Finding Nadia (Part 2)

I got in.  Now, if you’re wondering why that sounds familiar, it’s because this wasn’t the first time I’d gotten into the large vehicle of a virtual stranger.  Remember Seamus, the psychopath EMT?  Yes, I wish I didn’t either.  The catalyst for that debacle was the implied promise of a ride home, one I desperately needed at the time.  And this time, I don’t think anyone can blame me for hopping in the ice cream truck with Omar and Meelod.  A thousand bucks was a thousand bucks.  But what the kiosk cousins didn’t tell me was that I’d be earning that rack in a way other than simply searching for the missing Nadia—namely, slinging ice cream treats. 

I should’ve expected as much.  Omar and Meelod were not the kind of men who’d let a business opportunity like this pass them by, looking for a missing loved one or not.  What I couldn’t have expected, though, was the class of ice cream treats we’d be selling: refrozen. 

“It was Meelod’s idea,” Omar explained from the passenger seat, turning his head to me so that I could hear him over the roar of the freezers in the back.  According to Omar, Meelod had gone to the grocery store and, a bit uncharacteristically, had grabbed a box of Bomb Pops.  He accidentally left them in the car, and, when he retrieved the box from the trunk a few hours later, the cardboard was soggy, but the individually wrapped popsicles were otherwise intact, save for the fact that they’d melted, of course; so, Meelod stuck them in the freezer.  The next day, he pulled one out.  Sure, its shape and design as a six-finned bomb had morphed and refrozen into an oblong blob, the popsicle stick askew, and the patriotic red, white and blue colors—fun fact, the corresponding flavors of which are cherry, lime, and blue raspberry—had coalesced into a light purple, but it was delicious; better, Meelod thought, than the original.  And thus the idea for the refrozen ice cream truck was born. 

I looked at Meelod.  He was grinning proudly as he flicked a switch above his head and turned on the truck’s jingle, a synthesized music box rendition of “Pop Goes the Weasel,” slightly out of tune, simultaneously nostalgic and creepy.  Omar told me to take the rear window and to shout up front if I saw anyone running after us.  How, I asked him, was this going to help us find Nadia? 

“Because Mr. McDonegal,” Meelod said, “my cousin’s dear sister loves ice cream.”

Refrozen ice cream, I wondered?

Anyway, we rolled on.  If you’ve ever been at home when an ice cream truck drives through and you think to yourself, wow gee, that thing’s pretty annoying; well, at least it’s temporary.  The truck eventually moves onto a new and different neighborhood, taking with it its unsettling and jarring jingles.  But being inside the fucking thing? Totally different story.  You think you’d get used to the melodies, the psychologically torturing repetitiveness of them, but you don’t.  “Pop Goes the Weasel” plays a half dozen times and then mercifully switches to “The Entertainer,” which, at first, is a welcome change, but then you realize there’s something off-putting about it, like you’re in a fever dream, lost inside a haunted amusement park and all of the carnies are wielding hatches and axes and mallets and maces and chasing you, but then that tune turns into “Turkey in the Straw,” another refreshing shift until you recall hearing somewhere about its rather problematic history, certain adaptations of it having been popularized at 19^th century minstrel shows.  I finally couldn’t take it anymore and asked if we could drive for, I don’t know, a few minutes without the jingles?

“Then how do you expect to attract the kiddies?” Meelod asked back.

Omar added: “And my sister.”

“Yes, yes.  Of course.  And my cousin’s dear, precious Nadia.  How do you supposed we’d attract the kiddies and Nadia?”

First, I said, you probably shouldn’t go around saying that, the whole thing about kiddies.  Best to avoid that particular phrasing entirely, Meelod.  Second, I voiced my concern that the whole operation was giving off strong Pied Piper vibes.  Like, did we expect the kidd—the children—did we expect the children and Nadia to come flocking out of their respective homes and hideout to the jingles of our ice cream truck?  And third—well, my third point was interrupted because it was at that point that I spotted a lone child barreling around the corner we’d just passed, his legs pumping like pistons, his arms cranking like drive rods, propelling himself forward and—Jesus Christ!— closer to us, like an out-of-control locomotive.  Somehow, he was gaining on us.  I muttered something in disbelief, loud enough that Omar heard me, because he turned and looked out the rear window and noticed Usain Bolt Jr. who must’ve had an insatiable hankering for ice cream, and Omar started yelling at Meelod to Stop! Stop! We have a customer! and then Meelod slammed on the brakes, launching me into the back of the passenger seat. 

“You were supposed to be on the lookout,” Omar growled as he flicked the switch to turn off the jingle and stepped over my crumpled form.  He slid open the side counter window and greeted the kid, who was doubled over, hands on his knees, panting heavily.  “Hello, my dear boy!  What is it that you would like?”

Still catching his breath, the kid withdrew a crumpled wad of bills from his pocket and managed to ask for a Push-Up, one of the orange ones.  Omar tsked and apologized and sadly informed him that we didn’t carry Push-Ups.  This confused the kid, understandably, considering there was a sticker of an orange Push-Up right there on the side of the truck.

“You see,” Omar explained, “we sell refrozen ice cream treats.  The nature of a Push-Up’s packaging does not lend itself to being melted and subsequently refrozen.”

This was even more confusing to the kid.  I’d moved over to the window next to Omar, and I felt an odd mixture of shame and uneasiness as the kid stared up at us, like we were shattering his dreams, or if that’s too dramatic, like we were corrupting his adolescent view of the world and how it worked.  You see an ice cream truck, you get an ice cream, simple as that.  Well, sorry kid, not here, not at this truck.  The kid then asked for a raspberry snow cone, which produced an audible sigh from Omar, as he explained that we didn’t carry those either.

“What I think you need,” Omar said after more silent staring from the kid, “is a Bomb Pop.  How about it?  Would you like a Bomb Pop?”  The kid slowly nodded his head, and then Omar, not realizing that I was right beside him, turned and shouted, “ONE BOMB P—oh, umm, one Bomb Pop for this young lad.” 

I wiped the spittle from my face as I went to the freezer and retrieved one and gave it to Omar, who then reached through the window and handed it to the kid.  Meelod had gotten out of the driver seat and had come back to join us at the window, and the three of us watched in rapt attention as the kid ripped open the plastic wrapper, revealing the refrozen lump.  He inspected it, clearly perplexed by the purple hue, and he slowly began peeling away the thin strips that still clung to the icy body.  After getting it cleaned up, the kid gave it a few hesitant licks, but because the popsicle stick had refrozen unevenly on one side, the majority of the refrozen treat broke off and fell to the ground.  He looked down at it, stared at it for a few seconds, then looked up at the three of us, who were staring at him. 

“That will be $2.50,” Meelod said.  When the kid asked if he could have another one, Meelod said only if he paid another $2.50.  The kid looked at us for another few seconds before he turned and bolted.

“After him, Mr. McDermod!” Omar shouted, popping open the rear double doors.  “We will circle around the block and meet you and cut off this heathen thief’s escape!”

Now, I’m not sure if it’s because that was the closest either of the cousin’s had gotten to saying my name correctly, or if it’s because, secretly, I wanted out of that sham of an operation, out of that fucking truck and its maddening tunes, but I complied and hopped out the back, and, before my feet even touched the ground, they’d peeled off.  “La Cucaracha” began blaring from the speakers, the pitch being pulled, lowered, as the truck moved further away and rounded the corner, and I thought oddly how it resembled a cop car responding to a robbery. 

When the truck was out of sight, its jingle out of hearing range, I turned around and walked in the direction the kid had darted, but with no intention of looking for him.