A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.”
    â€œMe!” laughed Vamenos. “I’m lucky!”
    Gómez held onto Martínez, tight.
    â€œGómez,” 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! ”
    Â 
    Whisper rustle … the clean shirt.
    â€œAh …!”
    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.
    â€œ Ole! ”
    Gómez turned like a matador in his wondrous suit-of-lights.
    â€œ 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.
    â€œGómez! This is the place!”
    Gómez turned around and found his way through the door.
    â€œOh, friends, friends,” he said. “Friends, what an experience! This suit! This suit!”
    â€œTell us, Gómez!” said Martínez.
    â€œI can’t, how can I say it!” He gazed at the heavens, arms spread, palms up.
    â€œ Tell us, Gómez!”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œReady!”
    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.
    â€œOh, 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?
    â€œOn 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 Godcome 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.
    â€œPicture 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