A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories Page 3

  “At last we found our fifth volunteer!”

  Domínguez 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. “Gómez, you—?”

  “Yes, yes! Your money, now! Ándale!”

  The woman’s voice sizzled on the dangling phone.

  Domínguez 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 Gómez, nudging Martínez. Martínez counted out his wrinkled bills and change. Gómez flourished the money like a royal flush.

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

  “Wait,” said Martínez. “Gómez, are we talking about one suit? Uno?”

  “Uno!” Gómez 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 Domínguez.

  “Me!” said Villanazul.

  “Me!” cried Gómez. “And you, Martínez. Men, let’s show him. Line up!”

  Villanazul, Manulo, Domínguez, and Gómez rushed to plant their backs against the poolroom wall.

  “Martínez, you too, the other end, line up! Now, Vamenos, lay that billiard cue across our heads!”

  “Sure, Gómez, sure!”

  Martínez, 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 along, grinning.

  “We’re all the same height!” said Martínez.

  “The same!” Everyone laughed.

  Gómez 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, Domínguez, Villanazul, Gómez, and at last Martínez stepped onto the scales which flipped ink-stamped cards at them as Vamenos, still smiling wildly, fed pennies. Heart pounding, Martínez 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, “Gómez.”

  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 Martínez. “The girls run away.”

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

  “Gómez,” 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 to the 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?”

  “The errors of a child now grown,” said Gómez. “Enough! In this hot weather someone may buy the special suit that is made just for us that stands waiting in the window of SHUMWAY’S SUNSHINE SUITS! We have fifty dollars. Now we need just one more skeleton!”

  Martínez saw the men peer around the pool hall. He looked where they looked. He felt his eyes hurry past Vamenos, then come reluctantly back to examine his dirty shirt, his huge nicotined fingers.

  “Me!” Vamenos burst out at last. “My skeleton, measure it, it’s great! Sure, my hands are big, and my arms, from digging ditches! But—”

  Just then Martínez heard passing on the sidewalk outside that same terrible man with his two girls, all laughing together.

  He saw anguish move like the shadow of a summer cloud on the faces of the other men in this poolroom.

  Slowly Vamenos stepped onto the scales and dropped his penny. Eyes closed, he breathed a prayer.

  “Madre mía, please …”

  The machinery whirred; the card fell out. Vamenos opened his eyes.

  “Look! One thirty-five pounds! Another miracle!”

  The men stared at his right hand and the card, at his left hand and a soiled ten-dollar bill.

  Gómez swayed. Sweating, he licked his lips. Then his hand shot out, seized the money.

  “The clothing store! The suit! Vamos!”

  Yelling, everyone ran from the poolroom.

  The woman’s voice was still squeaking on the abandoned telephone. Martínez, left behind, reached out and hung the voice up. In the silence he shook his head. “Santos, what a dream! Six men,” he said, “one suit. What will come of this? Madness? Debauchery? Murder? But I go with God. Gómez, wait for me!”

  Martínez was young. He ran fast.

  Mr. Shumway, of SHUMWAY’S SUNSHINE SUITS, paused while adjusting a tie rack, aware of some subtle atmospheric change outside his establishment.

  “Leo,” he whispered to his assistant. “Look …”

  Outside, one man, Gómez, strolled by, looking in. Two men, Manulo and Domínguez, hurried by, staring in. Three men, Villanazul, Martínez, and Vamenos, jostling shoulders, did the same.

  “Leo.” Mr. Shumway swallowed. “Call the police!”

  Suddenly six men filled the doorway.

  Martínez, crushed among them, his stomach slightly upset, his face feeling feverish, smiled so wildly at Leo that Leo let go the telephone.

  “Hey,” breathed Martínez, eyes wide. “There’s a great suit over there!”

  “No.” Manulo touched a lapel. “This one!”

  “There is only one suit in all the world!” said Gómez coldly. “Mr. Shumway, the ice-cream white, size thirty-four, was in your window just an hour ago! It’s gone! You didn’t—”

  “Sell it?” Mr. Shumway exhaled. “No, no. In the dressing room. It’s still on the dummy.”

  Martínez did not know if he moved and moved the crowd or if the crowd moved and moved him. Suddenly they were all in motion. Mr. Shumway, running, tried to keep ahead of them.

  “This way, gents. Now which of you …?”

  “All for one, one for all!” Martínez heard himself say, and laughed. “We’ll all try it on!”

  “All?” Mr. Shumway clutched at the booth curtain as if his shop were a steamship that had suddenly tilted in a great swell. He stared.

  That’s it, thought Martínez, look at our smiles. Now, look at the skeletons behind our smiles! Measure here, there, up, down, yes, do you see?

  Mr. Shumway saw. He nodded. He shrugged.

  “All!” He jerked the curtain. “There! Buy it, and I’ll throw in the dummy free!”

  Martínez peered quietly into the booth, his motion drawing the others to peer too.

  The suit was there.

  And it was white.

  Martínez could not breathe. He did not want to. He did not need to. He was afraid his breath would melt the suit. It was enough, just looking.

  But at last he took a great trembling b
reath and exhaled, whispering, “Ay. Ay, caramba!”

  “It puts out my eyes,” murmured Gómez.

  “Mr. Shumway,” Martínez heard Leo hissing. “Ain’t it dangerous precedent, to sell it? I mean, what if everybody bought one suit for six people?”

  “Leo,” said Mr. Shumway, “you ever hear one single fifty-nine-dollar suit make so many people happy at the same time before?”

  “Angels’ wings,” murmured Martínez. “The wings of white angels.”

  Martínez felt Mr. Shumway peering over his shoulder into the booth. The pale glow filled his eyes.

  “You know something, Leo?” he said in awe. “That’s a suit!”

  Gómez, shouting, whistling, ran up to the third-floor landing and turned to wave to the others, who staggered, laughed, stopped, and had to sit down on the steps below.

  “Tonight!” cried Gómez. “Tonight you move in with me, eh? Save rent as well as clothes, eh? Sure! Martínez, you got the suit?”

  “Have I?” Martínez lifted the white gift-wrapped box high. “From us to us! Ay-hah!”

  “Vamenos, you got the dummy?”

  “Here!”

  Vamenos, chewing an old cigar, scattering sparks, slipped. The dummy, falling, toppled, turned over twice, and banged down the stairs.

  “Vamenos! Dumb! Clumsy!”

  They seized the dummy from him. Stricken, Vamenos looked about as if he’d lost something.

  Manulo snapped his fingers. “Hey, Vamenos, we got to celebrate! Go borrow some wine!”

  Vamenos plunged downstairs in a whirl of sparks.

  The others moved into the room with the suit, leaving Martínez in the hall to study Gómez’s face.

  “Gómez, you look sick.”

  “I am,” said Gómez. “For what have I done?” He nodded to the shadows in the room working about the dummy. “I pick Domínguez, a devil with the women. All right. I pick Manulo, who drinks, yes, but who sings as sweet as a girl, eh? Okay. Villanazul reads books. You, you wash behind your ears. But then what do I do? Can I wait? No! I got to buy that suit! So the last guy I pick is a clumsy slob who has the right to wear my suit—” He stopped, confused. “Who gets to wear our suit one night a week, fall down in it, or not come in out of the rain in it! Why, why, why did I do it!”

  “Gómez,” whispered Villanazul from the room. “The suit is ready. Come see if it looks as good using your light bulb.”

  Gómez and Martínez entered.

  And there on the dummy in the center of the room was the phosphorescent, the miraculously white-fired ghost with the incredible lapels, the precise stitching, the neat buttonholes. Standing with the white illumination of the suit upon his cheeks, Martínez suddenly felt he was in church. White! White! It was white as the whitest vanilla ice cream, as the bottled milk in tenement halls at dawn. White as a winter cloud all alone in the moonlit sky late at night. Seeing it here in the warm summer-night room made their breath almost show on the air. Shutting his eyes, he could see it printed on his lids. He knew what color his dreams would be this night.

  “White …” murmured Villanazul. “White as the snow on that mountain near our town in Mexico, which is called the Sleeping Woman.”

  “Say that again,” said Gómez.

  Villanazul, proud yet humble, was glad to repeat his tribute.

  “… white as the snow on the mountain called—”

  “I’m back!”

  Shocked, the men whirled to see Vamenos in the door, wine bottles in each hand.

  “A party! Here! Now tell us, who wears the suit first tonight? Me?”

  “It’s too late!” said Gómez.

  “Late! It’s only nine-fifteen!”

  “Late?” said everyone, bristling. “Late?”

  Gómez edged away from these men who glared from him to the suit to the open window.

  Outside and below it was, after all, thought Martínez, a fine Saturday night in a summer month and through the calm warm darkness the women drifted like flowers on a quiet stream. The men made a mournful sound.

  “Gómez, a suggestion.” Villanazul licked his pencil and drew a chart on a pad. “You wear the suit from nine-thirty to ten, Manulo till ten-thirty, Domínguez till eleven, myself till eleven-thirty, Martínez till midnight, and—”

  “Why me last?” demanded Vamenos, scowling.

  Martínez thought quickly and smiled. “After midnight is the best time, friend.”

  “Hey,” said Vamenos, “that’s right. I never thought of that. Okay.”

  Gómez sighed. “All right. A half hour each. But from now on, remember, we each wear the suit just one night a week. Sundays we draw straws for who wears the suit the extra night.”

  “Me!” laughed Vamenos. “I’m lucky!”

  Gómez held onto Martínez, tight.

  “Gómez,” urged Martínez, “you first. Dress.”

  Gómez could not tear his eyes from that disreputable Vamenos. At last, impulsively, he yanked his shirt off over his head. “Ay-yeah!” he howled. “Ay-yeee!”

  Whisper rustle … the clean shirt.

  “Ah …!”

  How clean the new clothes feel, thought Martínez, holding the coat ready. How clean they sound, how clean they smell!

  Whisper … the pants … the tie, rustle … the suspenders. Whisper … now Martínez let loose the coat, which fell in place on flexing shoulders.

  “Ole!”

  Gómez turned like a matador in his wondrous suit-of-lights.

  “Ole, Gómez, ole!”

  Gómez bowed and went out the door.

  Martínez fixed his eyes to his watch. At ten sharp he heard someone wandering about in the hall as if they had forgotten where to go. Martínez pulled the door open and looked out.

  Gómez was there, heading for nowhere.

  He looks sick, thought Martínez. No, stunned, shook up, surprised, many things.

  “Gómez! This is the place!”

  Gómez turned around and found his way through the door.

  “Oh, friends, friends,” he said. “Friends, what an experience! This suit! This suit!”

  “Tell us, Gómez!” said Martínez.

  “I can’t, how can I say it!” He gazed at the heavens, arms spread, palms up.

  “Tell us, Gómez!”

  “I have no words, no words. You must see, yourself! Yes, you must see—” And here he lapsed into silence, shaking his head until at last he remembered they all stood watching him. “Who’s next? Manulo?”

  Manulo, stripped to his shorts, leapt forward.

  “Ready!”

  All laughed, shouted, whistled.

  Manulo, ready, went out the door. He was gone twenty-nine minutes and thirty seconds. He came back holding to doorknobs, touching the wall, feeling his own elbows, putting the flat of his hand to his face.

  “Oh, let me tell you,” he said. “Compadres, I went to the bar, eh, to have a drink? But no, I did not go in the bar, do you hear? I did not drink. For as I walked I began to laugh and sing. Why, why? I listened to myself and asked this. Because. The suit made me feel better than wine ever did. The suit made me drunk, drunk! So I went to the Guadalajara Refritería instead and played the guitar and sang four songs, very high! The suit, ah, the suit!”

  Domínguez, next to be dressed, moved out through the world, came back from the world.

  The black telephone book! thought Martínez. He had it in his hands when he left! Now, he returns, hands empty! What? What?

  “On the street,” said Domínguez, seeing it all again, eyes wide, “on the street I walked, a woman cried, ‘Domínguez, is that you?’ Another said, ‘Domínguez? No, Quetzalcoatl, the Great White God come from the East,’ do you hear? And suddenly I didn’t want to go with six women or eight, no. One, I thought. One! And to this one, who knows what I would say? ‘Be mine!’ Or ‘Marry me!’ Caramba! This suit is dangerous! But I did not care! I live, I live! Gómez, did it happen this way with you?”

  Gómez, still dazed by the events of the
evening, shook his head. “No, no talk. It’s too much. Later, Villanazul …?”

  Villanazul moved shyly forward.

  Villanazul went shyly out.

  Villanazul came shyly home.

  “Picture it,” he said, not looking at them, looking at the floor, talking to the floor. “The Green Plaza, a group of elderly businessmen gathered under the stars and they are talking, nodding, talking. Now one of them whispers. All turn to stare. They move aside, they make a channel through which a white-hot light burns its way as through ice. At the center of the great light is this person. I take a deep breath. My stomach is jelly. My voice is very small, but it grows louder. And what do I say? I say, ‘Friends. Do you know Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus? In that book we find his Philosophy of Suits....’”

  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.