The Ice-Cream Man

Sometime in September while I was sitting at my desk, a tinkling far-off tune floated through the window. My ears perked, in fact my whole body responded, and within moments, I was standing in the street craning my neck to discover the source of the haunting music. It got closer, but I still couldn’t see anything. I ran around the block to look, and ran back. I was joined by four immediate neighbors. We stood together, our hands on our pockets. I felt an insanely happy grin of expectation on my face as we waited for the tinkling sound to drift closer, closer.

It was a sound that emanated from only one source, a white truck, wait for it, with a sliding window on the side and pictures of different ice-creams swirled into points on cones. Wait for it, wait for it. Where was the truck? What if it didn’t come to our block?

I ran around the block again, clutching the money in my pocket, and ran back. Not yet, I reported. We stood there a good fifteen minutes with the song repeating on a loop until finally the truck appeared around the corner, its merry tune full-strength. What if it doesn’t stop? I worried. The expectation was maddening, it was anxiety-producing, it was pure joy. One of the first memories from childhood. I noticed there were no children waiting. The ice-cream truck had not been around in a good ten years, and then only sporadically. I would buy my kids ice-creams from the truck, two if they wanted, whatever they wanted. It was the ice-cream truck! Finally Mr. Softee eased to a stop one house away and we lined up. I fingered the coins in my pocket. I’d raided the quarters jar on my way out. I’d run, not walked. I’d dropped whatever project I was working on. I hadn’t given a thought to whether I actually wanted an ice-cream or was hungry. You don’t eat ice-cream because you’re hungry. You don’t eat ice-cream because it’s a current thought. When Mr. Softee comes around, you run, because you don’t know when he will be back again. I had waited ten years.

A chocolate-vanilla twist cone. What I’d always gotten. One of my first memories was of the ice-cream truck pulling up in front of our house on Doll Parkway in Syracuse, New York, me and my older sister standing in front of it, the ice-cream man window so high above me. My sister gave me my money, and with the money in one hand I accepted the ice-cream in the other. And then I froze. I clutched the coins in my hand and wouldn’t give the ice-cream man my money. I already had the ice-cream, why not keep both? My sister had to run up the steps to get more money from our mother because I wouldn’t let go of either.

I gladly paid Mr. Softee for my cone in September. The prices had gone up. Four dollars, plus I gave him the rest of the five spot as tip, in hopes he would return.

The following week he did return. The siren song of that truck called me out to the street again and again, every week it seemed. It didn’t matter if I’d already raided the chocolate drawer that day. If that was the case, I’d repent and get a plain vanilla cone instead of a twist. I started to appreciate vanilla. My mother and her sister only liked vanilla, detested chocolate. I’d never understood it. But I kind of got it now. Vanilla was very good. But twist was great, too. There were options.

I have to admit, I was a little deflated when a few weeks later one of my neighbors pointed out the truck had been coming every Tuesday between 3:30 and 4:30. Now I expected it at that time rather than being surprised and struck with wonder. Mr. Softee said he’d keep coming every week.

I try to forget about Tuesdays and 3:30 and just be surprised. It’s not exactly the same, but still, when I hear that happy jingle in the distance, I drop everything, grab my money, and run out to the street. Sometimes my neighbors and I wait together twenty minutes or more for the truck to circle around. Kids come some days, but the four adults are constants, former children from the old country of childhood, that song embedded in our earliest memories and pulling us out to the sidewalk to enjoy the scrape of cold cream on our tongues as we lick around the cone over and over. There’s nothing like soft-serve from a truck. Really, nothing.

Now that we’re deep into fall, I wonder how much longer Mr. Softee will keep coming around. I remember soft-serve as a summertime treat. But I‘ll never turn it down, no matter what the season.

Meet me at the truck, I’ll even buy you a cone: twist, cherry dip, sprinkles, any kind you like.