The Day it Rained Forever

Gomez beamed. ‘Measuring people’s skeletons.’

‘Skeletons!’

‘Hold on.’ Gomez squinted at Martinez. ‘gCaramba! 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!’

‘Señor 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! Ándale!’

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, Vamenos, 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.’