The Ice Scream Man

by Salmon, J. F.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  1: “Little piggy, little piggy, let me in, “Mother drank a bottle of gin.”

  2: “Little piggy, little piggy did you get a fright, “Why bite Mother with all of your might?”

  3: “Little piggy, little piggy, please come quick, “Mother has a hand on the lollypop stick.”

  4: “School daze.”

  5: “Breakfast at Masterson’s.”

  6: “Little piggy, little piggy, how did you decide, “To take Mother as your bride?”

  7: “Old King Cole was a merry old soul. “Before he snorted the coke.”

  8: “It’s raining, it’s pouring, “Mother stopped her snoring.”

  9: “Curiosity shocked the cat.”

  10: “Say hello to my new best friend.”

  11: “Now I lay me down to sleep, “For tomorrow it will keep.”

  12: “The wheels on the bus go round and round.”

  13: “Old MacDonald had a farm, “Eamon had a cellar.”

  14: “Three blind mice see Helen run.”

  15: “One for sorrow. “Helen for joy.”

  16: “Little Red Riding Dooley.”

  17: “Old Mother Crawford tossed her poor dog a ball.”

  18: “Along came a wolf.”

  19: “Hello, Dolly.”

  20: “Granny, someone gave me an awful fright, “It was a woman down by the traffic light.”

  21: “Knock, knock. Who’s there?”

  22: “What do we have here, then?”

  23: “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with—”

  24: “Bingo.”

  25: “Better the devil you know.”

  26: “Duty calls.”

  27: “Tinker, the fucking cat.”

  28: “Recession bites”

  29: “Something holy this way comes.”

  30: “Surprise, surprise.”

  31: “Some miscarriage of justice.”

  32: “Tank’s a lot.”

  33: “Little piggy, little piggy, come and see. “A letter has arrived, just for me.”

  34: “Peek-a-boo.”

  35: “Feeding time.”

  36: “Say hello to my little . . .?”

  37: “Having a field day.”

  38: “Who’s your daddy?”

  39: “Whoops-a-daisy.”

  40: “Doctor, Doctor, I think I broke a nail.”

  41: “Jelly baby.”

  42: “I’m only jesting.”

  43: “Mirror, mirror on the bathroom wall, “Is it me I see at all?”

  44: “Moving a-head.”

  45: “Don’t walk out on an empty stomach.”

  46: “What a dental fellow.”

  47: “The old bag.”

  48: “Tea time.”

  49: “Prove it.”

  50: “Play day.”

  51: “Everyone turned pale and sick, “As news spread of the lollipop stick.”

  52: “Hey, diddle, diddle, “A cat played a film. “No one was over the moon.”

  53: “New tricks.”

  54: “For he knows not what he does.”

  55: “Peace time.”

  About the Author

  The Ice Scream Man

  Copyright © 2016 by John Salmon. All rights reserved.

  First Edition: November 2016

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to Adam, who, in his own loving words says, “John Salmon is my second daddy.” And on the few occasions when Daddy is not around, I become his favourite. And that suits me fine. This is for you, my little man.

  Acknowledgements

  Sincere thanks to all my family and friends who, when cornered in a dark space, took the time to listen. I know it wasn’t easy. To Mark, for dragging me away by the scruff of the neck, you saved many. And to the countless strangers, when Mark wasn’t around to save you, who only had to put up with me the once, you lucky ones.

  To Saoirse, your encouraging chat outside the pub in the beer garden kick-started it all off so, I blame you on their behalf.

  To Dave, Jock, Noel, Neal, Eric, Mae, Lorna, Jennifer, Helen, Fiona, and the few I never met personally, my readers, your invaluable feedback gave me much-needed boosts by telling me I was moving in the right direction.

  To Dorrie O’Brien, my content editor and chief counselor, I couldn’t have made this what it is without you; your commitment and your attention to every detail were of enormous help. Bet you can’t wait to do it all again?

  Last but not least, to Sarah, Ava, and Luke, those few readings I did for you in Spain were a lot of fun, weren’t they? Sorry to both of my sisters, their parents, Jenny and Lorna, for their bad dreams; honestly, I am.

  1:

  “Little piggy, little piggy, let me in,

  “Mother drank a bottle of gin.”

  The two best days of Eamon Masterson’s young life came in quick succession. The first showed up on the eve of his parent’s death. The second trailed close behind: On the second day, Eamon’s favourite, the day of their slaughter, young Eamon mellowed into a nasty piece of work.

  Eamon Masterson’s parents were heavy drinkers and drug-takers. Both were abusive. And for each indulgence Mother fared the worst, but little Eamon feared them both in equal measure.

  After the first time, Mother held Eamon tight to her breast and stroked his head with a patting hand. She spoke to him with slurred words. “’Tiz bonden, ’tizwatitiz. Amen. Nutten wong witit, between me’an uzz. Luven. ’Tizwatitiz. Lissen tu me . . . . Amen . . . amen, I know, I know watam talken ’bout. . . . T’ust me, I’m yurother. . . .”

  Silence followed and the patting stopped. Mother’s breathing deepened into unconscious sleep, her words left to chime in Eamon’s head with vibrating clarity. Eamon remained as still as his shaking body would allow. The intermittent puff of warm breath in his hair was not enough to stir his movement. Only when the snoring began did he slip out from under Mother’s heavy arm.

  Eamon knew it was the beginning of something new, something dreadful. Slurring was Mother’s language, a foreign tongue Eamon had learnt with fluency. “Bonding time,” is how Mother referred to it. It was a game without rules or boundaries, a game only Mother knew how to play, and Mother played it well.

  Bonding took place on any given day, often after school when Father was not around. Gin, and the cigarettes Mother rolled and smoked regularly, befitted bonding time. The smell of those stinkies pervaded the entire house. Father smoked them, too, though not as often.

  Mother rarely sat down without a stinky in her hand. They kept her calm for the most part, as did the pills, and that was fine. But when fused with the gin every other day and without measure, a volatile, sadistic temper began to simmer. Then, when it bubbled, the house became a scary place.

  Approaching home each day after school was an anxious time for little Eamon, worrying if bonding time awaited him behind the front door. Half the time he was right to worry.

  The best days, the days when
he got to the sanctuary of his bedroom without a murmur from Mother, who sat in the lounge flicking through the channels, he took care of himself.

  Sometimes she spoke to him. Calling him from his bedroom to eat a dinner at the kitchen table she’d ask how was school, but seldom carried the conversation forward. Most times, she didn’t say a word. Sometimes he helped himself to leftovers in the fridge. He often made a plain sandwich of cheese or ham and poured himself a glass of milk. He ate the sandwich and drank the milk quietly at the kitchen table. He washed and dried the dishes and put them away, then bypassed Mother in the lounge back to his bedroom. He wasn’t allowed food in his room but sometimes he smuggled biscuits in his pockets, just one or two. Those were the good days.

  On a typical bonding day—good auld bonding day, never far away, but for a day—the living room door was left ajar and the creaks from the floorboards screamed out from beneath his feet to squeal on his whereabouts. The trickery of getting up the stairs on those days, without sound, was something Eamon had not yet mastered. Skipping steps and walking along the side of the risers did barely anything to stop the telling creaks. To make it halfway up the stairs was silent progress. Caught between the front door and the first step was the norm. If he could make it to his room undetected then Mother might pass out with the wait.

  But when the stairs told, the response was swift.

  “Eamon, zat you?”

  Eamon froze on or near the stairs, depending on how far he’d got that day, squeezed his eyes shut, and willed time to leave him behind.

  “Come ’ere and give your mother a big hug. And don’t forget the kissesss. . . . Mumsey misses her little man. Dat’s a tongue-twissser, sister . . . mumseeey, missusss, mannn . . . mumseeey, missusss, mannn . . . mumseeeymissusssmin. . .”

  Slurring in a girly voice, Mother sounded childish, giggling, amused by her own stale sense of humour.

  “Eamon,” she called again, crystal-clear this time, stern, more of an order. Then the tone softened, Mother finding her medium. “Mummy is calling you, Eamon, don’t delay. Don’t you love mummy anymore?” Then a brief pause. “I’m not gonna tell you again. Come in ’ere.”

  Time disobeyed his wishful request and he opened his eyes. He stripped the schoolbag off his back and let it slip to the wooden floor. There it sat, left behind where he wished to be.

  The unkempt living room was small by all accounts, the carpet a woolly dark green, good at hiding dirt with the rub of a foot or the palm of a hand. A flower-patterned two-seater sofa, braced by two matching armchairs, placed up against the main wall faced a small, wooden Georgian-style window that opened to the front of the house. Adjacent to the sofa, nearest the door, was also a small, oak-sided table in need of a French polish. Two alcoves lay on either side of the fireplace. In the far alcove sat the television on top of a wooden cabinet. To the near side stood an oak bookcase; but for a few dingy ornaments and two framed photographs, it was empty.

  One photo showed Eamon at the age of two, holding hands with Mother while he stood on a wall with the sea in the background. Father was standing beside them. The wind blew their hair in one direction. They looked happy together, the three of them smiling. Eamon could not remember the photo being taken. The second photo was of his parents, just the two of them. They looked young and happy together, too. They looked different now. Photographs could be deceiving.

  Eamon passed through the living room door and turned reluctantly to face Mother. Black, dilated pupils peered back at him through the strands of wispy grey mess of hair that fell down across her pale, gaunt face. She lay on the sofa at a crooked angle with a glass in her left hand. A dribble of liquor oscillated the base. Her feet were curled, hidden beneath a patchwork skirt of dull colour. Her lopsided body was hunched over the armrest and her contorted head turned so far toward him that it looked like it was on back-to-front. A frail attempt at a smile on her upturned face scared a measure of piss out of him every time he saw it. Today was no different. The welcome smile soon diminished along with Mother’s pleasantries.

  The overflowing ashtray peppered the small oak table in fine ash. A ribbon of smoke wavered in a thin line from a half-extinguished roll-up. A stratus of cloud blanketed the room. There was more stinking smoke than air. The pill box was on the table, too, and sat beside a not-so-pretty gin bottle that had a half-inch of spirit left inside. All the signs suggested bonding time was moments away.

  Mother raised the glass to her mouth and drained the remaining tipple. She stretched to place the empty glass onto the table and Eamon watched it topple to the carpet with a soft thud. Mother’s preparation was all but complete.

  Mother patted the cushion next to her and beckoned her son to sit down. “Come ’ere, my dear, and tell me all about your day. Mother has missed her little man.”

  Eamon went hesitantly and sat down beside her. She stroked his head half-heartedly and pressed her body tightly against his, then covered his face with extravagant kisses. Eamon grimaced at the unpleasant smells wafting from Mother’s mouth, nose, hair, and porous skin. Her hand crawled down Eamon’s side until it found his thigh and began rubbing at his leg. Eamon prayed in vain that her hand would move no farther. Mother’s hand shifted to his crotch and in an instant her mood changed to a tone Eamon was more familiar with.

  “Have you wet your trousers? They’re wet? Take them off, you disgusting boy.”

  Specks of dirt or a pen mark would have worked, too. Then Mother would have called him a “dirty boy.”

  Mother pushed at Eamon to leave the couch. “Get up. Hurry up, we haven’t got all day. Your father will be home soon, and you don’t want me telling him all about this mess, do you? Well, do you?” Eamon shook his head. “Take them off, then.”

  Eamon stood in front of Mother and opened the button of his grey flannel trousers.

  “Don’t you look at me, you disgusting boy. Look down. Now take them off. Look at the mess you’ve made. You’re wearing them tomorrow.”

  Mother pointed at the stain between little Eamon’s legs and without warning she lunged forward with both impatient hands, grabbing for his waist. Eamon was one step too far back and in her stupor, Mother fell head first off the sofa. Her head hit the carpet with a dull, hollow thud, much like the glass only moments before. Like a corpse clambering out of a grave where it refused to die, Mother’s nicotine-stained fingers reached up from the ground and grabbed his waist.

  With the button already open, the zip tore down, and Eamon’s trousers, along with his Y-fronts, fell down around his thin, white ankles. Eamon toppled backward, hitting his head on the armchair, such was Mother’s frenzy.

  Mother held her position, got to her knees, and began to straddle little Eamon. She sat around his waist at first, then moved up to his chest, pressing her weight down upon him. Eamon glimpsed Mother’s eyelids begin to flutter as she moved farther up, before the patchwork dress covered over his face. Then Mother gave the command.

  “Wiggle little piggy, wiggle.”

  After came the biting and the slapping. Not by Mother inflicting her blows on little Eamon, but by Eamon toward Mother, too afraid to know better.

  “Make me feel it. Make me feel it, goddamn it. Harder!” Mother shouted with her arm in little Eamon’s mouth. Eamon bit at once, hard as he dared. Mother’s arm flapped like a salmon caught in the mouth of a bear cub too big for its jaws. Spittle fell from the edges of her mouth onto little Eamon’s face.

  “I can hardly feel it. Don’t you want to please your Mommy, my dearest?”

  Mother’s final word was stretched and drawn: dearrresssssttt. It whistled through her lips like a kettle on heat and ended as abruptly as a car crash. Her body shook vigorously as Eamon bit down harder. Her head snapped back and forth like an old raggedy doll about to lose its stitching. Her eyes were like shiny black marbles floating in their sockets. The smirk on her pale, g
aunt face cracked open, exposing discoloured teeth.

  If there was such thing as the devil—and Eamon believed there was—it was staring him square in the face, a demonic image of his mother his eyes would never forget. An unimaginable manifestation of hate meant only for him, little Eamon.

  Bonding time ended with Mother clogged with poison, leaving Eamon alone to clear up the mess along with his thoughts. He was getting good at it, forgetting, while Mother slept it off.

  2:

  “Little piggy, little piggy did you get a fright,

  “Why bite Mother with all of your might?”

  The day before Eamon’s parents died, the second best day of his young life, he entered the house and saw the living room door ajar. Practice makes perfect as they say and Eamon had plenty of that. On this day, he reached the second step from the top of the stairs. Silent progress, indeed, until Mother’s slurred words summoned him.

  “Eamon that you? Come ’ere, Mommy wants to talk.”

  Eamon hesitated. He was so close to the top that something inside him willed him to ignore Mother’s request. It felt better to find a hiding place and stay there until he heard the snores. He stepped over the last step onto the landing and considered his options. The bathroom was directly in front but there was no adequate hiding place in there. His bedroom was to the right, too small and too obvious. The squeaky handle could give his position away. Eamon thought about the attic; again, too much noise. He opted for his parent’s room, the door was ajar, enough of a gap to slip by without having to move it. And he knew where to place his feet to minimise the creaks from the floorboards.

  Mother still hadn’t called. A good sign.

  Eamon made his way across the landing toward the open door.

  The bedroom had a musty, dank smell and the air felt stale in his mouth. The carpet was barely visible with all the clothes scattered over it. More clothes and shoes spilled out of the wardrobe onto the floor. The dressing table was a confusion of bottles and spray cans of sorts, covered in clumps of hair and dust, the mirror fogged with dirt.