The Children of Sanchez (38 page)

“No, I tell you, Lieutenant, it’s nothing, I’d like to go along with the rest of you. Just a little tourniquet and that’s all that’s necessary.” He agreed and I went along with them. When we got there the attackers were gone, and we did a little exploring around. Four months later, we caught them.

Some of the ranchers had hundreds of heads of cattle, see? If any
of the animals got sick, they took their cattle off their land at night and drove them up into the hills to keep them from getting killed. Well, once I was on night duty, from twelve midnight to six in the morning, and I had to walk over the whole airfield to see that no cattle were wandering around on the landing strips. This field was, without exaggeration, about three kilometers wide and four deep.

I was at one of the control points when I heard a noise, like the lowing of cattle, and a pounding of hooves. I went to report to the corporal but he had gone out to eat. I turned on a large searchlight for a moment and saw a hell of a cloud of dust. I ran toward it as fast as I could, yelling, “Halt! Who goes there?”

“It’s me, soldier, don’t shoot.”

“How about stopping the cattle!”

“I can’t, almost all the cattle have already moved out.” There was really a tremendous herd of cattle.

“All right,” I said, “I can’t seize the cattle but I can detain you, so come along with me.”

“Now look, soldier, don’t.”

“Well, where are you taking these cattle? Are you a rustler or are they yours, or what?” So he tells me they’re his but I’m not going to believe him because if they were he wouldn’t be out with them this time of the night.

He said, “No, really, look, they’re mine but I have a couple of sick cattle on my ranch, and of course I’m going to kill them, but the others are healthy and I don’t want them to be killed because the government doesn’t pay what it should.”

So we stood there discussing back and forth. Finally he offered me a hundred
pesos
.

“No, sir, I can’t accept a single
centavo
of your hundred
pesos
. If you want to give them away, you can pay a fine with them and they’ll let you out of jail.”

“Well, I’ll give you three hundred.”

“No, sir.” So at last he got up to five hundred. It was the first time in my life that I had such a big sum of money. Well, that was over, the cattle had gone and so had the rancher and I went back to the field post.

Then the corporal arrived with a buck private.

“What’s new soldier?”

“Well, everything is quiet corporal.”

“What do you mean? Didn’t you come here a little while ago looking for me?”

“Well, yes, I was going to report some cattle. I tried to stop them but some one scared them off.”

“Don’t give me any of that stuff. Come over here”

Well, the corporal was no fool, right? After all, he’d been in the army a long time and knew all the angles, so how was I going to trick him? He took me aside and said, “Now tell me what it’s about.” Well, I understood there was no point in my telling him lies.

“Well, you see, Corporal, this is what happened: a guy was moving his cattle. I let them go.”

“What do you mean you let them go? Don’t you know what your orders are?”

I said, “Sure, Corporal, but he gave me a more sensible order. He gave me a hundred
pesos
.”

“Don’t screw me,” he says. “What do you mean, a hundred
pesos
? You may be just an innocent babe but you’re not going to risk a court-martial for a hundred
pesos
.”

So I said to him, “No, you’re right; to be frank with you, he gave me two hundred
pesos
.” Well, he now sort of half believed me, but he kept on lecturing me and bawling me out because I failed in my duty. Finally he said to me, “All right; give me a hundred
pesos
and fifty to this fellow and mum’s the word between you and me.”

I say this was the most important event in my life because if I hadn’t let that rancher go and hadn’t accepted the money, I wouldn’t have turned into the bad egg I became. This sort of thing happened a couple of times more. The third time they gave me two thousand
pesos
. But I didn’t know how to take advantage of all this money. It was for doing something bad, so I should have at least tried to be careful and cover up a bit, and invest the money wisely. Instead, I blew it all. I wasted it on my friends, on running around with women and on drinking. I got into the habit of throwing away my money.

I liked it a lot in the army. I became a corporal, but I didn’t stay out my full time. I don’t know why, but I rub people the wrong way, maybe on account of my dark complexion or because I have bad blood. Anyhow, this corporal had it in for me, he really did. Five or six times he tried to have me arrested for no reason at all. I would immediately put in a request to speak to the major. We both appeared before him, and the corporal gave his side of the case and I gave mine. The major
saw I was getting a raw deal, and tore up the notice. “Go back to your detail,” he told me. The corporal could never get me arrested and always had it in for me.

Well, it happened that we were getting training in hand-to-hand combat, and it was my hard luck to have this corporal as my partner. We were simulating combat, but this fellow wasn’t simulating at all. He said, “On guard!” I put myself on guard, grabbed my rifle and got ready to parry his thrusts; he was just supposed to go through the motions, right?

But he didn’t do it that way. At first he made two or three simulated thrusts, then he aimed a real “
fondazo
” at me. Well, it was lucky we had already had some bayonet drill and I was able to deflect his thrust to the left with my rifle; I parried it so his shoulder came up against my chest, and we stood like that.

I said to him, “What happened, Corporal? You went too far that time”

“You son-of-a-whore, you’re not watching! Step lively or I’ll kill you.”

Well, when I heard him swear at me I grabbed my rifle and gave him a half-swing, socking him on the chin with my rifle butt. I really wanted to kill him right then and there. When I hit him he spun around, because I gave him such a terrific whack. I wanted to stick the bayonet in his back, but by the grace of God I was able to hold back. I came to my senses right off. If I’d stuck the bayonet in the corporal, I’d have pinned him like a butterfly. But all I did was to give him a light poke in his rear end.

The second lieutenant saw this and right away blew the whistle. This was the signal to stop, see? Everybody stops right where he is, without moving. The second lieutenant came up to me and said, “What did you do, you damned fool?”

“You see, Lieutenant, he made me do it. If I didn’t do this to him, he would have done it to me, and a lot worse.”

He said, “Shut up! You don’t even seem to know what you’ve got yourself in for; anyway, you’re in real trouble. Put down your gear!” I took off my belt and helmet and put my rifle on the ground. I thought, “Well, now,
Negro
, you’re going to die in jail.”

What a fuss they made over the corporal! They called out the medical corps. They bandaged up his wound. It actually wasn’t anything serious, just a scratch.

I went along with the second lieutenant. He said, “Look, my boy.
if I hold you now and you go to trial, you’ll get at least eight or ten years in jail, on account of insubordination and the thing you’ve just done.”

So I said to him, “All right, Lieutenant, I’m ready to take my punishment, which I deserve, but I also ask that I be allowed to tell my story.”

“No matter what you say, you were insubordinate to an officer. You get the hell out of here as fast as you can.” Then he stuck his hand in his jacket, took out twenty
pesos
, and gave it to me. “Scram, and may God be with you, because I haven’t got the heart to …” According to the rules, he was supposed to turn me in, to arrest me right then and there. Only God knows if he got away with it. This was such a tremendous thing he did for me that I’ll never be able to thank him enough, because I’d still be in jail right now.

So I left the army without papers or anything, and I lacked five months to complete my three-year enlistment. The army is not that happy-go-lucky, because you sign a contract and you can’t get out before you finish your three years. So I didn’t have the right to leave the way I did. It’s a crime, and I was a fugitive. I felt pretty bad about getting out this way, understand? because I wanted to have an honorable discharge.

In Guadalajara I had a
novia
who really loved me, and when I deserted, I went to say good-bye to her. I shouldn’t have done it, because she insisted I take her with me. It didn’t matter to her how we would live, all she wanted was to be with me. At first I told her I was being transferred to Mexico City, but when she kept on insisting, I had to tell her that I was going to desert and couldn’t offer her any kind of a future at all. Despite this, she said to me, “I don’t care, I want to be with you.” But of course I had to leave her. My love life has been a failure, except for her. She really loved me.

Manuel and his wife, Paula, may she rest in peace, were living in the Casa Grande with my sisters when I got back. My father was staying at Lupita’s house because Antonia was still not well. I went to see her on a few occasions, but then my
papá
told me not to bother her any more. He wanted to know what business I had there and why I should be hanging around the house making a nuisance of myself. I found out Lupita had complained that I kept looking at her daughters in a peculiar way. I was offended and I rarely went after that.

Sometimes I borrowed a bicycle and rode over to a bar near Lupita’s house. I would sip beer and peek out of the door to see if Antonia had gone to buy
tortillas
or bread. I knew what time she usually came out and just seeing her was a consolation. Once, I was riding by on my bicycle when she came out of the
vecindad
to get some matches. I had cigarettes and two boxes of matches in my pocket, but I couldn’t think of any better pretext to get close to her than to go into the same shop for cigarettes.

I rode in the wrong direction on a one-way street and when I came up to her I swerved the wheel and made an eagle stop. She was coming out of the shop and she kept looking at me out of the corner of her eye. I stared right at her and went in for my cigarettes. Then I went back to the bar just so she could see me. I ordered another beer and there I stayed.

She got me into trouble with my father by lying about me. She said I tried to run her down with my bike and that all I did was hang around spying on her. I didn’t see her much after that, until she moved back to the Casa Grande.

Meanwhile I got to know my sister-in-law Paula better. I had met Paula when my brother first presented her to my father. That was when my father warned Paula that my brother was a canaille, a bum, a man without balls … he was so hard on Manuel that even I felt small listening. Paula felt bad about it and thought my father’s character was too strong. But by the time little Mariquita was born, Paula and my father were joking together.

I was happy when I learned I was going to become an uncle and when Mariquita was born with white skin and blue eyes, what pleasure I felt! I said, “At least one person in the family will have blue eyes.” My
papá
joked about it, “Listen, Paula,” he said, “might there have been a little cheating in this matter?” I, too, I am sorry to say, teased my sister-in-law by saying that a blue-eyed baby in our family must be contraband. Poor Paula! She turned red, green, yellow and all colors. But in a short while Mariquita’s eyes turned as brown as Manuel’s.

Anyway, my
papá
took on the responsibility of Paula and the babies that were born one after another. My brother began to fail in his work and didn’t give his wife expense money. When I had money I gave it to Paula for medicines or shoes for the children. I gave her “Sunday money” every week, and it didn’t bother me at all to do it. My brother kept on playing cards and dominoes and became less and less responsible.
I gambled too (though I never played with Manuel because I felt we were competing), but then I had no one depending on me.

I never understood why my brother had two women at one time. I once saw Manuel with his great love, Graciela, and I asked if she was his sweetheart. “Yes,” he said. “I mean no, she is just a friend.”

“What do you mean, just a friend? Poor Paula! How you are deceiving her.” I don’t know if Paula ever found out, but I believe she must have because there is always someone who runs to tell the wife her husband is fooling around.

I was getting over my appendix operation when Manuel laid his hand on Paula and beat her up.
Ay
, how that hurt me … I cried and limped over to stop him, but he even hit me. And Paula was so good! That woman cried for me when she learned I was going around fighting with knives and razors and guns and when she saw me after I had been stoned or kicked. She kept giving me advice and told me that I could have a good future if I gave up being a tramp. She made me promise to stop fighting, but that was impossible in my neighborhood.

I was still wearing my uniform and it gave me a bad reputation and got me into fights. It was well known that the army was full of vice and soldiers were not liked. On the second day I was home, I got into a brawl when I went with Consuelo to buy bread. As it never failed, there was a wise guy who passed a remark at my sister. I don’t mind them throwing compliments such as “Good-bye, good-looking,” or, “What a doll!” or, “What a pretty little body you have,” or any reasonably decent thing, right? But when they say, “Good-bye, hot mama, what a delicious little piece you are,” or when they say to me, “How goes it, brother-in-law?” I cannot overlook it.

So I threw a dirty look and insulted his mother and the attack began. With the “look” you can say as much as a Huastecan swearing parrot and it is one of the things that has gotten me into fights. Well, I was a boxer in the army, but when I got home, they considered me a professional. I was so quick with my fists, they called me Attila. Then I began to use a knife and wounded a few guys. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t fight at all, but I have to get even with all those damned people.