The Empire of Ice Cream

by Jeffrey Ford

  I couldn’t help but laugh, for a variety of reasons.

  “Yes, they have money and they have an idea they would like to spend time with me, but when I get close to them, they back away. Instead of me taking them in hand, they want to hold my hand. And they are paying astronomical sums for this. One fellow last month had me simply sleep for an hour in the bed next to him. He never laid a finger on me. When I got up to leave, he sniffed the pillow where my head had been and started crying.”

  “An interesting observation,” I said.

  “Granted, I have only been with five of them, but I sense it, a plague of deep sorrow, shall we say?”

  Luckily, the water came to a boil then and I got up and prepared us each a cup. The perfumed-forest aroma of it was comforting, and for the first time since the rains started, I felt a measure of peace. Maylee and I did not speak while taking the tea. She stared at the table, and I at the pressed tin design of the ceiling. During this long pause, the sound of the rain changed from monotonous to beautiful. Out on the street someone yelled. I closed my eyes and remembered the cool of the evening, sitting in the doorway of Thanatos, watching the patterns of fireflies at the edge of the forest across the canal. Mrs. Strellop’s voice started in my memory and then spiraled down through the center of my being, leaving a sense of calm in its wake.

  I rested my cup on the table, empty, just as Maylee did hers. She looked over at me, her eyes not half so big anymore, and smiled.

  “And Mrs. Strellop told me that you are a poet,” she said, her words having slowed to a drawl.

  I laughed and shook my head. “I sniff the pillow of poetry and weep,” I told her, preparing to forge forward with an honest recitation of my own days to even the account, but she abruptly cut me off.

  “—Wait,” she said, and held up her hand. “That is the first time I ever remembered something Mrs. Strellop had told me.” She breathed deeply. “What a sense of relief.”

  “I can imagine, believe me,” I said, and clapped for her.

  “Oh, my god, there’s something else … something else,” she nearly yelled, squirming in her seat. “That odd skull she had. Do you remember it?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “She called it Jupiter.”

  I scanned my memory, and sure enough, yes, in that moment, I remembered her telling me the same. That crumb of information shifted like a grain in a sand pile, and with the insignificant revelation something else became clear to me. “My turn,” I said. She looked on excitedly. “He was a throwback, not quite a man—”

  “Or more than a man,” she said quickly. “Did they not find him in a mountain valley in the range that overlooked her village?”

  I pushed my chair back from the table. “The old hunter Fergus brought him back from an expedition into the clouds. From the altitude to which he climbed he could see the planets clearly, and Jupiter watched him like an eye the night he captured the strange lad in a trap that was a hole dug like a grave and covered with flimsy branches.” For the last half a sentence, she recited the words with me.

  We sat for a moment in stunned silence, and then she said, “I feel light headed … but not dizzy. Like I’m waking up.”

  “Every time you voice a string of Mrs. Strellop’s words,” I said, “the next comes into my mind.”

  “Yes,” she said, “like a magician pulling scarves from his pocket.”

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Fergus believed him to be more ape than human.”

  “He brought Jupiter back to the village and put him on display in a cage made of branches lashed with lanyards.”

  “Each of the townspeople paid a silver coin to see him; covered from top to toe with a reddish brown fuzz, cranium like a cathedral, thumbs on his feet, and jutting jaw,” she said, staring at the wall as if the cage was there and she was seeing him. She shook her head sadly.

  “For a time he was a renowned attraction and many came to view him,” I added.

  Maylee sighed. “And then like everything—for some, even life itself—the sense of wonder wore off.”

  “Fergus spent so much time with the wild boy that he came to realize the boy was more human than ape, and the lad learned to read and write and speak perfectly.”

  “He was no longer confined to the cage,” she said, as if reading from a book, “but went about in human clothes, helping the aged hunter, now wracked with arthritis, get through his days.”

  “Actually,” I said, as if setting her straight, “this Jupiter, this beast boy, was quite a prodigy. Fergus taught him to carve wood with a knife, and the hairy apprentice created a likeness of his master, his father, from a log of oak that stood six feet tall and perfectly mirrored the hunter.”

  Maylee did not immediately reply, and for a moment, I feared she had lost the thread of events, until she finally blurted out, “Then Jupiter grew, tall and strong—”

  “Like this,” I said, and not even knowing what I was about, stood up as if carved from words and animated only by the story. I thrust my chest out and flexed my biceps. My bottom jaw pushed forward and, furrowing my brow, I bent my knees slightly and took slow, big steps in a circle.

  “That’s him,” she said. “But then Fergus died.”

  I felt the air leave me as if I’d been punched in the stomach, and, retaining my simulation of Jupiter, I hung my head and slouched forward. “And the boy was set adrift in an alien world,” I said.

  “Your eyes,” said Maylee.

  I could feel the tears on my cheeks. “Time passed,” I said, and, with this, sat down and lit two cigarettes, passing one to my guest. We smoked in silence, time passing, but I felt the persistence of the tale like a slight pressure behind my eyes, in my solar plexus. The tea had me in its fog. The light from the lamps appeared unnaturally diffuse, and I heard, whisper soft, traces of a children’s choir emanating from my ears. Still, one small part of me clung to reason, and in that thimble of rational self, I trembled with wonder and fear at what was happening.

  Maylee stubbed out her cigarette and said, “After Jupiter buried Fergus, he set about making the bottom floor of the old man’s home into a shop from which to sell his remarkable carvings.”

  Her words again initiated the story, which broke open inside of me like the monsoon, washing away any volition on my part. I stood and assumed my primate pose. “He created beautiful objects with his knife,” I said. “Animals of the forest so lifelike, customers swore they moved, circus acrobats whose hands clasped the trapeze, monsters full of dignity and courage.” My fingers wriggled with the grace of snakes as I turned and carved an invisible figurine.

  “The people of the town remained wary of Jupiter, afraid of his size and skeptical of his intelligence. To them he was either a horrid freak or the result of a deal with the devil, but never human,” she said, and slowly stood.

  She turned her back on me and took two steps as I added, “They did not mind him so much as long as he remained in his shop, a curiosity to visit every now and then and buy a gift from for the holidays or a wedding, but they did not want him on their streets. For his part, Jupiter longed for companionship, someone with whom to discuss what he had read, the mundane events of his every day.”

  “He felt their distrust for him on the street, so one day he hired a young woman to bring him groceries from the market each afternoon. Her name was Zel Strellop, a kind girl, unafraid of Jupiter’s demeanor and enchanted by his craft,” said Maylee, dropping the gray blanket from her shoulders and spreading her arms wide as if breaking free from a cocoon.

  I could almost see a young Mrs. Strellop in the features of Maylee, and I wondered if to her I appeared as Jupiter. The story possessed us yet more fully, and although we continued to tell it as we spoke, we began simulating every little action our two characters might have undertaken. I noticed that when she told the words of Zel, her voice changed, becoming higher and lighter, and that my own words, when quoting Jupiter, were far more bass than I was accustomed to. For
the exposition, our voices remained our own. We moved in and around the apartment, no longer allowing the table to separate us.

  There was a series of meetings between the wood carver and the young woman, and they grew increasingly interested in each other. I felt the flame of attraction spark to life in my chest, felt weak in the knees as Maylee, as Zel Strellop, approached, lightly touched my arm, whispered a secret to me, and finally kissed me for the first time, gently on the lips. I wanted it to continue, but Maylee broke it off and fled to the stove that stood in for Zel’s parents’ house.

  “And then,” said I, “Jupiter wrote her a poem to express his love for her,” and I walked over and sat hunched at my writing desk. My knife hand reached for the pen. I lifted it and wrote rapidly.

  When the sun is high

  I watch out the window

  for a cloud of dust in the distance,

  you on the path,

  bringing me oranges, melons, and plums.

  My impatience is sharp

  and carves your likeness

  on every moment.

  The instant I had penned the last word, Maylee swept the paper away and pressed it to her breast. I stood and turned to face her. “And they kissed more heatedly,” she said, and we did.

  “His apelike hands swept across the curves of her body,” I said from the corner of my mouth, our lips still pressed, and my hands did.

  She stepped back, and in one fluid motion lifted her damp dress off over her head. “Zel disrobed in a fit of passion,” she said, breathing heavily.

  When she stooped to remove her undergarments, I undid my trousers and let them drop to the floor, not forgetting to add, “He grew brave in his desire and followed her example.”

  Maylee left me and went back to the table. Over her shoulder she verily shouted, “There was no bed, so they made do on his workbench.” With this, she bent forward and with one sweep of her arm sent the teacups and ashtray and cigarettes onto the floor.

  “He approached her from behind,” I said.

  “His member was pulsing with all the energy he’d brought with him from the mountain,” she said.

  I looked down and even in my fog was surprised to see that she was right.

  “She gasped as he entered her,” she gasped.

  I tried to say, “With slow thrusts, he vented his passion,” but it sounded as a series of short grunts.

  Maylee missed a line or two, herself, in which she was to have described Zel’s own pleasure, I’m certain, but filled in with panting and a protracted groan.

  For a span of time, I was lost to my life, my role in the story, transported beyond the Bolukuchet, flying somewhere above the rain.

  As I pulled out of her, Maylee said, “Time passed,” and reached down to grab the cigarettes and ashtray off the floor. We lit up and took our seats at the table, both still heaving from the encounter.

  When we had managed to catch our breath, she said, “The townspeople started to become wary of the arrangement between Zel and Jupiter. She was spending far too much time out at his shop. Something about her look had changed.”

  “Late one afternoon,” I said, “Jupiter was visited by the sheriff, a man who had been close friends with old Fergus. He warned Jupiter that people were suspicious and if he wanted the best for Zel, he should leave town immediately.”

  “Yes,” said Maylee, “but what he did not know was that the sheriff had also, that very evening, warned Zel to stay away from Jupiter. As soon as it got dark, though, she sneaked out and made for his shop.”

  We both stood at this point and each walked halfway around the table to meet face to face. “She confronted him as he was clasping shut his suitcase,” I said.

  “Where are you going?” asked Zel.

  “I must leave,” said Jupiter.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  “No, you can’t,” he told her. “It will end in tragedy.”

  “I’m coming!” screamed Maylee, with all the pain of injustice and loss.

  “He simply shook his head, tears in his eyes,” I said.

  “Her anger at the world turned to rage.”

  “She struck out at him,” I said, but did not see Maylee’s fist coursing through the air. Her punch landed square on the right side of my mouth. I staggered back and then fell to my knees. My lip was split and I could taste blood. I spit, and a tooth came with it out onto the wooden floor. “He betrayed her,” I said, my hand covering my mouth.

  Maylee bent over and lifted the tooth, her eyes widening as if it glinted like a diamond. She looked up at me. “Because he loved her,” she said.

  With this, the spell instantly lifted, more rapidly than a curtain closing, with the speed of falling rain, and, without conversation, we both staggered to the bed and fell into a bottomless sleep.

  In the morning, I woke to find her gone, but her scent remained upon the pillow. What I remembered most clearly from the bizarre play we had enacted the previous day was that when she had struck me, in the moment or two when I thought I might pass out, I had realized I must leave the district.

  That afternoon, after hurriedly packing and leaving much behind, I left the Bolukuchet and traveled for many days back to the city. At first the change was frightening, and I moved through the days like a somnambulist directed by commands that came from my dreams. Somehow I managed to make all the right moves, and it was not long before a memory of my life prior to the Bolukuchet returned to me and I began to feel at home in my new surroundings.

  As soon as I had established myself, gotten a place and employment, I wrote to Maylee, care of Mother Carushe, to see if I could persuade her to join me. Oddly enough, all of my letters, more than three dozen, returned unopened with an explanation that the address could not be located. I sent another batch to Munchter’s café, to Meager’s, and the results were precisely the same.

  In fact, no matter whom I asked or what inquiries I made at libraries or post offices, no one had ever heard of the Bolukuchet. Although my new life was fast paced and the basic excitement and wonder of mere existence had mysteriously returned to me, I missed my old friends and the tired, decrepit district. Luckily I had taken with me the pouch of foxglove tea. At first I imbibed it to try to discover how exactly Zel Strellop had come by Jupiter’s skull, but that part of the story was not to be mine. I did, though, revisit my memories of nights at Munchter’s, the fireflies in the forest across the canal, Meager showing me the finest prism he had ever created and the blizzard of color with which it filled the room, the soulful tunes of Bill Hokel’s mouth organ, et cetera. When these visions came to me, I made them into poems. Years passed and I had enough to collect into a book, which was miraculously published. Its title—Jupiter’s Skull.

  The book won great renown, and I was asked to give readings at colleges and libraries and coffee shops. When I was interviewed, the question most often asked was, “How did you dream up a place like the Bolukuchet?” I would answer every time that I had lived there, which would cause the interviewer to smirk or smile as if we were complicit in the lie I was telling.

  Many years later, on a rainy night, I gave a reading at a local bookstore. Afterward, as was my practice, I sat at a table and, one by one, people who’d purchased a copy of my book would come forward and I would sign it and chat with them briefly. At the end of a modest line, a woman stepped forward. Before I looked up to take in her face, she said to me, “I bet you could use a Lime Plunge right now.”

  She had my attention instantly. She was rather plain but pleasant looking in her appearance: brown hair, medium build, late middle age, dressed in a yellow raincoat. “Last week I was in Munchter’s,” she said.

  “Finally,” I said, “someone who’s been to the district.”

  “I know,” she told me, “out here it’s as if it never existed.”

  She told me that Munchter and Meager and the rest of the old crew were still fine, and that she had read my book and I had captured them perfectly.

&nb
sp; “Did you know a young woman, Maylee?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes, not so young, really. She owned a little shop, Thanatos, over near the canal. Very long, gray hair, wrapped twice around her neck? I went there often and had tea with her. We rarely used her first name, though. She preferred Mrs. Strellop. I’m sorry to tell you that she passed away only a few days before I left.”

  “By her own hand?” I asked.

  “Why, yes. I wasn’t going to say, but I believe it was cyanide.”

  “And the skull?”

  “A woman’s skull? Zel, was the name she had for it. Apparently there was an entire story associated with the thing.”

  “I see,” I said.

  Before this woman left, she shook my hand, and when she smiled, I noticed the gap from a missing tooth. “Well,” she said, “it’s good to be back from the district.” Then she left the store, and I watched through the window as she disappeared into the rain.

  Jupiter’s Skull

  Story Notes

  The writer and anthologist Al Sarrantonio is one of the first people I met when I entered the speculative fiction trade back in 1997. We’ve kept in touch and remained friends through the years. One of the first things Al told me was, “When you’re a writer, your neighbors are going to think you’re a weirdo. There’s two ways to avoid that. Either join a local bowling league or every time you have a book come out, walk up to each of their doors, knock, and hand them a copy of the book. After a while you just become the poor schmuck who writes the books and everything will be fine.” If you live in suburbia like I do, it’s good advice. So, when Al was doing his anthology Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy, he asked me for a story, and I was happy to comply. This piece took a long time gestating, and when it finally began to show itself, I had no idea where it was going. This was one of those stories where the drama in my mind was only ever about a sentence or two ahead of my typing fingers. I love working that way, and my own method of invention mirrored the process that the narrator and Maylee go through in creating their own story.