The Children of Sanchez (61 page)

I really felt like somebody in California! Everybody treated me well, both in the hospital and on the job. I like the life there, even though I found its form too abstract, too mechanical, in the sense that the people were like precision machines. They have a day, an hour, a fixed schedule set up for everything. It must be a good method because they have lots of comforts. But the government charges them a tax for food, for shoes, for absolutely everything. If our government tried that tax business here, I believe it might even cause a revolution. A person doesn’t like to have what’s his taken from him.

The
braceros
I knew, all agreed on one thing, that the United States was “
a toda madre
.” That means it’s the best. Every once in a while someone complained … like Alberto said the Texans were lousy sons-of-bitches because they treated Mexicans like dogs. And we looked badly upon the discrimination against the Negroes. We had always thought of American justice as being very strict and fair … we didn’t think that money or influence counted there like it did here. But when they put a Negro on the electric chair for rape, and let whites go for the same thing, well, we began to realize that American justice was elastic too.

But we all noticed that even the workers who were not so well off, had their car and refrigerator. When it came to equality and standard of living, well, they’d lynch me for saying this, but I believe that the United States is practically communistic … within capitalism, that is. At least it was in California, because I even heard a worker shout at
his boss, and the boss just shut up. The workers there are protected in lots of ways. Here in Mexico, the bosses are tyrants.

Thinking of Mexico’s system of life, I am very disappointed. It is just that when I was living in the United States, I could see that people were glad when a friend got ahead, you know what I mean? “Congratulations, man, it’s great that things are going good with you.” Everybody would congratulate him if he bought a new car or a house or something. But in Mexico, when a friend of mine, with a lot of sacrifice and hard work and skimping on food, finally managed to buy a new delivery truck, what happened? He parked it in front of his house and when he came out all the paint was scratched off. If that isn’t pure envy, what is it?

Instead of trying to raise a person’s morale, our motto here is, “If I am a worm, I’m going to make the next fellow feel like a louse.” Yes, here you always have to feel you are above. I have felt this way myself, that’s why I say it. I guess I’m a Mexican, all right. Even if you live on the bottom level, you have to feel higher up. I’ve seen it among the trash pickers; there’s rank even among thieves. They start arguing, “You so-and-so, all you steal is old shoes. But me, when I rob, I rob good stuff.” So the other one says, “You! Turpentine is all you drink. At least, I knock off my 96-proof pure alcohol, which is more than you ever do.” That’s the way things are here.

It is not that we hate anyone who has had better fortune. I don’t feel hatred against a rich man any longer than it takes for three drags on a cigarette. It would be bad for me to get too wrapped up in thinking about that, because then I would feel less than what I am. And I would at least like to be what I am. That’s why I don’t want to analyze things too carefully. Maybe it’s a case of running away or of not looking at the reality of my condition. Anyway, when one of my class hates another person, it is almost always for reasons of sentiment. I can’t ever remember it being for economic reasons. Whenever you hate the world, it is practically always because of something a woman has done to you, or because a friend has betrayed you. The women are the ones who go most against the rich, possibly because women feel privations more than men, don’t you think?

The thing is, there is no equality here. Everything is disproportionate. The rich are very rich, and the poor are infamously poor. There are women with babies in their arms and a few more hanging on their skirts, going from door to door to beg for food. There are plenty like my
uncle Ignacio, who give their women three
pesos
a day for expenses, and others who don’t know where the next meal is coming from, with nobody to give a thought to them. If the rich people knew how the poor managed to exist, it would seem like a miracle to them.

Look, when a rich man throws an orgy, one of those
fiestas
or receptions those millionaires in Lomas make, in one night they spend enough to support a whole orphan asylum for a month. If they would come down off their pedestals to share the lives of their countrymen and see their misery, I believe that out of their own pockets they would install electricity, sewage, and do something to help. If I were rich, I would ease the pain of the poor, at least some of those closest to me, and let them have a few necessities. But who knows? Maybe if I were a rich guy sailing in my boat or traveling in airplanes, I wouldn’t remember any more, eh? The poor stick to the poor … they know their place … and the rich, well, they go to the Hilton. The day I dare go to the Hilton Hotel, I’ll know there has been another revolution!

I don’t know about political things … the first time I voted was in the last election … but I don’t think there is much hope there. We can’t have any kind of social welfare for the working people, because it would be used only to make the leaders rich. The men in the government always end up rich and the poor are just as badly off. I have never belonged to a union, but my friends who do say they can be fired at any time without indemnification, because the union leaders and the bosses make agreements among themselves. Yes, we have a long way to go down here. I tell you, progress is a difficult thing.

Alberto was discharged from the hospital first. As soon as he got back to camp, Greenhouse took him to the bus station, to send him home. Alberto managed to give him the slip and went to live with his woman, Shirley. When I got out, I had a little trouble getting away from the camp manager, but I hid in a ditch until I got a lift to Shirley’s house.

Greenhouse reported us to Immigration and we had to lay low for a couple of days. Shirley fixed a bed for me on the floor and Alberto slept with her. Later, we worked in a grape camp, and twenty days after my operation, I took a job as a swamper, loading heavy crates. The work was hard and I got sick. I wrote to my father to send me some money so I could go home. But he answered that as my money had arrived, he kept investing it in materials to build a house in the El Dorado Colony. He didn’t have a single
centavo
to send me.

So I had to keep on working to save money to go back. I picked cotton, but I saw it was a job in which I wasn’t going to get very far. Besides, my hands swelled up from the cotton and got real nasty looking. Finally, I said to Alberto, “Look we have stuck together up to now, but I can see you are in love with that woman, so if you want to stay, just tell me. I’m leaving.”

So he tells me, “No,
compadre
, I can’t leave now because my clothes are at the cleaners.”

The next day I took a bus to Mexicali. I had been away nine months and was really anxious to see my children, my father and my friends. In Mexicali, I couldn’t get a train or a bus out of the city. It was so crowded, there wasn’t even a hotel room anywhere. It was dangerous for me to walk the streets with about two thousand
pesos
in my pocket, carrying my carton of clothes. The bodies of returning
braceros
who had been murdered and robbed, were often found on the streets of Mexicali. This time, I was afraid all right.

I decided to take an airplane to Guadalajara. It was very expensive, right? It cost over five hundred
pesos
, but it took only nine hours, instead of fifty-two hours by bus and I saved a lot of time. All I wanted was to get back. In Guadalajara, I took a first-class bus to Mexico City.

I arrived at about six in the morning, on the twentieth of November, the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. I remember because there was a parade that day. When I got to the Casa Grande the gates had just been opened and a few women were going for milk. The janitor,
Don
Nicho, was sweeping near the west gate where I entered.

“How goes it, Manuelito,” he asked. “Where have you been, you tramp?”

“Well, I went as a
bracero, Señor
Nicho.”

“Ah! Crazy one, so the fever hit you too?”

“Well yes, I went to see what it was like.”

I was glad to be back, right? I walked through the courtyard and stood in front of our door, my heart jumping inside me. I didn’t have a key … my father was the only one who ever had the key to the door … so I whistled my usual whistle. Sounds of feet came from inside the house and voices saying, “My
papá
, my
papá
.”

My father opened the door … he was in his underwear. I could see an expression of joy on his face, but as soon as he saw me he tried to hide it, swallowing his emotion and becoming serious.

“So you finally came back”

“Yes, I’m back,
papá
.”

I think he wanted to embrace me, I also had a great desire to give him a hug, but since he restrained himself, I did too … there was the same old barrier between us, no?

I wept to see my children again. They were dancing around, grabbing me by the waist and hanging from my legs, laughing and shouting, “What did you bring me? What did you bring?”

I felt bad to have to tell them that the toys I had bought for them, and a watch for Delila, were still in the Customs House in Mexicali. I had forgotten to remove the price tags and the wrappings from the gifts, so those characters at Customs wanted to charge me a luxury tax that was more than the articles had cost. When I wouldn’t pay up, one of the guys offered to buy the things for practically nothing. I got so sore I kicked my presents to pieces, right in front of the officials. I wasn’t going to let those bastards have my stuff! I explained what had happened and gave each of my kids a
peso
to spend.

Before going off to work, my father said, “Son, do you have any money around?” I took out my wallet, meaning to give him half of what I had, but he kept saying, “Come on, come on,” and one bill after another came out. I gave him all but two hundred
pesos
.

It was after he left that I noticed a little bundle moving on my father’s bed. My mother-in-law, who had been sleeping on the floor, got up and came over to me.

“That’s your sister,” she said.

“What do you mean, my sister?” I felt as though I had been hit over the head and was dizzy from the blow. I stood there like a jerk and said, “
Ay, chirrión
, don’t tell me my
papá
has been out fooling around.” I was so mixed up I couldn’t make a quick deduction.

Delila took me out of my confusion by saying, “This is the reason why your brother and sisters are angry with me.”

Then I understood. Boy! So my
papá
had conquered her! Imagine, the chief had made Delila! My admiration for him grew. I wondered how he did it, because he was old enough to be her father. I don’t believe she loved him then. Now, yes, because she sees that he gives her everything she needs. He is a man easy to love because of his straight behavior. At that time, she must have thought, “Well, my sister left me in charge of her children … after all, they are my nephews, and if I have to be with them, I might as well sacrifice myself all the way. Rather than take care of them for nothing, I’ll marry Manuel’s
papá
. That way I’ll kill two birds with one stone.”

Underneath, I was a little angry, but I controlled myself and said, “That’s great! You did very well, sister-in-law. And don’t pay attention to my brother and sisters. Send the crazy bastards to the devil … it’s no business of theirs. You did right, both of you.”

In the afternoon, I went out to look for my friends. I felt good walking through the streets of my
colonia
again. I had lived here all my life and it was my whole world. Every street had a meaning for me: the Street of the Plumbers, where I was born and where I had still enjoyed my mother’s caresses; the Street of the Bakers, where the Three Kings had brought me my first toys and made my childhood golden; Tenochtitlán Street always reminded me of the song, “Lost Love,” which a neighbor happened to be singing while my mother was carried out in her coffin; the streets where each of my relatives, friends and
novias
lived. These streets were my school of suffering, where I learned what was dangerous and what was safe, when to be sincere and when to dissimulate.

Outside my
colonia
, I felt I was no longer in Mexico. I felt like a fish out of water, especially if I went to the rich sections, like Lomas or Polanco, where people looked at me with suspicion. I wouldn’t even dare walk there at night because they’d think I was a thief, the way I dressed. People with money can’t stand seeing anyone hard up; right away they think he’s out to steal. And where there is money, there is right, so the only thing to do is to stay away from those places.

Yes, I was happy to be back, but after having been to the United States, everything looked very poor and dirty to me. I realized what poverty we lived in, and when I saw the market, with oranges and tomatoes piled on newspapers on the ground, I felt so sad, I wanted to go right back to the U.S.A. The truth of the matter is, and this is not
malinchismo
or giving preference to the foreigner, I would have liked to have been born in the United States or in some European country, like England … not Italy, with its romanticism and scenery and all that … but in a nation with a more advanced culture.

I had returned with a thousand illusions, because in the United States I had learned to enjoy working. I wanted to fix up the house, to see that my children ate well, eggs every day and milk … I had the reputation of being a hard worker, and I had come back with the intention of keeping it up. But from the first night I felt disillusioned because my father let me sleep on a burlap bag on the kitchen floor, the way I had always done. I had expected different treatment, right?
Because, like I said, I came back different. I thought he’d say, “No, son, don’t sleep on the floor. Sleep on the bed, with your children.” But no! When I lay down on the floor, he didn’t say a word!