Ice cream man

Here’s another quick little bit of flash fiction in support of my friend, Jolene’s writing prompts. This one has the following four elements that should be included:

1. driver of an ice cream truck
2. competitive eater
3. wrong side of the tracks
4. stairs

Enjoy.

Dennis Marley sat on the stairs with their steep climb to the top of the hill, his destination within sight up where that hill crested. It was only a little more than a city’s block worth of climbing and he would finally arrive.

There was only one problem. The truck.

The damned truck.

His ice cream truck had been sputtering and spitting, protesting the long, wending climb up to the top of the Nancy Hill neighborhood, leaving behind large billowing clouds of black smoke from the exhaust pipe as it struggled against gravity. Cars passed his truck in a designated no-passing zone, some with drivers who honked while shaking their fists at him. A few people laughed so hard as they passed his 5 mph speed, they had tears in their eyes.

A jogger easily passed the truck near the end, giving him a double thumbs up.

Just as the road started to level off before the next incline leading to the crest of Nancy Hill, his truck coughed. Wheezed. Died.

He only barely managed to get it to roll forward far enough so the truck would not start rolling backwards. He was able to get the sputtering vehicle in its last gasps to settle onto the shoulder of the street. There were jeers and cheers aplenty as the cars sped on by.

Up there. Goodness, he wished he had made it up to the top of the hill. Instead, he was stuck in that neverwhere between the top and his normal route at the bottom, down in the poor neighborhoods of Underhill. “The wrong side of the tracks”, they said about downslope, though there were no tracks to speak of to be one the wrong side of. Just hilltop and… down… there.

Dennis had dreamed big this time. And maybe that was his downfall.

When he had connived his way into being the sole supplier of ice cream contestest at the Hilltop festival, he had imagined that all of the proceeds could go to getting a bigger, better condition ice cream truck to move up in the world. Maybe bring the jingles that would ring all over the Hill.

He’d spent all of his savings for this day, thinking there would be plenty of ice cream being consumed and loaded the truck with as much as he could fit inside.

For the old truck, it might have been just that much too much. And now his investment sat melting in the August sun just a few hundred yards of stairs downhill from where he had meant to bring it.

Damn it, he thought, and stood up. He went to the back of the van and started scooping out ice cream and handed it to one of those little old ladies walking her dog on Midhill. Then a kid with a skateboard who was digging for some cash in his pocket. Dennis waved off the money. The ice cream was melting too fast to worry about money.

He might go down, but Dennis Marley refused to let all that ice cream go to waste.

Scoop after scoop, with more people arriving. Some of the ice cream was more soup than ice cream, but folks did not seem to mind.

And elderly gentleman wandered down the stairs from the top of Nancy Hill and stood aside the bottom of the stairs, leaning against his cane, watching as people lined up for several blocks as word got out about the handouts.

By the end of the afternoon, there was not much left that could be called ice cream and Dennis sat on the rear step of the truck, sticky and covered up to his elbows in melted ice cream. At least not very much of the inventory had gone to waste, he told himself. But his finances would be in shambles when the bill came due for the extra inventory and the repairs on the truck.

Forget about living Underhill the rest of his life. Forget being on “the wrong side of the tracks”. His future looked like skid row.

The old man watching from the stairs approached.

“I figured it might be you when I heard about the free ice cream being handed out from a broke-down ice cream truck.”

Dennis sighed. “Word seemed to get out about it.”

“You know who I am?”

Dennis shook his head.

“I’m the one who set up the ice cream eating competition.”

Dennis groaned. “I’m sorry, sir! I didn’t mean to have this happ—”

“Shush now. Let me talk.”

Dennis shushed.

“The whole point of setting up that competition was to get people together and enjoy themselves. It’s why it was open to anyone wanting to try their hand at eating all they could eat.”

“Boy, you created just as much joy doing the only thing that seemed sensible with the hand the fates dealt you. Instead of useless hoarding of your inventory, you gave it away so it wouldn’t go to waste. And people came.”

The man reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a cheque and handed it to Dennis. Dennis’s eyes boggled at the sum — it was more than what he had agreed to when the opportunity had come his way. Much more.

“I think you’ve earned that. You did more than my little shindig at the top of the Hill would have done. You brought people from the hilltop and Underhill to meet somewhere in the middle and enjoy themselves. Wish I’d thought of it myself.”

He turned and started walking back up the stairs to the top of the slope. Dennis wished he could have offered the man a ride, but he didn’t seem like one to accept a ride if one were offered anyway.