How I Became an Ice Cream Man: Part 1 (658 hits)
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Submitted by SoSomething (View user info) at 2006-05-02 07:41:01 EDT
How I became an Ice Cream Man
Part I
Rolly wasn't always like this - he used to be confident, sure of himself... The kind of man who didn't hesitate to act; so much so that it earned him a reputation as a loose cannon, but those among us who regarded him as rash only failed to see that he acted on principle and instinct alone. The moral and ideological bear traps we catch ourselves in at every significant pass could not snare Rolly, for his modus operandi had not been carelessness, but clarity of vision. He was a simple man of simple speech, but had possessed the kind of intelligence and education one can only attain through pure life experience.
Years of repetitive abuse at the hands of hell's little minions and the same four-bar tune had taken their toll on him, though. Somewhere down the line he had lost his nerve, and it was a sad thing to see, especially for myself since I had always felt I knew him best.
"Seven years of this fucking shit, Jake." Rolly said to me, head down and cradled in his hands, eyes rolled up to peer at me through calloused fingers still stained with the residue of triglycerides, protein, tears... I repressed a shudder and took him in again, taking a mental inventory of him to add weight to my mind's argument that what I was seeing was real. His dark hair, lank, greasy swaths, matted against the considerable forehead of a man who had acknowledged the onset of male-pattern balding but lacked the constitution to accept it and groom accordingly, hung down past his ears and tangled in what had to have been at least three week's worth of patchy beard. From the looks of his clothes, stained and stretched from uninterrupted wear, I got the impression that he hadn't changed them to shower or sleep in over a week. Was his shirt really grey or had it once been white? No, that didn't matter. I knew I was only trying to distract myself from the reason I was there; why Rolly had called me at 4:00 in the morning in a hushed but fervent tone, all but demanding I meet him but refusing to tell me why. "No more questions! The proof is in the pudding!" he had said on the phone just before hanging up. Fucking weird.
All of a sudden Rolly gave a start as if noticing for the first time that I was there with him. We'd been talking earlier, before he drifted off to wherever he always seemed to go. Sometimes I wondered if he knew where he was half of the time, or if he even knew where we were at that moment, as if the abandoned site of the old Good Humor warehouse could be mistaken for anywhere else, especially by someone like Rolly who had spent such considerable time there before it closed. Just then it occurred to me that he had probably been living in this room for a while, which would explain why I hadn't seem him around lately, and the smell.
"Seven years and I still like the taste," Rolly added, unaware that a solid five minutes had passed since he had last uttered an intelligible word. "That's the fucking trap and I know and I know and... so they used it. They're using it! I dunno where they got it but for fuck's sake they put it in there and them's kids don't got any idea."
"What kids? Who? What the hell are you talking about?" I asked. I was tired and still hung over from... Fuck.
Jeanette.
Well, she was a problem for another time. Right now I had to deal with Rolly before I could go back home, clean up, and try to sort out the mess I had left waiting for me. She had probably already left, anyway.
"Buddy, I need you to really try to focus for me and tell me what's got you so freaked out. It's got to be 5:30 in the morning by now. You know I don't keep these kinds of hours anymore." That was a lie. I just didn't keep them with Rolly anymore, for obvious reasons.
Taking obvious reign of himself and shaking slightly from the effort, he dropped his hands to the sides of the Strawberry Shortcake crate he was seated on and looked me dead in the eye. The nearby streetlight creeping through the boarded windows was playing hell with the distorted features of his face. What he said next was the most coherent thing I'd heard him say in months, and the most maniacal.
"They have a potion - no - a chemical that they're adding to them. They're feeding it to the little kids."
"Who, the distributor? Who knows about this?"
"They know and... and I know. And I think some of the kids knew before... well they don't know nothin' now, do they? No, they don't know nothin' now, DO they?!"
This was getting me nowhere. I had to steer him back to reality before he went completely off the deep end and spaced out again. "Rolly, stick with me buddy. Is someone trying to poison people? I'm going to call the police and they'll take care of it, but you need to be really specific now so I know what to say."
"NO goddamn police! No! They'll do worse they'll fuck it up worse you can't tell 'em!" he screamed, standing in an instant and sending his crate tumbling backwards, bashing violently into a wall. For a moment I thought he was going to lunge at me, but he just stood there, quivering with clenched fists. "I don't know how far it goes. Maybe real far, Jake. Maybe too far."
"I still don't know what in the fuck you're talking about, man. You call me here in the middle of the goddamn night and start raving about the police poisoning little kids or something, and you're my friend, but that is the most bat shit crazy thing I have ever heard. What you need is sleep, Rolly. I think you've been living in -" and then he did lunge at me.
Rolly flew at me from across the room, taking us both careening through old crates and debris and into the interior wall. The light was behind him now, silhouetting his tormented face amid dust moat tendrils kicked up by the struggle. I could feel his hands clenching the shoulders of my jacket with all his strength, but I could probably have fought him off if it weren't for his eyes boring into my skull, somehow holding me in place so as to finally drive home the message he needed me to hear so desperately. The scent of whisky mixed with pure animal fear rode his words to me when he spoke.
"The kids are eatin' the ice cream and they go off and die, but they're coming back, Jake. They die but they come back different. Their little kids souls ain't in them no more... there's somethin' else in there instead. There is zombie kids out there, and they know where we are."
The light outside went black. Somewhere a window blew in. Rolly screamed.
User Reviews
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-05-03 00:42:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by sosomething (user info) at 2006-05-02 13:25:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Part two will be posted tomorrow.
Thanks for reading.
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2006-05-02 09:57:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Red dye #4 my ass... I knew it.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2006-05-02 08:53:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Kudos. I'm not the type of person to hold a grudge, even though you're the only one who didn't like it.
Submitted by Beano312003 (user info) at 2006-05-02 08:51:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'll take one rocket and a screwball please.
Oh...and another installment.
Submitted by The_taste_of_Monkeys (user info) at 2006-05-02 08:35:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The only thing scarier than Zombies is child zombies
and the only thing scarier than them are zombie clowns
and the only thing scarier than THEM are cybernetic zombie clown babies
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2006-05-02 08:21:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hahahaha. I always knew that the taste of chipwiches was too good to be described by mere "artificial flavoring."
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-05-02 08:06:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I SCREAM!
I'm so so sorry.
Submitted by DCWoody (user info) at 2006-05-02 07:55:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
pirates ninjas midgets cyborgs excessive use of the word peener
Submitted by DCWoody (user info) at 2006-05-02 07:54:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You talked about 'figuring it out' ina na earlier post
some things go down well here.
Emus boobies rabbits zombies boobies rape jokes boobies feotus humour...
Submitted by DCWoody (user info) at 2006-05-02 07:46:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Waiot..what zombies?
Oh, Zombies.
ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!!!