ANYONE ELSE WANT ICE CREAM?

By Dan Warthman

David Ramos

Feeling lousy, no money, tired, more weary than fatigued, more like what's the use, why bother, and even a little confused, cumulatively so, hallucinatory, as if caught in a dream, a nightmare, since losing his job as webmaster for a handful of small local companies.... Actually, more than lost his job, because, one, he's an independent contractor and “lost his job” means lost his entire business, and two, he's under indictment, having left a couple holes in three of the web sites so that he could sneak his buddy, Charlie Diller, a chum from college, into the shipping and handling departments of a plumbing supplies company, a lumber yard, and a wholesale tire distributor. The guy, Diller, had promised to be judicious, no more than a couple hundred or so dollars a month from each business, but went crazy and stole upward of a quarter million in three months, and wanted more, tried to stiff-arm Ramos into breaching a few other locks, but of course, they both got caught when idiot-brain Diller had three shipments, one from each client, sent to the same address in one day, and then claimed that Ramos was the mastermind who came up with the whole idea.

That was almost six months ago, and now, feeling utterly defeated, David Ramos (out on bail) is lurking in the shadows across from Yipple's All-night Gas and Groceries, which, at the moment is empty, but which he's hoping when the Bisons' game ends will pick up, and he can go in among a flurry of customers and jack a can of soup, maybe a package of lunch meat from the cooler. Maybe a quart of orange juice, because he thinks he's developing scurvy. His teeth hurt and his gums bleed all the time. Sometimes he thinks if he can get a bounce for his spirits, perk up his physical being, then maybe he can reclaim himself, do his penance, get back on his feet.

Yes, he thinks, orange juice will do him a world of good. Runs his tongue around his mouth, parched lips, dirty teeth, sour taste. Imagines the acidic crackle of the juice going down his throat. Smacks his lips, hears the sound, and wonders if he actually smacked his lips.

Diane Lindsey

A twenty-nine year old single mom, slants her 1996 Subaru Legacy wagon against the curb in front of Yipple's, blocking access to the first set of gas pumps, glancing at the dashboard clock, figuring she'll only be a minute. Douses the engine, and hops out, leaves the kids – her ten year old son Aaron and his friend, a Chinese or Korean or Japanese kid, some kind of Asian, she doesn't know, named Jimmy Long – whom she took to the Bison's game because her current boyfriend, this guy who works at Dunn Tire Park, where the Bisons play, comped her three tickets just beyond the first base dugout. But the game was boring, nine runs in the top of the first, nothing but sloppy play after that, and the boys were wearing Yankee caps, and a group of older kids sitting nearby – wearing Indians shirts and hats – taunted them and scared them, and so they took off, skipping the last couple innings, since the game was out of reach anyhow, and since the heat, even at ten o'clock, was intense, suffocating.

We'll stop at Yipple's for a creamy, she had promised the kids. Yeah, said the boys, high-fiving each other as if their team had just won the World Series, giggling, forgetting about the teasing in the ball park, and content to wait in the car while she runs in to get the cones. And a carton of milk and, though she isn't going to tell them, the real reason she wants them to remain in the car, a pack of Marlboro reds. Because she isn't doing all that well with quitting, and her boyfriend, who had promised to stop by their seats sometime around the fourth or fifth inning, hadn't appeared, and because, deep down, she knew it was a going-nowhere relationship anyhow, so, what the hell, might as well smoke, right?

Though in the few steps between the car and the store entrance, the heat stuns her, makes her think she ought to start exercising. Glimpsing her own reflection in the window, everything wilted, shorts stuck to her legs, skin creases from the slatted wooden seats at the ball game.

Two kids

Maybe fourteen or fifteen, maybe even sixteen, wheel from the sidewalk into Yipple's parking area and drop their bicycles in front of the door, all one move, zoom in, skid-stop, stride away, bikes fall. The first one slipping through the door as it closes behind Diane Lindsey, the second grabbing the handle, jerking it open.

They enter boldly, teenage boy swagger, like they've come to take over, tugging their hats low, veer down the first aisle, toward the cooler, selecting a couple grape-flavored power drinks, feeling for the coldest, sidle up the snacks' aisle, dawdling, fingers scraping over candy bars, rattling small bags of potato chips, shaking boxes with loose pieces, rejecting first one, then another, then another, undecided, talking, debating, bold voices, rising pitch.

A man

Whose dress is oddly old-fashioned – gleaming Cordovans, creased khaki slacks, starched white shirt, top button open, black windbreaker, even in this heat half zipped, collar flipped up – steps inside the door, stops, makes hard eye contact with the guy working behind the counter, glances at the two security monitors mounted at right angles to the cash register, displaying ghostly frozen night-vision images of the outdoor gas pumps, dips a shoulder, and moves farther into the store, along the windows, scoping each aisle, and swinging left along the back wall, past the beer coolers, the ice cream freezer, a pyramid of car window washer jugs, a cylindrical bin of brooms and mops. The guy's hands are concealed in his jacket pockets.

At the counter, in a quiet voice, he orders a vanilla soft-serve ice cream cone.

“Chocolate, vanilla, twist? Small, large, medium? Two dollars, three dollars, two fifty.” The clerk's manner is brusque, impatient. Maybe it's his accent, maybe the dilution of his attention among the surge in customers.

“Medium,” says the guy. “Medium twist.”

He squares a stack of ten quarters on the counter, takes the cone, which is already dripping from the edges, mostly the chocolate. Leaning forward, stretching his neck, he goes to work on the ice cream, turning away from the counter, shuffling to the side.

That's when

David Ramos comes in. And Diane Lindsey – carrying a quart of milk, a roll of toilet paper, a jar of Peter Pan chunky peanut butter, a loaf of Pepperidge Farm hearty white, and still debating with herself about the Marlboro reds – approaches the counter, putting on a little attitude, as she always does in public, especially at night, especially in a place like this, unfamiliar, where she doesn't know anyone, where danger and vulnerability collide in her brain, her heart, her stomach, and her knees. She peeks at the guy in the jacket, still concentrating on the liquescent sides of his ice cream.

The two boys line up behind Diane Lindsey. And the buzzer sounds, indicating that someone has stopped in front of one of the gas pumps. Causing everyone in the store to tense when the sound punctures the pale florescent gloom. And before they recover, before the vibration in the air settles, the door swings open, with a puff, as if releasing the pressure – the swoosh of outdoor heat and the rattling sound from the car's speakers, the fierce, rigid thump of the bass, the raspy harshness of unmelodic, manufactured anger.

A large woman floats in, wearing the sound, announces, “Someone's blocking the pumps out there.”

The clerk grimaces, but ignores her, giving the impression he knows her or knows this complaint.

“How'm I supposed to fill my tank?”

“Go to other side.” The clerk flaps a hand indifferently.

“My tank's on this side.” Her legs are stiff, knees locked.

The clerk glowers, rearranges his feet without changing positions. “Do not make trouble.” His voice is pinched, disproportionately agitated. “You can wait one moment.” Flattens his palm against the woman's obstinance.

The woman stares at him. “Yeah, that's what we're doing, waiting.” She swipes her brow, adjusts the thin straps of her tank top, tweaking the cloth away from her skin. Swerves down the pharmaceuticals' aisle, stopping, plucking from the top shelf a bottle of anti-redness eye drops, continuing toward the cooler, flip-flops scraping the floor, clapping the bottoms of her heels.

And now

Diane Lindsey places her groceries on the counter, pushes them forward.

The clerk is chubby, pig-eyed, thin-lipped, his face glazed with perspiration. He has petite hands and touches the items deliberately, rotating each, placing the loaf of bread ahead of the milk, sliding the peanut butter to the front of the line, picking up and setting down the toilet paper. He starts to speak.

“Seventeen....” Erases with his hand. “Nineteen dollars.”

“And two creamies,” Diane Lindsey says.

The clerk repositions his feet, shifts his weight, speaks very quickly, in a lilting, melodic accent.

“Chocolate, vanilla, twist?” It sounds almost like one word, a foreign word.

Diane skips it, says, “And a pack of Marlboros.” Adds, “Lights.” Deciding against the regulars. Accepting the compromise as a plus in her favor, something between abstinence and indulgence.

“Hard or soft?” the clerk asks, reaching toward the cigarette rack above his head, waiting for her decision.

“Box.”

He slaps down the package, then spreads his hands on the formica counter, bunching his shoulders, sneaking looks at the other customers. David Ramos lingering in front of the soup display in the middle aisle. The contentious woman striding forward, wallet and eye drops in one hand, a six pack of Rolling Rock dangling from the fingers of her left hand. The two boys, behind Diane, in constant motion, liquid posture, as if oozing in all directions, as if their bodies possess an uncontainable force. The clerk focuses on them, then stabs his eyes at Diane.

“Two ice cream cones,” Diane Lindsey repeats.

“Yes, I know? What flavor?”

“Oh,” she says, the meaning of his first words sinking in. She puckers her brow, thinking.

“Vanilla,” the guy in the jacket suggests.

Diane Lindsey regards the man, unsure if he's speaking to her or trying to cut in front of her. He's licking furiously at his cone, still tipped forward, head canted, elbow askew, urgently and inelegantly engaged.

He says, cupping his lower lip, over-pronouncing the words, “The chocolate....” Waves the cone, swallows. “Too soft.”

She smiles, then, worried the man is flirting with her, retracts the smile, averts her gaze. “Twist,” she says.

The clerk seems reluctant to turn away, looks around the store, checks the monitors. Takes a napkin from the dispenser, carefully wraps the base of the first cone, works the handle. The ice cream machine hums.

Magically, it seems

Both cones stand upright on the counter. Already dripping. The machine is set wrong, Diane Lindsey thinks and looks at the man standing to the side, wishing she'd taken his advice, wishing she'd paid for everything before the cones were prepared.

The clerk glances at the items, re-computing in his head, says, “Twenty-four.”

“Don't you have to ring it up?” she asks, but she knows what's going on and hands him a twenty and a five.

He takes four quarters from the edge of the register, splays them on the surface. “You want a bag?”

She gives him a look. “Of course, I want a bag.”

He drops the groceries roughly into a wispy brown plastic bag, pushes it toward the woman.

Threading her fingers through the looped handles, she says, “And I want two new cones that haven't dissolved before I even pay for them.”

This brings him to a glaring standstill, jaws clenched. He snaps his gaze around the room, as if mugging for the audience, setting up the grand finale, the final stunt. And then, with the moves of an inept illusionist, his right hand fumbles into a wooden drawer next to the cash register.

And comes out with a large, silver handgun.

Eyes bulging, hands trembling

The clerk squeaks, “You stop. You stop now.” Jerking the pistol through the air, coming to incomplete rest in the general direction of the front door.

The two boys jostle Diane, then lurch sideways. The woman carrying the eye drops and the beer wheezes, then groans, then moves toward the boys. Diane Lindsey, slow to discern the gun and then thinking it's aimed at her, stumbles, raises her hands, as if in surrender.

“I can shoot you,” the clerk shrieks, voice shrill, eyes aflame. Like bad acting on a tv cop show.

The front of his shirt bloated

With two cans of tuna fish, a handful of chocolate bars, and three eight ounce bottles of Tropicana orange juice – David Ramos stops, hand outstretched to push open the door. Tremors of sound from the car out front judder the door, threaten to break the glass.

Glancing, he sees the gun quivering in the man's hand, sees the man's crazy eyes, bouncing from him to the others, back to him. Sees the man's tension expanding and contracting, like a pulse, like a carnival ride building momentum.

Moisture from the bottles prickles his belly, like barbed wire. He needs to squirm.

The man in the jacket

Known in his business circles as Jones – sometimes, for clarification, if needed, which is seldom, referred to as the Guy from.... As in someone saying, Get me Jones. And the reply, just to make sure they're on the same page, You mean the Guy from...? Fingers doing a butterfly flutter, like, yeah, where is that guy from?

Still with a slight buzz on from a job just completed – an unusual job, to be sure, pro bono, the sick and dying mother of an old friend, different from anything he's ever done. But feeling sort of good about it, satisfied.

On his way out of town, saw Yipple's sign, stopped for a cone. Which is disappointing because the ice cream is melting too fast. Pronouncedly so on the women's two cones, already looking tepid, molten, like a Salvador Dali image. And now, with the clerk on some kind of a rampage, ignored. Beneath the clatter of the clerk's falsetto, Jones can hear drips from the woman's cones splat on the counter top, can see the puddles spread and contract, jiggle, retaining gelatinous contours, another drip, absorbed into the first, a sort of cytoplasmic anti binary fission, he thinks, and then wonders how he came up with that.

Everything achieves stasis

The guy at the door, the two teenagers, the heavyset woman with the beer, the woman at the counter. Through the glass and off to the left, Jones sees his own car, sees the heads of two kids in the car closest to the door, hears the music from the other car, sees the bandanaed head and bony shoulders of a man in a sleeveless t-shirt, standing on the driver's side, looking to his right, arms resting on the car roof, fingers interlaced.

Jones double-checks the room, for anything missed in the constant checking he'd been doing. He knew before the clerk that the guy was filling the front of his shirt with goods, and he knew before Diane Lindsey noted it that the clerk was cashing out the customers without ringing up their purchases. He knew even before the woman picked up the eye drops that she was high, and he knows the boys are good kids, just thoughtless about where they drop their bikes.

He looks at the storage room door in the nearest corner, figures it has a side exit, mentally measures the distance, still too far, rejects making an exit. Catches a whiff of disinfectant wafting off the black and white tile floor, the smell of ice cream and sour milk leaking from the freezer and wall cooler, the yeasty odor of day-old donuts in the free-standing display case behind him. Burnt coffee. Hears the purr of florescent lights, the clicking of a faulty starter in one of the dead fixtures, the drone of a compressor motor from somewhere in the back, the clerk wheezing small animal sounds from deep in his throat. Pops the last bite, the soggy bottom of his cone, into his mouth.

And produces from his jacket pocket a Glock 26.

Stepping forward

Jones says to the clerk, “Put your gun away.”

But the clerk, looking at Jones's tiny pistol, extended nearly double by the silencer, screeches, “You may not. You may not. You are thief.” And arcs his giant handgun around. Pulling the trigger three times and hitting only the ceiling and a jar of pickles halfway down the grocery aisle. Then, as he attempts to level the gun for the fourth shot, Jones shoots him in the right shoulder.

The tableau holds

And Jones snakes around the counter, kicks away the man's gun, and considers shooting him in the head to stop his caterwauling. But the man – perhaps overcome with fear or shock or maybe realizing his wound isn't fatal – lapses into a whimpering quiet on his own.

Jones replaces the Glock in his jacket pocket, turns his back on everyone, and carefully takes two sugar cones from the drop-down dispenser. Holding both in one hand, spaced among his fingers, he operates the machine, churns out two perfect, very large vanilla ice cream cones and hands them to Diane Lindsey.

Using a paper towel, he wipes his prints from the machine handle, pauses as if remembering an oversight. Faces the others.

“Anyone else want ice cream before we leave?” he asks, breaking the silence.