Rej Bredberi - The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit

It was summer twilight in the city and out front of the quiet-clicking pool-hall three young Mexican-American men breathed the warm air and looked around at the world. Sometimes they talked and sometimes they said nothing at all, but watched the cars glide by like black panthers on the hot asphalt or saw trolleys loom up like thunderstorms, scatter lightning, and rumble away into silence.

Hey, sighed Martinez, at last. He was the youngest, the most sweetly sad of the three. It's a swell night, huh? Swell.

As he observed the world it moved very close and then drifted away and then came close again. People, brushing by, were suddenly across the street. Buildings five miles away suddenly leaned over him. But most of the time everything, people, cars, and buildings, stayed way out on the edge of the world and could not be touched. On this quiet warm summer evening, Martinez's face was cold.

Nights like this you wish lots of things.

Wishing, said the second man, Villanazul, a man who shouted books out loud in his room, but spoke only in whispers on the street. Wishing is the useless pastime of the unemployed.

Unemployed? cried Vamenos, the unshaven. Listen to him! We got no jobs, no money!

So, said Martinez, we got no friends.

True. Villanazul gazed off towards the green plaza where the palm-trees swayed in the soft night wind. Do you know what I wish? I wish to go into that plaza and speak among the businessmen who gather there nights to talk big talk. But dressed as I am, poor as I am, who would listen? So, Martinez, we have each other. The friendship of the poor is real friendship. We

But now a handsome young Mexican with a fine thin moustache strolled by. And on each of his careless arms hung a laughing woman. Madre mia! Martinez slapped his own brow. How does that one rate two friends?

It's his nice new white summer suit. Vamenos chewed a black thumbnail. He looks sharp.

Martinez leaned out to watch the three people moving away, and then the tenement across the street, in one fourth-floor window of which, far above, a beautiful girl leaned out, her dark hair faintly stirred by the wind. She had been there for ever, which was to say, for six weeks. He had nodded, he had raised a hand, he had smiled, he had blinked rapidly, he had even bowed to her, on the street, in the hall when visiting friends, in the park, downtown. Even now, he put his hand up from his waist and moved his fingers. But all the lovely girl did was let the summer wind stir her dark hair. He did not exist. He was nothing.

Madre mia! He looked away and down the street where the man walked his two friends around a corner. Oh, if I had just one suit, one! I wouldn't need money if I looked okay.

I hesitate to suggest, said Villanazul, that you see Gomez. But he's been talking some crazy talk for a month now, about clothes. I keep on saying I'll be in on it to make him go away. That Gomez.

Friend, said a quiet voice.

Gomez! Everyone turned to stare.

Smiling strangely, Gomez pulled forth an endless thin yellow ribbon which fluttered and swirled on the summer air.

Gomez, said Martinez, what you doing with that tape-measure?

Gomez beamed. Measuring people's skeletons.

Skeletons!

Hold on. Gomez squinted at Martinez. Caramba! Where you been all my life! Let's try you!

Martinez saw his arm seized and taped, his leg measured, his chest encircled.

Hold still! cried Gomez. Arm-perfect. Leg-chest perfectamente! Now, quick, the height! There! Yes! Five foot five! You're in! Shake! Pumping Martinez's hand he stopped suddenly. Wait. You got ten bucks?

I have! Vamenos waved some grimy bills. Gomez, measure me!

All I got left in the world is nine dollars and ninety-two cents. Martinez searched his pockets. That's enough for a new suit? Why?

Why? Because you got the right skeleton, that's why!

Senor Gomez, I don't hardly know you

Know me? You're going to live with me! Come on!

Gomez vanished into the pool-room. Martinez, escorted by the polite Villanazul, pushed by an eager Vamenos, found himself inside.

Dominguez! said Gomez.

Dominguez, at a wall-telephone, winked at them. A woman's voice squeaked on the receiver.

Manulo! said Gomez.

Manulo, a wine bottle tilted bubbling to his mouth, turned.

Gomez pointed at Martinez.

At last we found our fifth volunteer!

Dominguez said, I got a date, don't bother me and stopped. The receiver slipped from his fingers. His little black telephone book full of fine names and numbers went quickly back into his pocket. Gomez, you-?

Yes, yes! Your money, now! Andale!

The woman's voice sizzled on the dangling phone.

Dominguez glanced at it, uneasily.

Manulo considered the empty wine bottle in his hand and the liquor-store sign across the street.

Then, very reluctantly, both men laid ten dollars each on the green velvet pool-table.

Villanazul, amazed, did likewise, as did Gomez, nudging Martinez. Martinez counted out his wrinkled bills and change. Gomez flourished the money like a royal flush.

Fifty bucks! The suit costs sixty! All we need is ten bucks!

Wait, said Martinez. Gomez, are we talking about one suit? Uno?

Uno! Gomez raised a finger. One wonderful white ice-cream summer suit! White, white as the August moon!

But who will own this one suit?

Me! said Manulo.

Me! said Dominguez.

Me! said Villanazul.

Me! cried Gomez. And you, Martinez. Men, let's show him. Line up!

Villanazul, Manulo, Dominguez, and Gomez rushed to plant their backs against the pool-room wall.

Martinez, you too, the other end, line up! Now, Va-menos, lay that billiard cue across our heads!

Sure, Gomez, sure!

Martinez, in line, felt the cue tap his head and leaned out to see what was happening. Ah! he gasped.

The cue lay flat on all their heads, with no rise or fall, as Vamenos slid it, grinning, along.

We're all the same height! said Martinez.

The same! Everyone laughed.

Gomez ran down the line rustling the yellow tape-measure here and there on the men so they laughed even more wildly.

Sure! he said. It took a month, four weeks, mind you, to find four guys the same size and shape as me, a month of running around measuring. Sometimes I found guys with five-foot-five skeletons, sure, but all the meat on their bones was too much or not enough. Sometimes their bones were too long in the legs or too short in the arms. Boy, all the bones! I tell you! But now, five of us, same shoulders, chests, waists, arms, and as for weight? Men!

Manulo, Dominguez, Villanazul, Gomez, and at last, Martinez stepped on to the scales which flipped ink-stamped cards at them as Vamenos, still smiling, wildly fed pennies. Heart pounding, Martinez read the cards.

One hundred thirty-five pounds one thirty-six one thirty-three one thirty-four one thirty-seven a miracle!

No, said Villanazul, simply, Gomez.

They all smiled upon that genius who now circled them with his arms.

Are we not fine? he wondered. All the same size, all the same dream the suit. So each of us will look beautiful at least one night each week, eh?

I haven't looked beautiful in years, said Martinez. The girls run away,

They will run no more, they will freeze, said Gomez, when they see you in the cool white summer ice-cream suit.

Gomez, said Villanazul, just let me ask one thing.

Of course, compadre.

When we get this nice new white ice-cream summer suit, some night you're not going to put it on and walk down Greyhound bus in it and go live in El Paso for a year in it, are you?

Villanazul, Villanazul, how can you say that?

My eye sees and my tongue moves, said Villanazul. How about the Everybody Wins! Punchboard Lotteries you ran and you kept running when nobody won? How about the United Chili Con Carne and Frijole Company you were going to organize and all that ever happened was the rent ran out on a two-by-four office?