‘Well,’ she said, ‘now let’s go in.’
He could not move. Only his hand reached a long way out by itself to find the lawnmower handle. He saw what his hand had done and said, ‘There’s just a little more to do.…’
‘But you can’t see.’
‘Well enough,’ he said.’ I must finish this. Then we’ll sit on the porch awhile before we turn in.’
He helped her put the chairs on the porch and sat her down and then walked back out to put his hands on the guidebar of the lawnmower. The lawnmower. A wheel in a wheel. A simple machine which you held in your hands, which you sent on ahead with a rush and a clatter, while you walked behind with your quiet philosophy. Racket, followed by warm silence. Whirling wheel, then soft footfall of thought.
I’m a billion years old, he told himself; I’m one minute old. I’m one inch, not ten thousand miles, tall. I look down and can’t see my feet they’re so far off and gone away below.
He moved the lawnmower. The grass, showering up, fell softly around him; he relished and savoured it and felt that he was all mankind bathing at last in the fresh waters of the fountain of youth.
Thus bathed, he remembered the song again, about the wheels and the faith and the grace of God being way up there in the middle of the sky where that single star, among a million motionless stars, dared to move and keep on moving.
Then he finished cutting the grass.
IT was summer twilight in the city and out front of the quiet-clicking pool-hall three young Mexican-American men breathed the warm air and looked around at the world. Sometimes they talked and sometimes they said nothing at all, but watched the cars glide by like black panthers on the hot asphalt or saw trolleys loom up like thunderstorms, scatter lightning, and rumble away into silence.
‘Hey,’ sighed Martinez, at last. He was the youngest, the most sweetly sad of the three. ‘It’s a swell night, huh? Swell.’
As he observed the world it moved very close and then drifted away and then came close again. People, brushing by, were suddenly across the street. Buildings five miles away suddenly leaned over him. But most of the time everything, people, cars, and buildings, stayed way out on the edge of the world and could not be touched. On this quiet warm summer evening, Martinez’s face was cold.
‘Nights like this you wish … lots of things.’
‘Wishing,’ said the second man, Villanazul, a man who shouted books out loud in his room, but spoke only in whispers on the street. ‘Wishing is the useless pastime of the unemployed.’
‘Unemployed?’ cried Vamenos, the unshaven. ‘Listen to him! We got no jobs, no money!’
‘So,’ said Martinez, ‘we got no friends.’
‘True.’ Villanazul gazed off towards the green plaza where the palm-trees swayed in the soft night wind. ‘Do you know what I wish? I wish to go into that plaza and speak among the businessmen who gather there nights to talk big talk. But dressed as I am, poor as I am, who would listen? So, Martinez, we have each other. The friendship of the poor is real friendship. We –’
But now a handsome young Mexican with a fine thin moustache strolled by. And on each of his careless arms hung a laughing woman.
‘Madre mía!’ Martinez slapped his own brow. ‘How does that one rate two friends?’
‘It’s his nice new white summer suit.’ Vamenos chewed a black thumbnail. ‘He looks sharp.’
Martinez leaned out to watch the three people moving away, and then the tenement across the street, in one fourth-floor window of which, far above, a beautiful girl leaned out, her dark hair faintly stirred by the wind. She had been there for ever, which was to say, for six weeks. He had nodded, he had raised a hand, he had smiled, he had blinked rapidly, he had even bowed to her, on the street, in the hall when visiting friends, in the park, downtown. Even now, he put his hand up from his waist and moved his fingers. But all the lovely girl did was let the summer wind stir her dark hair. He did not exist. He was nothing.
‘Madre mía!’ He looked away and down the street where the man walked his two friends around a corner. ‘Oh, if I had just one suit, one! I wouldn’t need money if I looked okay.’
‘I hesitate to suggest,’ said Villanazul, ‘that you see Gomez. But he’s been talking some crazy talk for a month now, about clothes. I keep on saying I’ll be in on it to make him go away. That Gomez.’
‘Friend,’ said a quiet voice.
‘Gomez!’ Everyone turned to stare.
Smiling strangely, Gomez pulled forth an endless thin yellow ribbon which fluttered and swirled on the summer air.
‘Gomez,’ said Martinez, ‘what you doing with that tape-measure?’
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,’