The sound of the bells was different today, as if someone had taken them in his hand and squeezed all the harmony and sense out of them so that they struck at irregular intervals, the notes crowding one another painfully. It hurt just to listen.
But it was the middle of August and the sun held nothing of itself back, chasing the shadows mercilessly into the nooks and crannies of the world where they hid, trembling, banished amid coupling garden snails and earthworms until sundown.
Night was the time of shadows and they would prevail when the sun went down, creeping up from moist lawns to crawl silently in through bedroom windows, to pool beneath beds and snicker from within darkened closets as children huddled fearfully beneath blankets.
But that time was hours off and the children had forgotten the terrors of the previous night. They chased one another through the mist of sprinklers and waited for the ice cream man’s little white truck to appear, their nickels and dimes stacked along the curb in halfhazard piles, glimmering innocently.
Charley had been the ice cream man as long as any of the children could remember - a fat old fellow who was gray where he wasn’t bald, who sweated a harried patience as he collected change from and passed out rootbeer or vanilla-flavored popsicles and bombpops and drumsticks to the children who buzzed around his truck like excited little flies. His truck was neat and clean and always appeared as if it had received a new paintjob just the week before. The children’s eyes would smart and tear as it turned the corner onto their block because it gave them back so much of the sun; but they would all, each and every one, quickly forget this minor insult as they ran to gather their change from the curb, squabbling like jays as they approached the counter, and as the truck’s happy little tune abruptly ceased.
Today was different, though. When the truck turned the corner the children just stood and stared. It looked as if Charley had been involved in an accident of some kind. The truck seemed to have taken a shorcut through a swamp: it bounced and bobbled on tires that looked halfway flat, and it appeared that someone had taken a sledge to its fenders; rust had taken hold of it in long reddish streaks and, worst of all, its cheery little song conjured up images of a slaughter at the circus rather than an anticipation of cool treats.
The children gathered their nickles and dimes solemnly and approached the truck with trepidation. Urine trickled down pantlegs.
Charley didn’t look too well, either. In fact the children weren’t altogether sure that it was Charley standing behind the counter today. He seemed as shrunken as a starved dog and appeared to have a lot of trouble just standing upright: he held onto the wooden counter as if he was afraid to relinquish his grip on it, and he smelled very bad.
“Well, what do ya want?” he demanded.
Six of the children tried placing their orders all at once.
“Godammit!” Charley said, shaking. “One at a time, ya little fucks. One. At. A. Time!”
Three of the children ran home at this point, disappointed with the failure of the summer ritual, outraged at the breakdown of longstanding routine and eager to let their parents in on Charley’s use of bad words.
The others stood looking at the little decals carelessly slapped onto the back of the truck, none of which appeared to represent any of the chilled confections they had grown accustomed to. Nor did any of the pricing stickers ring the bells of familiarity for them:
Brains and Eggs - $1.00
Kidney Pie - $1.00
Iguana Stew - $1.50
Blackened Hagfish - $1.50
Little Bobby What’shisface was the first to speak up. “I’d like a drumstick,” he said.
“We don’t carry any a that shit no more,” said Charley. “It’ll rot yer teeth right out of your head - now ya wouldn’t want that, would ya?”
Bobby studied the small change resting in his sprinkler-wrinkled palm for a moment before admitting that no, he would not like that at all.
“Well then . . .” and Charley gestured with a palsied hand toward the housing tract, in dismissal.
Charley vanished from his place behind the counter for a moment and then reappeared holding a black plastic garbage bag which he offered to another one of the kids standing there.
“This’s trash day, aint it?” he said.
The boy, who’s name was Donald Something, said yes, it was indeed garbage day.
“Well, chuck this in your can for me - would ya?”
The boy complied, ice cream change in one hand, garbage bag in the other. Whatever was in the bag was relatively light, though stiff. It smelled badly.
“Thank ya,” Charley said to Donald’s retreating back. “Much obliged.”
“What is blackened hagfish?” a little girl by the name of Mary Sue Villalobos asked.
“Well, now,” explained Charley, “You catch yourself a hagfish and then . . . ya blacken it.”
“I’ll try that,” Mary Sue said.
Charley disappeared into his little confectionery for a moment. The children listened as the sound of something being beaten with a hammer was followed by the sound of the same something being administered to by a blow torch. Then Charley reappeared.
“There ya go,” he said, handing Mary Sue a shapeless and charred parcel of something lovingly nestled in yellowed newsprint. “That’ll be . . . nine dollars and sixty cents.”
Mary Sue only had enough on her for a bombpop and explained to Charley that she’d have to seek additional funds from her mother, and besides the sign said the hagfish was only a dollar and a half anyway, so . . .
“Wait a minute, wait a minute - how much ya got?”
“fory-five cents.”
“Okay, that’ll work,” Charley said.
Mary Sue tendered her change and then retreated to her front porch where she sniffed the questionable package for a few moments before offering the whole malodorous bundle to her golden retriever, Prince, who made short work of it until a bone or spine caught in his throat, at which point he began to cough and gag.
Charley chuckled to himself as he watched the dog trying to deal with its meal. The kids milled about wondering if the real ice cream truck, and the real Charley, would soon appear.
