The Children of Sanchez (64 page)

At that time I was eating at a certain café, where I was a friend of Gilberto and Carolina, the owners. As soon as I turned the corner to go to the café, a man embraces me. “Now we’re really screwed!” I thought. I tell you I can smell them! I can smell a cop, I can pick them out with my nose. I had never seen that agent, but right away I knew.

He asked about the cloth, all right. He held me close to him and we kept walking toward the patrol car. The cops had been waiting for me at the café all day, but Carolina hadn’t sent anyone to
warn me because the police would have followed. I didn’t think the cloth was hot, and I still don’t. But the cops have a special way of working here.

Well, when we got to the car, this character wasn’t embracing me any more. He clutched me by the belt. He really was not a bad sort, for a cop.

He said, “Well, if it’s not what we’re looking for, please excuse me, but in our line of work we make lots of mistakes.”

I was surprised. The cops are always so arbitrary and here was such a decent bastard! “What stuff is he smoking?” I wondered. He got me into the car and I kept explaining how I got into the cloth deal.

“
Ay
, Manuelito,” he says—he was already calling me Manuelito—“it’s going to be damned messy, because the creditor wants the cloth or three thousand
pesos
, and we want two thousand.”

“
Ay
, no,” I say, “no, then there’s no way out and I’m screwed.”

“No,” he says, “it’s not worth it, Manuel. Think of the consequences. You’ll get a prison record and then … just for a few
pesos
that you could dig up somewhere.”

“But it’s five thousand
pesos
you want! That’s all! In my whole stinking life I never saw five thousand
pesos
.” Well, there we go, off to the Police Station. On the way, they picked up a few other friends, some pickpockets. They took their money and let them go. My cop friend kept talking.

“Think of the consequences. Money comes and money goes but, well, you’re in real trouble. The creditor is powerful and he wants the cloth.”

“Look,” I say, “take me to the creditor, the owner of the cloth, and let’s see if I can convince him to let me pay it off little by little. I’ll give you guys something too. You don’t work for free.”

“We can’t make deals like that,” says he.

Then I thought of Abram, my father’s
compadre
, who worked in the Police Station. I began to talk about him to the cops, hoping it would do some good. I was terrified because never in my life had I been in a jail. They said I would have to go in for a while. When we got there, the guard asked me if I had any dough. I had 1,800
pesos
in my pocket but I wasn’t going to give it to those bastards.

“Look,” says the guard, “inside they’re going too shake you down and take everything you’ve got.”

“Sure, sure, but I haven’t a thing, not a thing.” I was well dressed, see? I had on my gabardine pants, a good shirt and a windbreaker. Well, they opened the door of the cage and inside I went, scared to death. There was a bunch of evil-looking characters there, the worst collection of faces I had ever seen. “
Madre Santísima
!” I thought, “how am I going to take care of these bastards? Let’s see if I can impress them …”

I came in, angry, real angry. Inside I was shaking but I looked mean. They had to think I was real wild. I see this guy sitting on the floor, and wham! I give him a kick in the pants.

“Move over, son-of-a-bitch!”

“Hey, you bastard … what …”

“Shut up!” I give him another kick. “Shut your trap, you bastard. Didn’t you hear me … move over.” He moved over and the others made room for me. I was saying, “Cowards! Fags! Stoolies!”
Pas
! I punched the wall, and kicked, see? I punched the door. I looked furious.

“Hey, what’s eating you?” one of the guys asked.

“What the hell do you care? Am I asking you? Bastard!”

“Cool off. Maybe I can help you, give you advice, see? I’m an old guest here. I know all their tricks.”

I kept acting real angry. I take out a cigarette and light it, and I notice another guy who looked even meaner than I. I saw I was getting on his nerves, so I said to him, “Hey, friend, you want to smoke? Have a cigarette.” I passed them around. The ice was broken, and I felt safer.

Then a guy comes over, a powerful-looking fellow, and says, “Hey, friend. Why did they bring you here?”

“Look,” I say, cranking myself up, putting it on thick, because they have their class distinctions too. “I had fifty sewing-machine heads, I had liquifiers, television sets, radios, everything … And that son-of-a-bitch, the one who sold them to me, turned me in. They just took everything, brother, and I’m out a hundred thousand
pesos
.” I had to give myself class because they have more respect for you that way.

I noticed a guy there, lying face up, with his legs spread, like a compass. His balls were all swollen from the beatings the cops had given him. Every little while he’d say, “Please, boys, face down.” Then ten minutes later, “Turn me over again, please.” Face up or face down, he couldn’t bear it. His face was all split and he had marks
from the pistol butt they hit him with. Really heartbreaking, that poor guy.

Then one guy said, “You know, I was in ‘The Well’ for two weeks, pal.” That’s a prison called El Pozito, the little well. All you have to do is say El Pozito to the pickpockets around here and they cry. You know what they do there? They tie their hands behind their back, tie up their feet, and say, “Was it you or wasn’t it?” and wham! a punch in the stomach, but hard, to knock out your breath. Then they throw them into a well of filthy water, full of horse urine, and when they’re half drowned, half dead, they take them out and do it again.

This guy who said he was in “The Well,” went on: “That’s how they kept me there. For ten days I didn’t eat or drink a thing. The bastards didn’t even give me water! You know why? I buy stolen cattle, pigs, any kind of animal they bring me. But why should I give these bastards money? They’ve screwed me plenty already. Why should I? They’ll have to work to get me to talk! But I won’t! I won’t talk! I’ve been here fifteen days and every night those god-damned bastards take me out.”

You know, I admired that guy. He really wears pants! He had that Mexican courage that I think doesn’t exist any more. I was there fifteen minutes when they came to take him out. Just as the door closed, we could hear them hitting him. He came back looking yellow. “Not a frigging thing, pal,” he said, “and they’ll kill me but they’ll get nothing from me.” And the poor boy with the swollen testicles, they dragged him out like a dog. Imagine the state he was in and they still took him out and beat him.

All this time I was wondering when my turn would come. When I heard my name I was really scared. But there was my friend Abram talking for me. I finally offered the cop a thousand
pesos
to let me go, otherwise I’d get myself a lawyer. Well, that got him, I had him checked. Because if he didn’t take the thousand, it would go to the lawyer. So he said, “O.K., just because of Abram and all that. Let’s go and get the money.” I had the money in my pocket but they didn’t know, see?

So he drove me to the café, and I asked Gilberto to lend me five hundred
pesos
. I dropped my roll behind the counter, so he could see it, and right away he took the five hundred from his pocket and gave it to the cop. He was to get the rest the next day.

“O.K., Manuelito, let’s go.” He was real friendly. He even took me
out for some
tacos
before he locked me up for the night. I spent the night in jail, listening to all the pickpockets tell of their adventures. I really enjoyed being there with them.

Well, I kept going to Gilberto’s café. It was practically my home. I ate all my meals there, and sometimes I slept on the floor at night. My
papá
moved Delila and my kids to a room on the Street of the Lost Child. Meanwhile, he bought a lot on the edge of the city and began to build another house. A week or two would pass without me going to see my children, and that bothered me a lot, although I hid it even from myself. I don’t know why, but when I don’t see them every day, little by little my love for them quiets down, gets paralyzed, and I avoid thinking of them. I have asked myself why I am that way with my children, but the truth is, I am afraid to analyze it. I am afraid to answer my own question, because I feel I will hate myself if I do.

I didn’t attend my children the way I should because I was trying to live the kind of life I couldn’t really afford. I was like a trapped beast, looking for a way out for myself alone. I felt like a heel. I couldn’t sleep at night. I always thought of my children just as I sat down to eat, and then the food didn’t go down easily any more. It is paradoxical, but I didn’t go to see them as a kind of punishment to myself. And when my father or Consuelo came to the café and shouted insults at me in front of my friends, I felt more justified. I felt I had paid for my behavior with my humiliation.

Gilberto and his wife Carolina were my closet friends. He was a first-class printer and a union member, and she ran the café. I tried to get him to work in Tepito, but he preferred his wage of fifty
pesos
a day, Social Security and a pension later.

It was Gilberto who introduced me to the horse races and to
jai-alai
and
frontón
, which were my ruination. I even gambled on boxing matches and cockfights. Yes, the vice of gambling took hold of me more than ever. Card playing was small stuff, compared to this. I always had the hope of hitting the jackpot, which would pay three, four, five thousand
pesos
. I dreamed of the satisfaction it would give me if I could say, “Look,
papá
, take this. Take the whole lump.” Because,
por Dios
, I didn’t want the money for myself. I swear if I had ever hit the jackpot, I would have given it all to my father and my children. I don’t love money!

One day, Gilberto took me to the race track and it was my misfortune to buy a lucky ticket for ten
pesos
. The bet paid off 786
pesos
and right away I said, “What am I wasting my time working for, when I can make a killing here?” From that moment to this, I loved the horses. I learned to read the racing forms and studied up on weights, times, mounts, distances, and all that. I knew so much, I became scientific about it. Maybe that was my undoing. I should have stuck to hunches and dreams, like Gilberto did.

I lost a lot of money there at the Hipódromo. I was doing well at Tepito, sometimes earning at least one hundred
pesos
a day, but all of it, all of it, went on the horses. Once, I arrived with 1,200
pesos
in my pocket and left with only thirty
centavos
for the bus. That day I didn’t even eat … I’d rather bet than eat … and at night I bought my supper on credit at the café. I won only twice … a mere 1,300
pesos
in all. It is unbelievable, but sometimes my losses amounted to a thousand
pesos
a month, if not more. The money I should have used as capital in the market, went down the drain. I could have been well off if I hadn’t had the bug of gambling.

Don’t think I bet for fun! For me, it was a business, a job … the fastest way I had of really getting ahead. I was always full of hope. When I lost all the money I had on me and couldn’t place any more bets, I felt my body collapse. I’d go into a cold sweat. I reproached myself for being a fool … for having picked the wrong number … for not following Gilberto’s hunch … for misinterpreting a dream … for my bad luck. A thousand and one times, I advised myself to quit, but no sooner did I make a good business deal, when I ran to the race track with my money. The next morning, I went to the market without a
centavo
, to look for a friend with capital who would go into partnership with me for the day.

And to make matters worse, a partner of mine went off with about five thousand
pesos’
worth of goods, leaving me to pay the creditors. I still owe about 1,200
pesos
on that deal.

My
compadre
Alberto had stayed in the United States for another season, until Immigration grabbed him and threw him out. I saw a good deal of him when he came back, but we were not so close any more. At first he spoke to me like he always did, but then I noticed that he was drawing further and further away. There was a certain coldness in his tone, see? A certain something. This went on for about
three years. Then one day, he showed up with his aunt at Gilberto’s café, dead drunk.

I was baking bread for Carolina that morning, and refused to have a drink with him. He sat down and kept staring at me while I worked. He moved his head from side to side, sadly, with his eye on me. “What’s eating this guy?” I wondered. He raised his glass and said to his aunt: “
Salud
, to the best and most treacherous of friends.” Then he looked at me, see?

He did it a second time and I couldn’t ignore it. So I went over to him and said, “Listen,
compadre
, there was never any crap between us. Why do you say that to me?”

“Look,” he says, “if it weren’t for my children, I swear I would have killed you by now,
compadre
.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “What’s on your mind,
cabrón
? Are you crazy?”

“Isn’t it true that you sang on the buttocks of my woman?”

“Who told you that?” I was furious. I felt a volcano boiling inside me.

“Juanita, my wife, told me. Isn’t it true that you got into her when you found her in the cabaret?”

I began to understand what it was all about. A short time after I got back from the United States, I met a friend who said, “Say,
Chino
, whose woman is working at El Casino, yours or Alberto’s?”

I didn’t like to hear that because El Casino was a cheap cabaret in the neighborhood, a real dive. So I say to the guy, “Well, my
compadre
was a chaser, he had lots of women. Who knows which of the bunch you are talking about, brother.”

“Maybe so,” he says, “but listen, this one knows you and she let on that she has children with Alberto.”