Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07 (36 page)

 
          
 
Vamenos clenched his fists, ground his teeth.

 
          
 
"The suit, what have I done to the suit,
the suit, the suit!"

 
          
 
The men crouched lower.

 
          
 
"Vamenos, it's . . . why, it's
okay!"

 
          
 
"You lie!" said Vamenos. "It's
torn, it must be, it must be, it's torn, all around, underneath?"

 
          
 
"No." Martinez knelt and touched
here and there. "Vamenos, all around, underneath even, it's okay!"

 
          
 
Vamenos opened his eyes to let the tears run
free at last. "A miracle," he sobbed. "Praise the saints!"
He quieted at last. "The car?"

 
          
 
"Hit and run." Gomez suddenly remembered
and glared at the empty street. "It's good he didn't stop. We'd
have—"

 
          
 
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 interns brushed past.

 
          
 
"Broken leg," said one intern as
they moved Vamenos onto 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 Murrillo'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 curb.

 
          
 
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 at the hospital, 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
toward 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 men
passed. She wore glasses and when she saw Martinez she snatched them off and
hid them under her 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, "I 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 the 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 center of the roof and put their blankets and pillows
in a circle around it. Now they were lying down. Now a cooler night wind was
blowing here, up in the sky.

 
          
 
Martinez stood alone by the white suit, smoothing
the lapels, talking half to
himself
.

 
          
 
"Ay, 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 ever 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'U
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
center 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.