I gave him some money and an umbrella. His thin figure disappeared quickly in the opaque rain. My husband and I went into the house and sat silently like people who had made a mistake.
I moved to a new boarding house. The house was isolated, deep in the alley, next to the road leading to the cemetery.
The first night, I was packing my things when I heard the sound of someone throwing rocks and dirt at the wall and the door. I ran out and saw a skinny figure walking unsteadily towards the cemetery. Perhaps that was the warning from this neighborhood to my wife and I to take care of ourselves. Looking at the dim light coming from the cemetery, my wife seemed scared. The space here was quiet, only occasionally could be heard a few dogs barking...
My wife and I came from the countryside to work in the city. Our family situation is difficult, so finding a spacious and cheap place to stay like this is good enough. I comforted my wife: "Well, just live well with them, and they will surely be good to us."
The next day, I discovered that the culprit who threw rocks and dirt at my house was a drug addict named Bat. Bat was the son of the manager of the farm, whose house was about a hundred meters away from my lodgings.
Another peculiar discovery was that four nearby houses had people who had been in prison. All had been convicted of drug addiction, theft, and drug trafficking.
More than fifty meters behind my house is an abandoned house. Every night, Bat and his group of addicts go there to inject drugs. Needles and syringes are scattered around the guava tree in front of the yard.
My wife was worried about theft, so she kept the gate locked all day. Every time the water pump was finished, my wife and I would take it to the kitchen and put it away carefully.
The dog barked again, Bat walked slowly past the gate, looking into the house. Suddenly seeing me standing in the yard, he seemed embarrassed, he took a bottle out of his pocket and said:
- The pub is too far away, is there one here, can I have a beer?
I opened the gate, went into the house and poured him some wine. He sat waiting on a chair, his legs crossed, his foot missing a toe shaking. His eyes darted around the house. I handed him the bottle of wine. He dusted his butt off, stood up, took the bottle, and without saying a word, swayed out the gate. I was both angry and regretful. The wine I poured for him was brewed with the best aromatic yeast from the countryside.
*
My company had a party, drank a little too much, and when I got home that night I slept like the dead. In the middle of the night, my wife nudged me awake and whispered in my ear:
- I heard the sound of someone breaking open the kitchen door. Get up and check. I'm scared...
I listened, only to hear the sound of rain falling.
- It must be just the sound of mice...
I said yes and went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I was startled to see the kitchen door wide open. The threshold was covered with footprints. I went into the kitchen to check and, oh my god, the refrigerator, the gas stove and the water pump were gone.
My husband and I were stunned with regret. We had just gotten married and moved out, and those things were a fortune. Because it had rained last night, to get into my house the thief had to take off his sandals and climb over a high wall, so the footprints were very clear. Next to the big, short footprints were footprints with long, pointed toes, one missing. It was clear! If it wasn't Bat, who else could it be?
*
Bat came back from breakfast and limped past the gate. “Here it is! Just in time! I’ll teach you a lesson, so you don’t steal.” I stormed out the gate and shouted:
- Bat. Stop, I say.
Bat stood still, his face full of defiance. My blood boiled. I was a martial artist, a weakling like him could be knocked down with just one elbow strike. My wife knew my personality and ran after me:
- Oh man, I just got here...
While saying that, my wife pulled me into the house.
- Then I will write a petition to send him to jail!
- Okay, brother, patience is the key. Let's forgive him this time, but next time we'll do it better...
Hearing my wife's analysis made sense, I followed her into the house but was still angry.
A little over a week later, I heard that Bat, who poisoned Mr. Huy's dog, was chased away and fell face first onto the asphalt. A few days later, I heard that Bat, who stole a TV in Bun neighborhood, was caught and beaten, breaking both his arms.
*
After a while, Bat was nowhere to be seen. I asked and found out that the caretaker had written a request for him to go to rehab. I was secretly happy, he deserved it, so our lives would be more peaceful.
Time and work took me away. I only remembered when someone mentioned Bat, but for a long time no one mentioned Bat anymore.
One day, he suddenly stood in my yard, holding a steaming boiled duck in his hand. He had gained weight, his face looked rosy, it seemed like he had kicked his addiction. He looked at me hesitantly:
- Excuse me, if you don't mind, could you please give me some food? I have something to tell you...
He looked strangely kind. I was filled with doubt. Those words should have come from a refined intellectual. Was this the same Bat I had met before? I invited him into the house. My wife took the duck down to the kitchen, chopped it up, and brought up a tray. Sitting down at the tray, he held the cup of wine in his hand, timidly:
- … I promise to start over!... I promise!... I hope you will forgive me for the mistakes I made in the past... my friends... this neighborhood is full of addicts, you are the only good person I want to hang out with. If I hang out with them... I'm afraid I'll be lured in again.
Thinking back to the theft, I still feel angry, but oh well, there is a saying: "If you hit someone, they will run away, if you hit someone, they will run back." It's good that he repented. I waved my hand:
- Let bygones be bygones. What's important is our future lives. We're brothers in the same neighborhood and will live together for a long time.
Bat was very moved, he was absent-minded for a moment and then said:
- I came here today to ask for your help. I can only rely on you. If you don't help, I don't know what to do...
- Just say it.
- I heard from my dad that the security guard at your office just quit. Please let me go back there! I need a job to get away from my old environment… please help me!
I jumped up. It was true that my agency's security guard had just quit, but if I asked for him, I was afraid... My hometown has a saying: "A tiger has stripes on the outside, a man has stripes on the inside." If he returned to my agency and went back to his old ways, I would no longer have prestige with the leaders, nor face in front of my colleagues. Anyway, prevention is better than cure, I pretended:
- What a pity, Bat. That place is already taken.
He was disappointed and sat still as a statue.
- I will ask somewhere else.
- Yes! Thank you! Whatever it is, please try to help me.
I took two days off work to go with the caretaker to apply for a job for Bat, but everywhere we went, they found excuses to politely refuse.
With no work, Bat went out and in, sometimes playing with the two dogs, sometimes carrying a fishing rod to the black stream full of garbage in front of the house to fish for catfish. Occasionally he came to my house to play. Afraid that idleness was the devil's workshop, I sometimes saw the caretaker look at Bat and shake his head and sigh.
With great difficulty, the caretaker got him a job in a wood processing company. Then he fell in love with a girl from the countryside who went to the city to sell rented clothes near the company where he worked. He brought his girlfriend to my house to show off. The girl looked quite pretty and gentle. He said he would meet his future wife's parents next week. I asked:
- So when are you planning to have a party?
He grinned:
- We decided. Just this year!
I'm happy for him, he has a stable job and is about to get married.
A week later, he came to my house with a gloomy face.
- Her family forbade us from getting married… absolutely forbade it. She listened, probably because of my bad background.
He said, two drops of muddy tears oozing from the corners of his eyes. I tried to comfort him:
- If we are not destined to be together, then forget it. Just work happily and you will meet another girl later. You are still young, what are you worried about?
- What do you do? I was fired!
- What's up?
- My company was robbed. People suspected me… maybe because of my bad record, but I swear I didn't take it. I swear. I want to start over, to be a normal person like everyone else… but now, what can I do again?...
Every day, Bat went out and in to play with the two dogs and then went to the black stream full of trash to fish for catfish.
The story of Bat always makes me surprised one after another. One day, when I just got home from work, my wife called me over:
- Do you know about Bat?
- What happened to Bat?
- Bat was bored with life because of love affairs and lost his job, and was persuaded by friends to relapse.
Near dawn, it was drizzling outside, suddenly the sound of dogs barking started. There was a soft knock on the door. I opened it. Bat was drenched and covered in mud, kneeling before me:
- Brother. I beg you. I beg you. Please lend me some money. For two months now, my father has locked me in a room forcing me to quit drugs. It's so dark and stuffy. I can't stand it. I crave life outside. For the past week, I've been secretly digging a tunnel to get out... I beg you, lend me some money so I can run away, to a place where no one knows about a thieving, drug-addicted guy named Bat. I will quit drugs myself, I will start my life over... I promise.
He buried his face in his hands and cried like a child. I gave him some money and an umbrella. His thin figure quickly disappeared in the opaque rain. My husband and I went into the house and sat silently like people who had made a mistake.
Short story by NONG QUANG KHIEM