The Children of Sanchez (17 page)

“Who are you?” he says.

“I’m the brother of one of the boys you just gave some money to.” And I told him how many
centavos
I needed to get in.

“No, you little son-of-a-bitch. Get out of here. You’re too black.”

That hurt me very much. My brother and Alberto went in without me, leaving me feeling desperate and humiliated.

When I played hooky, or when my father sent me to the Lagunilla Market to carry home the things he bought, I got into the habit of taking my little sister Marta with me. I have always liked her better than the others. I don’t know whether it was because she had never known our mother or because she followed me wherever I went.

I taught Marta how to hitch rides by jumping on to the bumper of the trolley and holding tight. I used to take a little white dog from the Casa Grande too, because he followed me everywhere. There we
would be, comfortable and happy, sticking like flies to the back of the trolley, with the dog running after us. Everybody would stop to look at us, people would put their heads out of the cars and buses to see the spectacle. I thought they were admiring us and I enjoyed it.

I liked to jump while the trolley went at full speed. Marta was very brave and learned to do it too. I not only risked my life, I risked hers, but she enjoyed it so much that it made quite an impression on me. I believe that’s why I preferred her to Consuelo and Manuel.

I used to take her with me to Chapultepec Park and to the Villa where we would climb the steepest hills. I would braid three cords together to make a strong rope and I tied one end around my waist and the other around hers. I picked out the most dangerous cliffs and would climb up first, and pull her after me. She loved it and never complained.

I want to make it clear that I always respected Marta as a sister. Contact with a woman aroused my natural feelings, right? But it’s very different with my sisters. It pained me that sometimes my father would act suspicious when he found out we went here or there. He would ask, “And why did you go? And what did you do?” and he would question Marta to see if we had done anything bad. I had worked once in a bakery at the Military Hospital where they paid me with bread and rolls. Later, it occurred to me to take Marta there to see if they would give us some rolls to eat. The hospital was very far out and when my father learned that I took her there, he gave me a terrific beating.

There was a big difference between Marta and Consuelo. Consuelo was more intelligent and persistent and liked to study. When she decided to do something she stuck to it. She never played with boys like Marta and was very reserved even with girls. She was nice and quiet, and very thin and frightened-looking.

When we were little, I got along well with Consuelo. Later, I was surprised at how my sister changed. She blew up at practically nothing and would create a tempest in a glass of water. She had an uneven temperament and seemed to me to be unsociable, secretive and irritable. She was very dry and didn’t have much to do with people. But apart from that, she was good, all good.

The trouble between Consuelo and me began after my stepmother came to live with my father. I ate breakfast late, after the others, because, I don’t know why but ever since I was little, I was ashamed
to sit at the table without doing some chore. I always did work around the house, like lighting the charcoal fire, putting up the coffee, cleaning the bird cages and feeding the birds. No one told me to, but it pained me not to do something before I ate.

After the family had eaten, I’d hunt around the kitchen for food. Many times, right in front of me, Consuelo or Elena would pour the leftover coffee down the drain, or crush up my bread. I would say, “Ha, ha! you make me laugh! I’m not even hungry.” I would grab one of the bananas we fed the birds and would go out. I’d send them to the devil, not out of anger but out of hurt feelings. The truth is that when they destroyed my breakfast like that, I felt great anxiety in my heart and a lump in my throat. I would cry, not in front of them, but in one of the little shower rooms in the courtyard. I tried to keep quiet about these things because I knew if I told my father, he’d scold them and maybe even punish them with the strap. He did scold Consuelo at times, but she didn’t change.

But I have always been a brother to my sisters. I have never punished them without a reason, like if they didn’t obey me, or because they talked back to my
papá
, or called me “lousy black.” I am heartbroken at the thought of how many times I have beaten them. I want to ask their pardon, but when I see them I lose my courage. It makes me suffer, because a man shouldn’t beat a woman. But I only slapped them with the palm or the back of my hand. And when I slapped, it was only on the arm or the back, or the head.

But when my father came home Consuelo would tell him that I had kicked her or hit her on the lung.
Ay!
my God! Those weren’t caresses my father gave me because of those lies! On my word! I speak from the heart, that I never hit her like that. She was a little liar then, and it was Elena’s fault that, well, the blessed woman is now at peace, God has her in heaven, but when she and my sister accused me and exaggerated, my
papá
thrashed me with that doubled electric cable that had a copper wire inside and a knot on the end.

How difficult Consuelo and Elena made life for me! I felt that they were against me and that I constantly had to be on guard. And my father favored the women. He had always taken better care of them and it seemed to me that he loved my sisters more. Rather, he loved us all equally, but only they had the privilege of having him demonstrate it to them. He had always preferred women. I never paid attention to it, it never bothered me. On the contrary, I liked it because
that way I was more sure of my sisters, that is, the way I see it, they could never say as an excuse that they had missed their father’s love …

I’ll tell you why I hit my sisters. It wasn’t because I felt any hatred or bitterness toward them. It was that I never liked my sisters to play with boys. But they didn’t pay any attention to me and it’s logical, isn’t it? because, well, little girls naturally have to play with little boys.

I had this feeling because ever since I was small I’ve been very mean toward little girls, as mean as they make them. I was full of malice. Sometimes I would take a little girl to the toilet when nobody was home. I always tried to find a way so that we wouldn’t be seen, and then I’d begin to feel her up, with her consent, of course. I was only about five or six, and even after my mother died, when I was eight or nine, I still did it. That’s why I didn’t want my sisters to play with boys, because I figured the boys could do the same thing to them. Just feel them up, as we say, that’s all I ever did to the little girls.

When we were older, Manuel, my cousin Matilde, my cousin Julia, and I began to play. My brother went off with Julia in one direction, and I went off in another with Matilde. She was the stepdaughter of my uncle Alfredo, so she was not actually related to me. Unfortunately, ever since I was little and even now that I am grown-up just the slightest contact with a woman, if I would just touch a woman or shake hands with her, stimulates my natural feelings so that I cannot control myself. It’s the same with all men, I suppose.

So I had the idea of going to the bathroom with Matilde. There were no inside toilets in the
vecindad
where she lived; they were out in the courtyard, so it was convenient for what I wanted to do.

I convinced her and we went. I told her to lie down in the corner. I lifted up her dress and pulled down her panties, and at that time I couldn’t call what I had a member, it was just barely sprouting, but I put it between her legs. I really couldn’t do anything and I didn’t even know where it should go, but with her consent, there were the two of us, trying to do it this way and that, playing
papá
and
mamá
.

So I did this shameful thing with my cousin and that’s why I was always trying to watch over my sisters.

When we moved to the Casa Grande I was still quite small. Our first room there was very tiny and in terrible condition. The floor was
full of holes, out of which came large rats. We would lose lots of things down those holes, money, marbles, combs. There was no electricity there then, until my father paid to have them connect it up. I liked being in the dark, or having only candlelight, but my father has always insisted on modern comforts. He liked a place to be roomy and very clean, and that is why we moved into a larger room.

Elena liked to keep the house nice, too. Man, she was always wanting this and wanting that for the house, and moving around the furniture. I never liked all that changing about, but say what you will about Elena, she made our house a place to be proud of, an example to the neighbors, because it was always clean and orderly. Our house has changed a lot since then and is no longer respected. Before, it was so well thought of that people passing by even took off their hats. And all the time my father lived with us, he never fell behind in the rent. On the contrary, he paid one month in advance and, as a reward, the landlord gave him a free ticket to the bathhouse.

The law in the Casa Grande was … new tenant … new fight. To get into the gang, I had to pass through a number of tests. They put their best
gallos
or fighters on the new boy, to see if he was acceptable as a friend. Before, families moved in and out wholesale and there were lots of free-for-alls. Anyone who saw me in the courtyard would hit, pinch, or throw stones at me. If I was carrying something from the store, they would knock it down, and then I would get punished again at home. And so, as the amount of pain the human body can stand has its limit, so patience has its limits, and you find yourself obliged to fight.

One day I was walking by and there in the courtyard, waiting for me, were my brother and the four Ramírez boys. They were waiting for that decisive bout. Manuel had felt obligated to propose me as a member of the gang. But I wasn’t going to be their butt just because I was new. My brother said, “Come on, fight.” Daniel was going to be the one to test me. I called out to Manuel, but it made him mad that I should be such a coward. “Don’t be a slacker. Defend yourself. I won’t be fighting for you all your life.”

Then they threw Jorge Ramírez at me, and they said, “Mix it up with him or we’ll beat the hell out of you.” So, whether I wanted to or not, because I was so damned afraid of those guys, Jorge lasted two or three punches and went away crying. I drew blood. After that I fought Hermilio and Daniel … all good friends … as these were
friendly fights, even though they seemed very real. I fought everyone of them until I got to the main
gallo
, and beat him. I figured that was it, but neighbors kept moving in and I had to test them, to make them come into our circle. If they didn’t, they were led a miserable life.

I began to like fighting. I didn’t go complaining when they hit me, but would tangle with anybody immediately. Thus, I relieved my brother of the responsibility of having to fight for me. Actually, I never wanted to fight with anybody, but they kept looking for it. I had to defend myself and continued to do so all my life.

The top
gallos
, the ones who fought best, became part of the group of leaders. They were ranked like the army: Wilfredo, Captain; Ignacio, Lieutenant; Hermilio, Second Lieutenant; Manuel, Sergeant; I, Roberto, Second Sergeant; and so on. When we measured our strength with the captain, we were the ones who decided what we would do when we played. One after another of us began to dominate.

There is a game, “follow the leader,” in which ten or fifteen of the gang would get together and follow “the hand,” the leader. If he jumps over a sewer, all the others have to do it. If they don’t, we gang up on them. When I was “the hand,” there were quite a number of complaints brought to my
papá
. I got into trouble because I jumped the fence around the little garden here in the
vecindad
. I could jump it easily, but there were boys who couldn’t and they began to destroy it. Also, there were my escapades with the water and sewer pipes. They were all the way up at the top and I used to climb to the roof that way. As a result, I pulled down or loosened a few pipes.

I liked to walk around the rooftops, too, and fell more than once. Most of the time, I fell feet first, standing up, and that’s why the boys called me the “Orangutang.” When we played soccer and would lose the ball on the roof, the “Orangutang,” to make a good impression, would climb up to look for it. The neighbors would tell Elena, or complain to my father and he would send Manuel to look for me. He was always sensitive about the neighbors’ complaints. Later, when I got home, I relaxed my body and waited to receive the blows.

When Elena asked my father for permission to visit her mother, who lived in a village in Jalisco, I begged her to take me. Consuelo, whom Elena loved the most, thought she should be the one to go but my
papá
sent me along, to look after Elena, or perhaps to spy on her. Anyway, the two of us left on the train. It was my first long trip and my memories of it are pleasant.

To me, to recall is to live again! I liked the way of life there. The village was picturesque, with unpaved streets and adobe houses. I liked the village church the most. I got to know Elena’s family, her mother, Santitos, her brothers, Raimundo and Arturo, her two sisters, Soledad and Concha, who later died.
Señora
Santitos was a fine person, very decent. Like Elena, she had no schooling and didn’t know how to read and write. I liked them all.

They taught me how to milk the cows, and I even drank the milk straight from the teats. I would push aside the calves or the baby goats and lie down and drink! We spent about a month there, a happy month for me.

Another time I got along well with Elena was when I was ill, with
espanto
or fright, according to her. I was sleepy all the time. I didn’t eat, I was pale and thin and had rings under my eyes. I never knew what illness I had. Only Elena and her mother knew … they said it was
espanto
and they tried to cure me with all kinds of herb concoctions. My father always looked out for us and sent me to a doctor. Elena took care of me that time, as there was a truce between us on account of me being sick. If she had always treated me the way she did then, maybe she would still be alive, or at least we would have gotten along better.