Up north an hour east of Reno there’s a real pretty white gal with long legs living alone in her gooseneck trailer. She’s been out of work awhile. She was a chip hustler at the casinos. Not a pretty term, but that’s what she did. Stand close to a guy who’s hitting big and hope he’d call her “Lady Luck†and slide a fat stack of chips over to her. Got to the point where every pit boss in town had banned her from their establishment.
Today she is sitting in a plastic lawn chair you buy at drugstores. It doesn’t fold, it’s a white stacking chair turning grey from weather. She’s dipping her toenail polish brush in a gallon of lemon drop yellow latex paint. A little habachi on the ground next to her is smoking with Hillshire Farms Cheddar-burst sausages.
The sound of an ice cream truck is in the distance:
Do da do do
Doo doo
Do da do do
Doo doo
Do da Doo Doo do do do
Do da doo doo do do
It pulls off the two lane road and parks, kicking up the dust on the dirt shoulder. Rachel holds the book in her hands over her toes to keep the dust off them. The music continues as a young black man comes to the window.
“Afternoon Ms. Rachel. Enjoying this weather?”
“I am, I am Anthony. Putting a coat of paint on the toes and doing my So duko’s.”
“Now I’m not familiar with that.”
“Japanese puzzles. I bought a book of ‘em after Jill at the salon gave me some to work on while my permanent set. I’m hooked!”
“Be careful you don’t end up blowing your whole paycheck on them things now…”
“Don’t worry sugar, they’re fun but they don’t have the thrill of the tables…”
“I’m sure they don’t. I’m sure they don’t. I stopped by to see if I could get you anything from the coolers on this hot afternoon.”
“My A.C quit and that tin can heats up fast. You know how I like those chaco taco’s…”
“I saved one for you Rachel, they’re a hot seller, but I saved one for you.”
“I can’t get up right now, though, this coat hain’t done drying yet.”
“Company policy states I’m not to leave the vehicle ‘cept for fueling up…”
“Guess if you can wait five minutes this coat’ll be dry ‘nough for me to make my way down there.”
“Sure, sure, I got five minutes. Say, I heard you picked up a little job down the antique shop.”
“Yeah, it’s two days a week though, not enough to pay rent here. I need a second job. Any ideas?”
“How about taking in foreign exchange students? My sister in law does that, makes $750 a month, just has to feed ‘em, that’s all.”
to be continued…
how come the most true and powerful stuff about your life is never what you write about?
Comment by takeabath@hotmail.com — August 23, 2006 @ 3:02 pm
I don’t need to know who you are, takeabath, but the fact that you are unknown to me but making comments will be part of my point.
Full disclosure is a scary thing.
There are things I could write about, thoughts I have about people I work with, I’m related to, I have relationships with, or who are in public office. But I’m afraid to. And I’m afraid to talk about some things I think in my head.
I’ve been ostracized from one community already. It was a small one, and now I’ve gone west to start again. But it didn’t feel good having my name smeared, and it felt worse to have my family judged by my actions, real and alleged.
It is much safer to create a world than to live in the real one. People are killers, they are erect for destruction. Why do you think a war-time president is never voted out of office? People, the citizens, they don’t want us to pull out. They want total destruction. They want the “enemy†melted in flames. It is only when we are definitely losing, when it looks like us good ol boys back home on the farm might get hurt, that we decide it’s time to pull out. When it doesn’t look like we can kill ‘em all, then we’ll backtrack, say sorry, send some money, send helicopters and crewships and send the troops home. Save our own asses. That’s all people think about.
The time to show some decency is when you’re winning. Not after you’ve looted the country and killed half the children.
I’m saving my own ass. I’ll save the true and powerful stuff for sitting on the toilet. Just me in there. I’m not standing up to a government that wants to wiretap me, monitor my words, create shadow prisons. Like I said, I’ve seen how people can respond to a charge, especially one that has “aggravated†attached to it. “Feloniousâ€. That gets their blood going. They really want a piece of you then. Show me a witch in Salem who’ll argue with that.
People can’t be themselves, they’ll get ripped up. That’s all. Let me make up little stories about ice cream trucks in the high desert. I want some peace in my life. I want a little garden. I want to ride a bicycle on sunny days. You change the world. You save the children. I’m afraid.
Comment by jon — August 23, 2006 @ 7:36 pm
i don’t know. what you just wrote there, that sounds real.
Comment by takeabath@hotmail.com — August 24, 2006 @ 2:39 pm
Takeabath is right on. And she never suggests that changing the world is your responsibility. We all agree you are hardly qualified. However, you write about yourself in a journalistic fashion often and though I’ve enjoyed many of your fictional stories (and encourge you in continuing. The story about the kid with the fast whip ‘n buggy is a favorite.) get ripped up a little. It’ll be okay. Besides it make s a good read.
Comment by Rajah! — August 24, 2006 @ 3:07 pm
I thought it was a real nice story. ‘specially cuz my mom loves both choco tacos and sudoku puzzles. It’s the simple
things that make life grand.
Comment by OliBoy — August 25, 2006 @ 5:44 am
I guess I’ll spoil the ending. Ms. Rachel can’t take in an exchange student being she’s single, so by and by the ice cream man decides to marry her. They have been flirting over the course of the summer, and one day she convinces him to come down out of the ice cream truck and into her trailer.
It is a happy time, and she gets a Japanese exchange student because she likes soduko’s. He turns out to be gay. This mixed race couple with a teenage asian in tow is scandalous to the locals.
A souped up ice cream truck pulls up one day in front of Ms. Rachel’s, just as Anthony arrives. This new truck plays a different tune. It is a menacing little ditty. Anthony is driven off the road.
After a few more incidents of this nature, Anthony decides he can’t go on getting beat up just to be with his love. He is afraid for his life. And they have attacked Rachel too. The gooseneck trailer is burnt to the ground. The Japanese exchange student dies in the fire.
We all learn that fighting the system will kill us, and that to live in limited peace is better than to live for love in a dangerous world of killers.
Comment by jon — August 29, 2006 @ 10:35 pm