I haven’t exactly been having a holly jolly one this year. In fact, the last six months in particular have been a real motherfucker. Money’s been fantastic, but with the hours I’ve had to put in everything else has kind of gone to shit. Bought a giant house during the pandemic when the gig delivery service I co-founded exploded, but with the long hours and intense pressure and the drinking to release the pressure and all the questions about why I’m not home some nights and just what the hell I mean when I tell my wife I’m “schmoozing” and “it’s part of business” you could say the tension in the household has gotten ratcheted up. Went all out on decorations this year–dropped about 5 k total including for a giant wreath and lights so numerous and bright that the neighbor is threatening to sue; but I’m spending the holiday alone in the big house while my wife and our two kids are visiting her parents in Grosse Pointe.
We are expanding, which means we have a massive amount of work coming up so Christmas is just another day for me. Last night I was sitting in my home office trying to get ready to power-down for the night by washing down a xanax with a couple fingers of Johnnie Black. I had been texting with my best friend, who has just gotten into Succession. I think our last couple of texts were him saying “Omg Shiv is such a bitch” and me replying “lol but you’d do her.” Such wit, I know.
Thanks to the little yellow pill and the elixir of Scotch, I was sleeping like the dead when music woke me up. It sounded like the music an ice cream truck plays–you know, that really trilling, jangly version of Turkey in the Straw. Hearing that always takes me back to being a little boy without a care in the world, running like hell to get to the ice cream truck before too many other kids got there and I’d have to wait in line.
The front lawn is sprawling, so noises from the street don’t normally travel to my bedroom. But since I like the room cold, and since the wife isn’t here to bellyache about it, I have been sleeping with the window cracked. I remember muttering about how inconsiderate people were and I thought about calling the cops but then imagined how that call would go “Hi uh yeah I live on Elysium Road and I’m calling because there’s an ice cream truck committing a noise code violation on my street…” and just got up to close the window as angrily as I could instead.
But when I got to my window and looked out, what I saw was a boxy truck stopped right in the middle of our street. The street is dark at night and so the truck was too much in shadows to read the lettering, but I also noticed something that could have been ice cream cone shaped decorating the top of the truck.
I don’t know why the hell I went down to check the truck out. I know I looked at my Ultra 2 and saw that it was 3:07 in the morning. I was down the stairs, at our coat rack putting on my heavy top coat and slipping on a pair of duck boots before I even thought Why the fuck am I going out to meet the ice cream truck at 3 in the morning?
Have you ever been groggy from waking up and used dream logic to make a decision? You know, the hazy, malleable way you just accept what’s in front of you like in a dream? Like, Oh sure I do own a pet zebra, or Yeah of course, there’s always been a giant beanstalk growing right in the middle of my living room. This time I thought something like Didn’t I read about some local start-up whose shtick is selling super-luxury ice cream in ritzy neighborhoods? Must be this.
Whatever. I was out the door before I thought about it anymore. It was brutally cold last night, with a savage wind blowing out of the north, and I remember I shivered hard despite the heavy coat. I must have been a sight wearing the orange Lululemon track pants I sleep in, a slate gray top coat, duck boots and a maroon and black watch cap.
It was definitely an ice cream truck.
My hands were freezing and I thought about going back in to get gloves, but I didn’t want to miss the truck. (I now believe I would have had plenty of time. I now believe the truck would have waited forever for me.)
I rubbed my hands together and strutted toward the truck. The closer I got the stranger this seemed, but I was so close that if I turned around I feared I’d look ridiculous. The fact that there are fates worse than looking ridiculous to a guy driving an ice cream truck in the dead of winter at 3 in the morning didn’t really occur to me. No one wants to look ridiculous, no one wants to come off like a pussy.
The driver was standing at the window on the side of the truck, wearing a crisp white uniform with a little white hat. He was grinning broadly. He was very handsome, although I cannot for the life of me remember what he looked like right then. Just Handsome. Just Friendly.
“Howdy,” he said. His voice was clear as a cold lake and his grin was broad, right on the verge of being unnerving. Turkey in the Straw was still playing, louder now I thought, but I could understand every word he said even though he was speaking quietly.
“Hi?” It was all very like an ice cream truck. The driver was leaning on the counter under the window. There was a list of flavors and prices behind him. Pomegranate, Blood Orange, French Vanilla, Rocky Road, Chocolate, Mint Julep….
“You look confused, chief. Never seen an ice cream truck before?” He winked.
The cloying sweetness of heavy vanilla odor hung in the air but something was just beneath it–it smelled like old eggs, like a dog farting. The music was very loud now, but no one else had come out of their house to see what the hell was going on. At least a few of my neighbors were home for the holidays, and this wasn’t really a block where people welcome noise and disruption, or where they were shy about telling obstreperous, disruptive elements to fuck right off.
Maybe someone had already called the cops.
“Just um. Not at 3 in the morning.” I felt myself choosing my words carefully, but wasn’t sure why I was concerned with how I was coming across to a fucking ice cream truck driver.
“Is there a better time, partner?” He winked again.
I heard a rattling sound coming from behind him, like a rattle snake or like someone shaking dice before they rolled for their life. I’m not a dramatic guy but I had the exact thought “Sounds like somebody about to roll them bones.”
I looked at the flavors again and they had changed. I was sure they had changed, but just as sure they couldn’t have changed. He didn’t have an electronic screen behind him, just a white board with flavors written on it in marker and he couldn’t have erased some or written in some new ones without me seeing. But now I saw: Mandrake, Fruit of Paradise, Blood Orange, Pomegranate, Death by Chocolate and some I can’t recall.
“Christ, pomegranate ice cream sounds delicious.” My mouth was actually watering.
“Yup. That’s the biggest seller.”
“Oh fuck! I didn’t get my wallet before I came out here.”
“No worries chief.” He looked more handsome now. Angelic. Radiant.
Radiant as in I had to shield my eyes a little. At the time I attributed it to some kind of spotlight from inside the truck.
“Will you wait while I go get it?”
“Bro. It’s like you thought, this is a start-up. We are giving away free samples. Yoh hop in the truck, we drive around, you maybe do some socials of yourself enjoying your ice cream and then I drop you off.
This sounded like a bizarre business model. And the smell of rotten eggs was getting more pronounced. But when I heard the sound of a hatch opening in the back of the truck and he said “Maybe you know some of the other guys I picked up tonight?” I automatically walked around to look.
There were five guys in the back of the truck, all enjoying various shades and sizes of ice cream cones. Two guys I did recognize–Craig Hodges and Paul Owen. Craig was a tax lawyer who did some work with us last year, and Paul ran a very successful software company.
I nodded at Paul, who was eating a pale green cone.
“Pistachio,” he said, holding it up. “Best fucking thing I’ve ever eaten.”
Everyone in the back murmured their agreement.
The ice cream man was standing now, leaning over the back seat and holding out a royal purple cone. “Pomegranate, buddy. Just like you want.”
How had he known I had been thinking about a startup right before I came out? Why was I smelling brimstone?
Somebody’s rollin them bones again and I looked and saw, quite distinctly, a tail like a rattlesnake curling up in the air behind him. He saw me see it and the tail snapped back behind him and out of sight.
I was pretty mesmerized (charmed, literally) and I realized I was reaching for the cone at the very same instant I was making the conscious decision to run like hell. I tried to warn the guys in the back.
“Hey something is fucked here you guys need to get out!”
“Dude,” Paul said, “What’s wrong? This is the best fucking thing I’ve ever eaten.”
“Best fucking thing,” said a chorus of voices.
The ice cream man has horns. RUN.
I turned around and ran like hell and didn’t look back. I ran hell for leather up my driveway to the front door and the whole time I felt a hot, wet breath on my back and heard a rattling noise.
An hour later I convinced myself I’d had some kind of hallucinatory episode triggered by stress and valium. By the time I woke up this morning I had managed to downgrade it as far as a very vivid, bad dream.
But then a couple of hours ago I saw an article on my news feed about Fallowtown with the headline Five Dead in Fallowtown. It opened, “Five successful Fallowtown residents discovered dead in a field this morning, apparently mass suicide victims.” The article went on to say police suspected “cult activity” of some kind and urging anyone with any information to contact them immediately.
I don’t think I will be contacting anyone, and I don’t think I will be sleeping with my window open tonight. In fact I may check into a hotel until the wife and kids get home.