The Day it Rained Forever (6 page)

‘Why me
last
?' demanded Vamenos, scowling.

Martinez thought quickly and smiled. ‘After midnight is the
best
time, friend.'

‘Hey,' said Vamenos, ‘that's right. I never thought of that. Okay.'

Gomez 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!'

Gomez held on to Martinez tight.

‘Gomez,' urged Martinez, ‘you first. Dress.'

Gomez 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 Martinez, holding the coat ready. How clean they sound, how clean they smell!

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

‘
Olé
!'

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

‘
Olé
, Gomez,
olé
!'

Gomez bowed and went out the door.

Martinez 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. Martinez pulled the door open and looked out.

Gomez was there, heading for nowhere.

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

‘Gomez! This is the place!'

Gomez turned around and found his way through the door.

‘Oh, friends, friends,' he said. ‘Friends, what an experience! This suit! This suit!'

‘Tell us, Gomez!' said Martinez.

‘I can't, how can I say it!' He gazed at the heavens, arms spread, palms up.

‘
Tell
us, Gomez!'

‘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!'

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

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

‘On the street,' said Dominguez, seeing it all again, eyes wide, ‘on the street I walked, a woman cried, “Dominguez, is that
you?”
Another said, “Dominguez? 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! Gomez, did it happen this way with you?'

Gomez, 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 business men 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 centre 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 Martinez 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 Martinez 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 Martinez. ‘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 Martinez all splendid and white as one who gives orders and the world grows quiet and moves aside.

‘Martinez, we borrowed three mirrors while you were gone. Look!'

The mirrors, set up as in the store, angled to reflect three Martinezes 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, Martinez saw the enormity of this thing they were living together and his eyes grew wet. The others blinked. Martinez touched the mirrors. They shifted. He saw a thousand, a million white-armoured Martinezes march off into eternity, reflected, reflected, for ever, 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 Gomez. ‘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 it was not true, thought Martinez, that when Vamenos passed by, avalanches itched on mountain-tops. 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 Gomez. ‘Copy down these rules.'

Villanazul licked his pencil.

‘First,' said Gomez, ‘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 Martinez.

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.

Gomez 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.

‘Here is my last fifty cents. Who else will help me buy back Vamenos's share of the suit?'

‘It's no use.' Manulo showed them ten cents. ‘We got only enough to buy the lapels and the buttonholes.'

Gomez, 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 Gomez. ‘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 Dominguez, waving his black book at the others, winked, and turned the doorknob.

‘Dominguez,' said Gomez.

‘Yes?'

‘If you see Vamenos, by accident,' said Gomez, ‘warn him away from Mickey Murillo's Red Rooster Café. They got fights not only
on
TV
but
out front
of the
TV
, too.'

‘He wouldn't go into Murillo's,' said Dominguez. ‘That suit means too much to Vamenos. He wouldn't do anything to hurt it.'

‘He'd shoot his mother first,' said Martinez.

‘Sure he would.'

Martinez and Gomez, alone, listened to Dominguez's footsteps hurry away down the stairs. They circled the undressed window dummy.

For a long while, biting his lips, Gomez 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 Martinez.

‘Martinez, take this.'

‘What is it?'

Martinez 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!'

Gomez nodded. He couldn't look at Martinez. 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, Martinez. Do that.'

‘Gomez –'

‘Shut up. Boy, is it hot in here! I need air.'

‘Gomez. I am touched. Gomez –'

But the door stood open. Gomez was gone.

Mickey Murillo'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.

Martinez, 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 round.'

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 Gomez's voice.

‘Gomez!' said everybody, surprised. ‘Hi!'

‘Yes!' cried Dominguez, having just arrived to find his own peephole. ‘There's the suit! And, praise God, Vamenos is still
in
it!'

‘I can't see!' Gomez squinted, shielding his eyes. ‘What's he
doing
?'

Martinez 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.