The Ice Cream Man

By David Vorhees 1. “Dud uh- dud id dud id duh, duddid duddud id- dud uh duddid duddid dudda duh.” Or that’s how it sounds in my head. You know the song, the one that was the summer soundtrack back when you were a kid. Of courses that has changed now because of how that song came to be, but back then we didn’t know anything about racial undertones, If you were under 12 and you heard this song the whole world froze in its place, you dropped whatever you were doing, ran to find someone, usually a parent, who had money. And you would proceed to chase that sound down. 1 block, 2 blocks, that didn’t matter because it was the ice cream man. Everyone had their favorite Dreamsicle, Fudgesicle, my personal favorite was the Bomb Pop, “it was the bomb” as I use to say. I know it was corny, but I was 12 and everything we said back then was corny. Oh, how I use to love the ice cream man. Use to. That all changed that summer. There was three of us back then. Some other kids came and went but it was always us three no matter what. There was Bobby who was 12 like me, although he liked to remind me that he was 21 days older than me. Then there was Big Al. Big Al was the oldest, he had just turned 13, but he was also the smallest. Bobby was the bigger of us all, Big Al the oldest, but if there was a leader it was me. We all grew up on the same street. Big Al lived on the corner; Bobby lived right next to me on the curve. Because my house was right on the curve, I had the biggest back yard, and it was where we all hung out. That’s we’re we were when heard that sound, the sound that normally brought so much happiness, but that day brought terror. 2. It was blistering hot that day. We wanted to have a water fight, but it was a drought and unnecessary water usage was not allowed, even though we felt it was necessary. We were playing 3-way catch in my backyard and I had just sailed one right over Big Al’s head when we heard it. Bobby heard it first, then I did. Big Al had just turned to chase the ball when he stopped dead in his tracks as he heard it. We all looked at each other and burst out running. Bobby ran home, but Big Al and I headed for my back door. “Mom! Mom! Ice cream man!” I yelled as we burst through the screen door being mindful of the box fan that sat on a chair in front of the door to help push air through the house. Like I said it was hot and we couldn’t afford air conditioning, back then not many people could. She came out of her bedroom wondering what the hell I was yelling about so I repeated to her that the ice cream man was outside. She gave me a little smile, rolled her eyes and pulled a bill out of her pants pocket. It was a 5-dollar bill. My eyes grew big. Nowadays 5 bucks ain’t very much, but back then and to a 12-year-old it was like hitting the lottery. Me and Big Al ran outside to find Bobby moping around. Apparently, Bobby was unable to secure any funds and at first, I was going to let him stew a bit, but that sound was getting closer by the second. So, I held up the 5-dollar bill and said “don’t worry I got it.” He smiled and you could actually see a light turn on in his eyes. we all then turned and ran down the street towards the music. Thinking back on it now I do remember thinking it was weird that no other kids were around. Surely, they heard it. There was at least four more kids around our age on this street alone. Then we saw the white truck turn the corner, I remember it clearly now but that day I couldn’t say much about it. it had rounded fenders over the front wheels and the hood sloped and curved around towards the grill. The headlights were rounded, and it looked like something out of that old tv show where one of the main characters wore a leather jacket and said “Hey” a lot. We were waiving our hands in the air all while praying the man behind the wheel, the ice cream man, saw us and stopped. As we got closer the truck slowed down and came to a stop. The man got up, put on his white paper cap, slid the little window open and said “What can I get you boys?” he was tall and had to lean over to look out the window, I also noticed that he was skinny, skinny as a rail as we said back then. He had brown hair and brown eyes, I remember that, don’t know why I just do, maybe because of what happened next. 3. We were looking at the pictures of the different ice cream’s available that were pasted all around the access window. At first, I didn’t see a bomb pop, but then it was there just between a goody chocolate bar and a twin pop, I knew I had looked there before, and it wasn’t there. It was like the truck knew what I wanted and made sure to have it. it sounds strange, trust me I know, but it really happened. Later Bobby would say the same thing about the dilly bar he was hoping for. It was Big Al who had trouble deciding what he wanted. He was in the middle of Bobby and me and had a strange look on his face as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. I tend to think he saw him, the ice cream man, for what he really was, but his mind couldn’t understand what it was seeing. I ordered my bomb pop, because it was the bomb, and bobby ordered the dilly bar, but Big Al just stood there staring wide eyed. “What do you want Big Al?” the ice cream man said. I have always wondered how he knew his name. we had never seen this man or this truck before. That’s when it hit me, this was a different truck and a different guy that normally served our street. The man in the truck began to grin but it didn’t stop. The grin kept going all the way to his ears. I know people will say that someone was grinning ear to ear, we have all heard that phrase before, but this was no phrase, this was no exaggeration. The ice cream man really did grin ear to ear. He opened his mouth as he smiled to reveal sharp pointed, jagged teeth, his eyes went from brown to red. Before we could turn to run, he shot a hand out and snatched Big Al by the head. His hand no longer looked like a regular hand but a claw with five sharp talons instead of fingers. His arm had also doubled in size. He lifted Big Al by his head and me and Bobby stood there frozen, unable to move. I could see the blood start flowing down Big Al’s face from where the talons pierced his skin. He pulled Big Al towards the window and opened mouth all the way, that’s when Big Al began to scream. His scream seemed to bring me and Bobby out of the daze we were in. each of us grabbed a leg and pulled. The ice cream man giggled and with his other arm swatted us away with ease. We fell to the ground and looked up just as the ice cream man tilted Big Al’s head and bit him in the neck. Blood started to squirt everywhere as the ice cream man devoured Big Al bite after bite. We sat there unable to run, unable to look away. We sat there and watched our friend become the treat. When he was done the ice cream man returned to normal. The red eyes became brown, the talons became fingers, and his arms returned to normal size. Although I swear, he looked a little fatter. He grabbed a napkin, wiped a little blood from his chin, gave a little salute, and said “Have a good day fellas. He then sat behind the steering wheel and drove away all while the tune that announced joy and happiness played on. 4. No one believed me and Bobby about what we saw happen to Big Al, they did believe that maybe a man pretending to be an ice cream man had kidnapped Big Al and the rest was just our minds trying to cope with what we saw. Truth is me and Bobby know what really happened on that hot summer day and now you do too. Sometimes when it’s quiet I can still hear that music play, I can see my friend get ripped apart, I can smell his blood. Since that day I have never gotten anything from the ice cream man, I have never even bought a bomb pop, because it was the bomb, from the local grocery store. Lost my taste for them, I guess. The other day my own son ran into the house yelling for me all excited because he had heard the ice cream truck, a different song nowadays though. I reached into my wallet and unknowingly pulled out a 5-dollar bill, a shiver ran down my spine. I put it back and pulled out a 10. He asked if I wanted anything, and I said no. But I did watch as he went to the white box shaped truck parked on the road in front of my house and watched as he ordered his own bomb pop, because it was the bomb. The ice cream man was skinny but had red hair and freckles. He looked up and saw me staring out my window at him and he smiled a grin at me. A grin that seemed to stretch from ear to ear.