Drowning Tucson (36 page)

When he finished his lunch and drove back to work, he knew he was going to be an ice cream man.

He returned to work full of joy and managed to sell two cars after lunch, and when his boss came and congratulated him on the impressive number of sales Octavio had been making lately, he nodded and accepted the compliment, relishing the immense happiness of being such a success in every endeavor he chose and confident when he told his boss that he was going to need a few days off to work out some things with my family—you know that personal stuff that comes when you have a wife with PMS at home and a daughter all synced up with her, my home’s a madhouse and maybe it’d help my family and me out
if we could go on vacation for a few days, like down to Nogales or maybe up to Phoenix to catch a game, plus that’d free up some sales for my fellow salesmen, who seem to be suffering a drought anyway. Wink, wink. A pat on the back and Octavio loosened his tie and walked quickly to his car, started it up, and drove home.

Now where the hell, he wondered as he sat in rush hour traffic, does a man find a van with a window cut out like that? With the little counter for leaning on my elbows so I don’t tower so high above the little ones. There are probably hundreds of ice cream wholesalers. Finally, no more tirekickers coming in and wasting my time and getting my hopes up when I could be out selling ice cream in the gorgeous Arizona sun. The car days were over.

And that is what he told his wife over dinner that night. She rolled her eyes and asked him if he was serious, you really think you can make enough money nickel-and-diming kids all day to get us out of here? He put down his fork and removed his tie, rested both hands flat on the table, and calmly said have I ever left us wanting? Have we ever been hungry? Look around—he picked up his fork and waved it at the walls—you’ve been able to do all this. Think how much better it will be, how much easier, selling a product to people who chase after me instead of the other way around. I won’t have to kiss ass anymore. They’ll be kissing mine.

His wife shook her head and finished her meal in silence. When she stood to remove the dishes she mumbled at least your daughter can be proud of what her father has accomplished, you ass, and she walked into the kitchen and threw the dishes into the sink.

Octavio awoke the next morning before the alarm went off. He sang in the shower and hummed while he shaved. After he rinsed his face and applied lotion, he grinned into the mirror, trying to conjure up his best ice cream man face and said what’ll it be? What can I get you, sweetie? At your service. Please come again. Be careful crossing the street. Tell the other kids. All the useful slogans for making children feel special. To give them that extra touch. He’d be their favorite ice cream man. The best ice cream man ever. Probably even see a profit after the first month or two, and by year’s end he’d have to buy more trucks and hire a couple people and eventually he’d own a fleet. An ice cream empire.

A week and four days later, he pulled up in the driveway in a customized Ford Econoline van painted powder pink, with an automatic stop sign like the schoolbuses have and shiny new stickers encircling the windows on both sides. He parked in the driveway and blared a cheery, unmistakable ice cream song that drew stares from the neighbors.

Sitting on the floor of the living room folding laundry, Claudia knew Octavio wanted her to come running out and throw herself on him, to publicly show her pride and support, but she couldn’t do it. Not because of the embarrassing pink van, and not because she wanted the business to fail. She didn’t. She only worried her husband had made a hasty and foolish decision, and she wanted to make a point to him one last time before it was too late. So instead of rushing out the door, she lifted the clothes she’d been folding, tossed them into the laundry basket, and walked out the back door to the clothesline, where she slowly and deliberately pinned each dry piece back onto the line.

After stubbornly playing the same song three times and shooing away the children who had gathered, telling them I open for business in a couple days, you’ll know, Octavio finally shut the van off, locked down the side panels, and went inside. It didn’t matter what Claudia thought anyway, or if Lavinía and her friends called him a freak behind his back. He hadn’t felt happiness this great before. It could only get better.

And it did.

The first day he took the van out, he’d hardly backed out of the driveway before he had his first customer. Then another. Then six more. By the time he made it to the end of the block, he knew he’d made the right decision. The kids were happy. He could tell they loved him and felt so grown up when they handed him their money, warm and damp from their sweaty hands. His heart swelled when they looked up at him, and each time a little girl’s fingers brushed his hand when she handed him money and took the Popsicle, his entire body tingled.

Over time the ice cream song burrowed into his head. Much to the annoyance of his wife, he hummed it while he slept. He whistled it when he shaved each morning. He memorized each note, every nuance, the subtle inflections in the chiming melody. The way it echoed back at him from the houses and mingled with the children’s voices as he drove
down the street made him wonder how he’d ever liked any other song. This was his song.

He couldn’t remember ever feeling happier getting ready for work. It’d always been a chore to wake up exactly when he’d set his alarm—which is why he’d set his clock eighteen minutes ahead, two snoozes. But now he woke early and mentally plotted his route while his wife slept beside him. Okay, first down Country Club to Fort Lowell, then hop on Campbell and make a huge circle back toward home, snaking up and down the streets, lingering in the parks. He did this as he watched the sun come up and counted the minutes on the alarm clock, the minutes going slower and slower each day as he waited, his heartbeat galloping and his palms sweaty. He watched the clock. He watched the sky shift colors and grow brighter, and he waited. And when the alarm finally went off, he let it buzz for a couple moments—so Claudia would know he just woke up—and he opened his closet and took a deep breath of his five starched uniforms hanging in the middle. The uniforms were one of the best parts. All part of the business, he’d said to his wife when he came home with five suits as white as God’s beard and two bolo ties—one with a large onyx stone in the middle and one with smooth turquoise. It’s all about presentation, he told himself in the mirror as he dressed. Can’t have an unkempt ice cream man. That’d make the parents worry. Plus, the kids have to trust you. That keeps em coming back.

And sure enough, the kids came back. Time and again. No matter how often Octavio visited a neighborhood in his shiny new ice cream truck, the crowds of children grew larger and larger. Even the ones whose parents had no money to spare ran up to the truck with their friends because Octavio had planned in advance for those children who couldn’t afford his treats. He brought along penny Bazooka Joe gum so they’d remember him and his kindness, because one day they’d have some money and his van would be the first place they’d want to spend it. It’s all about business.

But really it was all about making each and every child who saw his van come running. He fed off their excitement. He knew they needed him as much as he needed them. The boys and the girls. Although he didn’t really care for the boys, he understood it would be half his clientele,
and at their age they were still innocent too. So he could forgive them. At this age neither boys nor girls were involved in the cycle of flirting and fucking. No, not these kids. They were the picture of innocence, Octavio decided. These were his children. The replacements for the one he’d so quickly lost. The one who’d grown up so fast and was at this very moment probably in a movie theater somewhere getting fingered beneath a denim jacket spread across her lap by a classmate who’d invited her to study after school. Getting the old stinky pinky, as he and his friends had called it.

But these children weren’t like that yet. They loved him and trusted him and even came into the van when he invited them—it’s so hot out there, just come in and pick out your treats, kids—and he left the door wide open so all the parents would know he wasn’t up to anything. He waved out the side window to the moms and said hi and gave the boys and girls a piece of gum for each parent, tell em it’s from the ice cream man. Oh, he loved calling himself that. It fit him. Lovable. Humorous. A perfect sense of hygiene. A model adult the children could look up to and aspire to be like one day.

He let them calculate their own change—no, Carly, if that’s thirty-five cents total and you gave me fifty then what would the change be, sweetie?—so they learned even while they played, which their parents had to appreciate. He played thumb war with the boys and handslap games with the girls. Bo-bo-skee-wot-en-tot-en, eh-eh-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. He learned the handslap games fast. He memorized all the words circulating in the different neighborhoods of central Tucson—Miss Suzy had a baby, his name was Tiny Tim, she put him in the bathtub, to see if he could swim—and he shared them with the kids in his own neighborhood. And vice versa. He complimented the girls on their sundresses and asked them where’d you get that nasty scrape on your knee, honey? that’s awful, make sure your mommy kisses it and makes it all better.

Some kids even knocked on Octavio’s door after he’d already parked the truck in his driveway and sat eating dinner with his wife. It drove Claudia mad, but Octavio was overjoyed the first time it happened. He jumped up from the table, his forgotten napkin sliding to the floor, and
asked the kids inside and took them to the back room where he stored his stock. Such a wonderful business that children even wanted to buy off you after-hours. He’d struck gold.

But Claudia grew irritated about her husband’s new obsession. She scolded him frequently, trying to get him to pack up this business of his. How secure could an ice cream business really be? she asked, and he told her to look, goddammit, Claudia, look the hell around. You see the kids beating down our door for ice cream? You know I only have to back the van out of the driveway and I’m loaded down with customers until I pull back in when the sun goes down. And even
then
they come knocking. Even then they can’t get enough, and you’re worried about business? You think this is stupid? Well, it’s not. And if you ever want to move someplace nicer—remember that part?—then I have to keep going. Besides, I like this job.

And that worried her too. But she didn’t say anything about how he spent time with all the other children in the city except his own. She didn’t tell him how she worried about Lavinía, who came home a little later each day from her friends’ houses, who ignored direct orders from her mother to be home before dark unless you call and check in. You’re still a child. Yes, I know, you’re a teenager and you know everything, but I still worry about you and you’re still living under our roof. As long as you’re living here you obey me, young lady, or I’ll tell your father and there’ll be hell to pay. But it was an idle threat. And she knew her daughter knew and that’s why she didn’t tell Octavio any of these things, because he’d just shrug them off and go outside after dinner to restock the van for the next day. That was all Octavio cared about anymore.

He never even took a day off.

Seven days a week he drove around the city. On the weekdays he did the parks during school hours, then made the rounds of residential streets until the sun went down or the stock ran out. Saturdays and Sundays he drove to the parks that had pools. He drove to special events. The PGA and LPGA tours when they came to Reid Park, the after-church crowd, the parking lot of the swap meet. Ice cream consumed him, and he’d never been happier.

Less than six months into his new career, on a clear and warm Saturday morning, Octavio drove his ice cream van into a neighborhood
he’d only been to a few times. It was a rundown neighborhood by the veteran’s hospital, two blocks off of South 6th Avenue. He slowed his van and turned on the music and a lone girl came running toward him, waving a dollar in one hand and a Care Bear in the other. He gasped and slammed on the breaks when the girl was close enough to make out her features. She looked exactly like Lavinía when she was seven years old, and when she reached the side window of the van and asked can I please have a chocolate chip ice cream sandwich, mister ice cream man, sir? his heart felt as if it would burst. Everything about her was identical. Her hair. Her fingers. The way she twitched her lips and chewed on the bottom one while talking to an adult. He told her she didn’t have to call him sir, Lavinía, you can call me Daddy.

Her face scrunched up in confusion, uncertain whether or not she’d heard him correctly, but when she finally loosened her features and asked again in her tiny voice please, ice cream man, can I have a chocolate chip sandwich? he fell in love with the sound. She brushed a hair out of her mouth. Tiny pinheads of sweat appeared on her hairline from running in the unforgiving sun to catch up with Octavio’s van. He reached out and wiped the sweat from her forehead and told her to come out of the heat and into the van, and she came, excited to see the inside of every child’s favorite vehicle. The air inside was cool as she stepped into the cab and climbed over the passenger seat. He led her to the cooler in the rear and when he opened the lid and pointed to the neat rows of frozen treats, her eyes grew wide, seeing so much ice cream in one place.

Pick out whatever you want. Her hand stretched toward the sandwiches, then drifted over to the Super Friends ice pops, then to the Flintstones push-ups, and finally came back to rest on the chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches. She plucked one from the pile and handed him her crumpled dollar bill, but he only shook his head and invited her to join him for the day. Come be my helper and you can have all the ice cream you want. She shook her head the same way Lavinía did when she was little, but her eyes drifted back to the cooler and all the ice cream inside and she was visibly torn—to go back outside into the blazing heat with one treat and no money, only to go home and help Mommy with
her chores and picking up the dog poopie, or to spend the day helping the ice cream man sell treats, which would be awesome because all her friends would be sooooooo jealous when she went to school on Monday and talked about riding in an ice cream truck while the rest of them were playing Barbies or helping their mothers babysit their younger brothers and sisters. Octavio reached out and wrapped his hand gently around the little girl’s wrist and said don’t worry, your mom will be so proud when she finds out you were a big girl and helped me out all day. I’ll let you run the music and take the money and hand out the ice cream. You can even sit on my lap and help drive if you want.