Tortilla Flat (20 page)

“Thieves,” he screamed. The blood pressed up his neck and into his face. “Thieves, oh, rats and dogs, give me my paper!”

Pilon, standing in front of him, looked amazed.

“Paper?” he asked politely. “What is this paper you speak of so passionately?”

“My bill of sale, my ownership. Oh, the police will hear of this!”

“I do not recall a paper,” said Pilon. “Pablo, do you know what is this paper he talks about?”

“Paper?” said Pablo. “Does he mean a newspaper or a cigarette paper?”

Pilon continued with the roll. “Johnny Pom-pom?”

“He is dreaming, maybe, that one,” said Johnny Pom-pom.

“Jesus Maria? Do you know of a paper?”

“I think he is drunk,” Jesus Maria said in a scandalized voice. “It is too early in the morning to be drunk.”

“Joe Portagee?”

“I wasn’t here,” Joe insisted. “I just came in now.”

“Pirate?”

“He don’t have no paper,” the Pirate turned to his dogs, “do he?”

Pilon turned back to the apoplectic Torrelli. “You are mistaken, my friend. It is possible that I might have been wrong about this paper, but you can see for yourself that no one but you saw this paper. Do you blame me when I think that maybe there was no paper? Maybe you should go to bed and rest a little.”

Torrelli was too stunned to shout any more. They turned him about and helped him out of the door and sped him on his way, sunk in the awfulness of his defeat.

[134] And then they looked at the sky, and were glad; for the sun had fought again, and this time won a pathway through the fog. The friends did not go back into the house. They sat happily down on the front porch.

“Twenty-five dollars,” said Pilon. “I wonder what he did with the money.”

The sun, once its first skirmish was won, drove the fog headlong from the sky. The porch boards warmed up, and the flies sang in the light. Exhaustion had settled on the friends.

“It was a close thing,” Pablo said wearily. “Danny should not do such things.”

“We will get all our wine from Torrelli to make it up to him,” said Jesus Maria.

A bird hopped into the rose bush and flirted its tail. Mrs. Morales’ new chickens sang a casual hymn to the sun. The dogs, in the front yard, thoughtfully scratched all over and gnawed their tails.

At the sound of footsteps from the road, the friends looked up, and then stood up with welcoming smiles. Danny and Tito Ralph walked in the gate, and each of them carried two heavy bags. Jesus Maria darted into the house and brought out the fruit jars. The friends noticed that Danny looked a little tired when he set his jugs on the porch.

“It is hot climbing that hill,” Danny said.

“Tito Ralph,” cried Johnny Pom-pom, “I heard you were put in jail.”

“I escaped again,” Tito Ralph said wanly. “I still had the keys.”

The fruit jars gurgled full. A great sigh escaped from the men, a sigh of relief that everything was over.

Pilon took a big drink. “Danny,” he said, “that pig Torrelli came up here this morning with lies. He had a paper he said you signed.”

Danny looked startled. “Where is that paper?” he demanded.

“Well,” Pilon continued. “We knew it was a lie, so we burned that paper. You didn’t sign it, did you?”

“No,” said Danny, and he drained his jar.

[135] “It would be nice to have something to eat,” observed Jesus Maria.

Danny smiled sweetly. “I forgot. In one of those bags are three chickens and some bread.”

So great was Pilon’s pleasure and relief that he stood up and made a little speech. “Where is there a friend like our friend?” he exclaimed. “He takes us into his house out of the cold. He shares his good food with us, and his wine. Ohee, the good man, the dear friend.”

Danny was embarrassed. He looked at the floor. “It is nothing,” he murmured. “It has no merit.”

But Pilon’s joy was so great that it encompassed the world, and even the evil things of the world. “We must do something nice some time for Torrelli,” he said.

Of the sadness of Danny. How through sacrifice Danny’s Friends gave a party. How Danny was Translated
.

WHEN
Danny came back to his house and to his friends after his amok, he was not conscience-stricken, but he was very tired. The rough fingers of violent experience had harped upon his soul. He began to live listlessly, arising from bed only to sit on the porch, under the rose of Castile; arising from the porch only to eat; arising from the table only to go to bed. The talk flowed about him and he listened, but he did not care. Cornelia Ruiz had a quick and superb run of husbands, and no emotion was aroused in Danny. When Big Joe got in his bed one evening, so apathetic was Danny that Pilon and Pablo had to beat Big Joe for him. When Sammy Rasper, celebrating a belated New Year with a shotgun and a gallon of whisky, killed a cow and went to jail, Danny could not even be drawn into a discussion of the ethics of the case, although the arguments raged about him and although his judgment was passionately appealed to.

[136] After a while it came about that the friends began to worry about Danny. “He is changed,” said Pilon. “He is old.”

Jesus Maria suggested, “This Danny has crowded the good times of a life into a little three weeks. He is sick of fun.”

In vain the friends tried to draw him from the cavern of his apathy. In the mornings, on the porch, they told their funniest stories. They reported details of the love life of Tortilla Flat so penetratingly that they would have been of interest to a dissection class. Pilon winnowed the Flat for news and brought home every seedling of interest to Danny; but there was age in Danny’s eyes and weariness.

“Thou art not well,” Jesus Maria insisted in vain. “There is some bitter secret in thine heart.”

“No,” said Danny.

It was noticed that he let flies crawl on his feet a long time, and that when he did slap them off there was no art in his stroke. Gradually the high spirits, the ready laughter went out of Danny’s house and tumbled into the dark pool of Danny’s quietness.

Oh, it was a pity to see him, that Danny who had fought for lost causes, or any other kind; that Danny who could drink glass for glass with any man in the world; that Danny who responded to the look of love like an aroused tiger. Now he sat on his front porch in the sunlight, his blue-jeaned knees drawn up against his chest, his arms hanging over, his hands dangling from limp wrists, his head bent forward as though by a heavy black thought. His eyes had no light of desire nor displeasure nor joy nor pain.

Poor Danny, how has life left thee! Here thou sittest like the first man before the world grew up around him; and like the last man, after the world has eroded away. But see, Danny! Thou art not alone. Thy friends are caught in this state of thine. They look at thee from their eye-corners. They wait like expectant little dogs for the first waking movement of their master. One joyful word from thee, Danny, one joyful look, and they will bark and chase their tails. Thy life is not thine own to govern, Danny, for it controls other lives. See how thy friends suffer! Spring to life, Danny, that thy friends may live again!

[137] This, in effect, although not in words so beautiful, was what Pilon said. Pilon held out a jar of wine to Danny. “Come on,” he said. “Get up off your can.”

Danny took the jar and drained it. And then he settled back and tried to find again his emotional Nirvana.

“Do you hurt any place?” Pilon asked.

“No,” said Danny.

Pilon poured him another jar of wine and watched his face while the wine disappeared. The eyes lost their lackluster. Somewhere in the depths, the old Danny stirred to life for a moment. He killed a fly with a stroke that would have done justice to a master.

Slowly a smile spread over Pilon’s face. And later he gathered all the friends, Pablo and Jesus Maria and Big Joe and the Pirate and Johnny Pom-pom and Tito Ralph.

Pilon led them all into the gulch behind the house. “I gave Danny the last of the wine, and it did him good. What Danny needs is lots of wine, and maybe a party. Where can we get wine?”

Their minds combed the possibilities of Monterey like rat terriers in a barn, but there were no rats. These friends were urged on by altruism more pure than most men can conceive. They loved Danny.

Jesus Maria said, finally, “Chin Kee is packing squids.”

Their minds bolted, turned with curiosity and looked at the thing, crept stealthily back and sniffed it. It was several moments before their shocked imaginations could become used to the thing. “But after all, why not?” they argued silently. “One day would not be so bad—only one day.”

Their faces showed the progress of the battle and how they were defeating their fears in the interest of Danny’s welfare.

“We will do it,” Pilon said. “Tomorrow we will all go down and cut squid, and tomorrow night we will give a party for Danny.”

When Danny awakened the next morning, the house was deserted. He got up from his bed and looked through the silent rooms. But Danny was not a man to brood very long. He gave it up as a problem, and then as a thought. He went to the front porch and listlessly sat down.

Is it premonition, Danny? Do you fear the fate that is [138] closing in on you? Are there no pleasures left? No. Danny is as sunk in himself as he had been for a week.

Not so Tortilla Flat. Early the rumor flew about. “Danny’s friends are cutting squids for Chin Kee.” It was a portent, like the overthrow of government, or even of the solar system. It was spoken of in the street, called over back fences to ladies who were just then hurrying to tell it. “All of Danny’s friends are down cutting squids.”

The morning was electric with the news. There must be some reason, some secret. Mothers instructed their children and sent them running toward Chin Kee’s squid yard. Young matrons waited anxiously behind their curtains for later news. And news came.

“Pablo has cut his hand with a squid knife.”

“Chin Kee has kicked the Pirate’s dogs.”

Riot.

“The dogs are back.”

“Pilon looks grim.”

A few small bets were laid. For months nothing so exciting had happened. During one whole morning not a single person spoke of Cornelia Ruiz. It was not until the noon hour that the real news leaked out, but then it came with a rush.

“They are going to give a big party for Danny.”

“Everyone is going.”

Instructions began to emerge from the squid yard. Mrs. Morales dusted her phonograph and picked out her loudest records. Some spark flared, and Tortilla Flat was tinder. Seven friends, indeed, to give a party for Danny! It is as though to say Danny had only seven friends! Mrs. Soto descended upon her chicken yard with a cleaver. Mrs. Palochico poured a bag of sugar into her largest cooking pot to make dulces. A delegation of girls went into the Woolworth store in Monterey and bought the complete stock of colored crepe paper. Guitars and accordions cried experimentally through the Flat.

News! More news from the squid yard. They are going to make it. They are firm. They will have at least fourteen dollars. See that fourteen gallons of wine are ready.

Torrelli was overwhelmed with business. Everyone wanted to buy a gallon to take to Danny’s house. Torrelli [139] himself, caught in the fury of the movement, said to his wife, “Maybe we will go to Danny’s house. I will take a few gallons for my friends.”

As the afternoon passed, waves of excitement poured over the Flat. Dresses unworn in a lifetime were unpacked and hung to air. Shawls the moths had yearned for during two hundred years hung from porch railings and exuded the odor of moth balls.

And Danny? He sat like a half-melted man. He moved only when the sun moved. If he realized that every inhabitant of Tortilla Flat had passed his gate that afternoon, he gave no sign. Poor Danny! At least two dozen pairs of eyes watched his front gate. At about four o’clock he stood up,, stretched, and sauntered out of his yard, toward Monterey.

Why, they hardly waited until he was out of sight. Oh, the twisting and stringing of green and yellow and red crepe paper! Oh, the candles shaved, and the shavings thrown on the floor! Oh, the mad children who skated the wax in evenly!

Food appeared. Basins of rice, pots of steaming chicken, dumplings to startle you! And the wine came, gallons and gallons of it. Martinez dug up a keg of potato whisky from his manure pile and carried it to Danny’s house.

At five-thirty the friends marched up the hill, tired and bloody, but triumphant. So must the Old Guard have looked when they returned to Paris after Austerlitz. They saw the house, bristling with color. They laughed, and their weariness fell from them. They were so happy that tears came into their eyes.

Mama Chipo walked into the yard followed by her two sons who carried a washtub of salsa pura between them. Paulito, that rich scamp, rushed the fire under a big kettle of beans and chili. Shouts, songs broken off, shrieks of women, the general turmoil of excited children.

A carful of apprehensive policemen drove up from Monterey. “Oh, it is only a party. Sure, we’ll have a glass of wine. Don’t kill anybody.”

Where is Danny? Lonely as smoke on a clear cold night, he drifts through Monterey in the evening. To the post office he goes, to the station, to the pool rooms on Alvarado Street, to the wharf where the black water mourns [140] among the piles. What is it, Danny? What makes you feel this way? Danny didn’t know. There was an ache in his heart like the farewell to a dear woman; there was vague sorrow in him like the despair of autumn. He walked past the restaurants he used to smell with interest, and no appetite was aroused in him. He walked by Madam Zuca’s great establishment, and exchanged no obscene jests with the girls in the windows. Back to the wharf he went. He leaned over the rail and looked into the deep, deep water. Do you know, Danny, how the wine of your life is pouring into the fruit jars of the gods? Do you see the procession of your days in the oily water among the piles? He remained motionless, staring down.

They were worried about him at Danny’s house, when it began to get dark. The friends left the party and trotted down the hill into Monterey. They asked, “Have you seen Danny?”