"Tacho and His Fence"

By kiki

This was our age of innocence!

 When we lived in the Simons brickyard (Montebello, California) in the late 1940's-early-'50s, my friends and I used to light up a lumbrita (small fire) in the evenings. When we ran out of wood to burn, we would go to plan B: to go to the rackas (racks) and dump the bricks drying on wooden paletas (pallets). We would take the paletas and use them for firewood. We needed to hide them because the night watchman would sometimes sneak up on us to see if he could catch us burning paletas. That was a big no-no in Simons; you didn't burn Simons Brickyard paletas without getting your ass in trouble with the local Chota (sheriff/watchman) Genaro Prado, not to mention the ass-whipping at home.

When the Chota kept a close eye on us, we would go to Plan C: to rip the wooden fences from the nearby houses; hey! We needed firewood, didn't we? Tacho's house was the one nearest to us. Tacho, at least once a week, was fixing his fence. One day, my dad walked by and saw Tacho working on his white fence; my dad asked him, "fixing that fence again?" "Eso's cabrones (meaning us) keep burning my fence," replied Tacho,

                                                 La Chota: Genaro Prado



UPDATED: 3-21-2013

I mention above about the Chota, Genaro Prado, keeping an eye on us to keep us from burning the paletas. So we kids came up with an idea to get back at him for chasing us when he would bust us burning paletas. So we came up with the bright idea of digging a hole for the Chota to fall in as he chased us. So about four or five of us kids dug a hole about four feet deep and four feet wide; I say "about" four by four because I am not really sure how deep or how wide it was, but I do know that it was deep enough that at its deepest end, if one of us jumped in the hole, we couldn't get out on our own, we had to be helped out.

We dug the hole about twenty feet away from la lumbrita. We would dig some, and when it was time to go home, we would cover it up with a couple of thin plywood sheets; put some dirt/grass on top of the plywood to keep it from being seen. 

One night with the hole covered up, we were hanging around la lumbrita when Genaro came running towards the fire, yelling at the top of his lungs, "cabrones, quemedo paletas!!" (burning pallets). As soon as we heard him, we all ran towards the hole, and as we ran around the hole, he ran over the hole and hit the thin plywood at top speed, and as he disappeared into the bottomless pit of darkness, we could hear him yell "Cabrones!!"

I don't know how he got out, but he needed help. The chisme (the gossip) around the brickyard was the next day, "did you hear what happened to the Chota last night? No? He said the earth opened up and tried to swallow him!"

"Cabrones!"