The Country of Ice Cream Star

by Sandra Newman

  Only been a year my brother Driver be the oldest. He sergeant in our wolfen time, when Sengles thieving rich. Girls all go in love for him. Hounds and ponies fear and trust him. Driver give four babies that I know, and three of them is living. And he got a liking strength, is like a big warm house that you can punch and kick on, and it never shake. It standing there despite you, knowing what it known before.

  Now he easy kept, although he come to rule me down. I gone glooming at the carpet. Carpet mostly bone and clean. Is only a wedge of shadow by the window, made of mold. Mold show where it raining in. Everything smell green from that, and moody like my thought.

  My brother say, ‘Must be responsible, Ice. Ain’t like to see you dabbit round with Keepers like a small.’

  ‘These poory houses, ain’t find garbage here or nothing. Ain’t about responsible.’

  Driver never heed a foolish saying. You speak a foolishness, he act like this be forest noise that ain’t concern him. So he say, as if I never spoken, ‘If you ain’t work, no little think to work. You be third oldest.’

  ‘Ain’t third. Crow be third.’

  He skew his eyes at me. ‘You counting Villa, babyish? Villa senseless as a moth.’

  ‘I count in numbers, it be three before me. You and Crow and Villa. Make me fourth.’

  Driver get his seriose eyes. I look away and spot the bathroom only then. Ain’t notice this before, nor Keepers notice. Can see two towels there, is hung and perfect. Mostly Sengles got some towels, but these towels hard to keep. Every winter some of them get mold and cannot clean. Be towels in that bathroom, maybe there be soap and Robitussin, anything.

  I only rile worse then. Ain’t justice that Driver right.

  He saying, ‘You gone heedless something. Hothead round the place. Be fifteen years and got no plan for babies.’

  ‘I do what being true to me. I ain’t do nothing cause of something false.’

  ‘You ain’t do nothing cause you lazy.’

  ‘Ain’t getting babies with no Crow or no Jermaine.’

  ‘Ice Cream!’ my brother say, and his eyes fury. Then he halt and everything too still. I hear the fire like snoring sleep.

  And Driver cough. Cough hard, and look surprise. He put his fingers to his chest, then he lift away his fingers, checking at the fingertips like he expect to see blood there. As if blood going to leak out through his skin. Sure, nothing be.

  But I see clear, that cough hurt. And Driver gulp and suffer not to cough again. He frown his nerves.

  ‘Driver, you bone,’ I say in sudden fright. ‘The smoke do that.’

  ‘Sure.’ But Driver cough again, and catch his chest the same.

  ‘Ain’t got to breathe no smoke, goddamn.’

  ‘Been no smoke. Nor ain’t your problems.’

  ‘Sure, it ain’t my cough. Damn me for caring. Going to stop from caring.’

  ‘Nothing be to care about, Ice Cream,’ say Driver shortish. ‘Care about your lazy self.’

  Then he turn and go downstairs and I be standing shaky.

  Ain’t nothing happen, but I know. Driver gone eighteen and mostly children live to eighteen–nineteen. Then they get their posy sickness. He look at me with knowledge in his eyes, he let me spy his feary knowledge.

  I want to go downstairs and fight him worse. My brother got no need to tell me who third oldest, second oldest. Driver staying oldest. I tell him in my mind, You cannot die. I die before you die. Crow be sergeant if you die. Crow be a poison well and maggot, what he do to Sengle town you fear. My brother, keep with me.

  *

  Then Keepers Mouthy yell my name. I got to go tend Keepers, who ain’t got no brother nor a sister. Who grown in loneliness feroce, without no brother’s loss to feel. Ain’t fear nothing worse than her own death.

  In the room, my Keepers got a chair up to the window. She standing on this chair, and hold my oak bat in her hands. Aim upon a square of glass left in this window’s upward corner. ‘Going to bust that glass,’ she say joyeuse.

  ‘Yo sho, you seen it first,’ I say, and my throat haze with uncry tears. ‘Make war on it, go on.’

  ‘You ain’t want to?’

  ‘Sure I want to. Only said, you seen it first.’

  Keepers twitch her freckle nose. She see how I ain’t care about no glass. And she throw the bat down on the floor. It make a bigger noise than I expect, a sounding blammer. Noise make me startle weak. My heart keep saying, Nay, my Driver cannot die, and then my mind remember it can be true. The loud noise seem like all the things on Earth that ain’t care if you frighten.

  I say in careful voice, ‘Ya, better you ain’t break that. You get glass on you. That glass can hurt.’

  ‘You got to stand with me,’ say Keepers. ‘You keep going somewhere and then I ain’t know.’

  So I get up on the chair and stand. Keepers lean back to my warm. Fire carry on, it going to go an hour now. The house’s upper part look darker as the roof fall into scraps.

  Driver walk across the street to Asha Badmouth. He put his hand upon her baby belly and she push his hand away. This happen in the bottom of my vision, but I watch the fire. I get a watching trance upon me. Keepers gaping by.

  All children glad to watch a fire. It help you feel the things you need to feel, like drinking whiskey do. So now I slip toward my grief and watch a finicky flame around a window. It move like restless water there, blue and gold and white. I feel my trouble, but I think of NewKing Mamadou, the boy I dream upon. Think how he kill me with his knife someday. And I feel crying like a painful coldness in my jaw. But I ain’t cry.

  Then the burning house’s door flap open, staggering wild. Smoke come hazy out, and from the smoke, a person run.

  I yell and Keepers yell. I terrify senseless for my Driver, every fear flash white in me. But Driver, Asha Badmouth and Jermaine stood screaming just like us. It ain’t our people in the fire.

  Be a stranger boy. At first he looking like a shadow, black, against the fire’s bright. Then he come out whole and running strong. He the only one ain’t scream.

  Ain’t no fire on him when he come out, but Asha Badmouth frighten. Splash him wild. He startle, skid and fall. Then Driver tackle him. My brother never wonder if a person be a risk. He warry and particular, will stop that person first.

  He wrestle with the frighten boy until he get a throat-lock on. For a breath, is quiet. Only fire still rush and snap. Then Driver shout, the boy gone kick again.

  Keepers swear and say to me, ‘Ice Cream, it be a sleeper. Ain’t in Europe.’

  ‘What?’ I try to hear what Driver say. ‘What ain’t?’

  ‘Sleepers ain’t in Europe.’

  The boy twist, and I see him clear. I breathe cold into me. The head got yellow furrish hair. The boy got plastic baby skin, he be a yellow roo. Driver holding on a roo. Now panic grab my breath.

  I run downstairs before I think. Somewhere Keepers shout at me, all high and frighten, till I shut the door upon her voice. Outside the day stripe hot and cold from fire.

  2

  OF ROOS BEFORE

  I be the only living Sengle ever seen a roo. Sure they ain’t trouble Massa woods for years until this day. Only jones children, of thirteen and more, still known this fear.

  It been a month before, by Tember when the summer still prolong. This night, I gone sleeping at the library, alone except my mare and hound. I like to be alone from Sengles, and I like to take my pony and my hound indoors. Be sweet in separateness to feel their faith. Driver give me talk about this habit – he say I be unmanageable since I got a horse. This saying true, but he ain’t recognize that I be better so.

  The library a prettieuse and cleanish edifice. Been a place for books in sleeper times, but now the books is gone. We scratch them all to sell to Lowell in my mama’s time. Got one upstairy room at that library, it be round. This round room be my favorite joy.

  My Money stubborn for no stairs. She want to stop, she clamp her hoof. But if you switch her, she will trot up fast a
nd sudden like a going-upstairs horse that only bred for this. Room stink remarkable from her, but with the windows open, still can breathe without unhappiness. Yo, my hound ABC eat most her shee, in cleaning help.

  Below the library window be a road, is mostly gone to bush. Become a shaggy meadow with bald patches where the street remain. Across this meadow road be Friendly’s, which say Friendly’s on one sign, and Friendly’s Ice Cream on the other. This been a store for trading food. But I ain’t like to be called Friendly’s anything. I know it ain’t myself the sleepers meant, but it just feel disgusting. Then I remember ice cream been a food I never taste. I wonder what my mama dream to name me for this food, as if she name me Something Lost.

  This Tember morning that I seen the roos, I woken early. Smoke my waking cigarette by the library window, looking out, and piney breeze come in to touch my face and brighten on my eyes. A sycamore grow close. Between its fingery leaves, can spy the Friendly store in bits. ABC stand by to whine. She think my cigarette be food. Ain’t never learn, she watch it going to my mouth.

  Yo, into the meadow road below, a doe-deer walk. She snuff the bushes, in a worrying way like deer will do. I watch her, wish I got my bow. Ain’t guess I make my mark from here, but always be some lucky hope.

  Then come a cracking loudness. It come again, it be like ripping, or woodpecker pecking hard, but twenty times as big. In the field, that doe rise up and buck lopside. Then she curling over and I see the beast shot through and through. Got blood more than hide.

  And a boy jog into that bushy waste.

  Then fear walk over me. I feel black water in my head from fear. He be a roo. Got brown furry hair upon his face and throat. He wear a roo suit – gray-green dapple thing, ain’t satisfy to be one ugly color, it be ugly twice. Creature mostly twice my size. And his skin whitish like a no-luck sky.

  Then some dozen roos with furren face and ugly suit come out and gather in that road.

  My heart flee, scrabbling in my chest. ABC take breath to bark and I catch at her muzzle quick. Tug her nose down, press my finger to her brow. Her boogly eyes stare at me. I shake my head, but she still strain her mouth. So I keep her snout fast while I spy the roos go swarming, through that sycamore I watch.

  Roos got cattish hair that never curl. All be males – or else their girls be square and bearden like a male. Children say they grow to seven foot, is bigger than no person. Yo, all roos wear the same. Ain’t even deer got the exact fur that each other got. Roos all got one clothing, same as Beef-a-roni do.

  They run in packs and hunt our people. In my foaly years, it been three children took from Massa woods. Ya, once a Lowell child found dead with gunshots. That been roo work. They slavers, maybe – or they eating children, how the Christings say. Nobody know. So roos coming for some mally years. Nobody know from where, they come from air and going into nowhere. All we know of roos, they take our children and the children ain’t come back.

  I stand and watch the roos. Be extra dozens now, they swarming to the bleeding deer. Then they go past in twos and threes. Is like a creek that gather round a boulder, then it slipping on.

  Each one got a gun that is a rifle, long and black. One roo taken off his jacket, wear his rifle at his skin. Ain’t got fur below his neck, despite what children say. Ya, they roos be talking, though I cannot hear particular words. All wear packs behind. A few be smoking like a person. And it inkle in my mind, the roos be roaming scratchers also. And I see that they be bell and vally in their shaggy sort.

  Then I spy the blackish children come, the stolen. I count seventeen. Ain’t bound, they walking free, but got no rifles. Be naked helpless with these jumbo roos. Then I fury with my pity in the hot palms of my hands.

  Children ain’t be Sengles, or I going to war for them, against a hundred roos or more. But these stolen children all be strangers to my eyes. Nor they look scary none, they got no blood nor blemish on their face. They walking leggy, strong. One be drinking Pabst, or can be water in a Pabst can. A roo be talking to one blackish child, and that child laugh. Yo, the child be mostly tall as roos, is only skinnier made. Calm my mally nerves to see, the roos ain’t seven foot for nothing. Is tallish, but still person size.

  In this, the roos gone took the deer apart, and wrap the meat and insides. Flowing roos just like an ugly dapple river, wash that unluck deer away. And they pass along and vanish. Is only scattern guts and hoofs remaining from that deer, and red confusions in the flatten grass.

  They roos ain’t seen again. A week behind, we keeping close to town, then we forget them mostly. Is only times I hear a stranger noise and hold with breathless nerves. Will only be a blackbird landing clumsy – but I magine hundred roos behind the hiding trees. Then our familiar woods look like a dream. Look like the safety you remember, sweet particular, as you fall into grandy death.

  3

  OF TOBER 2, PROLONGING

  Now I be running to this roo, the day of Driver’s cough. Evac door slam loud behind, and I run out where Driver strifing on the yellow boy. I catch and hold one stride away, beside Jermaine and Asha who be balking. No one want to be in Driver’s trouble. My brother proud, ain’t thank your help.

  This roo so grandy, look like Driver wrestle with a pony. But Driver got an arm about his neck and strangle well. Roo reaching with his mouth to breathe and cannot. He seem to grow and grow, straining, then he slacken weak. Driver saying, ‘Kick at me, I cut your goddamn throat. Lie quiet!’

  Then Driver let up and the roo gust air, but he look beat and tame. He muttern words that ain’t words. All his voice ill-shapen, rough. When he raise his arm, my Driver choke his voice again. Roo hush and gasp his breath.

  Lying so, the boy be eerie. Got a face ill-shapen as his voice, flat like an owl’s. Feary bluish eyes, and the color in his skin only starting to be born. Be like worm skin. But he thinking in his eyes. His arms and legs be like a person’s. Nor he wearing rooish clothes. Is jeans and shirt like any.

  In this quiet pause, Jermaine say nerviose to me, ‘Ice Cream, you bone? Ain’t find no strangers?’

  I look where Keepers smoking in the window. I yell up, ‘Be any living sleepers there with you?’

  Then I got to laugh cause Keepers vanish from the window, can hear her feet come pounding down the stairs. I tell Jermaine, ‘You watch, Keepers sure ain’t frighten. You go ask.’ My voice be high and scary and my laughter also.

  ‘Going to frighten,’ say Jermaine, surprise. Then he catch my meaning, and he laugh. ‘Ya, Keepers proud as hatred, sure.’

  Keepers scramble out and yell, ‘You got to kill it, Driver! It a roo!’

  Jermaine and me laugh wild. Jermaine tell Keeps, ‘You violent, small! You fearing me!’

  Then Driver say, his voice all booming nervy from the fight, ‘Ice Cream? This a roo?’

  When Driver look at me, the roo look also. He cannot turn his feary yellow head, but his eyes turn. You know then all they children look at me.

  ‘Ice Cream,’ Driver say again, ‘a roo?’

  How it is, I got no cause nor sense to help that boy. But his eyes be living. Eyes mean something at me, and I feel that Driver kill a roo. It be the only person he can kill.

  ‘Ain’t so like,’ I say. ‘Can be some other thing. Some alien thing.’

  I fix the roo’s weird eyes with mine, expecting he be thankful. But they eyes watch back unknowing. Comprehend no word.

  Driver tell the roo, ‘Be easy, child.’ His voice be careful slow. He loosen up his arm.

  The roo jolt free and run. Run like a frighten person run from enemies. We all roar surprise. Roo sprint and cross the road in one thin second, running like an arrow. Keepers calling, ‘Kill it! Chase it!’ Then Driver pull his gun and fire. A string of grass and wet fly up.

  Jermaine and Asha Badmouth swear. And in the broken road the roo crouch, balling down, and turn to face us. A gun look from his hands. The gun look back at Driver’s face.

  I go screaming ‘Nay!’ and swearing. Then I run to catch that roo
, I run all dreamy-legged and tired. Hold my empty hands up, and they feeling naked, frighten. Like if he shoot them, it hurt more than anything.

  I keep between my brother and the gun the best I can. I be too feary to think of anyone but Driver. I ain’t think at all.

  The roo look at me first. I get his gun on me, and something happen in his dazy eyes. I think, You see me. Kill me if you hungry for a death.

  The roo shout, jerk the gun. I slow to walking and I walk to him and he be flinching bad. He die to stop me. Ya, he closer, bigger, as I walk. He stand up to his feet, and he be grandy like a bear. The gun will take my hands in pieces. The gun will take my head apart.

  I close the gun nose in my hand and all my children scream and call. I pull the gun nose down. Aim to my heart, my gut. The earth. My fingers gentle and I say, ‘Let go, let go. Ain’t going to kill me, fool.’

  The feary roo be staring at my face. I notice I be crying. Crying for us all who got to die. And when the fire so huge, the sky so huge, and we be minnow small and loving. So I feel. The metal simple in my hand.

  The roo let go the gun. Jermaine run up, and Driver run up, and they grab the roo away. We shouting back and forth, I ain’t know what we shout. Next, my noisy Keepers punching at my legs and skree, ‘You moron! You ain’t get you kilt! You goddamn moron shee!’ I laugh, eyes nervy on the roo, as Driver and Jermaine begin to tie him. He ain’t resist, is soft bekept – like the pistol been his final strength I taken from his hands. Ya, his queery eyes keep to myself.

  They bind him, then they lash him to the sledge. Keepers lose her fear and climb upon him, ride home on his chest. I be on Money, Driver sat behind. He hold me to himself protecting, his big arm about my waist, and I ain’t push him loose. I ain’t desire to. Big Smoke in front is prancy from the nerves of everyone.

  This be how I take my pistol, first of any guns I own. This be how my Pasha Roo come into Sengle town.