And at last it was time for Martínez to let the suit float him out to haunt the darkness.
Four times he walked around the block. Four times he paused beneath the tenement porches, looking up at the window where the light was lit: a shadow moved, the beautiful girl was there, not there, away and gone, and on the fifth time there she was on the porch above, driven out by the summer heat, taking the cooler air.
She glanced down. She made a gesture.
At first he thought she was waving to him. He felt like a white explosion that had riveted her attention. But she was not waving. Her hand gestured and the next moment a pair of dark-framed glasses sat upon her nose. She gazed at him.
Ah, ah, he thought, so that’s it. So! Even the blind may see this suit! He smiled up at her. He did not have to wave. And at last she smiled back. She did not have to wave either. Then, because he did not know what else to do and he could not get rid of this smile that had fastened itself to his cheeks, he hurried, almost ran, around the corner, feeling her stare after him.
When he looked back she had taken off her glasses and gazed now with the look of the nearsighted at what, at most, must be a moving blob of light in the great darkness here. Then for good measure he went around the block again, through a city so suddenly beautiful he wanted to yell, then laugh, then yell again.
Returning, he drifted, oblivious, eyes half closed, and seeing him in the door, the others saw not Martínez but themselves come home. In that moment, they sensed that something had happened to them all.
‘You’re late!’ cried Vamenos, but stopped. The spell could not be broken.
‘Somebody tell me,’ said Martínez. ‘Who am I?’
He moved in a slow circle through the room.
Yes, he thought, yes, it’s the suit, yes, it had to do with the suit and them all together in that store on this fine Saturday night and then here, laughing and feeling more drunk without drinking as Manulo said himself, as the night ran and each slipped on the pants and held, toppling, to the others and, balanced, let the feeling get bigger and warmer and finer as each man departed and the next took his place in the suit until now here stood Martínez all splendid and white as one who gives orders and the world grows quiet and moves aside.
‘Martínez, we borrowed three mirrors while you were gone. Look!’
The mirrors, set up as in the store, angled to reflect three Martínezes and the echoes and memories of those who had occupied this suit with him and known the bright world inside this thread and cloth. Now, in the shimmering mirror, Martínez saw the enormity of this thing they were living together and his eyes grew wet. The others blinked. Martínez touched the mirrors.
They shifted. He saw a thousand, a million white-armored Martínezes march off into eternity, reflected, re-reflected, forever, indomitable, and unending.
He held the white coat out on the air. In a trance, the others did not at first recognize the dirty hand that reached to take the coat. Then:
‘Vamenos!’
‘Pig!’
‘You didn’t wash!’ cried Gómez. ‘Or even shave, while you waited! Compadres, the bath!’
‘The bath!’ said everyone.
‘No!’ Vamenos flailed. ‘The night air! I’m dead!’
They hustled him yelling out and down the hall.
Now here stood Vamenos, unbelievable in white suit, beard shaved, hair combed, nails scrubbed.
His friends scowled darkly at him.
For was it not true, thought Martínez, that when Vamenos passed by, avalanches itched on mountaintops? If he walked under windows, people spat, dumped garbage, or worse. Tonight now, this night, he would stroll beneath ten thousand wide-opened windows, near balconies, past alleys. Suddenly the world absolutely sizzled with flies. And here was Vamenos, a fresh-frosted cake.
‘You sure look keen in that suit, Vamenos,’ said Manulo sadly.
‘Thanks.’ Vamenos twitched, trying to make his skeleton comfortable where all their skeletons had so recently been. In a small voice Vamenos said. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Villanazul!’ said Gómez. ‘Copy down these rules.’
Villanazul licked his pencil.
‘First,’ said Gómez, ‘don’t fall down in that suit, Vamenos!’
‘I won’t.’
‘Don’t lean against buildings in that suit.’
‘No buildings.’
‘Don’t walk under trees with birds in them in that suit. Don’t smoke. Don’t drink—’
‘Please,’ said Vamenos, ‘can I sit down in this suit?’
‘When in doubt, take the pants off, fold them over a chair.’
‘Wish me luck,’ said Vamenos.
‘Go with God, Vamenos.’
He went out. He shut the door.
There was a ripping sound.
‘Vamenos!’ cried Martínez.
He whipped the door open.
Vamenos stood with two halves of a handkerchief torn in his hands, laughing.
‘Rrrip! Look at your faces! Rrrip!’ He tore the cloth again. ‘Oh, oh, your faces, your faces! Ha!’
Roaring, Vamenos slammed the door, leaving them stunned and alone.
Gómez put both hands on top of his head and turned away. ‘Stone me. Kill me. I have sold our souls to a demon!’
Villanazul dug in his pockets, took out a silver coin, and studied it for a long while.
‘This is my last fifty cents. Who else will help me buy back Vamenos’ share of the suit?’
‘It’s no use.’ Manulo showed them ten cents. ‘We got only enough to buy the lapels and the buttonholes.’
Gómez, at the open window, suddenly leaned out and yelled. ‘Vamenos! No!’
Below on the street, Vamenos, shocked, blew out a match and threw away an old cigar butt he had found somewhere. He made a strange gesture to all the men in the window above, then waved airily and sauntered on.
Somehow, the five men could not move away from the window. They were crushed together there.
‘I bet he eats a hamburger in that suit,’ mused Villanazul. ‘I’m thinking of the mustard.’
‘Don’t!’ cried Gómez. ‘No, no!’
Manulo was suddenly at the door.
‘I need a drink, bad.’
‘Manulo, there’s wine here, that bottle on the floor—’
Manulo went out and shut the door.
A moment later Villanazul stretched with great exaggeration and strolled about the room.
‘I think I’ll walk down to the plaza, friends.’
He was not gone a minute when Domínguez, waving his black book at the others, winked and turned the doorknob.
‘Domínguez,’ said Gómez.
‘Yes?’
‘If you see Vamenos, by accident,’ said Gómez, ‘warn him away from Mickey Murrillo’s Red Rooster Café. They got fights not only on TV but out front of the TV too.’
‘He wouldn’t go into Murrillo’s,’ said Domínguez. ‘That suit means too much to Vamenos. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt it.’
‘He’d shoot his mother first,’ said Martínez.
‘Sure he would.’
Martínez and Gómez, alone, listened to Domínguez’s footsteps hurry away down the stairs. They circled the undressed window dummy.
For a long while, biting his lips, Gómez stood at the window, looking out. He touched his shirt pocket twice, pulled his hand away, and then at last pulled something from the pocket.
Without looking at it, he handed it to Martínez.
‘Martínez, take this.’
‘What is it?’
Martínez looked at the piece of folded pink paper with print on it, with names and numbers. His eyes widened.
‘A ticket on the bus to El Paso three weeks from now!’
Gómez nodded. He couldn’t look at Martínez. He stared out into the summer night.
‘Turn it in. Get the money,’ he said. ‘Buy us a nice white panama hat and a pale blue tie to go with the white ice cream suit, Martínez. Do that.’
‘Gómez—’
‘Shut up. Boy, is it hot in here! I need air.’
‘Gómez. I am touched. Gómez—’
But the door stood open. Gómez was gone.
Mickey Murrillo’s Red Rooster Café and Cocktail Lounge was squashed between two big brick buildings and, being narrow, had to be deep. Outside, serpents of red and sulphur-green neon fizzed and snapped. Inside, dim shapes loomed and swam away to lose themselves in a swarming night sea.
Martínez, on tiptoe, peeked through a flaked place on the red-painted front window.
He felt a presence on his left, heard breathing on his right. He glanced in both directions.
‘Manulo! Villanazul!’
‘I decided I wasn’t thirsty,’ said Manulo. ‘So I took a walk.’
‘I was just on my way to the plaza,’ said Villanazul, ‘and decided to go the long way around.’
As if by agreement, the three men shut up now and turned together to peer on tiptoe through various flaked spots on the window.
A moment later, all three felt a new very warm presence behind them and heard still faster breathing.
‘Is our white suit in there?’ asked Gómez’s voice.
‘Gómez!’ said everybody, surprised. ‘Hi!’
‘Yes!’ cried Domínguez, having just arrived to find his own peephole. ‘There’s the suit! And, praise God, Vamenos is still in it!’
‘I can’t see!’ Gómez squinted, shielding his eyes. ‘What’s he doing?’
Martínez peered. Yes! There, way back in the shadows, was a big chunk of snow and the idiot smile of Vamenos winking above it, wreathed in smoke.
‘He’s smoking!’ said Martínez.
‘He’s drinking!’ said Domínguez.
‘He’s eating a taco!’ reported Villanazul.
‘A juicy taco,’ added Manulo.
‘No,’ said Gómez. ‘No, no, no…’
‘Ruby Escuadrillo’s with him!’
‘Let me see that!’ Gómez pushed Martínez aside.
Yes, there was Ruby! Two hundred pounds of glittering sequins and tight black satin on the hoof, her scarlet fingernails clutching Vamenos’ shoulder. Her cowlike face, floured with powder, greasy with lipstick, hung over him!
‘That hippo!’ said Domínguez. ‘She’s crushing the shoulder pads. Look, she’s going to sit on his lap!’
‘No, no, not with all that powder and lipstick!’ said Gómez. ‘Manulo, inside! Grab that drink! Villanazul, the cigar, the taco! Domínguez, date
