The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories

by Sam Pink

  She’d brought us pie from her bakery too.

  ‘Yeah, I figured you’d like it,’ she said, still looking at the book.

  Victoria.

  She laughed and looked down.

  And for a moment I was convinced her front tooth was lost somewhere in the lot.

  And that we could find it and put it back in her mouth if she wanted.

  In the empty lot.

  Scent of smoke in the air.

  Sox game on the radio.

  And no real fate.

  Chris came through the alley and into the lot, pinning a case of beer to his hip, smoking a cigarette.

  He was in a bad mood about losing some bet.

  He was already an idiot about money and now he’d lost what little he had for the week.

  He asked Victoria if she’d bought him cigarettes like he’d asked.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘No, I forgot.’

  He shook his head and rubbed his neck. ‘What the fuck. I would’ve just gotten them now while I was out. Goddamnit. You said you were gonna get them. Goddamnit, juhhhh.’

  He went inside to put the beer in the fridge.

  Victoria followed.

  Robby opened the foil around a piece of fish and said, ‘What a cock.’

  ‘Yeah I hate that guy,’ I said, smiling.

  Robby laughed like neh heh and hit the grill with his tongs.

  I surveyed the grill while he explained everything he was doing, as well as what he would be doing differently next time.

  ‘Thanks for dinner,’ I said.

  We could hear Chris and Victoria arguing inside, muffled but getting louder.

  Then they were yelling.

  Robby and I did coke out of the Frisbee.

  I decided I shouldn’t do coke anymore because I didn’t really enjoy it.

  I decided that was true about so many other things.

  But not everything.

  Victoria and Chris came outside and sat quietly in their lawn chairs, drinking.

  Victoria stared ahead at the ground somewhere while Chris looked at his phone.

  It was about to get dark.

  *

  I couldn’t sleep that night, was grinding my teeth and completely awake.

  Plus, my room was technically a closet beneath the stairway to the entire building.

  We lived on the first floor and the front steps led up over my ceiling.

  So I heard booming footsteps at random throughout the night.

  TOK TOK TOK TOK TOK TOK.

  KAJUNG, the front door slamming.

  TOK TOK TOK TOK TOK.

  I lay there looking up.

  Listening to the ongoing world, dancing on my coffin lid.

  I didn’t have electricity in my room but there was a tiny window.

  I tried reading the Rilke book by streetlight.

  But I couldn’t focus.

  So at the first dim sign of light, I got up.

  I put on sweatpants, a hoodie, and my boots, and walked through the trashed kitchen.

  Everyone was still asleep.

  I went outside to the lot.

  Cigarette butts.

  Paper plates.

  Lengths of paper towel.

  Empty charcoal bags.

  Flattened spray paint bottles.

  It felt comfortable and secure and vital.

  Like something I’d defend.

  I located the bashing stone and started doing exercises with it.

  Lifted it over my head a couple times with each hand.

  Picked it up and held it chest level while squatting.

  I lay with my back on a tree stump and bench-pressed it.

  My blood began moving and I felt better.

  In the cool, spring morning air.

  Someone came stomping down the back stairs.

  Victoria.

  She tightened her side ponytail, cigarette in mouth.

  She visored her eyes and waved.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I said.

  ‘Going to work,’ she said, closing the back gate. ‘Do you like donuts?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I picked up the bashing stone and threw it into the air as high as I could.

  It thudded dully in the wet dirt.

  Fump.

  Resting in place.

  No real fate.

  *

  Victoria and I were on coke in the kitchen, talking about the last book she’d lent me and eating from a five-pound bag of candy.

  It was close to Halloween but still warm out.

  Robby came in and out of the kitchen, moving shit around, executing a recently researched mustard sauce.

  ‘Ha, you guys still fuckin with that bag of candy?’ he said, cigarette in mouth, tearing off a length of tinfoil.

  He wore an oven mitt and apron.

  His apron featured a pig winking, the phrase ‘I smoke u butt’ handwritten in marker beneath it.

  Backward Bears hat and aviators.

  He told us he’d lost part of a tooth the first night he got the bag of candy. ‘Like halfway through the bag. I didn’t wanna go to the dentist so I just filed down the sharp part neh heh heh. Like new.’

  Robby.

  He did some coke, explaining how he learned about mustard sauces from this barbecuing show on public access TV, one of the only channels we got.

  The show was called BBQU.

  I’d wake up on the weekends to him, hungover, smoking cigarettes and watching BBQU.

  ‘Time to find out if my research . . . cuts the mustard,’ Robby said.

  He went outside.

  Victoria laughed like tssss, looking down.

  She was wearing a sweatshirt with a stretched-out collar that showed her shoulder.

  On her right shoulder there was a tattoo of a peacock.

  ‘I like that tattoo,’ I said.

  She asked me if I’d read Flannery O’Connor.

  She said Flannery O’Connor was her favorite, and that I should read her.

  I asked her what book to read first and she debated it aloud to herself, looking at either the floor or the ceiling.

  She was so high.

  ‘Are you high?’ I said.

  She laughed and looked down.

  I got a text message from Robby that said, ‘Hey can you bring the rest of that shit on the counter.’

  Victoria and I carried stuff outside—tinfoil, spices, the giant bag of candy, and the football.

  Geared up.

  Victoria threw bottles up for me to hit with the football while Robby cooked, on the phone with a girl he’d just started seeing.

  Bears game on the radio.

  Getting much cooler at night, but still nice out.

  Victoria threw a bottle up and I hit it with the football and it fell into the grass somewhere.

  She ran to get it, doing a few skips.

  I went inside to take a piss.

  Chris was putting beer in the fridge.

  ‘What’s up man,’ I said. ‘How was work.’

  He opened a beer and offered me one and I said no and he somehow got into telling me how much he hated having sex with Victoria.

  I was amazed at how he strung me up.

  I could tell he’d been just waiting for an opportunity.

  Victoria was really a prude or something and wouldn’t let him fuck her from behind.

  She was boring.

  Other stuff.

  He complained about her pussy hair being too long when they first met and said that he ‘had to say something.’

  ‘Man who gives a shit,’ I said, laughing, walking away to use the bathroom.

  He laughed like b’HA, then said ‘Fuck you’ as I closed the bathroom door.

  *

  After we ate, Chris and Victoria went out to the bar.

  Robby and I sat in the lot, getting high.

  He told me something had been different with Chris.

  ‘Like since birth? Begin
ning of the bloodline?’

  But Robby wasn’t laughing, or even smiling.

  Told me a couple nights when I hadn’t been around, he and Chris had been fighting.

  Like really fighting.

  We’d always wrestled and shit, but now, Robby said, it was different.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know, man,’ he said. It wasn’t something he could define. ‘I mean, I just put dumbass in a headlock and send him to bed, but, yenno,’ Robby said, shrugging.

  He took a pull off his smoke, eyeing me.

  It was maybe the first time I’d noticed that his face looked aged.

  ‘Let’s just beat the shit out of him,’ I said eventually, taking a joint out of my pocket.

  Robby laughed. ‘He’s such a weasel. I don’t know.’

  ‘You give him too much slack,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ he said, hitting ash off his cigarette with his ring finger.

  ‘Don’t give him any slack,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ Robby said.

  ‘Okay.’

  And we sat in the mosquito-y darkness, alley light on trees, ground wet and cool, smell of smoke in the air.

  I asked Robby how his dad was doing.

  Talked about how his dad called us ‘the stupids’ growing up.

  Childhood stories.

  I had him laughing.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here, man,’ Robby said, patting my shoulder as he got up to check the coals.

  Then came Chris’s hyena laugh, from somewhere down the alley.

  ‘Buhhhh,’ Robby said.

  Victoria came around into the lot, her arms folded.

  Chris was really drunk and laughing hysterically, following behind.

  He’d slashed a bunch of tires on rental bikes, and broke the credit card terminal thing with a brick.

  He always carried a steak knife around with him.

  ‘Yeah it was awesome you guys,’ Victoria said, making a face. ‘You should’ve seen it.’

  Chris laughed like a hyena and shook his head. ‘I’m such an idiot,’ he said. ‘Fuckit though.’

  Robby smiled and said, ‘What the fuck?’ gesturing with his hand in a half shrug. ‘Just break shit here. Don’t fucking get us all arrested. I have a job. I feed you.’

  Chris laughed his hyena laugh and said, ‘Man, fuck you, you’re my lawyer.’ Then he just sat there, extremely drunk and slouching in his chair, laughing, sometimes tonelessly repeating rap lyrics.

  Nobody said anything.

  Bathing in the smoky darkness.

  Robby got up to check the coals again.

  Victoria smoked a cigarette, staring at the ground.

  Her bottom row of teeth shuddered, one sleeve hanging limp, arm inside against her body.

  It was quiet, except for some kids yelling down the block.

  Chris stood, hiking up his pants.

  He grabbed the football and slapped it against his hand a few times. ‘Yo, Rob,’ he said.

  ‘I’m good man, not now,’ Robby said. ‘I can’t see shit.’

  He was really drunk too.

  Sleepy-looking, slouching back into the lawn chair and pinching his bottom lip.

  ‘Come on, don’t be a bitch,’ said Chris. ‘Come on.’

  He slapped the football a few more times, held it back as if about to pass.

  ‘I’m good,’ Robby said again, getting out another cigarette and smiling. ‘I’m where I want to be heh heh.’

  Chris stared for a second, wobbling.

  His smile turned into a weird look.

  Like when you forget what you were laughing at.

  He stood there staring, gripping and regripping the football.

  Wobbling.

  He laughed his hyena laugh and leaned back.

  ‘Fuck you then, bitch,’ he said, throwing the football.

  It hit the apartment building, barely missing Robby.

  Donk.

  ‘Fucking quit it man,’ Robby said, shrugging. ‘I just fucking told you.’

  Robby’s eyes were open now.

  Wide and buzzing.

  Chris picked up a bottle. ‘Come on man, I’ll throw this up, you hit it with the football.’

  ‘Babe, just sit down,’ Victoria said.

  ‘I said I’m good man,’ Robby said. ‘Fucking quit it. You’re pissing me off.’

  ‘Yeah Rob?’

  Chris stood there wobbling.

  He gnashed his teeth, bug-eyed.

  ‘Please, just sit down,’ Victoria said.

  But Chris said, ‘Fuck you,’ and threw the bottle.

  Robby blocked it and it broke against the ground.

  ‘Stop,’ said Victoria loudly.

  I went to tackle Chris but he ran at Robby.

  They collided.

  The lawn chair tipped and they went down.

  ‘I told you to fucking stop,’ Robby yelled, landing on Chris and punching him twice in the back of the head.

  Vunk vunk.

  ‘Stop, ahhhh stop,’ Chris said. ‘Ahhhh.’ He got up slowly, holding his hand, dirt on his face. ‘Fuck guys. I’mmmm fucked . . .’

  There was blood all over, flowing from between his fingers and down his arms as he clutched the wound.

  Lots of blood.

  Like his hand was pissing.

  He’d landed in broken glass.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said.

  Then he hurried inside, off-balance.

  We followed.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Robby.

  Victoria remained in her lawn chair, twitching the leg she had crossed over the other.

  There was blood all over the dirt, the dead leaves, the walking stones, up the moldy back stairway.

  Blood all over the kitchen floor.

  Chris had a horrible wound between his fingers.

  It pumped blood into the sink as he winced and said ‘fuck’ over and over.

  ‘I’m fugggged.’

  His eyes were red and teary.

  He tried putting a cigarette in his mouth from the pack with one hand.

  Bleeding everywhere.

  Robby said we should go to the hospital.

  Chris laughed. ‘I can’t afford the fucking hospital. Are you fuckin retarded?’ Blood poured from his hand. ‘Shiiiiiiiid,’ he said, wincing.

  Robby insisted, saying he’d pay for it. ‘Come on man, that’s nasty.’

  He lit Chris’s cigarette.

  ‘What don’t you fuckin get, man?’ said Chris, taking a drag off his cigarette, slowly moving his fingers beneath the faucet. ‘I can’t fuckin go to the hospital. I can’t even fuckin work now.’

  There was blood on his shirt.

  Blood in the sink.

  Blood all over the white floor, mixing with dirt.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said, slowly moving the fingers. ‘Ahhh.’

  It was more of a trench than a cut, so we couldn’t even sew it up.

  Could barely get a look as it pumped.

  Robby made a giant wad of folded paper towel and poured vodka on it and pressed it into the wound and wrapped duct tape around it.

  Chris moaned, like Dddduhhhh.

  There was blood all over both of them when it was done.

  But it worked.

  It contained the blood.

  Victoria came in, arms folded. ‘Are you all right?’ she mumbled, looking at the bloody floor.

  Chris laughed his hyena laugh. ‘Yeah, I’m fucking all right. Thanks.’

  He stared at her bug-eyed, wobbling in place.

  Looking like he was trying to bite his own teeth.

  ‘Hey settle the fuck down man,’ I said. ‘The fuck is wrong with you.’

  We looked at each other.

  I remembered him trying to fight me at a party years earlier and I’d just thrown him down and put him in a headlock and leaned on him while he screamed.

  He had the same look in his eyes tonight.

  It looked like another him was trying to tear throug
h the original him.

  He looked at his hand and, in a softer tone, said, ‘I’m fugggged.’

  We went and sat in the living room.

  Robby and Chris chain-smoked, covered in blood.

  Victoria touched her side ponytail, staring vaguely at the trash-covered coffee table.

  Chris repeatedly explained how fucked he was.

  Some sickness you can get from cleaning an aquarium with an open wound.

  It sounded impressive and scary.

  Except people like him always end up fine.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine,’ I said, looking at him and smiling.

  And we looked at each other for another long moment before he looked away.

  He laughed through his nose, taking a drag off the cigarette and shaking his head.

  Everyone was quiet.

  The wind blew outside.

  *

  When winter came, we were inside more.

  Nothing but small golden Christmas lights and snow and gray outside.

  Freezing temperatures.

  Nothing to do.

  And Chris was unbearable.

  Robby was right.

  Something about him had changed.

  I’d never really liked him.

  But this was different.

  He broke up with Victoria.

  Got jumped and beaten by some gangbangers for talking shit while drunk.

  Doing more coke.

  Always broke.

  So I spent more time with a girl I’d been seeing.

  But then, after being gone for a week one time, Robby messaged me.

  He asked me to meet him downtown at his office, maybe get a drink or dinner.

  So I walked downtown.

  At dinner, he told me we were being evicted.

  At first I was confused.

  But then I didn’t care.

  Felt like I already knew.

  Chris hadn’t been paying rent for a while and Robby’d covered it initially, but now . . .

  And more importantly, could I just stay at the place tonight?

  ‘Somebody else has to be there, man,’ he said.

  We went home.

  *

  Chris was sitting on the couch in the dark, doing coke out of the Frisbee.

  He was wearing his coat and winter hat, watching the Olympics.

  ‘Heat’s busted again,’ he said, laughing his hyena laugh as we walked in.

  The apartment smelled like jelly bean puke, beer, and smoke.

  I sat down, keeping my jacket on. ‘Fuck,’ I said, rubbing my hands.

  ‘Yup,’ said Robby.

  ‘Oh, hey Slim C!’ I said to the kitten at my feet.

  Slim Charles was a kitten Chris had adopted from an aquarium-cleaning client.

  Chris hated the kitten because his tail was crooked.