VaD3r0n!c3

This piece of flash fiction is based on: Write with the Ice Cream Man in Snowy Times in mind.

It all started when Ice Cream Sal threw a creamsicle at Tammy Torres. He leaned his fat head out the service window of the black Icy Bell Soft Serve truck and screamed, “It’s a creamsicle, not a popsicle!” The fifteen of us gasped, a couple dropped a “Holy shit.” We backed away as one organism. Adam Lawrence rolled up to the window and said, “Back off, fucker. Or I’ll tell my dad.” Ice Cream Sal slammed the service window shut and rolled away slowly, Jingle Bells fading.

We were all between ten and twelve years old and lived in the same gated community. Played on the same plastic swings. Hated the same teachers. We were all in the same shitty play every single Christmas, too.Made crowds of snow angels in the outfield of the baseball field. We also had just the one ice cream man: greasy, bald, big headed Ice Cream Sal with a pinky missing on each hand.

On the day Adam Lawrence went missing, Wanda Mullen saw him last, his wheelchair pulled up snug to the Icy Bell, keeping warm with the heat from the bottom of the truck. She got into her mom’s car and went to the supermarket, and thought nothing of it. She told us later when Adam Lawrence’s mom was crying in her front yard, “Who would kidnap a fucking handicapped child?!” Adam Lawrence was strange and strong and he liked ice cream even when it was freezing cold, even though the Icy Bell sold hot dogs, cinnamon rolls, and other non brain freeze inducing items. Kid was hella smart, and maybe too fearless for his own good.

While our parents were out driving around, searching the streets, we all met in front of Kyle Samson’s house. We never did find out what Kyle Samson had on his brother, The Gooch, but it was enough to get him to drive us in his rusty old van to Ice Cream Sal’s house. It was also enough for The Gooch to go over Ice Cream Sal’s rear wooden fence. The Gooch peeked into the Icy Bell’s service window and in that December moonlight, he saw the shine of a folded up wheelchair against the freezer. He stood in the center of us, looking down at what must have seemed like a pack of midget eskimos in many colored hats, coats, and gloves. Miniature ice fishers.

The Gooch placed an anonymous call to the police from a payphone nearby. Cellphones weren’t so common back then. We all packed into his van and he took us home. They never found Adam Lawrence, but when the red and blues arrived, they found Ice Cream Sal, stabbed 36 times like the Caesar of Ice Cream, with creamsicles in his mouth.