Maung Tun Thu - Our Life, Our World

When Danny returned home from the army, he found himself an heir and a property owner. His grandfather had died leaving Danny two small houses in the Tortilla Flats neighborhood.

When he heard the news, Danny was overwhelmed by the responsibility of being the owner of the property. He bought a gallon of wine and drank it alone before he could even look at his property. Then the heavy-hearted official ran away from him and his most terrible and cruel temper came out. He screamed and shouted. He grabbed some chairs from the billiard table on Alvaro Reyno Street and broke them. In a short time, he won two fights in a row. No one paid attention to Danny. Finally, his legs, like bows, carried him to the pier on the quayside. At this early hour, Italian fishermen were walking around in rubber boots, ready to go out to sea.

Ethnic hatred overcame Danny’s good nature. He began to scold the fishermen. “You Sicilians who don’t know your mother or father,” he shouted. “You bastards from the island, the sons of dogs born to dogs,” he called them. He poked his nose with his thumb and patted his back. The fishermen looked at him and smiled. They exchanged paddles and said, “Hello Danny, when did you get home? Did you come to visit tonight? We have some wine.”

Danny became more and more abusive. He shouted and hurled insults at me.

They waved goodbye. "I'm going, Danny. See you later tonight." They got into their boats, started the engines, and headed out to sea at full speed.

Danny felt insulted. He walked back down El Barrio. He broke every window he saw. At the second street, a policeman pulled him over. With a deep respect for the law, Danny limped to the police station. If he hadn't been a hot-tempered deserter, he would have been sentenced to six months in prison.

But now, with the draft still in the air, the judge sentenced him to only thirty days in prison.

So Danny spent a month on a small bed in a Monterrey city jail. Sometimes he would draw dirty pictures on the walls, and sometimes he would think back to his military life.

Danny's time in the small cell in the city jail is hard. It's boring. Every now and then a drunkard comes in for a night, but usually there are no new prisoners in the crime-free city of Monterey, so Danny is left alone.

At first, the bedbugs bothered him. However, when the bedbugs got to know his taste and he got to the point where they could no longer tolerate their bites, they were able to live together peacefully.

Danny invented a mocking game. He caught a large bedbug, pinned it to the wall, and then drew a circle around the dead bedbug with a pencil. He named it “Mayor Claw.” Then, one by one, he caught the bedbugs and gave them the names of the members of the city’s municipal government.

Soon, a wall was filled with dead bedbugs, pressed and glued to them. Each one was named after a prominent official and wealthy man in the city. He attached ears and tails to the dead bedbugs. He gave them large noses and mustaches.

The jailer, Tito Ruff, was very upset by Danny's behavior. However, he did not find fault with Danny, because Danny did not ridicule or criticize the judge who sentenced him to prison and the police who arrested him for the sake of peace and law and order. In fact, Danny had a great respect for the law, didn't he?

One night, the prison was quiet and lonely. Tito Ruff entered Danny's room with two glasses of wine. About an hour later, he went out to get more. Danny followed him. The prison was quiet and dreary. The two of them sat and drank in the same tavern where they had gone to buy alcohol, and only stopped when the tavern owner kicked them out. Danny then went with him into the pine forest and fell asleep. Tito Ruff returned to the prison and reported that Danny had escaped.

The next day, around noon, the sun had risen and Danny had decided to go somewhere and hide for the day to escape his pursuers. He ran away from where he had been sleeping and hid behind the bushes. He peeked out from behind the bushes like a hunted fox. When night fell, he came out from behind the bushes and did the work he had to do.

Danny's business was simple. He went to the back door of the restaurant and asked the cook, "Do you have any bread left for my dog?" While the cook was packing food, Danny stole two hams, four quail eggs, a handful of lamb chops, and a fly swatter.

"I'll pay you next time," Danny said.

- "You don't have to pay for these leftovers. If you don't take them, I'll just throw them away."

Then Danny felt a great sense of relief for the theft he had committed. If the owners of the goods were to look at them and think that they were things to be thrown away, he could not be guilty. He went to Thorley's shop and exchanged the four eggs, the lamb chops, and the fly-swatter he had stolen for the things he needed. Then he returned to the forest to cook dinner.

The night was dark and damp. The snow lay in a thin veil, covering the outskirts of Montreux and the black pines that bordered it.

Danny, with his head bowed, was walking briskly, trying to get to the shelter of the forest as quickly as possible. He noticed a figure walking briskly, just like him, straight ahead. When he came within a few feet of the figure, he realized that the one walking briskly was his friend Pilon. Danny was a generous man, after all. However, he had already sold all the food except for two hams and a loaf of bread.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t see the pylon and pass it,” Danny decided. “He walks like a man who’s had a big meal of fried turkey.”

Then he immediately noticed something strange. Isn't Pilon pulling the ends of his coat together and covering his stomach?

"Hey, pal," Danny called out in greeting.

Pilon ran away. Danny ran after him. "Hey, Pilon, where are you going, why are you running so fast?"

When he realized he couldn't escape, the horse stopped running and stood waiting. Danny approached the horse, exhausted. But his voice was still filled with enthusiasm.

"I've been looking for you, my friend. See you here? Look, God has given me two pork chops and two bags of sweet bread. Let's share what I have."

Pilon shrugged his shoulders. “Well, you’re right,” he muttered. They walked together into the forest. Pilon was deaf. He seemed to be unable to make out anything. Finally he stopped abruptly and faced his friend. “Dinny,” he said in a hurt voice. “How did you know I brought a bottle of brandy under my coat?”

"Brandy?" Danny shouted loudly. "Do you have any brandy? Oh, then I'd like to be your mother, who's sick and in bed," he said in a very honest and pure tone.

"Or maybe you want to keep it for the next time our Lord comes. You know who I am, don't you? I really don't know you have a bottle of brandy. And besides, I'm not thirsty. I won't even touch this bottle of brandy. Believe me, I invite you to eat my fried pork, but the bottle of brandy belongs to you."

Pilon replied in a stern voice, "Danny, if we're going to drink half and half of the brandy, I don't mind if you drink it with me. I'll be the one to make sure you don't drink the whole bottle alone."

Danny didn't say anything about the brandy bottle at all. "Hey, this place is clean. I'll cook the ham here, and you can grill the sugar bread in this bag. Put your brandy bottle here, Pillon. This is the best place, where we can both see it."

They lit a fire and roasted hams. They ate stale bread. The brandy in the bottle was running low. When they had finished, they huddled together by the fire and drank it slowly, like bees sucking nectar. The snow was falling on them, soaking their coats. The wind, which was blowing through the pines around them, was moaning with sorrow.

After a moment, a sense of loneliness settled over Danny and Pilon. Danny thought about the friends he had lost.

“Where has Arthur Moore gone?” asked Danny, folding his hands and stretching them out in front of him. “He died in France,” he said, folding his hands in despair, and answering his own question. “He died in a foreign land for his country. A couple of strangers are walking by his grave. How would they know that Arthur Moore is lying in the ground there?” He raised his hands again. “Where is our good friend, Mabel?”

“In prison,” said Pilon. “Mabelo stole a goose and hid in the bushes. The goose pecked him, and Meleho screamed. That’s how he was caught, and now he’s in prison for six months.”

Danny sighed and changed the subject. In fact, talking about friends was just a way of saying things when he was feeling lonely and had nothing to say. But the loneliness hadn't gone away yet. He was looking for an outlet. Finally, he said, "You guys are sitting here."

"Hide from a broken heart," Pilon continued, repeating Danny's words in a low voice.

"Don't try to do it, this is not a poem," said Danny. "We came here and sat there, homeless. We gave our lives for our country. Now we don't even have a roof over our heads."

"Wow... we never had a roof over our heads," Pilon said.

Danny lifted the brandy bottle. Pilon tapped his elbow to warn him, then took the bottle from his hand and stood up.