The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
Page 3
Everyone listened.
Distantly, a siren wailed.
«Someone phoned for an ambulance.»
«Quick!» said Vamenos, eyes rolling. «Set me up! Take off our coat!»
«Vamenos ―»
«Shut up, idiots!» cried Vamenos. «The coat, that's it! Now, the pants, the pants, quick, quick, peones! Those doctors! You seen movies? They rip the pants with razors to get them off! They don't care! They're maniacs! Ah, God, quick, quick!»
The siren screamed.
The men, panicking, all handled Vamenos at once.
«Right leg, easy, hurry, cows! Good! Left leg, now, left, you hear, there, easy, easy! Ow, God! Quick! Martinez, your pants, take them off!»
«What?» Martinez froze.
The siren shrieked.
«Fool!» wailed Vamenos. «All is lost! Your pants! Give me!»
Martinez jerked at his belt-buckle.
«Close in, make a circle!»
Dark pants, light pants, flourished on the air.
«Quick, here come the maniacs with the razors! Right leg on, left leg, there!»
«The zipper, cows, zip my zipper!» babbled Vamenos.
The siren died.
«Madre mia, yes, just in time! They arrive.» Vamenos lay back down and shut his eyes. «Gracias.»
Martinez turned, nonchalantly buckling on the white pants as the internes brushed past.
«Broken leg,» said one interne as they moved Vamenos on to a stretcher.
«Compadres,» said Vamenos, «don't be mad with me.»
Gomez snorted. «Who's mad?»
In the ambulance, head tilted back, looking out at them upside down, Vamenos faltered.
«Compadres, when… when I come from the hospital… am I still in the bunch? You won't kick me out? Look, I'll give up smoking, keep away from Murillo's, swear off women ―»
«Vamenos,» said Martinez gently, «don't promise nothing.»
Vamenos, upside-down, eyes brimming wet, saw Martinez there, all white now against the stars.
«Oh, Martinez, you sure look great in that suit. Compadres, don't he look beautiful?»
Villanazul climbed in beside Vamenos. The door slammed. The four remaining men watched the ambulance drive away.
Then, surrounded by his friends, inside the white suit, Martinez was carefully escorted back to the kerb.
In the tenement, Martinez got out the cleaning fluid and the others stood around, telling him how to clean the suit and later, how not to have the iron too hot and how to work the lapels and the crease and all. When the suit was cleaned and pressed so it looked like a fresh gardenia just opened, they fitted it to the dummy.
«Two o'clock,» murmured Villanazul. «I hope Vamenos sleeps well. When I left him, he looked good.»
Manulo cleared his throat. «Nobody else is going out with that suit tonight, huh?»
The others glared at him.
Manulo flushed. «I mean… it's late. We're tired. Maybe no one will use the suit for forty-eight hours, huh? Give it a rest. Sure. Well. Where do we sleep?»
The night being still hot and the room unbearable, they carried the suit on its dummy out and down the hall. They brought with them also some pillows and blankets. They climbed the stairs towards the roof of the tenement. There, thought Martinez, is the cooler wind, and sleep.
On the way, they passed a dozen doors that stood open, people still perspiring and awake, playing cards, drinking pop, fanning themselves with movie magazines.
I wonder, thought Martinez. I wonder if- yes!
On the fourth floor, a certain door stood open.
The beautiful girl looked up as the five men passed. She wore glasses and when she saw Martinez she snatched them off and hid them under a book.
The others went on, not knowing they had lost Martinez who seemed stuck fast in the open door.
For a long moment he could say nothing. Then he said:
«Jose Martinez.»
And she said:
«Celia Obregon.»
And then both said nothing.
He heard the men moving up on the tenement roof. He moved to follow.
She said, quickly, «1 saw you tonight!»
He came back.
«The suit,» he said.
«The suit,» she said and paused. «But not the suit.»
«Eh?» he said.
She lifted the book to show the glasses lying in her lap. She touched the glasses.
«I do not see well. You would think I would wear my glasses, but no. I walk around for years now, hiding them, seeing nothing. But tonight, even without glasses, I see. A great whiteness passes below in the dark. So white! And I put on my glasses quickly!»
«The suit, as I said,» said Martinez.
«The suit for a little moment, yes, but there is another whiteness above the suit.»
«Another?»
«Your teeth! Oh, such white teeth, and so many!»
Martinez put his hand over his mouth.
«So happy, Mr.Martinez,» she said. «I have not often seen such a happy face and such a smile.»
«Ah,» he said, not able to look at her, his face flushing now.
«So you see,» she said, quietly, «the suit caught my eye, yes, the whiteness filled the night, below. But, the teeth were much whiter. Now, I have forgotten the suit.»
Martinez flushed again. She too was overcome with what she had said. She put her glasses on her nose, and then took them off, nervously, and hid them again. She looked at her hands and at the door above his head.
«May I ―» he said, at last.
«May you ―»
«May I call for you,» he asked, «when next the suit is mine to wear?»
«Why must you wait for the suit?» she said.
«I thought ―»
«You do not need the suit,» she said.
«But―»
«If it were just the suit,» she said, «anyone would be fine in it. But no, I watched. I saw many men in that suit, all different, this night. So again I say, you do not need to wait for the suit.»
«Madre mia, madre mia!» he cried, happily. And then, quieter, «I will need the suit for a little while. A month, six months, a year. I am uncertain. I am fearful of many things. I am young.»
«That is as it should be,» she said.
«Good night, Miss ―»
«Celia Obregon.»
«Celia Obregon,» he said and was gone from the door.
The others were waiting, on the roof of the tenement. Coming up through the trapdoor, Martinez saw they had placed the dummy and the suit in the centre of the roof and put their blankets and pillows in a circle round it. Now they were lying down. Now a cooler night was blowing here, up in the sky.
Martinez stood alone by the suit, smoothing the lapels, talking half to himself.
«Aye, caramba, what a night! Seems ten years since seven o'clock, when it all started and I had no friends. Two in the morning, I got all kinds of friends…» He paused and thought, Celia Obregon, Celia Obregon. «… all kinds of friends,» he went on. «I got a room, I got clothes. You tell me. You know what?» He looked around at the men lying on the rooftop, surrounding the dummy and himself. «It's funny. When I wear this suit, I know I will win at pool, like Gomez. A woman will look at me like Dominguez. I will be able to sing like Manulo, sweetly. I will talk fine politics like Villanazul. I'm strong as Vamenos. So? So, tonight, I am more than Martinez. I am Gomez, Manulo, Dominguez, Villanazul, Vamenos. I am everyone. Ay… ay» He stood a moment longer by this suit which could save all the ways they sat or stood or walked. This suit which could move fast and nervous like Gomez or slow and thoughtfully like Villanazul or drift like Dominguez who never touched ground, who always found a wind to take him somewhere. This suit which belonged to them, but which also owned them all. This suit that was — what? A parade.
«Martinez,» said Gomez. «You going to sleep?»
«Sure. I'm just thinking.»
«What?»
«If we eve
r get rich,» said Martinez, softly, «it'll be kind of sad. Then we'll all have suits. And there won't be no more nights like tonight. It'll break up the old gang. It'll never be the same after that.»
The men lay thinking of what had just been said.
Gomez nodded, gently.
«Yeah… it'll never be the same… after that.» Martinez lay down on his blanket. In darkness, with the others, he faced the middle of the roof and the dummy, which was the centre of their lives.
And their eyes were bright, shining, and good to see in the dark as the neon lights from nearby buildings flicked on, flicked off, flicked on, flicked off, revealing and then vanishing, revealing and then vanishing, their wonderful white vanilla ice-cream summer suit.
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