The Ice cream Man

This was from a dream. It was a sultry afternoon with the sun just low enough to cast deep and long shadows on that suburban street. I had the van parked right across the line of immaculate white-walled houses with well-kept lawns in the front big enough to park three luxury cars. This is a relatively new residential area, the walls of the houses bear not a single trace of mildew. No gates or fences run around these properties, it is a nice, family safe neighbourhood with the parents away in town in their white-collar jobs during the day. They leave with their kids every morning and are back only just in time for dinner. The morning’s inhabitants on this street are the handful of housekeepers and gardeners. The former mostly spends their time mulling out their grocery shopping for as long as they can with others of their trade with whatever gossips and daily snippets of their employers’ lives they can update each other with. By three in the afternoon, they will be back along with their little chargers back from their school routine. This is the next liveliest period apart from the morning haste where the cars exit one by one from their garages, and that only lasted for more than a few minutes. This is the time where the children, released from their authoritarian environment, thronged and gathered together on each other’s lawns and on the sidewalks to play and bask in the afternoon’s warm sun. Being a safe street as it is, with hardly any strangers or the errant vehicle, the housekeepers stays indoors to start their day’s cleaning and dinner preparations. Nothing hardly happens aside from a scrapped knee every now and then with the most being a broken bone or two from the inevitable bicycle episodes.



But today is slightly different and come tomorrow will break the idyllic nature of this street. For 34 Moonbeam drive is my locale today. I am the ice cream man, and today I chose the curb under the sagging tree in full yellow bloom on 34 Moonbeam drive for my day’s routine. I arrived just when the children had hit the peak of their play and all the gardeners are gone and all the housekeepers are deeply engaged with their packed meats and frozen beans, rolling into the drive quietly with no one noticing. There are no scheduled visits from any repairman or plumbers today; neither will there be an unexpected sprung tap or clogged pipe. Nothing outside of the mundane will happen today. Nothing happens when the ice cream man is here.



The children are reaching exhaustion from their gleeful screams of chasing each other, jumping ropes, throwing their balls, swinging their bats and performing to their own perception circus style stunts with their bikes and skateboards. This is the moment, when they spot the cream blue van parked under the whispering laurels. Unlike the other ice cream men, I don’t like to play that play tune jingle to announce my presence (incidentally the tune that they play, the same as that which I will play if I choose to can only be heard by children), if you let them spot you on their own, they won’t come in throngs. I don’t like to do my business in front of a pushing mass, I don’t like to be rushed and I fear I might make a mistake when I am annoyed, for I do admit that I get annoyed easily when they whine for what they want when they are kept waiting. Although I am proud to say that I have yet to make a single mistake since ever.



I glimpse movement from the corner of my eyes, a handful have started moving towards my van. But I don’t have to see, I know when they come, just as well as I know when they will come, just as I know everything that I turn my attention to, it’s past and present and future. And right now, I know everything in 34 Moonbeam drive, right down to the secret late-night phone call Evalyn is thinking of making latter tonight while she hums over the marinating of her tandoori chicken in the marbled-tiled kitchen of house number 174.



The sun has gone behind the rows of houses on their side of the street, casting hulking shadows on their own lawns, the green carpet turned yellowish grey and as the children walk towards me, their profiles darken, drowned and erased in the technicalities of this light.  But of course I don’t have to see their features to know what they look like, although I don’t need to know. Picturing them is just a distraction really, because it can get quite boring and monotonous in my line of work sometimes.



“I want a strawberry chocolate dipped cone.” A freckled face girl of nine reaches my window first. She is just tall enough to rest her chin on the counter top. Clumps of hair had escaped from her pony tail in her play, matted down by her perspiration. A drop of sweat prickled down the side of her neck along the jugular vein but I know without having to touch her that her hands are ice cold. This is usually the case for those who are going to a make a sale with me.



“That will be fifty cents, little missy.” I give a smile before I turn around to prepare her cone. I don’t know how my smile looks; I never have the desire to look in the mirror. I only know that I look typical and safe. I don’t know what clothes I wear or am familiar with any inch of my skin because I never focus on them. To me the physicality of myself is just like peripheral vision, passing and non-memorable. Ask me the colour of my apron and I will realise I am wearing one and looking down I will tell you it is blue but come the next moment I will have forgotten about it. Ask me again and I will repeat the same scenario. So I do not know the colour of my eyes and if you tell them they are green I will believe you just as well as I will believe the next person who comes along to tell me they are blue. For they are the colour you want them to be and that will do enough.  
I dip the scope of strawberry ice cream into the hot pail of chocolate, not an easy feat and I do mess up sometimes (when they rush me) but children are not big on the appearance of their treats so long as they are sickeningly sweet.



“Here you go.” I beam her another smile and give her the cone. She stretches back to drop the coin in my palm and goes back to her house. She may or may not eat her treat for I never turn my attention there because it is pointless, like checking up on your house buyer after you have gotten your commission in full. And in this profession, we don’t provide after service, but then again the children are not our customers. What matters is that the money has passed from their hands to mine, that act is what they call it ‘did the contract’, ‘signed their name in’. Whether they eat the ice cream or not has no meaning, but because I am a perfectionist, I don’t skive on my ice creams.  They may not always look perfect but at least they are decently presentable. And may I add that for fifty cents they sure don’t come cheaper than that.



“Double chocolate.” A fair-haired boy with traces of soft blond down on the sides of his face comes up next. When he turns slightly to his side, the light brushes the plane of his face illuminating those snow-like bristles. It is quite beautiful. Another distraction. But hey, don’t condemn me for the little enjoyments I get. Albeit it is utterly meaningless but isn’t that ultimately where truth and beauty lies?



“Fifty cents, little prince.” I am not disallowed to harbour feelings for my targets. I am even allowed to weep over their passing so long as it does not disrupt the continuation of my work. I do love the children sometimes, but only like how you would seep into the romanticism of a rainy afternoon, or the smell of fresh morning foliage, I love them but only in that moment of appreciation. Once I passed them, they are but memories, nostalgia. The contact I have with the children is brief but if I choose to I can turn my attention to their life story, their thoughts, and their past. For those who buy ice cream from me, their present is for the moment, clasped in my hands. Their future on the other hand is not a blank page but an abrupt epilogue. ‘The prince rescued the princess and on the road back to the castle’ turns the next page ‘they were ambushed by renegade bandits and they were killed. ---The End.’ ‘Mary takes her little lamb for a walk through the forest’ turns the next page ‘she gets mauled by a wolf and dies. ---The End.’ You know what I mean. ‘The children give the ice cream man their money and in due course’ turns the page, wait for it--- ‘they die. ---The End.’ From an accident or some sudden undetected illness that acted up swiftly and immediately, like asthma and there is no one around to notice and to act in time. They all die of natural causes, no foul-play involved. And none of the children remember that they have met the ice cream man, not even those who didn’t buy an ice cream.



However it would be suspicious if all the children in the same street passed away. Well to make it so that it is not so conspicuous, the death wave spreads itself out. They don’t all die on the same time. Some may even take years but always before they turn twelve. Do I follow-up to make sure that they do die? No. I just know. Incidentally, we never visit a street more than once. A different ice cream man may set up shop on the same locale as a previous ice cream man, but the same ice cream man never turns up at the same place twice. I secretly hope to cover all corners of the world someday. That might be one of my drives.



We ice cream men have an inherent ability. We know things, all that we need to know, all that we desire to know, even if it’s just out of boredom. There are however things that we don’t know. To put it correctly, things I don’t know. I find that if I put my thoughts to things about myself all I see is big gaping hole. Also I have no idea if this is the same with the other ice cream men. I only know for a fact that there are others like me. We never come into contact with any of our kind. On rare occasions we might pass by another cream blue van on the road, we acknowledge each other like we acknowledge the fire hydrant along the streets, there is no comfort, and no desire to approach each other, in fact there is a slight annoyance, something akin to finding a new stand across from you selling hotdogs as you do. Do I like what I do? I have no answer to that. I only know that I have to do what I do just like you have to sleep. Once I tried not to operate my ice cream stall. Just refused to start up the engine, made an effort not to pull up the aluminium shutter of the counter window. I just sat behind the wheel and mused over my will. Fifteen minutes later I was parked at a new street and heading to the back of the van thinking I should melt another batch of chocolate. How should I describe our kind? People say God is the alpha and the omega, well the ice cream man’s profession is our alpha and omega. The devil’s nature is to lie, man’s nature is to sin and the rabbit’s nature is gentle and timid. The ice cream man’s nature is to sell ice cream of which the result is the children’s death. I can’t deny that we work towards the means of an end (although we don’t have to meet any quota of sorts), but we do not dislike the process. We don’t see ourselves as an agent of god or the devil; yes I am aware of this world’s religious narratives. Perhaps supernatural is a term we can accept for at least it is not unnatural, for the former, for all things said does have a degree of existential license in the world. In any case, this is the best explanation I can give about our kind. It is like how (big bang theory aside), I can’t really explain why the universe exists in the metaphysical sense, that is also one of the few knowledge I do not have.  



Anyways, this afternoon I have come to sell about twenty odd ice creams, all of twenty odd children will die in time to come, safe for two singular patrons. These two cases are not abnormal to my trade. Sometimes shit happens. And my powers of knowing do not extend to shit like this. One of these kids did not have any money on them. So instead of going into their house to dig up some change from her piggy bank, she had her nanny come out with her grocery purse. Now transactions between adults are void, it is what some call a losing deal, and some call it a freebie. So the kid gets an ice cream but she will not meet her end. In actual fact, she will grow up to be a pretty respectable lawyer in the eyes of her peers, and one who choose not to come back home to spend any holidays with her parents. Yes her book will not be abruptly ended in her childhood. Albeit a typical and uninteresting book. And mind you I only read it (got as far as the chapter on her marriage, a messy journey that was) so I can tell you. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered; I didn’t even pick up on how she looked. To me she is a bad deal, one that I just want to put behind me.



The other deal was something else. I actually dealt with this one first so I think I was already a little irritated when I came to the lawyer kid. So much so that I wished she and her nanny would just drop dead there and there on the steps to their house. But it doesn’t work that way. That’s just how the rule works and I can’t do anything about it. Two bad deals in a day, but hey that’s life for ya.



It was a pair of them. A brother and a sister. The girl was older. She came demanding for a vanilla triple scoop, which incidentally is still fifty cents. Details that do not matter should just be kept simple. Another thing that children don’t do is compare prices. The coins they handed over to me just pile up like so much litter on the metallic floor of the van. I don’t count them because numbers don’t matter to us. We don’t pay any attention to how many we get. But looking back, I don’t below I had any slow days. The coins actually make quite a ding when I drive the van around but of course only I or the rare colleague within earshot can hear it.



Meanwhile the boy who could only show his crown of bushy brown hair over the counter was looking up with pleading eyes at his sister.



“You want one too? I’m not paying for you. Go in and get some money on your own.”
The boy ran back to their house. No. 169, which is directly across from my van. His short legs scaling the stairs of the porch two at a time. I know he is going to the side drawer beside his bed where he keeps the dollar he got as a reward for getting full marks in his last spelling test. I was just receiving his sister’s coin when I heard his panting outside my window.



“What flavour do you want?” His sister demanded.



“Choc…chocolate.”



“You only get one scoop. Mom will yell at me if you had too much.” She gave me a ‘can you believe this!’ look and said “One regular chocolate, mister. Oh and make it a cup. He most definitely will drop it if it’s a cone”



I went to scoop the chocolate ice cream without a word. With my back to them I know that the boy was still breathing hard and I see him in his blue sneakers and red jumper. He is four and had already started his kindergarten classes last year because the--- enough of distraction. I turned around and bent over the countertop to hand him the cup with a tiny blue plastic spoon. And then I had this funny idea.



“How much for it, mister.” His sister said.



“Call it a treat this round. For the lucky little customer. (very lucky indeed)” I said the words with the same feeling as you would have if ever a wad of hundred dollar bills that you have just placed on the table at the balcony of your 14th floor apartment was blown away right in front of you. Each word escaping out of my mouth before I can stop them, your bills flying off one after the other before you can catch them. And that feeling you get after the last piece has flown away was what I experienced exactly. Surprised, flabbergasted, a little angry at myself, a slight pinch of loss, disgusted at my own stupidity, and then finally a sense of inevitability. On top of these, I also find it amusing, a candidate for a conversation piece I thought, not that I had anyone to share it over drinks with.



So that boy with the red jumper who was only allowed a single scoop ice cream will also have a rather decent book. The difference between him and the lawyer girl is that I allowed it. I sanctioned it. Never have this happened in my years of profession. I doubt it will happen again soon. I am tempted though. For it wasn’t stated anywhere in my plethora of knowledge with regards to my job description that I have to be indiscriminate in my targets. Knowing this is like discovering some new power, like how it is when you are stuck in a mundane job for years and finally seeing the opportunity for growth in your company. AND/OR you can see it as hole in the system where one can do as one pleases and get away with it. It is quite liberating. I can shape the worlds’ population with my own law of selection. Wonder if the other ice cream men have already stumbled on this revelation. If so the plan might already be in place and I am just one of the out-dated, left-out-of-the-loop-low value employees. "But I will never know."  I snigger to myself. The world is only what I know, and even then what I choose to know. “So it doesn’t really matter what the others think or are doing.” I muse.



It is close to six thirty by the time I drive myself out of 34 Moonbeam drive. A little late as per my usual but having what had transcended for the day, it is just a little of the unexpected OT. Yes, we do get OT of our own doing really, because of our distractions which gets the better of us sometimes. A hundred meters down from 34 Moonbeam drive, I pass by a black Mercedes, the Mr and Mrs of No. 174. They will have Evalyn’s tandoori chicken tonight and the father will overhear her discreet phone conversation as he pass by her room door on his way to the kitchen for a glass of water. He will spend the rest of the night not in the bed he shares with his wife, and tomorrow his son will die of an asthma attack. I know all this will be and I put my life on it but maybe not on the day and time of the boy’s death or the C.O.D .You should know by now that I am not one to follow up on details, especially work that is over and done with. It just feels so excessive and tiresome if I would to turn my attention back to every street I visited. So just like how you trust that the salary gets credited into your bank account every month so do I trust that Jeffrey will have his tombstone etched with the words ‘taken before his time’. Then again you may take the crediting of your salary as granted but still call up your account summary once in a while to be sure, I know mine for a fact and there is no need to double check on that.