Bradbury, Ray - SSC 07

by Twice Twenty-two (v2. 1)

  "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 pan-ama 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 Murrillo's Red Rooster Cafe 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 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 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.

  "He's smoking!" said Martinez,

  "He's drinking!" said Dominguez.

  "He's eating a taco!" reported Villanazul,

  "A juicy taco," added Manulo.

  "No," said Gomez. "No, no, no. . . ."

  "Ruby Escuadrillo's with him!"

  "Let me see that!" Gomez pushed Martinez 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 Dominguez. "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 Gomez. "Manulo, inside! Grab that drink! Villanazul, the cigar, the taco! Dominguez, date Ruby Escuadrillo, get her away. Andalay men!"

  The three vanished, leaving Gomez and Martinez to stare, gasping, through the peephole.

  "Manulo, he's got the drink, he's drinking it!"

  "Ay! There's Villanazul, he's got the cigar, he's eating the taco!"

  "Hey, Dominguez, he's got Ruby! What a brave one!"

  A shadow bulked through Murrillo's front door, traveling fast.

  "Gomez!" Martinez clutched Gomez's arm. "That was Ruby Escuadrillo's boy friend, Toro Ruiz. If he finds her with Vamenos, the ice cream suit will be covered with blood, covered with blood—"

  "Don't make me nervous," said Gomez. "Quickly!"

  Both ran. Inside they reached Vamenos just as Toro Ruiz grabbed about two feet of the lapels of that wonderful ice cream suit.

  "Let go of Vamenos!" said Martinez.

  "Let go that suitr corrected Gomez.

  Toro Ruiz, tap-dancing Vamenos, leered at these intruders.

  Villanazul stepped up shyly.

  Villanazul smiled. "Don't hit him. Hit me."

  Toro Ruiz hit Villanazul smack on the nose.

  Villanazul, holding his nose, tears stinging his eyes, wandered off.

  Gomez grabbed one of Toro Ruiz's arms, Martinez the other.

  "Drop him, let go, cabron, coyote, vaca!"

  Toro Ruiz twisted the ice cream suit material until all six men screamed in mortal agony. Grunting, sweating, Toro Ruiz dislodged as many as climbed on. He was winding up to hit Vamenos when Villanazul wandered back, eyes streaming.

  "Don't hit him. Hit me!"

  As Toro Ruiz hit Villanazul on the nose, a chair crashed on Toro's head.

  ''Air said Gomez.

  Toro Ruiz swayed, blinking, debating whether to fall. He began to drag Vamenos with him.

  "Let go!" cried Gomez. "Let go!"

  One by one, with great care, Toro Ruiz's banana-like fingers let loose of the suit. A moment later he was ruins at their feet.

  "Compadres, this way!"

  They ran Vamenos outside and set him down where he freed himself of their hands with injured dignity.

  "Okay, okay. My time ain't up. I still got two minutes and, let's see—ten seconds."

  "What!" said everybody.

  "Vamenos," said Gomez, ^'you let a Guadalajara cow climb on you, you pick fights, you smoke, you drink, you eat tacos, and now you have the nerve to say your time ain't up?"

  "I got two minutes and one second left!"

  "Hey, Vamenos, you sure look sharp!" Distantly, a woman's voice called from across the street.

  Vamenos smiled and buttoned the coat.

  "It's Ramona Alvarez! Ramona, wait!" Vamenos stepped off the curb.

  "Vamenos," pleaded Gomez. "What can you do in one minute and"—he checked his watch—"forty seconds!"

  "Watch! Hey, Ramona!"

  Vamenos loped.

  "Vamenos, look out!"

  Vamenos, surprised, whirled, saw a car, heard the shriek of brakes.

  "No," said all five men on the sidewalk.

  Martinez heard the impact and flinched. His head moved up. It looks like white laundry, he thought, flying through the air. His head came down.

  Now he heard himself and each of the men make a different sound. Some swallowed too much air. Some let it out. Some choked. Some groaned. Some cried aloud for justice. Some covered their faces. Martinez felt his own fist pounding his heart in agony. He could not move his feet.

  "I don't want to live," said Gomez quietly. "Kill me, someone."

  Then, shuffling, Martinez looked down and told his feet to walk, stagger, follow one after the other. He collided with other men. Now they were trying to run. They ran at last and somehow crossed a street like a deep river through which they could only wade, to look down at Vamenos.

  "Vamenos!" said Martinez. "You're alive!"

  Strewn on his back, mouth open, eyes squeezed tight, tight, Vamenos motioned his head back and forth, back and forth, moaning.

  "Tell me, tell me, oh, tell me, tell me."

  "Tell you what, Vamenos?"

  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 w
ith 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 du
mmy, 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.

  6 FEVER DREAM

  They put him between fresh, clean, laundered sheets and there was always a newly squeezed glass of thick orange juice on the table under the dim pink lamp. All Charles had to do was call and Mom or Dad would stick their heads into his room to see how sick he was. The acoustics of the room were fine; you could hear the toilet gargling its porcelain throat of mornings, you could hear rain tap the roof or sly mice run in the secret walls or the canary singing in its cage downstairs. If you were very alert, sickness wasn't too bad.

  He was thirteen, Charles was. It was mid-September, with the land beginning to bum with autumn. He lay in the bed for three days before the terror overcame him.

  His hand began to change. His right hand. He looked at it and it was hot and sweating there on the counterpane alone. It fluttered, it moved a bit. Then it lay there, changing color.

  That afternoon the doctor came again and tapped his thin chest like a little drum. "How are you?" asked the doctor, smiling. "I know, don't tell me: 'My cold is fine. Doctor, but I feel awful!' Ha!" He laughed at his own oft-repeated joke.

  Charles lay there and for him that terrible and ancient jest was becoming a reality. The joke fixed itself in his mind. His mind touched and drew away from it in a pale terror. The doctor did not know how cruel he was with his jokes! "Doctor," whispered Charles, lying flat and colorless. "My hand, it doesn't belong to me any more. This morning it changed into something else. I want you to change it back. Doctor, Doctor!"

  The doctor showed his teeth and patted his hand. "It looks fine to me, son. You just had a little fever dream."

  "But it changed, Doctor, oh, Doctor," cried Charles, pitifully holding up his pale wild hand. "It did!"

  The doctor winked. "FU give you a pink pill for that." He popped a tablet onto Charles' tongue. "Swallow!"

  "Will it make my hand change back and become me, again?"

  "Yes, yes."

  The house was silent when the doctor drove off down the road in his car under the quiet, blue September sky. A clock ticked far below in the kitchen world. Charles lay looking at his hand.