The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories Read online

  Praise for The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories

  “There’s really nothing like Sam Pink. He’s one of my all-time favorite writers, and The Ice Cream Man and Other Stories is truly excellent. These stories are abruptly funny; strange in an oddly familiar way; sometimes super sad; always, always generous; and an absolute pleasure to read.”

  —HALLE BUTLER, author of The New Me

  “These stories make me feel like I’m eavesdropping, spying. They are the glass against the door and the ear hovering over it, the keyhole and the eye peering through. Sam Pink writes grit and beauty just as they are—no cheap tricks, no overblown metaphors. He gives us true laughter in the face of despair. Give this book to anyone who thinks they hate reading. Give this book to your best friend and your enemies. The Ice Cream Man is for all of us, is all of us.”

  —KRISTEN ISKANDRIAN, author of Motherest

  Praise for Sam Pink

  “Pink’s best writing . . . wins him fierce and cultish admiration. Part of this, I think, he owes to his chosen subject. For all the attention political theorists and commentators have lately devoted to a definition of the working class, not much fiction chronicles the sheer weirdness of working-class life and labor today.”

  —The New Republic

  “No matter what he’s writing, Pink’s eye for describing the bizarre daily parade of being a person surrounded by other people and with a brain that won’t turn off is by turns hilarious, self-destructive, surreal, precise, and moving without trying to be moving.”

  —VICE

  “Pink is a keen observer of the culture of minimum-wage jobs and low-rent studio apartments that is the reality of life for all those who don’t find a cog space in today’s hyper-capitalist economy.”

  —The Guardian

  “There are no easy descriptions when it comes to talking about Pink’s work. Unique comes to mind, but it fails to convey the ease with which he tackles deep themes like depression and self-loathing. Humorous also applies, but it doesn’t do justice to the way the author manages to bring readers into his life effortlessly and then shares with them devastating truths, both personal and universal. Likewise, words like entertaining, honest, wild, and self-aware all do the trick, but fall short because, even if used together, they leave out some crucial element of Pink’s prose. The solution to this conundrum is easy: pull out a tired phrase and, as convincingly as possible, say to readers everywhere, ‘This is special, and the only way to truly get a sense for what’s going on in this book is to read it’ . . . More than author, Pink is a one-person movement with a distinctive style.”

  —Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  “His stories are unique and true and impossible to put down—what more could anyone want?”

  —Los Angeles Review of Books

  “I love the pulse of Sam Pink’s sentences, the way they can hold the gorgeous and the grisly and the hilarious all at the same time.”

  —LAURA VAN DEN BERG, author of The Third Hotel and Find Me

  “Sam Pink’s writing is exquisitely succulent—it stimulates my intellect, makes me laugh and smile and feel complex emotions, and delights me with its tenderness, novelty, intensity, concision, and surprises.”

  —TAO LIN, author of Trip and Taipei

  “Funniest writer currently working. Funny not in a fuck you for being funny way but in a just being real way.”

  —BLAKE BUTLER, author of 300,000,000

  “Sam Pink is the most important writer in America. This isn’t hyperbole. In a world of literary Bing Crosbys, Sam Pink is our Little Richard.”

  —SCOTT McCLANAHAN, author of The Sarah Book and Hill William

  “Sam’s writing . . . alternates swiftly from humor and playfulness to isolation and sadness. You might read a piece through the first time laughing your ass off, but if you stay on the page long enough, let the words really sink in, you soon realize, hey, this isn’t funny at all, actually, this is really fucked-up and sick and heartbreaking as hell.”

  —ELIZABETH ELLEN, author of Person/a and Saul Stories

  “Reading Sam Pink will make you recognize the reptile smuggler that has always been hiding out inside your brain. And over the years, the reptile smuggler has replaced your cerebral cortex with a lot of bad magic.”

  —CAMERON PIERCE, author of The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island

  ALSO BY SAM PINK

  Yum Yum I Can’t Wait to Die

  I Am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat It

  Frowns Need Friends Too

  The Self-Esteem Holocaust Comes Home

  Person

  The No Hellos Diet

  Hurt Others

  No One Can Do Anything Worse to You Than You Can

  Rontel

  Witch Piss

  Your Glass Head Against the Brick Parade of Now Whats

  The Garbage Times/White Ibis

  A Book of Ornaments

  99 Poems to Cure Whatever’s Wrong With You or Create the Problems You Need

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2020 by Sam Pink

  All rights reserved

  First Soft Skull edition: 2020

  The following stories have been published previously: “The Ice Cream Man” (Epiphany); “Blue Victoria” (Fiction International); “The Stag” (Lifted Brow); “Yop,” “The Dishwasher,” and “Jumping Rope” (Muumuu House); “Keeps You Sharp” (New York Tyrant Magazine).

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Pink, Sam, author. | Pink, Sam. Ice cream man.

  Title: The ice cream man and other stories / Sam Pink.

  Description: First Soft Skull edition. | New York : Soft Skull Press, 2020.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019036850 | ISBN 9781593765934 (paperback) | ISBN 9781593765941 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Working class—Fiction. | Blue collar workers—Fiction. | People with social disabilities—Fiction. | Working poor—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3616.I5687 A6 2020 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019036850

  Cover design & Soft Skull art direction by salu.io

  Book design by Wah-Ming Chang

  Published by Soft Skull Press

  1140 Broadway, Suite 704

  New York, NY 10001

  www.softskull.com

  Soft Skull titles are distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West

  Phone: 866-400-5351

  Printed in the United States of America

  13579108642

  To Nick, Adam, Jereme, and Tom,

  as well as any other stranded crash-lander

  Stories 2014–2019

  Do your ears hang low?

  Do they wobble to and fro?

  Can you tie ’em in a knot?

  Can you tie ’em in a bow?

  Can you throw ’em over your shoulder, like a continental soldier?

  Do your ears . . . hang . . . low?

  Contents

  CHICAGO

  Different-Colored Candy

  The Dishwasher

  Yop

  Blue Victoria

  Jumping Rope

  The Sandwich Maker

  FLORIDA

  Keeps You Sharp

  The Ice Cream Man

  The Machine Operator

  MICHIGAN

  Geese

  Dragon

  The Stag

  EPILOGUE

  Robby

  Acknowledgments

  CHICAGO

  Different-Colored Candy

 
Two cars raced by while I waited at the Milwaukee Avenue bus stop tonight.

  One tried to pass the other but couldn’t, compensating back and forth too much before swerving into some cars stopped at an intersection.

  There was screeching, then a loud smashing sound.

  When everything had settled, four or five people got out of one of the racing cars and ran.

  I went up to the accident with another guy.

  We went up to a car that’d been struck and helped remove two people: a man and a pregnant woman.

  The pregnant woman walked a few feet, then fainted hard onto the pavement.

  Another bystander came into the street and knelt by the pregnant woman, helping revive and calm her, speaking Spanish.

  I stood a few feet away, directing traffic.

  Urging some cars forward with one hand, halting some with my other hand.

  Everyone did as I directed.

  To them I was director and ruler.

  Making eye contact and nodding in cases of trepidation.

  Yes, you may go.

  A car to my left tried to pass but I put my hand up and shook my head.

  No.

  No, you may not.

  When the same car timidly tried to pass again, I did a shrug and made a face like, ‘Is this how it’s going to be?’

  Eventually the ambulance and tow truck arrived.

  EMTs loaded the pregnant woman onto a stretcher and put her in the ambulance.

  I stood in the street for a second.

  Not participating anymore, but still there.

  And the traffic moved on its own again.

  Glass on the street reflected colors from headlights and stoplights.

  The road dark blue beneath.

  If I had an ‘off’ switch, it’d be then that I’d use it.

  No, I’d probably have already used it a thousand times.

  On the sidewalk, I talked to the person who’d held the pregnant woman’s hand in the street.

  Basically exchanging the word ‘shit’ in different ways.

  Like we wanted to talk more, to be around each other for a little bit.

  But then I said, ‘Okay have a nice night,’ and decided to just walk home.

  As I passed a currency exchange, I saw a paralyzed vet who was always out.

  He was in his wheelchair, face covered with dirt and head bent to the side against a headrest thing.

  Cubs sweatshirt.

  Last time I saw him, he was parked there with a huge pastry of some kind taped to his hand—regular office tape wrapped around his hand and wrist a bunch of times.

  ‘Hi, um, can I have some money to get something to eat?’ he said tonight.

  His voice was high-pitched, muffled, as though coming out of his sinuses.

  ‘Yeah, what do you want?’ I said.

  He said, ‘Well um, from where.’

  ‘Somewhere around here.’

  He motioned with his finger at a place across the street. ‘Um, can I have a burrito please.’

  ‘What kind.’

  ‘Um, steak I guess, please.’

  ‘Okay.’

  As I waited to cross the street, he said, ‘Without the, uh, any hot stuff, please.’

  ‘No hot stuff.’

  ‘No please.’

  At the restaurant I ordered, then stood by the register, staring at this bowl full of different-colored candy.

  Well, here it is, I thought.

  Here is the bowl of different-colored candy.

  Yes.

  May you all remain who you are through your differences, never becoming your differences.

  Yes.

  The girl who took my order said, ‘You can sit down if you want.’

  I sat at a table and stared at the TV without paying attention, to avoid having to make decisions about where to look.

  A couple at the table by me laughed at something on the TV.

  I turned to look at them, purely reacting to the sound.

  Nooooooooooooooooo . . .

  Take cover, soldier!

  But it was too late.

  We’d all made eye contact and it seemed I’d entered into some kind of agreement where we had to interact.

  Having looked at one another, we now had to navigate the TV show together—our personal beliefs, our ideas, our selves.

  I’m going down, I thought.

  I tried to establish a good floor stare.

  But it was hard.

  My face felt hot, neck tense.

  Hold your ground, soldier!

  Be brave!

  I was about to surrender, get up, and run out the door.

  But then my food was ready.

  Nice.

  Nice determination, soldier!

  Hey, thanks!

  I brought the food across the street.

  The vet in the wheelchair took it with shaky hands.

  I squatted with him, my back against a brick wall.

  ‘You want napkins?’ I said.

  ‘Um, yes, please. That would be great.’

  I gave him napkins.

  We ate together on the sidewalk.

  Neither of us talked.

  I could see him out of the corner of my eye as I stared at the street.

  I kept wiping my hand on the inside of the brown paper bag because I didn’t have a napkin.

  It worked, but it didn’t work.

  Eventually, I said, ‘It’s nice out.’

  ‘Oh, just beautiful,’ he said.

  Yes, beautiful.

  Too beautiful for my stupid ass.

  After a long silence, he said, ‘Hey, there wouldn’t by any chance be a fork or spoon in that bag, huh?’

  I gave him a fork.

  He ate the scraps that’d fallen out of his burrito, scraping the Styrofoam with the fork, arm shaking.

  I finished my tacos, wiping my hands on the brown paper bag, then wiping my mouth and face off with my sweaty arm.

  ‘All right, I’m going, man,’ I said.

  ‘Okay bye. Thank you. God bless you.’

  I took his garbage and my garbage and put it in the bag.

  I threw out the garbage in a dumpster around the corner.

  I pissed next to the dumpster.

  The bubbles forming in the dirt looked like the many eyes of something waiting to take me under.

  But not tonight.

  No, not yet.

  The Dishwasher

  The dishwasher fucking hates you.

  Whoever and wherever you are, the dishwasher fucking hates you.

  It’s afternoon at a bar/restaurant in Lincoln Park, and he’s standing in front of an industrial-sized sink full of dirty dishes.

  There are pieces of every kind of food all over, with a thick underlayer of condiment scum—a colorless foam smelling like the same fucking thing always.

  Always, every fucking night.

  The dishwasher is frowning, staring at the dishes, holding a sprayer attached to the sink.

  It’s his job to spray off the dishes before putting them through a machine dishwasher.

  When there aren’t dishes for a little while, it’s his job to stare off, frowning, thinking about how much he hates you.

  You and everyone else.

  Even theoretical yous.

  Anyone, everyone.

  You could be performing surgery on his beloved pet and he’d knock on the operating room door and mouth, ‘I hate you.’

  You could be performing the same surgery on him and he’d wake up from the anesthetic, take off the mask, and say, ‘I hate you.’

  Because these are your dishes.

  Your mess.

  A busboy drops off a huge bin of dishes and napkins and silverware and ramekins.

  A ramekin is an oversized thimble-looking thing that people use to eat condiments and feel less like idiots.

  The dishwasher hadn’t even known what a ramekin was for a while.

  Someone would refer to one and he’d be like, ‘Yeah, defini
tely,’ and just stare at the dishes thinking, Which one of you is it . . . while narrowing his eyes.

  Someone would ask for more ramekins and he’d bring them a stack of most possible kinds of dishes/things.

  Someone would say, ‘We always run out of ramekins,’ and the dishwasher would shake his head and say, ‘Fuck, I know.’

  Then he learned what they were and now he hates ramekins for sure.

  He knew he probably did before, but now, for sure.

  Just like he hates everything else.

  Just like he hates you.

  Only maybe not as much.

  Because ramekins are made one way and can’t change.

  Wait, he thinks, then laughs, spraying honey mustard out of a ramekin.

  The honey mustard splashes out on a wave of hot water and mixes with all the other bullshit on the sink—disappearing but somehow never really disappearing—becoming part of the mess.

  The mess, thinks the dishwasher. We all become part of the mess.

  ‘Fuck, I’m gonna kill someone, Homer,’ he says to the cook.

  The cook is on the other side of the room, behind a cooking station and heat lamp.

  ‘Yo, kill they asses, Big Sexy.’ The cook snaps his tongs. There is sweat covering his balding head. ‘Kill all them muffuckers, Big Sexy.’

  ‘Oh-mare!’ yells the dishwasher.

  ‘Que paso, guey?’

  ‘Shut the fuck up.’

  The cook laughs.

  The dishwasher and the cook had first met when the dishwasher was downstairs wrapping cellophane around a block of provolone and the cook yelled, ‘Whatchoo doin bwah!’ coming down the stairs, and the dishwasher smiled and said, ‘I’m wrappin up that loney, motherfucker,’ and the cook laughed, turned around, and walked right back up the stairs, saying, ‘I heard it all now.’

  The dishwasher sprays out another ramekin.

  Then another.

  Each and every fucking ramekin.

  Still filled at least halfway with whatever bullshit the assholes needed.

  Needy assholes.

  The ever-needing assholes.

  Ever-needing assholes of the mess, thinks the dishwasher—and it seems to him that someone is screaming it in his ear.

  Holding the sprayer over the ramekin and spraying the scalding stream.