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RoaldLs Richmond
1'40 THE.GS.
h
rTE:
"Loyalist? That sonofabitch Franco, who wouldn't be a Loyalist?
We're all Loyalist. 1-iy brother was killed fighting at Teruel. Lzy
mother was killed by bombing in ladrid. kid sister died on the way to
the French border, starved to death. If I'd been back there I would've
been dead toe. I would've grabbed a gun and fought those bastards until
they got me. I wanted to get into it.
I had letters from home all the
time. but I never could save enough money for passage fare. I can't
save ,oney. It -,urns my 7oekets. I get drunk and spend it all."
Lopez was dark, Eaunt and wild-eyed, with protruding false teeth
and a hilarious laugh. Laughing and singing, Lopes hid his bitterness,
lived his life with a brimming glass in hand. Ugly as a gorilla, Lopez
still had in him something of the sunshine and gayety of old Spain.
"I worked the quarries of northern Spain before coming to this
country. I cane here for the adventure of it, I guess. c‘uincy was where
I went from New York. hut I didn't like uincy. ;,>tonecutters there
told me about Barre. i quit my job, got a quart of whisky, and took a
train out of Lorth tation. I got goddamn good and drubk on that train.
I woke up outside ,ontpelier. 1 had to ride that gasoline Toonerville
_re
TrolS7 to 1-arre. fc.lt awful that morning I hit Barre.
"I Was a stranger in i'arre but not for long. The first night I
got in a poker game with Italian stenecutters. And we got drurk again
too. I lost nleney so they liked me. Letter than if I won. Later I
won money plenty, but it was o. k. then. -verybody knew Lopez. Lopez
knew everybody. It was nothing to get a job them days. Just walk into a
shed. They ask what you do, you tell them, they Tmt you to work.
2.
In Spain I out stone by hand. When I got hire they had this now
machinery. I learnt to use the sandblast. A fellow tonk me in and
learnt me. A Spanish fellow who know people I know book home. It's not
so bad to learn. It's easy compared to cutting by hand. But the work
ain't so nice, you know.
In the strike in 1921 I got in jail. We had a big fight. We
jumped this bunch of Frenchmen and we kicked ths living hell out of them,
I broke one fellow's jaw. I felt the bone give under my fist. Then one
of those French bastards hit ms over the head with a club or something,
It knocked ms out cold. I 'Asko up in jail. I WWI the only one got pinched.
I got off o.k. though, a fine of ten -and -costs. Ten bucks was nothing
then. But right now ten bucks is plenty money, by God. Plenty money.
"I never married, I like the girls as well as anybody, but not to
marry. You don't have to marry them. I have too much fun with the boys.
There's a good gang around Barre-liontpelier. They have a damn good time,
get along o.k.$ raise hell, insult each other, play tricks on each other,
drink, laugh, sometimes fight, but all in good fun. I don't think there's
no place like it is around here.
"Probably ths people that call themselves nice say we're a tough bunch.
But we don't care. They drink just as goddamn much as we do, only they
keep out of sight in their homes. And they sleep with each other's wives,
their office girls, somebody anyway, probably a goddamn sight more than
we do. They're worse than we are, I think. People like that I got no use
for. I. may be rough and tough, we wooer a lot, drink a lot, and we don't
hide whit we do. We got blood in our veins instead of water. We do a
man's work and lead a man's life. Uaybe we're wild, maybe we're crasy...
At least by God we're alive.
5.
Lots of fellows I know have quit the stone business' Afraid. One
guy never even came back after his :cools. But most of us stay in it
ono* we get started. What else you ;oing to do? You learn a trade, you
work ten -fifteen years at it, it's all you got, ain't it? You make
enough money to pay your inky. It's better money than you can get an
any other job. Even if you don't always get full time in.
"I have a good time anyway. I ain't kicking and I ain't soared.
I go to all the games football, basketball, baseball. I got an old
Dodge, it ain't much of a oar/but it goes. I load it up with a gang and
we go to the games. in the summer there's swimmin- and dances out at
the lakes, carnivals and fairs to go to. All the time there's gambling
if you want it, there's bowling and movie shows and poolrooms. I'd rather
be here than a big city. I'd rather be here than any place, I guess.
The Spain I know ain't no more, that's all.
*We had some refugees here this spring, you know that? One of them
knew my brother. He had been fighting with my brother over there. He
was at Teruel "then my brother got it. Be didn't like to talk muoh about
it though. I don't blame the fellow. It must've been a hell of a thing.
Ile didn't see my brother get it. He saw him after. ,achine guns, I
guess. Anyway he got it quick and clean. I felt better knowing that
much... The Immigration came after those fellows and took them. Some
sonofabitoh squealed probably. Some say they deported them; others say
they deported them; others say they're holding them. I don't know l It
seems for chrisake they could leave them alone after all they been through
already.
4.
"It makes me so goddamn mad when I think about that war. About
Franco and littler and Mussolini, three somsabitohes. I want to get my
hands an their throat. I'll bet you their goddamn eyes pop out if I get
these hands on them. I'd like to be locked up in a room with the three
of them. And see 'oho comes out... It wouldn't be one of them bastards,
I'll tell you that much.
"But it don't do no good to get burned up. It's better to have
another drink and forget that stuff. And be you're here instead
of over there.
"I'm the only one in my family left now. There's another brother
somewhere but nobody knows where. He was wild like the rent of us, only
wilder.
"I get along with Italians here as well as I do with my own people.
Most of them feel like we do about Faseism and all that. I get along all
right with most everybody. Some of them think Lopes is crazy. All of them
think Lopez don't give a damn for nothing. Always laughing, always sing•
ings always happy. Maybe, maybe... But they don't see inside. They
ought to know someti es a man laughs loudest when he feels te worst.
"Every Sunday we o to the Spanish Club, play cards, drink, talk,
shoot the dies. Most of the men are married. They like to come there to
get away from their wives and the kids yelling. It's a place for men to
come and talk man's talk. They talk baseball and prize-fights, polities
here and over aoross, stonecutting. They watch the tyls o by dressed
up for church. It's nice to look at them but they don't want them where
they are. They go there to get away from women.
5,
"I'll keep on lau--hing and cutting stone as long as there's stone
to out. Those two things are all I got, see? Laughing and working. While
I t them I can't lose, oan I? You're goddamn right I can't lose. And
people say: 'There goes Lopez, the crazy happy fool.' '1