The Children of Sanchez (14 page)

“What? The dumb ox!” I’d say. “How can he work faster if I was the one who taught him?”

Then the
maestro
would go to Raimundo and say, so that I did not hear, “So
Chino
can do two to your one, eh? He says he can beat you without trying.” So we two fools began competing with each other, going at a fast pace and producing more for the
maestro
. That’s how he got double work out of us.

The pay was very little and because I ate at a lunch counter with the boys during the week, by Saturday I had only seven
pesos
left. When I got home that night, I said, “Look,
papá
, all I have left from my wages are five
pesos
, take them.” At that time, my father was pretty
sore at me on account of Elena’s death. Anyway, he was standing by the table and I put down the five
pesos
. He stood there, looking hard at me, picked up the five
-peso
bill and threw it in my face.

“I don’t collect alms from you, you bastard. Go and spend your few pennies with your fucking friends. I’m not asking you for anything. I’m still strong and can work.” That hurt me a lot, because God knows that was all I had. The next time I tried to give him money, he did the same thing. After that I never gave him a single
centavo
!

Later, another
maestro
offered me a job drilling holes in glass. He paid by the piece and offered me three and a half
centavos
a piece. Other places paid less, so I took the job thinking I’d make more money. Well, I worked fast and hard all week. The thousands of holes I drilled there! On Saturday, when the week was up, the
maestro
said, “Come on, boys, let’s see how much pay you get.” The old man couldn’t read or write and he had one of the boys figure up the wages. “Let’s see how many pieces
Chinito
made.” The old man’s eyes stood out, he really opened them, when my pay totaled 385
pesos
.

“No, no young man, no! How am I going to pay a kid of his age three hundred eighty-five
pesos!
Better keep the whole lousy shop! I don’t get a thing out of this place, I just keep it up to entertain you fellows. I’m the owner and so help me God, I don’t make more than fifty
pesos
a week on it. No! I can’t give you that much money. The trouble is that you work too quickly.”

“But,
maestro
, if you pay me by the piece, I have to hurry, no? And you promised three and a half
centavos
, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but I didn’t think you would earn so much! All I can give you is a hundred
pesos
, take it or leave it!” Well, I had to take the money, but that is when I began to hate to work for a boss.

Graciela became my
novia
, all right, just as soon as I started to work. Every night, after the job, I went to the café to see her and I didn’t get home until past twelve o’clock. We went to the movies several times and I began to feel I loved her a lot, with a real passion.

It was about that time that I learned to play cards, to gamble. The first time I played was one Saturday, when I came home to the Casa Grande after work. There, near the water tank were some friends of mine, Domingo, Santiago, the fellow who is now in jail for killing a guy, and a couple of others. Santiago said, “Look, look, here comes the hard worker, the bastard turned out to be a worker.”

“Sure, you stupid ass!
pinche guey
! You just pound the pavement all
day. Do you think everyone is a pimp?” That’s how we kidded around with each other. Then Domingo, knowing I had my week’s pay in my pocket, said, “Come on,
compadre
, let’s play a little game of poker.”

“But I don’t even know how to eat this crap, brother! What a joke! Do you think I’m a sucker, a
pendejo
?”

“I’ll show you, I’ll tell you when you win! Come on, we’ll only play for five
centavos
, go on, sit down.”

Well, they knew I never said no, so we all kneeled in a circle behind the tank, where we could see by the courtyard light. Naturally, I lost that time, but I learned the rules of the game. I made a real study of it, going around asking questions all week. I had the great advantage, or perhaps disadvantage, of learning it quickly, and in a week I was a good player. I always had unusual luck when it came to playing poker, a luck that seemed boundless, even excessive.

Without noticing it, I was caught up in a whirlwind of card playing. If a day passed without a game, I was desperate. I looked for boys to play a round or two. I began betting at five
centavos
but soon I was betting my whole week’s pay. I always felt certain I would win. Even if I had been losing and was down to my last five
pesos
, I would say, “Let’s see if with these five, God wishes me to rise again!” Fine, as if by magic, always, well, nine out of ten times, with my last five
pesos
, up I’d go!

The fellows would say; “What happened? You bum, someone is passing you cards on the sly! Keep it on the up and up … none of this ‘sucker’ stuff … don’t go hiding little cards under the table … you bastard, if there were no thieves there would be no distrust!”

And that’s how it went. Once I lost seventy
pesos
, but that was because the winner, a man named Delfino, left without giving us a chance to win back. He owned a few trucks and had lots of
centavos
but when he saw he was winning he got up and said, “I’ve got to go boys. I have something to attend to … man, I forgot all about that lousy appointment.”

When he left I was shaking with anger, because I hadn’t won a single game. “The bastard,” I said. “He made a sucker out of me.”

The next day was Sunday, the day we usually played soccer in the courtyards. I went to the bathhouse for a shower and as I came out, holding my bundle of clothes, I bumped into Delfino.

“What’s up,
Chino
?” he said. “Do you want revenge, you bastard? All you need to play is money and balls.”

“Sure, do you think I’m a cripple or something, you’ll see.”

He went to call Domingo and the Bird, two compatriots from his homeland, Chiapas, and we sat down to play. First we played “
conquián
” but when I won, Delfino wanted to switch to poker.

“O.K.,” I said, “any ass hole is good enough for me
—cualquier culo me raspa el chile
. No matter what, this time you’ll sweat to take my money away from me.”

And so we started a round of poker. Well, that was a game to remember! I started out by betting two
pesos
. When it went up to thirty
pesos
, the Bird dropped out. Then Delfino bet fifty … he must have had a good hand … whenever he got a card, he blew on it and rubbed it between his legs, on his testicles, for luck.

“You ve got to heat it up to have it come,” he said, “make it curdle … It got me three sevens already, imagine!” He said that without showing his cards, see? But I had him killed from there on because I had three kings and a knight. I bet fifty more, very calmly.

“
Puta madre
! Slut of a mother!” he said, “now you’re really offering yourself up. Damn it, you’re pretty sure of yourself, you son-of-a-
guayaba!
”

“Yes, I’m up against the wall, but I know how to defend myself. I get along. Don’t tremble, you runt. Get hold of your cigarette, your hand is shaking!”

Again he rubbed his cards between his legs, but I had the guy licked, because I drew another king.

“You’re doing all the rubbing and blowing, but I’m the one who is going to suck the tit!”

When he saw that I had four kings he said, “Whoring mother! How do you expect me to believe that? No, this isn’t luck, this must be dirty tricks!”

“Look, you did the dealing, not I. I have only my little tail to help me. If there were no God for suckers well, brother of my soul …”

I picked up over a thousand
pesos
in that game. Then I stood up. “I’m going, fellows … I didn’t remember that I had an appointment … dammit, man, I forgot all about it.”

I tell you, I was famous in the Casa Grande for being, well, a little less than a wizard at cards. Everybody watched my hands when I dealt, but I swear I never used tricks. It is just that I had extraordinary luck, luck without limit! I won so often that some of the boys swore they would never play with me again. They advised me to go to the
elegant casinos to gamble, but there the cards are all marked. There they would take me over. I told my friends, “No, I’ll go along here with my little luck. I’m satisfied to make enough for my little expenses, right?”

My luck led me into more and more gambling; the bad thing was that I never benefited by it, because after the game I went out with my friends and their girls and threw it all away. I never did anything practical with my winnings.

When my father learned about my gambling, naturally, he was very angry. But no one in my family knew how much money I won nor how I spent it.

Every night I went to the café to see Graciela. She was busy waiting on tables and I used to spend most of my time in the kitchen, talking to her friend, Paula, who worked there too. The curious thing is that although I loved Graciela desperately, I preferred talking to “Shorty,” that is, Paula. I found her more understanding, and I got her to “light up” Graciela by putting in a good word for me. When Paula saw me jealous of some guy or depressed because of a quarrel with Graciela, she would say, “Don’t worry, Manuel. Don’t pay any attention to the way she is, because I know that at bottom she really loves you. She told me so.” That’s the way she talked, always making me feel better.

The truth was, that my relations with Graciela were insecure. I was always afraid of losing her. I had bad dreams in which she betrayed me in some ugly way; I felt anxious because of her. She was so pretty, men were always after her—she was lucky that way. Some of her customers left her fifty
-peso
tips. But she seemed to love me, and, on more than one occasion, she was jealous of me too. We finally broke up because I insisted on going to Chalma with Shorty.

Paula had told me that she was going to Chalma with her mother and sister Delila. I was planning to go too, so I said, “Just you three women? What the hell, maybe we’ll go together.” When I told Graciela she said, “Oh, yes? Well, you’re not going.”

Now, when we had a disagreement, I always made it a point to tell her off. I had to have it my own way, and I also made it clear that I wasn’t stuck on her, though I really loved her very much. I’d say, “I don’t understand why some men fight over a woman. If you ever cheat on me, I won’t fight for you.”

About two months before I went to Chalma, a chap from Puebla,
Andrés, came to the café and I noticed him give Graciela the eye. It seemed to me she also looked at him in an interested way. The day I was supposed to leave for Chalma, I spoke up.

“Look, Andrés, I’ve noticed there’s something between you and Graciela, and if you’re a friend of mine you have to be straight with me. Tell me the truth and I promise I won’t lift a hand, I won’t do anything to you.”

“No, Manuel, how do you expect Graciela to go out with me if she is your
novia
?” he said. “You’re the one she likes, and I’m not the type to play a dirty trick on you.”

Meanwhile Shorty and her mother were preparing
tortillas
and hard-boiled eggs for the trip, grub for the road, as we say here. We carried the suitcases on our backs, and took the bus to Santiago Temistengo. That year, my friend Alberto went with us. We were very happy together, Shorty, Alberto and I, praying and singing on the way. We passed through the woods and it was beautiful at dawn. The smell of the pine trees and the country was fine and sometimes from the top of a hill we could see a little village way off, and the little Indian women making
tortillas
.

An hour before arriving at the Sanctuary, there is a gigantic
ahuehuete
tree at which the pilgrims usually stop. This tree is the nicest thing about going to Chalma. It is hung with women’s braids and children’s shoes and other testimonials of the pilgrims’ faith, and it is so wide I think it would take ten men to encircle it. The tree stands between two hills, and a little river flows out from under it. Well, we pilgrims arrived tired from the road, and with much faith in our hearts, bathed our feet in the healing waters and all our tiredness and ills left us.

The entrance to Chalma is down a winding road that leads right to the Sanctuary. It always gave me the greatest satisfaction to enter the Church and kneel in the cool darkness and see the figure of the Sainted Christ of Chalma. He seemed to be receiving me alone, and that gave me a wonderful feeling, because I had much faith at that time. I asked the Saint to give me strength, to show me the way to earn enough money to marry Graciela, and not to let her betray me.

Absolutely nothing happened between Shorty and me on that trip. On the contrary, I wanted Alberto and Paula to become
novios
so all four of us could go out together. I talked with Paula about my problems with Graciela all during the trip, all the seven days. Then I
noticed that Paula looked at me in a special sort of way. Once I pretended that a poisonous scorpion had bitten me. I fainted and everything, and she was scared, poor thing, really scared, more than you get for just a friend. So I said to myself, “God! could it be possible? She’s probably in love with me.” But I had no idea of getting involved with her.

My prayer to the Lord of Chalma went back on me because as soon as we returned Andrés told me that Graciela was his
novia
. I was very angry, I felt like busting his bones, but I tried to keep my word not to hit him. “O.K., Andrés, except that she’ll have to come and tell me herself.”

“Well,” he said, “that won’t be possible because from now on I don’t want you to have anything to do with her.”

“Oh, no?” I said. “So now it’s not a matter between friends. Now it’s a question of man to man, and I’m going to show you I’m more of a man than you are,” and then bang! I gave him such a sock he fell down head over heels. I lifted him up and leaned him against the wall, and bang, bang, I walloped him in the stomach.