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the money like a royal flush.
    â€˜Fifty bucks! The suit costs sixty! All we need is ten bucks!’
    â€˜Wait,’ said Martinez. ‘Gomez, are we talking about one suit? Uno ?’
    â€˜ Uno !’ Gomez raised a finger. ‘One wonderful white ice-cream summer suit! White, white as the August moon!’
    â€˜But who will own this one suit?’
    â€˜Me!’ said Manulo.
    â€˜Me!’ said Dominguez.
    â€˜Me!’ said Villanazul.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Martinez, you too, the other end, line up! Now, Vamenos, lay that billiard cue across our heads!’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜We’re all the same height!’ said Martinez.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜One hundred thirty-five pounds … one thirty-six … one thirty-three … one thirty-four … one thirty-seven … a miracle!’
    â€˜No,’ said Villanazul, simply, ‘Gomez.’
    They all smiled upon that genius who now circled them with his arms.
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜I haven’t looked beautiful in years,’ said Martinez. ‘The girls run away.’
    â€˜They will run no more, they will freeze,’ said Gomez, ‘when they see you in the cool white summer ice-cream suit.’
    â€˜Gomez,’ said Villanazul, ‘just let me ask one thing.’
    â€˜Of course, compadre .’
    â€˜When we get this nice new white ice-cream summer suit, some night you’re not going to put it on and walk down to the Greyhound bus in it and go live in El Paso for a year in it, are you?’
    â€˜Villanazul, Villanazul, how can you say that?’
    â€˜My eye sees and my tongue moves,’ said Villanazul. ‘How about the Everybody Wins ! Punchboard Lotteries you ran and you kept running when nobody won? How about the United Chili Con Carne and Frijole Company you were going to organize and all that ever happened was the rent ran out on a two-by-four office?’
    â€˜The errors of a child now grown,’ said Gomez. ‘Enough! In this hot weather, someone may buy the special suit that is made just for us that stands waiting in the window of SHUMWAY’S SUNSHINE SUITS! We have fifty dollars. Now we need just one more skeleton!’
    Martinez saw the men peer around the pool-hall. He looked where they looked. He felt his eyes hurry past Vamenos, then come reluctantly back to examine his dirty shirt, his huge nicotined fingers.
    â€˜Me!’ Vamenos burst out, at last. ‘My skeleton, measure it, it’s great! Sure, my hands are big, and my arms, from digging ditches! But