The Ice Scream Man

by Salmon, J. F.

  Eamon lay on his stomach. Some of Mother’s underwear was beneath him but he didn’t care to find out which ones. He brushed away a stale-smelling towel with the flick of his hand and crawled sideways underneath the dishevelled double bed like a crab seeking shelter under a rock. The smell of must was strong, but there was another smell above his head that made it difficult to breathe without gagging. Eamon looked for the source and saw what appeared to be flat rubbery worms, ribbed and deflated of life. There were lots of them stuck together. One had escaped the clew, all alone beside his face, inches from his nose. The smell was so bad they must be dead, if they were ever alive.

  The scattering of clothes in the confined space made turning under the bed more difficult. He looked back and kicked at the stray rubbery flat worm with a sliding foot to get it back to the clew and far away from his nose as possible. His foot rolled over it and the worm twisted in on itself without moving very far. He hoped there were no more under him.

  Eamon almost forgot about Mother, preoccupied with the stinky rubbery worms, until he heard her.

  “Eamon,” Mother called his name loudly, almost shouting. “Where are you? Don’t make me come looking for you. That would be a big mistake on your part.”

  Eamon stayed where he was, afraid to move, second-guessing his decision to hide. The living room door opened and footsteps clambered up the squealing stairs. The space under the bed was tight and claustrophobic. He struggled to bring both hands to his ears and drown out the sound of Mother’s searching footsteps. If he could not hear her then maybe he would be safe. But he did hear. Mother was on the landing.

  In his new position from underneath the bed, Eamon had a clear view of the bottom of the bedroom door. He heard his bedroom door open, the handle creak as it pushed down, and then the door slam shut with an almighty bang that nearly made him piss.

  Eamon paced Mother’s steps in his mind, coming across the landing, staring at the bottom lip of the door. He willed Mother to go back downstairs and would happily take the consequences later if she did. The last thing he wanted to see was Mother’s stained, furry pink slippers make an entrance. He waited anxiously, eyes riveted on the lip of the door.

  “Any second now, any second now, any second now,” beat steadily in his head to the rhythm of his quickening heart. With each heartbeat, he envisaged the matted strands of pink fur to break past the rim of the door like a giant pink spider, one leg, two legs, then three and four, then the rest of its grotesque body, and another spider after that, sensing to swallow him up.

  Eamon held his breath.

  “Any second now, any second now, any sec—” and there they were, Mother’s slippers side-on. Two more slow-paced steps and the pink slippers turned to face him head on. A single drop of sweat fell from his forehead as his lungs began to burn. He refused to breathe for fear of giving his position away but couldn’t hold out for much longer. The slippers waited in front of his face, poised to attack.

  Then the unexpected happened. The stained pink slippers turned and left the room. Mother never said a word, never called or shouted his name, just left. He discharged his breath in short bursts as soon as the slippers were out of sight, desperate not to make a sound. But he did.

  His lungs began to spasm as he brought the sleeve of his jumper over his mouth and began to cough. Mucus bubbled out his nose as he tried desperately to contain the sound. He could hear Mother descend the stairs and go back into the living room. He wondered if he had actually gotten away with it.

  Eamon contemplated his next move when the footsteps ascended the stairs once again. There was more urgency to them this time. He closed his eyes, afraid to move. Mother was back in the room.

  “Ooof.” Something sharp and hard, a brush handle, struck him square in the ribs, unexpected and painful.

  “Get out from under my bed! Get out here now, you little rodent.” Mother continued jabbing. “You think you can fool me. You think I’m stupid. You think I’m a thicky. You have no business being in here. Get the fuck out from under my bed. You are going to pay severely for this, you fucken little rodent. GET OUT.”

  Then something unprecedented happened that would make this day the best day of his young life.

  Eamon grabbed hold of the handle when it came back in for a consecutive fifth time, he expecting to be pulled and pushed back and forth underneath the bed, but that didn’t happen. He held firm and pushed the brush away from his ribs. With his other hand behind him, he clawed at the dirt-ridden carpet and edged his way out from under the bed. It was a struggle, no question about it, but he still didn’t expect to get out unless Mother wanted him to. It almost seemed easy, a little too easy.

  More likely, it was a clever tactic by Mother to get him out so she could have the full run of him. There’s no fun in stooping down with a brush and not being able to see the painful results of her efforts. But he held on and pushed Mother back against the bedroom wall. He still expected Mother to break out in cackle of laughter with a Gotcha smile written across her face, and take the brush from his grip to beat him over the head with it. But that’s not what happened.

  The expression on Mother’s face was one of concern or confusion. She grappled with the brush handle. There were no smiles, or cackling of laughter, or words that said “Gotcha.” Mother looked to be struggling in her grubby white vest and her yellow daisy pyjama bottoms, with the stained, furry pink slippers sliding backward on the carpet.

  Eamon was out from under the bed, on his knees, holding onto the handle of the brush between Mother’s hands.

  Using Mother’s resistance against herself, Eamon pulled himself back to his feet. It was like a scene from a Robin Hood movie: Robin Hood and Little John are fighting on a log that crosses a river with one staff between them—Robin has already lost his—both of them grappling to avoid falling in. It dawned on Eamon how much he’d grown when he was up next to her. He had not been this physically close to his mother in a very long time. Well, not in a standing position anyway. He was still shorter but not by much, and in terms of strength, that was beginning to even out, too. For the first time in young Eamon’s life, he felt a sense of confidence.

  Eamon wasn’t so little anymore, and stronger.

  Mother could sense it, too.

  Mother’s head moved swiftly forward and struck Eamon in the centre of his forehead. His legs buckled and he hit the floor on his back. Mother was quick to get on top of him. The brush handle came across his throat and pressed down on his larynx, making it impossible for him to breathe. Mother stared down over him, rage ravaging her face as she pressed her weight upon her only son’s neck.

  In a state of shear panic, and the life quickly draining out of him, Eamon thrust his fists up and, as luck would have it, connected with Mother’s nose as she gloated at his discoloured and swelling face.

  Mother released the brush and brought her hands to her face as if moving to prayer. He tossed the brush to the side and swallowed much-needed air, coughing and spluttering as the fresh air hit his flaming lungs.

  Mother moved her cupped hands away from her face and peered at the fresh blood. Eamon looked at her in astonishment when a smile began to build on her face.

  There was no expression of pain as she looked from her hands back into her son’s eyes. “Good boy, that’s better. That’s what I like to see, a little fight. It makes everything a bit more pleasurable.”

  Mother’s face hardened. Blood dripped from her nose like a faulty faucet, and built up around her thin lips, staining her tarnished teeth, and down her chin. Some of the drips caught the inside of her grubby white vest as she bent over him and before Eamon had a chance to catch a clear breath, Mother grabbed both his arms and pinned them by his side, using her legs as restraints. She grabbed his face with a spindly hand and squeezed his cheeks so his lips formed an hourglass shape.

  “Open wide bo
y,” Mother said, as she situated her face directly above his. A trail of blood spots led from Eamon’s neck to his squashed-up mouth.

  “Suck it in, boy. Swallow it.” Mother forced her index finger into Eamon’s mouth to help the blood down his throat.

  He coughed and spat. The warm liquid catapulted back in the direction from where it had come, spraying a fine mist across Mother’s face. Her vest and matted grey hair got a coating, too.

  “What am I going to do with you now? Any ideas?” she asked as she moved her face closer to his, her hand still pressing his cheeks. “I wonder. Don’t you wonder? I’ll have to think about this for a moment. Are you sure you have no ideas or are you just going to leave it all up to little ol’ me to decide?” Blood continued to drip from her nose but she didn’t seem to care. “I know. See if you can guess what I am about to do?” Her eyes were wide-open and she looked pleased with her thoughts. If Mother was still drunk, it failed to show.

  Without warning, she crammed her forearm into Eamon’s mouth, forcing it wide open the way she had many times in the past. She turned her head away and scanned the surrounding floor. With her free hand, she reached to the carpet and picked up a random item of clothing. It was a red woollen jumper with long sleeves and covered in hundreds of tiny dirty fuzz balls.

  “Now,” Mother said, “let’s just see how much of this we can get stuffed into that big conniving mouth of yours. Let’s start with the sleeve, shall we.”

  His eyes conveyed the panic he felt, and Mother so desperately desired. He knew Mother could kill him before this newer version of bonding time was through and not bat an eyelid. Instinct took him by surprise, a fight for life, and before Mother could remove her arm to insert the filthy woollen cloth, he bit deep. A bite unlike any he had administered before. His was not a bite to sexually gratify. His was the bite of a predator as his rage rapidly overtook hers. He was no longer a bear cub. He was the hungry Papa Bear with a freshly caught salmon and he wasn’t letting go of it anytime soon. His was a bite of survival: inflict maximum damage or invite death. He felt his teeth scrape down on hard bone and seize on a thick chunk of Mother’s flesh.

  “Stop, stop! It hurts, it hurts!” Mother screamed.

  He pressed his teeth firm, blood poured into his mouth and out the sides. Mother screamed frantically, trying to free herself. The back of his head came away from the carpet as he held on tight. Mother’s arm broke free and she collapsed off to one side. They both lay on the floor panting for breath, too exhausted and in pain to carry on the battle. Both struggled to get to their feet. Now, neither of them wanted to be there.

  “Look at what you’ve done to my arm, you animal, you fucken dirty little animal,” Mother said when she caught her breath.

  Eamon, no longer scared, watched Mother show her wound. The blood from Mother’s nose had slowed but her arm poured. Mother covered it with her hand and the blood seeped between her fingers.

  Eamon did not respond; even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. The lump of raw flesh was still in his mouth, the skin folded over on itself like a Calzone pizza. He could feel the tiny skin hairs on his tongue as he rolled it around the inside of his mouth.

  Without saying another word, Mother left the room and headed straight to the landing bathroom.

  Eamon went to his bed.

  From the bathroom came the sound of rushing water. “My fucken arm, look what you’ve done to my fucken arm. FUCK. You are going to pay for this, you dirty little bloodsucking cannibal. Wait until your father gets home and then, then, we’ll see who’s got the upper hand.”

  Mother left the bathroom and descended the stairs, leaving a spotted trail of blood in her wake.

  Eamon lay on his bed with his back against the headboard. He was exhausted and his throat hurt but he felt great inside, given what had just happened. He had heard Mother in the bathroom mouth something about Father but that was about it. He held the piece of flesh in his mouth, unsure what to do with it. Something special about the moment compelled him to keep it there.

  Truth be known, he quite enjoyed the texture and the taste. It was the taste of victory. He tilted his head back and swallowed the soft, hairy tissue. A vibrant awareness enveloped his body and he realized for the first time in his young life, he no longer feared Mother. It was the first time he had tasted raw human flesh. He liked it a lot.

  Little Eamon didn’t feel so little anymore.

  3:

  “Little piggy, little piggy, please come quick,

  “Mother has a hand on the lollypop stick.”

  It was late evening when Liam Masterson got home. He had been to the pub again straight from work and feeling the worse for wear. Lilith was standing in the living room ready to confront him when he made his entrance. She had not changed out of her clothing. She had on the same grubby bloody white vest and the yellow pyjama bottoms with drops of blood disguised among the petals. Bruising was prominent across her swollen nose and around both eyes. They looked like empty sockets in her face.

  She had a fresh half bottle of gin in one hand and a rolled-up stinky in the other; the trail of smoke ran up her fingers and wavered off her knuckles. A bandage supported the wound on her arm, held in place with three strips of plaster and the congealed blood that leaked through to the outside.

  The sobering state of his wife, standing with a hostile look through swollen eyes, was hard to stomach. It must have been one hell of nose bleed. He wanted to leave, be anywhere but here.

  “What the fuck happened this time?” Liam asked, looking around the room.

  “What do you mean ‘this time’? There’s never been a fucken ‘this time.’ Your fucken son, that’s what happened. Eamon fucken attacked me in our bedroom, that’s what’s fucken happened. He near bit my fucken’ arm off.”

  Lilith took a drag off her roll-up and passed it to Liam with blood-stained fingers. He took a smoke and held it in his lungs as he turned toward the kitchen.

  “Where the fuck are you going? Didn’t you hear what I just fucken said?” The smoke exhaled out her nose and mouth on the breath of her voice.

  “To get a drink.”

  “There isn’t any, only this.”

  He stopped and turned around to see his wife pour from the bottle into an empty glass on the side table. “Here.” She handed it to him.

  He took the glass and had another three consecutive pulls before handing the roll-up back. He sat down into a chair holding in the smoke, and then let loose the plume from his mouth as he took a gulp of the gin. He swallowed and hissed in the room’s smoky air through his teeth. “For fuck sake, woman, always a fucking drama.”

  Lilith took another drag and a swig of gin straight from the bottle like it was water. She ignored the comment and extinguished the roll-up, pushing ash over the rim of the ashtray when her fingers submerged. “Well, what are you gonna to do about it? Tell me. Are you just gonna sit there and let him hit and bite me whenever he wants? Look at my arm, fer Chrissake. Look at my face.”

  Liam reluctantly looked up at the bloody mess that was his wife. “Eamon did that to you?”

  “Yes, he fucken did. Who do you think fucken did it, fucken Santa Claus? Is it Christmas around here? Do you see a fucken tree?”

  The sound of her voice was as painful to listen to as she was to look at. His head and body buzzed after the smoke and alcohol. He didn’t need this, not again, not tonight. It was late, for fuck sake. He knew the story and how it played out. He could see the temper rise in his wife and now she was going to keep going on and on and on until he did something.

  “I want to know what you are going to do about it. He needs punishment. I want you to help me punish him for what he did.”

  Liam took another gulp of gin.

  Lilith lost it with his lackadaisical attitude. “You’re not a man, you’re a good-for-nothing pussy. Look at you; lo
ok at the fucken state of you, you’re as bad as him. You don’t care about me; I want him fucken punished for what he did to me. Are you listening to me, fucker? Are you just going to sit there? Do something, goddamnit. Prove you’re a real man. You owe me for what you’ve done to me you, you owe me big time.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, rubbing his head, “just shut the fuck up and give me a minute to think.”

  He finished off the gin and set the glass on the carpet, reached into his trouser pocket and took out a small zip-lock bag of white powder, then prised it open with his thumbs.

  “You told me you didn’t have any, you couldn’t get it. You’re hiding that from me, too? Give me some.”

  He tapped a mound of the white powder onto the back of his wrist and snorted it up his nose.

  Lilith went over to him for her entitlement. “Give me some,” she said, her hand out-stretched.

  He wiped under his nose and handed over the bag. She snatched it and rushed to do the same.

  Liam got to his feet. “Where is he?”

  Lilith sniffed at her wrist and tossed her head back to quicken the hit. The empty bag fell to the carpet. Her head came back down with a huge sigh. “Where do you think he is? He’s in his fucken bedroom where he always fucken is.”

  The white stuff seemed to calm her, but the look of excitement was an eerie sight when he went to the living room door and snapped at the handle.

  At the foot of the stairs, he pinched his nose and sniffed. “Eamon, get down here now. You’ve got five seconds. Don’t make me come up.” He waited until he heard movement in his son’s room then went back into the living room, took off his belt, and waited.