This was a story I wrote for a creative writing class in college almost ten years ago. It was one of several stories I wrote, but it was this one that stood out to my professor and he used it as an example in class. It's not so much that I was creative in my writing, but as a writer I took my sister's advice and found my forte writing about what I know. In remembrance of my grandfather's 19th anniversary on March 11th, I decided to post it here on my blog. Though it is significantly longer than my normal posts, I hope you find time to read it and can relate to the love of a grandfather.
T I L E MAN
By
Crystal Dominguez
Three steps led up to a small area with a brick wall that hugged the
porch. I was there quite often as a child, but now my recollection consisted of
only vague, black and white images. Which in a way, complemented the already
fixed perception I had of my grandparents from back in the old days.
It was that small, triangular house that sat in the middle of Pershing Drive,
where the foundation of my childhood memories would take form. I remember all
the identical houses surrounding it with only slight changes in color that
separated them. When I would take a few steps back, I noticed that the entire
block was synchronized with the same house structure and porch entrance. It was
up close that the front porch of my grandparents’ home was permanently marked
with a peculiar beauty that I would never be able to erase from my mind.
* * *
I don’t know how many times I tried to pick up the dimes and nickels that
were randomly placed on my front porch. They seemed to have been there for as
long as I could remember. I always wondered why no one else had yet slipped
them into their pockets. They were just there, rusted silver coins that nobody
else wanted to pick up. As I grew up, the coins were still there. Their worth
still intact, but their rhyme or reason was beyond me. It wasn’t until I was
older and able to comprehend the simple fact that the coins were always in the
same place because they were stuck in the ground.
My front porch consisted of broken tile, not by accident of course, but
purposely placed in a way that created an almost perfectly imperfect pattern
with a few coins between random tiles. It was arranged with autumn shades of
yellow, red, orange and brown with the exception of this one pattern that sits
vaguely in my mind to this day. I think it is blue and white, swirled with . .
. well I can’t remember. But regardless of the exact design, I noticed my porch
was not the only one that harbored this futile money. When I saw a similar tile
jobs at my grandparent’s home as well as other relatives, it was then I
realized that was his trademark as a tileman.
My grandpa was an amazing man. Amazing in the fact that he was a wise,
good-humored, hardworking gentleman who had made a living placing tile. From my
earliest memories of him as a child to the day he died from lung cancer, tile
was his life. No matter what he was wearing it seemed as though there were
always stains of plaster on his clothes, especially on his pants around the
knees. Tile setting was a passion of his, but also a necessity and nothing seemed
to stop him. He would have kneeled down in a brand new suit if he had to. Even
the day we found out he had cancer, his work seemed to have doubled. I remember
staring at him in his recliner as he paused from watching the game, he had his
hands pressed against his forehead as he tried hard for a deep breath. I knew
it was the exhaustion setting in from chemotherapy. The 12-year-old in me felt
scared in that moment as I was the only one in the living room with him, but
the 77-year-old in him laughed it off and chalked it up to nothing more than a
headache. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” He said after I asked.
 |
| Albert Campos |
It was in those small, hazel eyes
that seemed to tell a whole other story. He was spent. If only as much so as
those coins stuck in the ground. It broke me to see the bark of this family
tree losing its strength. He was after all, a father of seven kids and 25
grandchildren. I sat there with the football game flickering in the dark living
room as I watched one of the biggest sports fans I ever knew, get defeated
right in front of me.
* * *
His house smelled of freshly set cement and green and red chiles boiling
in a pan. Loud voices and laughter rang throughout the kitchen as my dad,
grandpa and uncles played poker. My younger cousins ran out to the backyard to
play, which was a great place for hide and seek as there were always huge
stacks of tile piled in his backyard of all colors and sizes. My older cousins
were in the guest room hanging out talking about teenage life and there I was
just a bored, 10-year-old left in the middle of nowhere, so I worked my way
over to the poker table. I watched a few rounds and as the night wound down, I
asked if I could play. I did after all have $20 in my plastic, Hello Kitty
purse and caught on as quickly as I could to the games they were playing. At
first, no one at the table even heard me ask. Then my stubbornness and persistence
created a seat for me next to my father. My grandpa literally rolled his eyes at
me in disappointment when I actually received enough votes to play, but at the
time I didn’t know how serious they took the game. The poker table was no place
for a kid, more specifically it was the adult table stacked with an equal amount of chips
to Pabst Blue Ribbons. It was in one of the last rounds when I got to play. After a couple encouraging
nudges from my father and a few bet-raising winks from my uncles, I
matched what at the time looked like a whole lot of royalty in the middle of
the table and in my hands. But today realize I beat my grandpa, dad and uncles
at one round of Texas Hold Em. As my little hands reached for the middle of the
table and pulled the pot towards me, those small, hazel eyes both starred and smiled
at me, all-the-while grumbling a few bad words in Spanish, English and jibberish.
That was my grandpa. Poker playing, tile-laying, football games, family, beer and
hot chile.
* * *
“ . . .people have a tendency to think you don’t know what you are doing.”
I didn’t understand the importance and the technicalities of tile setting
until later on in my life when my father explained the craft that was passed
down to him.
“You see Crystal, there’s different tile for different jobs. You have
your tile that can be placed on floors for kitchens and those made for the
walls of a bathroom.” I listened to him. There was a passion in his voice, but
it was mostly seen through the straight lines and neatly set tile he had placed
around the house. “Mastic is used for sheet rock and Thinset is used for cement.
Bathrooms use the traditional white, but there is sanded grout that comes in different
colors and is used when there is more than a quarter-inch between the joints or
to you they’re just spaces.” Although, sometimes lost in his explanation, I
always came out understanding more and more about tile…about my dad and grandpa…about
life. It went deeper than just home renovation, there were solid parallels
between tile setting and everyday life.
My grandpa started his own business as a tileman in the 1960s after he
returned from World War II. After a short stint as a fireman, he decided to enter
into the tile business for a more profitable career. My father started to work
for him and that’s how he learned the trade. They had a very close relationship
and my father knew my grandpa more like a best friend than an in-law.
I realized the art of placing tile had become a part of my life in more
ways than one. There was meaning behind the tile. My grandpa was like the
mortar keeping the family together and we were his little tiles. We needed each
other. Separately some of us were unique, rough, shiny, rusty and broken, but
together we were a masterpiece. Tile was more of a mindset that I got from the
man who placed it in my life, but he shared it with others as well...in their
homes and businesses around El Paso.
Pershing Tile, my grandpa’s business, was a small, humble
tile company that was named after the street he lived on for so long. It was
not very complicated or really that professional, but the end result was well
known around the city. He had about four to ten workers depending on whether
his sons (my mother’s brothers), my father or my brothers would occasionally
help him out at certain tile jobs. It was a trade the whole family knew a lot
or at least a little something about. My grandpa paved the way for my father’s
business as well. It opened the year I was born in 1983 and was named after me, Crystal
Tile Company. It was a way for my father to take part in the trade he
loved, but mainly to make ends meet because he had just gone on strike at the
smoke stack while my mother was pregnant with me. However, Crystal Tile
Company wasn’t too successful and ended a couple years later. All I
remember was the tile and white plastered buckets that were now stacked in my
backyard, as well as the hundreds of business cards left over that had my name
on them. They were plain, white cards that read in bold letters, “Crystal Tile
Company, Free Estimates, Henry Dominguez, 751-4951.” It made me feel special to
have such a connection to the trade even though I never got my hands dirty.
I was always fascinated by tile when I was little. The only jobs I saw done
were the ones in my home. Every single piece of tile placed in my home was done
either by my grandpa or my father and brothers. My den had dark reddish brown
tiles that looked like huge bricks that had sunk into the ground. The kitchen
had yellow and white tiles that were staggered neatly along the counters and
walk way. The hallway bathroom was my favorite. Light, pink tiles lined the
walls and all along the shower. My mother’s bathroom was decorated in pale
shades of brown with reddish toned colors on the floor. No matter where I
looked…there was tile. We would use small and large pieces of tile as coasters,
wall decorations and as centerpieces on the tables. Even one of our flowerpots
in the kitchen had green and white tiles in the shape of leaves all around
it. It wasn’t until later my mother told
me she had made it when she was younger. I guess her father had also taught her
a thing or two about the trade.
* * *
I watched as my grandpa and my dad kneeled for hours on the bathroom
floor. I was worried my mother was going to pass by and be upset with them for
making such a mess. But she walked by and instead complemented them on the work
they had accomplished so far. It didn’t really seem like they had everything
under control, but now I understand why.
“You see Crystal, placing tile is an easy craft to learn, but it’s very competitive.
Back in the day, you needed to know how to plaster walls to even them out before
you could even place tile, but after they introduced Sheetrock and Wonderboard
it became easier for people to learn.” My father always jumping from one point
to another, “It’s a very messy job applying the grout, so people have a
tendency to think you don’t know what you are doing.”
I realized this held true when I watched the process unfold before my
eyes. They broke off all the old tile that was going to be replaced and started
leveling the ground and sweeping up the remaining pieces. They measured the
walls and started with the longest wall first. After they were finished cutting
pieces of tile with what I used to think looked like a fancy cheese grater, they
used a trowel to apply the mastic, which acted as a glue to hold the tile in
place. They placed the tile firmly into the ground and used little, white
spacers to evenly separate each tile. I remember always playing with those
little white spacers because they, for one reason or another, ended up in my Lego
box when my sister and I would dump them on the floor and start building
nonsense. One day I guess they decided not to use the spacers, but again I
learned another tile lesson from my father, who now acts as a messenger for my
grandpa who I no longer can ask.
“You see Crystal, in bathrooms . . .” he paused losing his train of
thought and slightly thrown off track. “Placing tile is a long process. It
takes 24 hours for the mastic to set in with the grout . . . And the spacers
are not needed when placing tile in a bathroom. You see, the bathroom tiles
already have a built in ridge that spaces them out evenly and typically you are
going to use nonskid tile to avoid slippery situations.”
Okay. So he was a little confusing to understand sometimes, especially
when he jumbled up his thoughts and spit out mixed sentences, but that was the
interesting part. Tile seemed to be a very organized process that had a lot
more detail to follow than a foreigner to the craft might expect.
After they had all the tiles in place they mixed the grout and then
scooped it out from white buckets and began to spread it on top of the tile
with a float pushing the grout into the joints. I was baffled as to why they
were putting this on top of the pretty tiles. I thought it was going to get
stuck to the tile and ruin everything they had just spent hours on. But they
were patient and let it set.
After learning the messiest part
was the most important, the next and final step became my favorite part to
watch. They dipped huge orange sponges into the bucket of water and in circular
motions wiped down the tile. Very quickly with not much effort the excess grout
disappeared and the shiny new tile that had been placed adjusted to its new
surroundings. The wet sponges revealed more to me than I think anyone else
could understand. No matter how organized you do things and how perfect you
want things to be, they have to get a little messy before things start looking
good again. I guess this inspired me more than the old cliché that spoke of
cloudy days and the trust that there’ll be sunny ones.
* * *
It was March 11, 1996. Exactly one week after his 77th birthday.
It felt like I had just played Las Mananitas for him on my cello. He was in
good spirits, but the Hospice nurses let us know he didn’t have much time.
Slowly, one by one, from around town to different states, we all made it
to my grandpa’s house for one last goodbye. This time there was an empty poker
table, my younger cousins sat quietly in the living room and the tile, well it
was still stacked in the backyard. A moment where I wanted to run out and hide
from the sadness inside. Many times I saw both my pregnant aunt and sister hold
his hand to their bellies as he lay there in his bed slowly leaving us. Tears were
rolling down everyone’s cheeks as his breaths were getting further and further
apart. His small, hazel eyes closing and his raspy, distinct voice…in the
distance. He held on long enough for one more goodbye as my two uncles closed
the door to my grandpa’s room for one last time after they shared one final moment
with him. He peacefully drifted away…
After my grandpa died I knew I knew him, but maybe not as well
as I had liked to. All the stories I heard and the more I learned about him,
came mostly from my parents and grandma. I was around him a lot but mostly as a
child so I never really had a chance to sit down and have a real conversation
with him. I knew there was more than tile to this man. There was a heart big
enough to create the big, loving family that I am proud to be a part of. A
husband that produced more than just seven kids with his beautiful wife,
Carmen. There’s a father that taught his kids more about the ups-and-downs of
life than he even knew he did. A father-in-law that handed down a craft and a
friendship that would impact the life of other’s in more ways than one, and as
a grandfather who would grab the hands of his grandchildren immediately after
they walked into his home and take them across the street to the Circle K for
candy. His passion for the UTEP Miners, hot chile, backyard huachas, beautiful
pieces of tile, a close game, a cold beer, a good joke and a big win at poker.
It was these things that made him such a great person. And that’s what I knew
of.
Right before he died, I wanted
him to remember me as an individual rather than just another one of his 25
grandchildren. It wasn’t that I felt deprived, but I wanted him to see that
there are certain, distinctive qualities that set each and every one of us
apart. I wanted him to know me as a person, know what I’m involved in, how I’m
doing in school and how I sound when I play my cello.
I slowly worked my way from a small chair against my grandmother’s wall
to an open spot on the floor as I closely and curiously listened to her talk.
Before I knew it, the fifteen minutes I had planned on staying had turned into
a very quick two hours.
“I was about your age when I met
your grandpa,” she paused taking a moment to reminisce about her past. “ . . .
He was so cute.” She said honestly and sarcastically at the same time.
She talked her life as a child; how she dealt with the Depression and the
time she spent away from my grandpa when he served in World War II.
It seemed as though everyone had their memories of grandpa, but mine,
although chopped and scattered, were a possession I cherished immensely and somehow
crumbled together from top to bottom in this blog.
Even though he is no longer here, his presence is locked in each and
every tile that is placed in El Paso. He surrounds me in my home, my mind and
my heart.
It was just recently when I found out why he placed coins around his tile
work . . . The year of each coin matches the year he placed the tile at the
specific site. Now whenever I see tile he placed in El Paso, including my front
porch, I know when my grandpa was at that very spot. Whenever I pass that house
on Pershing, I still can’t let go of that peculiar beauty, his creativeness and
his trademark. The idea alone creates a warm sense of comfort that fills my
heart’s vacancy for my grandpa’s presence. He was a smart man; he left behind a
piece of himself for us to embrace.
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The day he died, my family’s sense of humor got us through our great loss
and battle with emotions. My aunt laughed and said my grandfather would be
disappointed once he got to heaven.
“He probably told God that he needed tile in heaven so it would look
pretty. I bet he already is starting his next tile job right now.”
* * *
I sat in the church surrounded by my brothers and sisters. My hands were
interlocked, my head down. I prayed. It was a tough goodbye for me, because at
a young age I was still looking for a better grasp on the definition of death. But I guess God needed a bigger job from my
grandpa than we all understood. His white slicked back hair and cute, wrinkled
face that still held on to his handsomeness with his favorite red and blue
flannel shirt.
I would miss him more than I
understood at the time. It was at the church for his funeral, where I was lost
in my own thoughts and memories with the mumbled and monotone sounds in the
background, I stared at the floor beneath my feet and cried. Through my tears I
could feel my grandpa’s spirit was lifting up all of us.
It was in that moment that my mother told me one of his last big tile jobs
was in that church. Chills ran down my spine as I felt a sense of serenity
arrest my body. My grandfather placed the pearly-white tile underneath
everyone’s feet at St. Joseph’s Church . . . the church where we told him goodbye.
It was one of the biggest and most beautiful displays of his work -- of his
life that I had ever seen. I felt comforted. And with him beneath our feet, I
guess it was his way of letting us know that he was going to carry us through
this. It kind of reminded me of the poem, Footprints in the Sand,
but in this case of course, it would be tiles.
“You see Crystal,” My father’s voice rang in my head, “ . .
.people have a tendency to think you don’t know what you are doing.”
My
dad was right. I had to trust that no matter how bad things looked in that
moment, God knew what He was doing. Maybe things looked messy and I couldn’t
see clearly how things might turn out, but I waited patiently and as always was
overly impressed with what God revealed with His wet
sponge…
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| Albert Campos 1917-1996 |
The next time you see tile with a coin stuck in the ground in El Paso, Texas...
