long, thin hand, and coughing behind the other. “I came from Luna, in the province of La Union. Let us go to my restaurant and I will explain everything to you. Are you hungry, boy?”
He was not much older than I, and he spoke my dialect.
“I have not eaten for two days,” I said. “You see, I took the freight train in Sunnyside, Washington.”
Claro hugged me. When he entered the restaurant, he locked the door and put down the shades.
“I don’t want the swine in the street to see us,” he said, going to the stove. “They disgust me with their filthy interest in money. That is why I am always behind in my bills. I like good people, so I am keeping this restaurant for them.”
I watched him prepare vegetable soup and fry a piece of chicken. When the pot started to boil, Claro put a record on a portable phonograph at the other end of the counter; then there was a sudden softness in his face, and his eyes shone. He had put on a Strauss waltz. Going back to the stove, Claro raised his hands expertly above his head in the manner of boleros and started to dance, swaying gracefully in the narrow space between the stove and the counter. He was smiling blissfully, and when someone knocked on the door he stopped suddenly and shouted:
“Go away! The place is closed for tonight!”
When he had placed everything on the counter, Claro took a chair and sat near me.
“Listen, my friend,” he said. “The Chinese syndicates, the gambling lords, are sucking the blood of our people. The Pinoys work every day in the fields but when the season is over their money is in the Chinese vaults! And what do the Chinese do? Nothing! I see them only at night in their filthy gambling dens waiting for the Filipinos to throw their hard-earned money on the tables. Why, the Chinese control this town! The local banks can’t do business without them, and the farmers, who badly need the health and interest of their Filipino workers, don’t want to do anything because they borrow money from the banks. See!”
I was too hungry to listen. But I was also beginning to understand what he was trying to say.
“Perhaps in another year I will be able to understand what you are saying, Claro,” I said.
“Stay away from Stockton,” he warned me. “Stay away from the Chinese gambling houses, and the dance halls and the whorehouses operated by Americans. Don’t come back to this corrupt town until you are ready to fight for our people!”
I thanked him and walked hastily to the door. I hurried to the freight yards. I was fortunate enough to find an empty boxcar. I sat in a corner and tried to sleep, but Claro’s words kept coming back to me. He wanted me to go back to fight for our people when I was ready. I knew I would go back, but how soon I did not know. I would go back to Claro and his town. His food had warmed me and I felt good.
CHAPTER XVI
I began to be afraid, riding alone in the freight train. I wanted suddenly to go back to Stockton and look for a job in the tomato fields, but the train was already traveling fast. I was in flight again, away from an unknown terror that seemed to follow me everywhere. Dark flight into another place, toward other enemies. But there was a clear sky and the night was ablaze with stars. I could still see the faint haze of Stockton’s lights in the distance, a halo arching above it and fading into a backdrop of darkness.
In the early morning the train stopped a few miles from Niles, in the midst of a wide grape field. The grapes had been harvested and the bare vines were falling to the ground. The apricot trees were leafless. Three railroad detectives jumped out of a car and ran toward the boxcars. I ran to the vineyard and hid behind a smudge pot, waiting for the next train from Stockton. A few bunches of grapes still hung on the vines, so I filled my pockets and ran for the tracks when the train came. It was a freight and it stopped to pick up carloads of grapes; when it started moving again the empties were full of men.
I crawled to a corner of a car and fell asleep. When I awakened the train was already in San Jose. I jumped outside and found another freight going south. I swung aboard and found several hoboes drinking cans of beer. I sat and watched them sitting solemnly, as though there were no more life left in the world. They talked as though there were no more happiness left, as though life had died and would not live again. I could not converse with them, and this barrier made me a stranger. I wanted to know them and to be a part of their life. I wondered what I had in common with them beside the fact that we were all on the road rolling to unknown destinations.
When I reached Salinas, I walked to town and went to a Mexican restaurant on Soledad Street. I was drinking coffee when I saw the same youn
g girl who had disappeared in the night. She was passing by with an old man. I ran to the door and called to her, but she did not hear me. I went back to my coffee wondering what would become of her.
I avoided the Chinese gambling houses, remembering the tragedy in Stockton. Walking on the dark side of the street as though I were hunted, I returned eagerly to the freight yards. I found the hoboes sitting gloomily in the dark. I tried a few times to jump into the boxcars, but the detectives chased me away. When the freights had gone the detectives left.
Then an express from San Francisco came and stopped to pick up a few passengers. The hoboes darted out from the dark and ran to the rods. When I realized that I was the only one left, I grabbed the rod between the coal car and the car behind it. Then the express started, gathering speed as it nosed its way through the night.
I almost fell several times. The strong, cold wind lashed sharply at my face. I put the crook of my arm securely about the rod, pinching myself when I feared that I was going to sleep. It was not yet autumn and the sky was clear, but the wind was bitter and sharp and cut across my face like a knife. When my arm went to sleep, I beat it to life with my fist. It was the only way I could save myself from falling to my death.
I was so exhausted and stiff with the cold when I reached San Luis Obispo that I could scarcely climb down. I stumbled when I reached the ground, rolling over on my stomach as though I were headless. Then I walked to town, where I found a Filipino who took me in his car to Pismo Beach. The Filipino community was a small block near the sea—a block of poolrooms, gambling houses, and little green cottages where prostitutes were doing business. At first I did not know what the cottages were, but I saw many Filipinos going into them from the gambling houses near by. Then I guessed what they were, because cottages such as these were found in every Filipino community.
I went into one of the cottages and sat in the warm little parlor where the Filipinos were waiting their turn to go upstairs. Some of the prostitutes were sitting awkwardly in the men’s laps, wheedling them. Others were dancing cheek to cheek, swaying their hips suggestively. The Filipinos stood around whispering lustily in their dialects. The girls were scantily dressed, and one of them was nude. The nude girl put her arms around me and started cooing lasciviously.
I was extricated from her by the same Filipino who had taken me into his car in San Luis Obispo. He came into the house and immediately took the girl upstairs. In ten minutes he was down again and asked me if I would like to ride with him to Lompoc. I had heard of the place when I was in Seattle, so naturally I was interested. We started immediately and in about two hours had passed through Santa Maria.
Beyond the town, at a railroad crossing, highway patrolmen stopped our car. Speaking to me in our dialect, Doro, my companion, said:
“These bastards probably want to see if we have a white woman in the car.”
“Why?” I asked him, becoming frightened.
“They think every Filipino is a pimp,” he said. “But there are more pimps among them than among all the Filipinos in the world put together. I will kill one of these bastards someday!”
They questioned Doro curtly, peered into the car, and told us to go on.
I came to know afterward that in many ways it was a crime to be a Filipino in California. I came to know that the public streets were not free to my people: we were stopped each time these vigilant patrolmen saw us driving a car. We were suspect each time we were seen with a white woman. And perhaps it was this narrowing of our life into an island, into a filthy segment of American society, that had driven Filipinos like Doro inward, hating everyone and despising all positive urgencies toward freedom.
* * *
—
When we reached the mountains to the right of the highway, we turned toward them and started climbing slowly, following the road that winds around them like a taut ribbon. We had been driving for an hour when we reached the summit, and suddenly the town of Lompoc shone like a constellation of stars in the deep valley below. We started downward, hearing the strong wind from the sea beating against the car. Then we came to the edge of the town, and church bells began ringing somewhere near a forest.
It was the end of the flower season, so the Filipino workers were all in town. They stood on the sidewalks and in front of Japanese stores showing their fat rolls of money to the girls. Gambling was going on in one of the old buildings, in the Mexican district, and in a café across the street Mexican girls and Filipinos were dancing. I went inside the café and sat near the counter, watching the plump girls dancing drunkenly.
I noticed a small Filipino sitting forlornly at one of the tables. He was smoking a cigar and spitting like a big man into an empty cigar box on the floor. When the juke box stopped playing he jumped to the counterman for some change. He put the nickels in the slot, waving graciously to the dancers although he never danced himself. Now and then a Filipino would go into the back room where the gamblers were playing cards and cursing loudly.
The forlorn Filipino went to the counter again and asked for change. He put all the nickels in the slot and bought several packages of cigarettes. He threw the cigarettes on the table near the juke box and then called to the old Mexican men who were sitting around the place. The Mexicans rushed for the table, grabbing the cigarettes. The Filipino went out lighting another big cigar.
I followed him immediately. He walked slowly and stopped now and then to see if I was following him. There was some mysterious force in him that attracted me. When he came to a large neon sign which said Landstrom Café, he stopped and peered through the wide front window. Then he entered a side door and climbed the long stairs.
I opened the door quietly and entered. I heard him talking to a man in one of the rooms upstairs. When I reached the landing a hard blow fell on my head. I rolled on the floor. Then I saw him with a gun in his hand, poised to strike at my head again. Standing behind him was my brother Amado, holding a long-bladed knife.
I scrambled to my feet screaming: “Brother, it is me! It is Allos! Remember?”
My brother told his friend to stop. He came near me, walking around me suspiciously. He stepped back and folded the blade of the knife. There was some doubt in his face.
“I am your brother,” I said again, holding back the tears in my eyes. “I am Allos! Remember the village of Mangusmana? Remember when you beat our carabao in the rain? When you touched my head and then ran to Binalonan? Remember, Amado?” I was not only fighting for my life, but also for a childhood bond that was breaking. Frantically I searched in my mind for other remembrances of the past which might remind him of me, and re-establish a bridge between him and my childhood.
“Remember when I fell from the coconut tree and you were a janitor in the presidencia?” I said. “And you brought some magazines for me to read? Then you went away to work in the sugar plantations of Bulacan?”
“If you are really my brother tell me the name of our mother,” he said casually.
“Our mother’s name is Meteria,” I said. “That is what the people call her. But her real name is Autilia Sampayan. We used to sell salted fish and salt in the villages. Remember?”
My brother grabbed me affectionately and for a long time he could not say a word. I knew, then, that he had loved my mother although he had had no chance to show it to her. Yes, to him, and to me afterward, to know my mother’s name was to know the password into the secrets of the past, into childhood and pleasant memories; but it was also a guiding star, a talisman, a charm that lights us to manhood and decency.
“It has been so long, Allos,” Amado said at last. “I had almost forgotten you. Please forgive me, brother. . . .”
“My name is Alfredo,” said his friend. “I nearly killed you!” He laughed guiltily, putting the gun in his pocket. “Yes, I almost killed you, Allos!”
My brother opened the door of their room. It was a small room, with one broken chair and a sm
all window facing the street. Their clothes were hanging on a short rope that was strung between the door and a cracked mirror. I sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for my brother to speak. Alfredo started playing solitaire on the table, laughing whenever he cheated himself.
“Go out in the hall and wash your hands,” said my brother. “Then we will go downstairs for something to eat. Where is your suitcase?”
“I don’t have any—now,” I said. “I lost it when I was in Seattle.”
“Have you been in Seattle?” he asked.
“I have been in Alaska, too,” I said. “And other places.”
“You should have written to me,” he said. “You shouldn’t have come to America. But you can’t go back now. You can never go back, Allos.”
I could hear men shouting in a bar two blocks down the street. Then church bells started ringing again, and the wind from the sea carried their message to the farmhouses in the canyon near the river. I knew that as long as there was a hope for the future somewhere I would not stop trying to reach it. I looked at my brother and Alfredo and knew that I would never stay with them, to rot and perish in their world of brutality and despair. I knew that I wanted something which would ease my fear and stop my flight from dawn to dawn.
* * *
—
“Life is tough, Carlos,” said my brother. “I had a good job for some time, but the depression came. I had to do something. I had to live, Carlos!”
I did not know what he was trying to tell me. But I noticed that he had started using my Christian name. I noticed, too, that he spoke to me in English. His English was perfect. Alfredo’s English was perfect also, but his accent was still strong. Alfredo tried to speak the way my brother spoke, but his uncultured tongue twisted ridiculously about in his mouth and the words did not come out right.
“We are in the bootleg racket,” said my brother. “Alfredo and I will make plenty of money. But it is dangerous.”
America Is in the Heart Page 15