Read Online The Children of Sanchez by Oscar Lewis - Free Book Online Page B

don’t know whether it was because I didn’t get much affection in my childhood, or because I was left to take care of them alone, or because I wasalways worrying about money. I had to work very hard to get them food. I didn’t have time for them. I think in most homes, arguments and tragedies have an economic base because if you have fifty
pesos
a day expenses and you don’t have the money, it bothers you and you worry and quarrel with your wife. I think that’s what happens in most poor homes.
    When Lenore was pregnant with Manuel, I began to see Lupita on the side. Lupita also worked in the La Gloria restaurant. Lenore and I had a lot of arguments and every time we did, she wanted to tear the house down. She was terribly jealous and really made a scene. When I’d come home from work I would often find her in an angry mood, any little thing upset her. She would fly into a rage and get sick. Her pulse would almost stop and she would seem to be dead. The doctor didn’t know what caused these attacks. I couldn’t take it. I wanted affection. After working all day I wanted someone to speak to, someone who would understand me, someone to whom I could pour out my troubles. You know, there are many types of people and when a poor man doesn’t get any affection at home he finds it outside the home. The doctor once said to me, “To be content, a woman needs a husband who keeps her well dressed, well fed and well screwed, and for that, he must be strong and remember her often. Do this and you will see how things are.”
    Lenore had a strong temperament in that way, and I believe it was one of the reasons … well, she might have lived … but, well, a woman who is always quarreling makes her husband forget her. It’s not the right sort of thing to do, I know, but that’s when I propositioned Lupita at the restaurant. I’m not a very strong fellow but I’ve always been a little hot-blooded. That’s my nature. Before Lupita, I had gone to a whore house on Rosario Street, but I got an infection there. It was because I wasn’t careful, lack of experience, nothing else. Since that time I never went to one of those places. Today, I wouldn’t go there even if it’s free!
    But in spite of my bad conduct, I have had the good luck to never have heard that any of the women who have lived with me weren’t true to me. They were all dark women and of very passionate temperament … here in Mexico we believe that blondes are less strong sexually … but even if I didn’t make use of them for a time, they didn’t go out looking for another man. An honest woman, especially if she has children, must control herself and wait. I have had fivewives … there was one with whom I had a son but she married someone else. That son of mine is twenty-two years old now and I think it is time I went to gather him up and claim him. Yes, I had five women, and a few on the side, and luck still favors me, all in all. You cannot tell me it wasn’t luck when a nobody like me, an illiterate without schooling, without capital, not tall, not young, not anything, is lucky on all sides, with women.
    Another man would be in jail by now! But I value my freedom and never looked for unmarried girls. No! All my women had already been married before I lived with them. Otherwise, there would be complications. If they had been virgins, I would probably have had to marry one of them in church or by civil law or I would be in jail for twenty years!
    Anyway, when I began to have relations with Lupita, I didn’t go into it with the idea of having a family with her. But she became pregnant very soon. I would meet her at her room on Rosario Street where she lived with her two small daughters. They were so little they didn’t know what was going on. But later they always respected me and even called me
papá
. At that time I was earning very little so I couldn’t support Lupita, who continued to work at the restaurant. But for the past fifteen years