The Children of Sanchez (84 page)

Maybe we should go back to Acapulco. Baltasar could work in the slaughterhouse and give me money and meat again. There he could not depend upon my father. He would know that if he didn’t give me money, we wouldn’t eat. There, after all, his only vice was drinking. He understands his own race of people and native land and would be confident once more. There, at least I won’t have to see all the trouble and suffering and quarreling of my family. This is what makes me ill. Perhaps I will stop having bad dreams about me and the girls being cut up and quartered and Baltasar being shot. Here, when I lie down at night, I feel as though I will not rise any more in the morning. If I live through this next birth, maybe we should go back to Acapulco. I felt more peaceful there.

I
AM A PERSON WHO BEARS GRUDGES AND I HAVE A LOT AGAINST THREE OF
my children, Manuel, Roberto and Consuelo. My body is becoming half-paralyzed from being so angry with these children of mine. I am ashamed to talk about it. It is hard for a father to have such sons. They turned out bad because of bad surroundings, bad companions. Their friends are doing these boys no good. It is a shame that I cannot do anything about it. In spite of my advice, they go the other way instead of taking the straight path.

There is nothing better in this world than upright work. I am a poor and humble person but I try to do things the best way I can. They can’t say their father came home drunk, or abandoned them. An uncle of theirs just died of drink. It seems they take after their uncle more than they do me. I don’t understand it.

My sons haven’t amounted to anything because they don’t like to have anyone order them around. First, they want to be millionaires and then get a job. How can you expect to start from the top? We all have to work our way up from the bottom, isn’t that so? But my sons, they want to do it the other way around. So everything they do is a failure.

They don’t have any stamina for work. They haven’t got common sense. They don’t have the will power to get a job and stick to it, an honest job so that they can go out into the street looking decent and feeling proud of themselves. I’d be happy, it would give me the greatest satisfaction, if they could be like that.

The other day I said to Consuelo, I don’t want you to be somebody you’re not supposed to be or to forget what social class you belong to.
When people who’ve had a little bit of education suddenly start acting uppity, they get slapped down. Now take me as an example,” I said to her. “I’ve always been a simple worker and I’ll always be that way and nobody is going to slap me down. Even though you’ve gone to school a few years, that doesn’t mean you should feel you’ve joined the upper classes. Take a look at yourself in the mirror and tell me what class you belong to, what your place is in society.” It’s all right for her to improve herself a little, but she shouldn’t get swell-headed and look down on her own people, the class she belongs to. I told her the other night, “I’m your father, whether you like it or not. No matter how I go dressed or how poor I am, I’m your father and you can’t get away from it.”

I admit I’ve made some mistakes. I am no white dove but I’ve always taken care of them. There are a lot of men who get rid of their children when they take a woman. Do you know what it’s like to have motherless children on your hands? An orphan has everything against him, nobody wants him. And so what could I do? I’ve provided everything for them because I like to do things that way. I work like a slave and go on struggling the best I can, moving ahead, as everyone can see. Lots of times you can do more harm to your children by giving them their food and having the table spread for them all the time … they don’t worry about doing anything for themselves.

I wanted them to go to school, to learn a trade. I didn’t ask them to work so they would bring me money, to buy their own clothes or to feed themselves. I have taken care of them for over twenty years and they have never lacked for a plate of soup or a cup of coffee. Why should they have turned out bad? I don’t understand.

A few years after Lenore’s death, I met Elena over there in the
vecindad
. Like I said before, I must be lucky, because women fall for me. That’s the way it’s been. Why? I don’t know. Now just think! Here was this woman, this girl, may she rest in peace, living right next door with her husband, a fellow who was going to be a priest. But he didn’t give her anything to eat, and of course she came into our house because the children’s grandma sold cake trimmings there, a basket a day, see? So she came into the house to buy and she saw how our house was, and she liked it. It all happened quickly. She had an argument with her husband; they weren’t legally married.

You know, she was really a very pretty woman and hot as a furnace. She had a good shape, the girl was very well built and a fellow gets
hot, he wants to have her, eh? Well, the thing was arranged in a wink of an eye and she came over to live in my house, since I was alone at the time, just with the kids.

When her husband called me, I thought my last moment had arrived. I never carry a weapon. So I said to him, “Now, look here … your wife came to my house to work as a servant. If you want, you can go in and get her. It’s all right with me if you go and get her, if she wants to go back with you, but I know she doesn’t.” Just like that, face to face. Well, he didn’t get mad, he didn’t swear at me like a lot of them do, they pull a gun and kill you on the spot. But I took a great risk.

Twice he stopped me in the street; it was nighttime. I thought, “Here it is, now anything can happen.” Because these people from Jalisco have the reputation of being killers. So anyhow, she moved her things out of his place, though she really had nothing. He was very stingy. It’s good to be thrifty, but you shouldn’t go too far. Too much of anything is harmful. Well, anyway, she came to live with me. And don’t think she was scared, because she had quite a temper. She was very young, only fifteen, but when she decided to do something, she did it. And she wasn’t afraid of him at all.

She took care of my children like she was their mother. She loved them and protected the girls when the boys tried to beat them. Consuelo and Roberto felt their mother’s death more than the other two. Manuel played in the courtyard and forgot. He went to school but didn’t show much aptitude, like his son Alanes now. He didn’t want to study and was slow in school. Roberto and Marta were worse. The only one who learned was Consuelo. She was quiet and obedient and didn’t have friends. She didn’t give me trouble until later. But the boys couldn’t look at Elena. They made life hard for her.

Today we have the same situation with María taking care of Manuel’s four children. Of course, I am here to see that the children behave themselves and respect María. She doesn’t do much for them, but at least she looks after them a little. That’s how Elena was and one feels grateful. There is no way to repay them. How is it possible not to like and respect a person like that?

Elena lived with me for five years. I had no children with her. But there are some things I can’t begin to understand. Why is it that when one meets a person who is good and useful, who helps so much, she has to get sick and die?

She was very Catholic and asked me to call a priest to marry us, so I did. I did it because she wanted me to, not because I believed her soul would burn in Purgatory. No, I don’t believe that. And I’ll say something else. When one is healthy, one doesn’t think of even going to Mass, but when we are dying, we become cowardly toward God and the Church. That’s when we confess and call a priest. It is fear of the unknown and repentance for all the bad we did in our life.

While Elena was ill, I didn’t earn enough money in the restaurant to support my family so I began to sell birds and raise pigs. I met a woman in the market who had a large corral on the outskirts of the city, in Ixmiquilpan. I asked her to rent me a part of it. I bought some lumber and built a small pig sty. Then I bought some pigs for twenty-five
pesos
and sold them for one hundred. There in Ixmiquilpan they sell pigs very cheap, but I bought pigs of fine race and I made good
centavos
from them. From each pig I slaughtered, I got six to eight hundred
pesos
. I sold one pig for fifteen hundred
pesos
. The others charged ten
pesos
for a stud pig but I charged fifty
pesos
for my stud because it was a Chester White crossed with a Jersey, very white and pretty. That little pig earned good money for me, too, and left good litters there in Ixmiquilpan. Fifty
pesos
was a lot to charge, but it was because the pig cost me four hundred. He was four months old when I bought him and he grew nicely. I bathed and fed him every day. There was a pond of crystal-clear water right next to the sty and all I had to do was dip in the pail and throw water over the pigs. That’s how I bathed them. For years, I would go daily to my pig sty to feed and bathe the pigs.

Then, one day I bought some National Lottery tickets and I won two thousand five hundred
pesos
. I was sitting here when Lupita’s daughter came and said, “
Papá
, there is a man in the El Dorado Colony who wants to sell his lot with two rooms. He wants two thousand five hundred
pesos
.”

“It’s a lot of money.” I said, “Take me there. If I’m going to make this deal, let’s do it right now.” I went and spoke to the man. I said, “Let me have it for two thousand
pesos
. I have no money.” I asked him if he would take a pig as the balance.

He said, “Well, all right, let’s see the pig.”

Then he asked me how much I wanted for it. It was a stud pig, a cross of a Chester White with Jersey. I said, “Give me twelve hundred
pesos
.”

He said, “No, too expensive. I’ll give you eight hundred.”

“He’s yours,” I said. With the 1,700
pesos
I had left from my winnings, we closed the deal and the next day I went to the company that sold the lots. I signed the contract and that’s how it was done, all straight, clean and legal.

A few days later I sold another pig, bought some building materials and began to work on the new house. Meanwhile, I kept going out to my pig sties every day at the other end of the city. Rain or shine, tired as I was, I would get on the bus practically asleep from exhaustion and not find a seat, I would ride that bus standing up, asleep on my feet. But you should see the house I built. Should I tell you its a palace? Well, for a man like me who has never had anything …

And in all that hard work, my sons never helped me.

Later I bought that lot in Ixmiquilpan Colony and began to build a little house there so I could have my pig farm. If only God would help me with another lottery prize! The house would be for my children. I’d like to divide up the lot in four.

Yes, I beat the boys hard, especially Roberto, because he began to take things from the house. If I work hard to buy this table, and I come home and its gone … who is not going to punish a thing like that? And twice they put me out of my house because of the boys. Once, because they made too much noise skating in the courtyard, and on Cuba Street for breaking a water pipe. Roberto was a daredevil and violent, like his mother.

I kept the girls in the house and watched over the boys, to see that they didn’t catch anything and bring a disease into the house. When their grandmother or someone washed the laundry, I examined the boys’ underwear. Once, when they were older, I found a piece of absorbent cotton in a corner and I made both boys pull down their pants so I could examine them. But they never caught any venereal disease. That is an important point about them. Being their father, I could never speak frankly to them, but I watched.

Well, I don’t understand my sons. You can see that here they have a home which they can use to improve themselves, to learn a trade, to study. Why don’t they do it? I improved my lot. I live better than I did thirty years ago. Why don’t they? Because they don’t have the will power, that’s all. They like to be lazy. Tell me, what more could they ask for? Other boys would have been only too glad to have the big help I gave these two. I’ve spent my life working for them. I
never failed in my duty as a father. I never shirked my responsibilities, never put them aside. No matter what it was, they could count on me, whether it’s a doctor at midnight or at dawn, or money for this or money for that or to pay for medicine.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know where I get this feeling of mine that makes me want to keep up with my responsibilities, to meet all my obligations. Here I was, a poor illiterate, a peasant, without any education—I could have left them for good when their mother died, right? But I didn’t.

I already had Lupita and she’d had a girl or two. But she lived down there on Rosario Street and I didn’t want to bring anybody to live at home so there wouldn’t be any trouble with the kids. I gave that some thought. You see, you need someone at home who can take care of your clothes, do things for you, serve you a hot cup of coffee, things I didn’t have at home because there was no one to do them. Grandma helped me a lot and she did take care of the children. But she got mad when Elena came. She had no reason to, because this girl did the work for all of us, not for me alone. However, one day my brothers-in-law told me Grandma had moved out of the house, that she was very sorry and one thing and another. I said to them, “What do you want me to do, really? You see how things are, you know the situation, and even though you say you are their uncles and like the children a lot, you haven’t come even once to bring your nephews a mug of coffee. I go to work every day, I never miss a day, so I can’t be working and taking care of the kids at the same time. I’ve got to find somebody, and you can get as sore about it as you like.” I couldn’t take them over to Lupita’s. Half-brothers and half-sisters living with stepfathers and stepmothers almost never get along well together.

I love my sons and Consuelo but I can no longer treat them with affection. They have made me spend a lot of money uselessly. When Roberto was in the Penitentiary, it cost me 1,200
pesos
. When he was in the army, he asked me to arrange his transfer to Mexico City. I spoke to a captain and it would have cost money so I didn’t take another step. After all, Roberto had joined up voluntarily. He didn’t want to work, so he joined the army! I don’t know how much they paid him. Never did they tell me things. Never did they say, “
Papá
, I am going to make so much, here is some for you.” Nothing! Never anything. I
have sons, yet it is as though I didn’t have them. But in spite of that and the fact that they are now men, I still watch over them. I scold them and let them know when they do something bad. I am always thinking of them and when I don’t see them, I ask about them.