The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories

by Sam Pink

A series of beeps.

  People started yelling variations of ‘hurry the fuck up’ and/or general sentiments of doom wished upon the offender.

  ‘Fuck you, Carlos, hurry up,’ someone yelled from way back. ‘Andale pinche puta.’

  ‘Bassa de la HASSA, amigo,’ yelled Mato.

  Carlos punched out and smiled, saluting as he walked off.

  The happiest person in the world.

  None higher than he right then.

  Until the next guy punched out.

  Free . . .

  Mato punched out, turned his hat backwards, singing loudly.

  I punched out.

  Yes . . .

  DeMontero, get me home.

  Bless you for another night.

  I was sweat gelled and sore.

  Walking through the parking lot.

  Dark and humid.

  I idled in the car with the radio on, staring forward for a few minutes before driving off.

  Down the smaller roads lined with factories and gas stations, then southward on I-275, toward St. Pete.

  The highway was mostly empty, just a long line of lights and glowing road.

  But it felt special.

  Something only for me.

  When I got home, I parked, and sat in the car.

  Noticed I’d had a staticky radio station on the whole time.

  But then it focused and came in clearer, playing opera.

  So I sat and listened.

  On a dark street.

  Opera with occasional light static.

  I leaned the seat back and listened for a while.

  Hands throbbing from the zinging clinks.

  Shoulders filled with thorns.

  Back moaning.

  Feet aching as though boiled and beaten.

  Haha.

  I only had a couple weeks of temp work left before the company either hired me or put a cigar out on my forehead and told me to fuck myself.

  But I’d already decided I was moving.

  Wasn’t sure where but.

  Fuckem.

  Catch your own zinging clinkers, you fucks.

  DeMontero, heal me.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in.

  Trying to put a giant nothing between me and whatever else.

  To stop it all for one second.

  Just stop everything.

  The where I was as who I was.

  Then nothing.

  Then the where I am as who I am, separated and begun anew.

  One dropping back like a part of a train let loose.

  The other moving forward.

  To separate yourself and start again.

  But just a little.

  Not so long you lose yourself.

  But enough.

  And it worked.

  Oh yes, it worked.

  I turned my head and opened my eyes, looking at a palm tree swaying gently in the moonlight.

  The top of the palm dark and angular.

  Like a pom-pom of knives, cheering.

  Cheering on whatever motor runs this shit, and always will.

  Chung.

  The one that never stops.

  Fwoosh.

  The one that always runs.

  Skingskingsking.

  And us, its metal parts.

  Clank.

  Boxed up and ready to use.

  Some to build great things, some broken and returned.

  ‘What a janitor do,’ I said softly, and smiled.

  MICHIGAN

  Geese

  I was at the hardware store with my friend, Danny, a seventy-year-old Marine.

  His friend, the owner, was sitting on a stool.

  They discussed their ideal loads/powders for hunting different birds.

  No other customers in the store.

  Danny was championing a certain shotgun load he used for geese when he broke off and said, ‘Gosh it’s so sad though, the way the other goose comes back. After the one gets killed, the other flies back to check on it, after everything settles. They won’t leave the body. They stay right by its side.’

  He’d been in gunfights, wars—riots and bar brawls as a police officer—but the geese . . .

  He was quiet for a second, then clicked his teeth, nodding, and said, ‘Anyhow, kinda innaresting.’

  I stared out the front window, at an old lady shuffling across the street with her walker.

  Reminded—as I was every once in a while—that we all go out like babies.

  Dragon

  My friend and I were driving down US 12, dark woods on either side.

  On the way to return a tent he’d borrowed from one of his coworkers.

  ‘I can never remember which one it is,’ he said, slowing down to check the occasional, mostly unmarked, entrance.

  Mouths to long driveways that went deep into the woods.

  Couple of NO TRESPASSING signs.

  ‘Think it’s this one,’ he said.

  We turned in.

  Drove slowly, until the headlights touched a shed.

  ‘Hope we don’t get shot,’ he said, turning off the car.

  ‘Ha.’

  It was totally silent.

  I mean nothing.

  And then a light came on as a screen door opened, hundreds of bugs hovering above it.

  Dogs barked.

  ‘Wuddup guys!’ yelled my friend’s coworker. Then he yelled, ‘Shut the fuck up!’ to the dogs and waved us toward the house.

  Inside, the dog pack greeted us—a medium, overweight, sausage-like dog with a gray muzzle, a smaller dog, and a dog so small I thought it was a chipmunk at first.

  They barked, then wagged their tails, ears going down.

  My friend and I set the tent down against the wall.

  The house looked like a tornado hit it.

  Or like the contractor gave up about 65 percent of the way.

  Bare plywood and nails all over.

  Tarps.

  Aquariums filled with garbage.

  A gigantic tree branch—as in, still part of a living tree—went through the middle of the house.

  I sat in an office chair and my friend sat on a milk crate.

  ‘Sorry the place is fucked. I’m barely here anymore. Heh oops.’

  The overweight dog came up to me and put his greasy head in my lap—eyes red and watery, goop in the corners.

  ‘Hey buddy,’ I said, rubbing his head.

  ‘Oh man, that’s Dragon,’ said the host, pulling the tent into a corner. ‘Old Dragon . . . he’s such a dumbass, but that’s my guy.’

  Dragon’s eyes were closing, head heavy in my lap.

  ‘Man, it’s a miracle he can even walk. That motherfu’er was paralyzed for four months heh. Couldn’t move at all from the neck down.’

  ‘What?’ said my friend. ‘For real?’

  ‘Yuuup. He used to love to kill raccoons. But one time, one a them fuggers got him good n’heh. And it had some disease or some shit. He got spinal meningitis heh. This motherfu’er couldn’t move for four months. We had to baby him.’

  ‘Dragon, is that true!?’ I said.

  But Dragon was dead to the world as I worked his jowls.

  ‘Alls he could do was lie there all day. When he barked, his entire body shook, but he couldn’t move.’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘Innat that right, Dragon?’ said his owner, as he walked toward me.

  He scooped Dragon up, one arm underneath the butt/back legs, and one around the chest.

  ‘He’d bark, and just be lying there, spasming on the floor n’heh.’

  He kissed Dragon on the head.

  Dragon looked reluctant about—but ultimately resigned to—being carried around.

  ‘Dude, it was nuts. We had to carry his ass outside like this for him to shit. It was a race of getting him outside, hoping he didn’t shit on your arm.’

  He lowered Dragon and lifted him back up a few times.

  Dragon grunted.

  I was laughing.

&n
bsp; With little clicking sounds, the very small dog approached my friend.

  ‘Oh hey there!’ said my friend, as the dog wagged its tail at his feet.

  ‘Ohp, now you did it. That’s Lady. Give her any attention and she won’t leave you alone heh.’

  My friend picked Lady up and put her in his lap.

  She lay down immediately, wagging her tail and resting her chin on his arm.

  Then she breathed out, looking off into the distance with strangely sad eyes.

  Eyes that said, ‘Why, mi amor?’

  ‘Well look at that,’ I said.

  Everyone watched as my friend petted the tiny dog.

  And it seemed strange to me.

  That this thing trusted my friend.

  Knowing nothing of his intentions.

  In a world of cruelty.

  This little helpless thing sought security in a stranger.

  Like every thing was just a smaller thing looking for a bigger thing to take care of it.

  Paralyzed and helpless and needing to shit, looking to be scooped up and relieved.

  ‘Aw I hate to do this, Lady, but we gotta get going,’ said my friend.

  He set her down and as soon as her tiny legs touched the ground she ran up to the third dog, who’d gone to sleep.

  Lady bit at the sleeping dog’s ears and its eyes popped open, lips curling back.

  ‘Awesome, thanks for coming by, fellas!’ said my friend’s coworker, setting Dragon down.

  Dragon huffed over to police.

  We said goodbye and left.

  The screen door whapped shut.

  Back out into the darkness.

  Sound of a distant motorcycle.

  Otherwise nothing.

  Bugs.

  We walked back down the driveway to the car and backed out slowly.

  Through the darkness.

  Down the long driveway.

  Sticks snapping.

  ‘I have a feeling we’re gonna crash,’ said my friend, as we stopped by the main intersecting road, host to many fatalities.

  ‘I do too.’

  I’d been thinking about it the whole way there.

  And for a second, right then, I felt it.

  Like a peach thrown against the wall.

  I looked down the road.

  On one side, only a thin bit of moonlight on the curve where the road disappeared over a hill.

  On the other side just darkness.

  Zero visibility.

  ‘What a way to die,’ said my friend. ‘Just T-boned right here.’

  And we backed out into the middle of the road—stopped—and began driving again.

  Spared by the bigger thing, once more, maybe.

  The Stag

  I live in an apartment on the outskirts of a small town.

  It’s by a large field of lavender, which has just begun to die.

  Behind that, it’s woods and wetlands, with fallen trees, small areas of marsh, signs about poison ivy, and some workout stations made of wood and metal.

  I’m there now, doing pull-ups before work.

  Tonight I have to work a three-hundred-person wedding.

  But that’s tonight.

  For now, I’m free.

  The sunlight is golden on the trees, leaves changing color, air beginning to cool.

  I hop up and grab the pull-up bar and do ten pull-ups, hop back down.

  The blood is moving through my body.

  I look out across the large, bright field.

  A rustling reveals a family of deer running into the clearing.

  A large one and three smaller ones.

  Boo!

  They disappear.

  They go somewhere else.

  They’re gone.

  *

  I arrive at the reception hall two hours before the guests.

  My boss is straightening place settings at long wooden tables.

  ‘Hey hey,’ I say to him.

  He says hi, looking very tired.

  ‘What’s goin on, lavender man?’ I say, referring to his lavender-colored vest/shirt. ‘Check out lavender man, everybody.’

  My coworkers laugh.

  My boss smiles.

  I tie a black apron over my black button-up shirt and black dress pants.

  All black.

  The point of all black, in addition to just being uniform, is to remove me/us as much as possible.

  In the dimly lit hall, wearing all black makes me, basically, a shadow.

  Designed to create the illusion that the environment is serving the guests.

  That I’m not really there.

  Just hands in the air.

  My boots tok tok in the large empty hall as I look around the room.

  The head table lined up in the middle of the room.

  There’s an antique dresser behind the table.

  A rug and a couch off to the side.

  ‘Nice, very nice,’ I say.

  The event planner runs around with candles and plants.

  Boxes of glass things.

  Gold cursive cards to mark table numbers.

  Name cards.

  Hanging glass orbs with electronic candles in them.

  Special chandeliers.

  People on ladders hanging a big banner of ivy and lights over an arch.

  There?

  Right there.

  I help my coworkers place silverware.

  Steak knife then butter knife on right, salad fork then dinner fork on left.

  Order.

  A process.

  The silverware is spotty.

  Everyone’s tired.

  Bartenders set up glasses, mixers, ice, wine bottles, and cases of beer.

  Photographers survey the room.

  The DJ sets up speakers.

  We move tables just slightly.

  Huge, heavy tables built by Amish people.

  Chairs.

  Stacking and unstacking chairs.

  I look outside at a silo, around which are chairs and a small tent thing from yesterday’s ceremony.

  Empty chairs on green grass beneath blue sky and white cloud.

  Yesterday’s ceremony is today’s task.

  ‘Two families will become one tonight,’ I say, in an evil voice.

  My coworkers laugh.

  ‘Who’s on “Living Ottoman” duty tonight?’ one says.

  It’s a joke we made up.

  Living Ottoman.

  I right water glasses and polish them, base then rim.

  ‘No, but, I just hope everyone enjoys themselves tonight,’ I say. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’

  My boss smiles, straightening some knives. ‘I can never tell if he’s being serious or not.’

  ‘I’m being serious right now, lavender man. It’s our job to help aid in this union. If that’s not what you’re here for, you get the hell out right now.’

  I continue polishing glasses.

  Looking out the window.

  There’s a few crows.

  They’re waiting to fly me back to the woods.

  Come with come with!

  You’re so beautiful, I think.

  Boo!

  *

  In the kitchen, everyone hustles.

  It’s steamy.

  ‘Wuddup Shane!’ I yell, to the dishwasher. ‘You doing good?! You doing fucking good?!’

  The dishwasher smiles. ‘Shit, you see very well I’m on top of it. Rogue agent.’

  At some point he’d begun referring to us as ‘rogue agents.’

  And at first, I didn’t understand.

  But then I did.

  Rogue agents.

  Sometimes he’d say it while putting his back against mine, doing a two-handed ‘guns up’ motion.

  I liked Shane.

  He had gray teeth and looked anorexic.

  He lived in the trailer park by my apartment complex.

  Same look on his face always; only his mouth moved.

  He listened to music through a portab
le speaker.

  Some type of music I’d never heard.

  Sounded like music for a video game with an eastern/dance tone.

  Like, unless you were riding a horse made of shadows through a forest in Romania, on a revenge mission to kill a werewolf—holding an emerald sword, your eyes red and lightning filled—I’m not sure it was appropriate.

  But that’s what rogue agents do.

  Live outside the rules.

  Outside your petty reality.

  ‘Rogue agents,’ Shane says, nodding.

  We bump elbows.

  ‘Rogue agents,’ I say.

  Shane smiles.

  ‘Bro, if they don’t sort the knives tonight bro,’ he says, suddenly serious, ‘I’m gonna snap, man. I mean it.’

  Sometimes people forgot to sort the sharp knives from the other silverware.

  And Shane has been stabbed many times.

  He has survived many extremely minor stabbings.

  He often displays the Band-Aids on his hands to prove it.

  ‘Shane, I’m gonna tell those motherfuckers what to do, and they’re gonna do it. They will all submit. I can’t have an injured rogue agent.’

  He holds up both hands, fingers splayed. ‘Bro I got stabbed so many times, I’m gonna snap.’

  And he’s serious.

  He’s totally serious.

  ‘Don’t snap,’ I say.

  ‘Bro, I’m gonna have ta snap. I’m serious. Fuck it though. Tomorrow’s my mom’s birthday,’ he says, lifting up his backward hat and lowering it again.

  Says he’s taking her out.

  ‘Nice, I hope you have a good time. Tell your mom happy birthday.’

  He says they will have a good time, detailing a deal happening at the place they were going.

  ‘That’s a hell of a deal,’ I say. ‘I wish I was going with.’ Then I stare off for a second. ‘All right, you ready for this shit man? You ready for this?’

  ‘I’m ready!’

  More servers show up.

  We stand around listening to the lead server, who has written an itinerary on a whiteboard.

  Strategies for the evening.

  The process.

  Guests come in at.

  Ceremony at.

  Cocktail hour at.

  Speeches at.

  Dinner served at.

  Dancing at.

  Last call at.

  Sparkler send-off at.

  Guests out at.

  Vendors out at.

  Done.

  Victory.

  Sleep.

  ‘Gonna be a long one, kids,’ says the lead server. ‘Pain death murder kill, et cetera.’

  ‘But to aid in eternal love, what is pain?’ I say.

  Sandy laughs.