The Ice Scream Man

by Salmon, J. F.

  They got married in a registry office after three years together. Eamon had enough money to comfortably look after them both with the substantial amount of money his grandmother (nice woman; shame about her cat, she never did quite recover after that), left to him in her will. Eamon went on to dental college while she looked after their new home. Life was good.

  He was so talented and creative, too, with his hands. He made the most amazing sculptures and sometimes presented one to her as a gift. He seemed to love the look of wonderment on her face as she took her time to examine a piece. She’d noticed the way his expression would change along with hers when she noticed something new about it, something disturbing and often sad. Maybe it confirmed to his mind how good he was. His work was simply brilliant. There was so much attention to detail that each piece could be interpreted in a number of ways. In much the same way as one person’s view might differ from another’s when studying a painting. There was always a story if you looked close enough.

  The very first piece he gave her, as he had told her at the time, was a demonstration of his love for her. That she was and would always be his comfort blanket. If it meant to impress, it worked. It was an outstanding piece of sculpture at one and a half feet tall and a foot at the base. It depicted him naked, kneeling down as if in genuflection. His head is bent slightly forward, both arms are raised on either side with each hand clutching the edges of a large blanket that he is about to wrap over his shoulders and pull tightly to his chest. Except this is not a blanket. This is her, standing naked behind him with her back bent over him. Her chest cavity is open. His hands tuck into the folds of her skin with the action of pulling her over him to immerse himself into her cavity and wear her like an oversized coat.

  In contrast, she now felt, the last piece he’d presented to her eight months ago was of ceramic. It was a beautiful naked woman sitting with her legs crossed and her feet tucked neatly under her thighs. Her arms were up over her head with the palms of her hands pressed together. At first glance, it looked similar to an Egyptian pose or of someone deep in meditation. At second glance, Margaret noticed what appeared to be a saddened, painful, or somewhere in-between expression on her smooth white ceramic face, maybe even a look of torture. Her head was tilted slightly forward as if struggling to hold up straight. Her hands were tied rather than elegantly placed together; there was the faintest hint of ligature marks around the wrists. The arms could have been pulled up over her head, and the pose painfully forced, indicated by the strained muscular definition underneath the arms. She might have been crying out for help from behind the whites of her small glass eyes and emanating the fear that something dark was taunting and teasing her; her captor, perhaps. Or maybe it was some inner turmoil, a dark secret of shame that she was keeping to herself. Maybe this was his interpretation of how he viewed her, his wife, confined and controlled but without physical restraint.

  If not for the sculpture being so small, Margaret would have sworn a human had been entombed within the hard white shell. It was indeed a beautiful piece but she wasn’t sure if she liked it or not, especially if it was his interpretation of her. After several minutes, she finally let the piece out of her hand and found a suitable home for it, tucked up beside the bookshelf in the living room, mostly hidden from view.

  Her father had passed away of lung cancer when she was five years old, and Eamon provided a security she had seldom known. Everything he did, he did for her and she couldn’t imagine him not being in her life, to look after her in a way that only he could. Her mother didn’t care much for Eamon, either, saying a lot of the same things her friends had said and she blamed him for her daughter dropping out of college. If she minded her own business, they would have seen a lot more of each other. Eamon wouldn’t have minded then.

  It had been three months since her last visit. Her mother lived a few hours away and she was going to spend the whole weekend with her, arriving back Sunday evening. She couldn’t wait, just the two of them. Her overnight bag had been packed two nights’ already, such was her excitement. She couldn’t forget about what happened an hour ago; the pain in her breast, rectum, and now fingernails made it impossible. But it wouldn’t be wise to (hate him) show him she was upset and angry because then he might change his mind and decide they should do something else involving just the two of them (and the jewel). It could be months again before she was allowed to visit.

  “Don’t you need to be getting ready?” Eamon asked, not waiting for an answer, “or are you not fussed about seeing your mother this weekend? Rather spend it with me, is that it?”

  She looked at the clock on the wall. It was still only 07:55, over an hour before the bus departed. The station was less than ten minutes away.

  “I’ve already packed. I’ll just go quick and get ready then,” she said, and made her way upstairs.

  Fifteen minutes later Margaret was back downstairs with her bag in hand. She had the blue silk dress on that brought out the blue in her eyes. Eamon had bought it for her birthday a little over two months ago. Her blond hair was finely combed and tied back in a ponytail with a matching blue ribbon. Her skin was pale, clear, and soft. She wore red lipstick and a touch of eyeliner. She looked beautiful, but due to the appearance of some fine lines on her forehead and around her eyes, slightly older than her twenty-seven years would suggest.

  “Bring it over here,” Eamon said calmly.

  Margaret walked towards him and placed the bag on the table in front of him. He opened up the zip of the bag and began to take out each item of clothing, inspecting them before moving each to the side. Satisfied with the inspection, he then took out her toiletry bag, dropping the now-empty holdall to the floor. He emptied the contents onto the table. A bottle of shampoo, packet of maxi pads, toothbrush and toothpaste, hairbrush, eyeliner, lipstick, night and day moisturiser, eye shadow, blusher, nail polish and a packet of makeup removal pads scattered the table.

  He removed the eye shadow, eyeliner, lipstick, nail polish, and blusher from the bunch. “What do you need these for; you’re only going to see your mother. It’s not as if you’re going to go out clubbing with your mother, is it?” He turned to look at her as if that was a possibility.

  “I just want to look nice for her, that’s all,” she said as she pressed her nails into the palm of her hand in a tight fist. The nail brush she’d used upstairs helped to remove most of the egg deposit, the nail beds still raw and bleeding.

  “You don’t need it. She already knows how beautiful you are. I don’t like seeing you with all this slap on. You know that.”

  He removed one of the makeup removal pads from the packet and without looking at her this time, handed her the pad. “Wipe the rest of that off your face, it makes you look cheap.”

  Margaret took the pad and reluctantly wiped it across her mouth, smudging the deep red lipstick off her face. She could feel her eyes begin to well up and fought hard to hold back the tears.

  Her fist tightened. Blood seeped.

  He handed her a second pad. “That’s for your eyes.” He took up the remaining makeup from the table, walked over to the bin at the end of the worktop and dropped them in. He turned back to her, “Let me see.” She turned her face up to him. He approached and took her head in his hands to inspect her face. “Now that is much better. You are so beautiful without it. I love you so much, you know that, don’t you? I would do anything for you.”

  “Yes, Eamon,” she said, looking back into his eyes with a weak smile.

  He tilted her head toward him and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “That’s my girl. Now get those things back in your bag. You don’t want to be late for that bus.”

  Eamon presented his hand to her as she gathered up her things. “Here, you can keep the nail polish.”

  13:

  “Old MacDonald had a farm,

  “Eamon had a cellar.”

  Eamon whistled t
he tune to “Blue Moon”, made famous back in 1961 when recorded by The Marcels, on the way home in the car after dropping Margaret at the bus station. Within twenty-five minutes he had the key back in the front door. With his wife out of the way for the weekend, he went to the kitchen, picked up the phone from its housing on the wall and punched in several numbers on the keypad.

  The phone was picked up at the end of the third ring. “Good morning, Masterson Dental Clinic, how may I help you?”

  “Good morning, Karen, it’s Eamon.”

  “Good morning, Doctor Masterson. Is everything okay?” Karen asked, sounding concerned.

  “Listen, Karen, I’m not going to make it in today, something urgent has come up that needs my attention. Can you reschedule any appointments I have for today to next week?”

  “Ms Cavanaugh is already here in the waiting room. She’s supposed to be having a root canal this morning; she’s been complaining about the pain ever since she got here.”

  “Okay, get Doctor Connery to have a look at her. He can give her something for the pain to tide her over, and put her down to see me first thing Monday morning.”

  “She’s not going to be a happy-chappy.”

  “Such is life, Karen, such is life. Deal with her the best you can and if she gives you any trouble, well, let’s just say the anaesthetic might have a little trouble working after the weekend. See you Monday.”

  Karen giggled on the other end but the laughter quickly stopped. “Whoops, she’s looking at me, not best pleased; it’s almost as if she—”

  “Okay, Karen, I’m sure you can handle it.”

  “No problem, Doctor Masterson. Have a good weekend and I hope everything works out okay.”

  “I’m sure everything will be just fine, Karen. Thanks for holding the fort.” He hung up the receiver just as he heard Karen say, “Ahh, Ms. Cavanaugh—” and walked over to the fridge.

  There was half a leg of lamb on a plate in the fridge he had bought from the local butcher the day before. Mutton would have been better; it was a tougher cut of meat than the more popular lamb, but the butcher didn’t have it. The lamb was okay. Blood had seeped from the leg and formed a near perfect ring of pink around the inner rim of the plate.

  He took the plate carefully from the fridge with both hands, not wanting to disturb the liquid and spoil the design. He rested the plate beside the sink and uncovered the cling film from around it. He ran his index finger through the thin blood, the way a child might mop up the last of the gravy, and sucked on his finger. He moved his tongue around his mouth, ensuring his taste buds got a good coating of the cold, watery liquid, and then spit it into the sink.

  “Ugh, that’s rotten.”

  Nothing, he felt nothing from it, might as well be a plate of piss. But it wasn’t about that. Blood was never going to be nice when cold or diluted, it hampered the taste and, like a good red wine, it was best served tepid. However, unlike red wine, blood was at the height of excellence when tapped directly from the source. Preferably, a source that was living or not long dead, and not from an animal, enough of those, that’s when blood was in its purist form. That’s when you really got the hit.

  The purpose of the lamb wasn’t about taste. It was about its texture. Eamon picked the leg up from the plate and rubbed the hide dry with a tea towel. Holding the leg by its thinnest part, he gave the hide a solid slap with the palm of his hand.

  “That should do the job. Solid, fucking solid.” A satisfied smile appeared as he looked for another plate from the press and rested the lamb on it. He tapped the pocket of his jeans to check for his keys and walked across the kitchen to the cellar door, unlocked it, turned on the light, locked the door behind him, and made his way down the wooden stairs.

  The cellar split into two distinct areas. Directly in front of the stairs and situated in the left corner was a fully stocked bar of non-alcoholic drinks with four bar stools evenly set in front of it. It was also utilised as a modest kitchenette to cater for his basic needs. Positioned centrally to the right of the bar stood a pool table with blue felt cloth. Two pool cues lay on either side of the racked balls with the tips of the cues touching beyond the baulk line, as if inviting a game to begin. A central retractable light with a large green shade hung above the table. Only Eamon played on this table.

  A television was mounted to the wall farther over, linked up to a home cinema system. A two-seater leather sofa sat two meters in front of it and a library of DVDs was tucked into purpose-built shelves against the neighbouring wall. The majority of films were Westerns and horror with a few gangster movies thrown in for good measure.

  The more extreme DVDs, the ones he kept secret, were locked away in his workshop. These were predominantly of the bondage and humiliation variety. These were the ones he watched more than any other.

  A washroom with toilet and built-in shower had been built behind the stairs. The workshop was adjacent to the washroom, the primary reason for the entire basement refurbishment. The room was soundproofed as per his instruction at the time of construction. The only natural light emanated from an oblong window on the opposite wall to the entrance, close to the ceiling. The shrubbery planted outside limited the natural light to gloomy, even on the sunny days.

  He had made it perfectly clear to his wife that this was his space and all she had to do was respect it. No questions and no prying were the only two rules of the day. To go down without permission would be considered snooping and that would just be plain silly on her part. Besides, Eamon held all the keys. As far as she was concerned, he was making dentures for his patients and did some ceramic and clay modelling from time to time, which helped him to relax and unwind.

  Eamon unlocked the workshop door and entered with the plated leg of lamb. He shut the door with the heel of his foot and sucked up a lung full of air through his nostrils before switching on the light. The thrill of viewing his wonderful creations at various stages of completion drove the familiar shiver of excitement.

  The yellow canary inside the covered birdcage flapped and chirped loudly under the window. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fed it but it wasn’t going to die on him, at least not yet. A wooden workbench ran along the leading wall with two pull-out drawers split to the length of its base. A two-door cabinet with the key in the lock stood to the side. An oval, fixed kiln was bricked up to the wall with a smokestack that led the smoulder to the outside. He had used it to fire ceramics and clay moulds. It was great for burning other things, too, and cooked a great pizza.

  The workshop resembled something of an FX studio. It was stocked with the necessary paraphernalia to perfect his hobby and passion as a sculptor, and a prosthetic makeup artist. It had been a long while since he’d finished a sculpture; he’d turned his talents to prosthetics, both dental and cosmetic—both part of his plan. He did some woodwork too, just enough for purpose.

  The bench was scattered with dental tools and the materials needed to make his unique range of acrylic teeth. A variety of moulds were scattered along the back of the bench, ready to turn out and be refined into full working sets. However, these were not dentures tailored for his patients, as he led his wife to believe. These teeth were modified replicas of the wolf, tiger, and other carnivorous animals, and there were more experimental models, too. All of them were severe and all custom-made to fit his mouth. These were skills that had taken some enjoyable years to master. It began with dental college and progressed when he bought his own practice, curtesy of the substantial inheritance left to him by his grandmother, part of which was money left to her by Father and then passed on.

  The prosthetics fit securely in his mouth with minimal filing of his teeth. Only another dental practitioner, upon close examination, could tell that some teeth had been tampered with. The tiny filings at the base of the gum on each of the back four second molars and the canines ensured that the dentures hooke
d securely in place.

  Eamon was self-taught from an early age when it came to the prosthetic makeup, unlike the process of fabricating and fitting his dentures. He’d made weird and disturbing creatures from clay, often to the dismay of one of his art teachers, Ms Johnson, in his school days. He was able to take his craft home thanks to the money he earned from a Saturday paper round, which allowed him to buy the clay and special-effect makeup kits.

  He’d played in his bedroom for hours on end when left alone or forgotten by Mother, and while Father was at work or in the pub. He continued with his construction of miniature models of monsters with sharp teeth and mouths wide open. He formulated open wounds and scars from the kits, which he attached to his face and tactical parts of his body and pretended that he had just been attacked by one of his monstrous conceptions. He stood in front of the mirror in his underpants, sometimes naked, and admired his gory achievement after he’d strategically squirted the fake blood and pretended to cry out in pain as though the wounds were real.

  Two shelves were mounted to the wall above the bench. More polished sets of teeth were strewn over the lower shelf displayed like little trophies. The top shelf was filled with prosthetic and character makeup books and charts. Included in the collection was Thomas Morawetz’s book, Making Faces, Playing God. Eamon had instantly warmed to the title. Other books included Dick Smith’s 1965 Do It Yourself Monster Make-Up Book and the 1985 updated version.

  What impressed him about their work was their explicit attention to detail. Most notably, for Eamon, was the extraordinary effect in The Exorcist, and it wasn’t Regan’s possession. When Max von Sydow was approached for a role in the film, he assumed it was for the younger priest, Karras. The actor was only forty-four years old at the time. It took up to four hours in the makeup chair each day to turn Sydow into a seventy-year-old man, one that was examined by the camera in close-up several times throughout the film, and nobody noticed it.