Secret Life of an Ice Cream Man
a true story
Well, it’s the heart of winter here in Colorado. Which seems like a perfect time to tell the story about my brief and wonderful career as an ice cream man.
To understand life as a mobile ice cream professional, cross a mailman with Santa: shitty truck, decent goods, a whole lot of travel, plus the jingle sticks in your head like some annoying Christmas song.
One lazy summer morning about fifteen years ago, I hear that jingle working its way up the street. Having just moved to Denver, and with nothing better to do, I call the number on the side of the truck. I ask if they are hiring. As it happens, they are because they always are.
I follow the address up to Commerce City, the industrial armpit of the area, and tucked behind a powder coating facility, I find the ice cream trucks parked in neat rows behind a rusting barbed-wire fence.
I join a few other prospective colleagues on some folding chairs in front of a small tv. After watching a ten-minute training video, I get the job.
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Mornings in the yard start like this: I go see the yard manager to get my assignment—seniority reigns here, so the guys that have been driving for twenty years get the best neighborhoods. Since I’m a rookie, I get the suburban sprawl where kids don’t play in the streets anymore because they’re in the basement playing video games, or something.
I check my freezer to make sure I’m flush on Choco Tacos (rest in peace), Rocket Pops, Giant Ice Cream Sandwiches. I wait in line to top off the gas tank because there aren’t any fuel gauges in the trucks. Some drivers wash their trucks at this time but the grime never really comes off, so I don’t bother.
Finally, I test the speaker to make sure the ice cream jingle rings out clear. The other drivers test theirs, too. Every morning it’s a regular goddamn chorus of happiness up there in Commerce City.
Checklist complete, I sling open the door and putter off to my designated area.
I get the gist of the job pretty fast: drive around slowly, stop when someone comes running, sell the goods, repeat ad nauseum. I discover that peewee baseball games are goldmines, as are construction sites on lunchbreak. When it’s slow-going I drive around staring at mansions, imagining housewives desperate for creamsicles.
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A thought occurs one day. I should do private parties. Upping my game, I start wearing collared shirts and print business cards that read:
Martin Brodsky - Mobile Ice Cream Services.
Slightly overzealous, I order 1,000.
Later that week, my roommate smuggles a stack of business cards into a concert and during the encore throws them all into the air. I watch helplessly as they flutter over the drunken crowd like confetti. (Sidebar: this friend is now very successful in marketing.)
Around 3am that morning, I receive a call:
“Hello?” the man says.
“Hello,” I say.
“Can I order some Rocky Road with a cherry on top?”
“Sorry. I don’t have that.”
“Alright. How about some cocaine?”
“Nope. Don’t have any of that, either.”
“Okay, well, thanks anyway.”
That’s the only lead I get from the cards.
My next day on the job, I’m taking a nap in the park because there aren’t any sports games or construction sites in my designated neighborhood, when I hear a rustling in my truck. I jolt up and see pair of chubby legs sticking out from the freezer.
“Hey!” I’m on my feet running toward the truck. “Get out of there!”
A kid pops out with a giant ice cream sandwich in each hand. We make eye contact through the windshield. He knows he fucked up. The kid falls over his sneakers trying to get onto his bike and drops one of the sandwiches, but the little bastard gets away with the other. The episode costs me $3.25, not an inconsequential sum to an ice cream man.
My best day on the job nets me $132. My worst day (also my last day), it’s $31. That’s good for about four whiskey sodas at the Commerce City Holiday Inn.
So I’m sitting at the bar in the Commerce City Holiday Inn, contemplating a new career path, and I can’t get the ice cream jingle out of my head.
Maybe it’s the whiskey, but I keep seeing Santa Clauses walking around the lobby. Pouring complimentary coffee in the late afternoon, they loiter around in red suspenders, checking the news on their phones. It’s hot outside and the plump old men are sweaty.
I ask the bartender about it and he says it’s some kind of convention, preparation for the holidays six months away. Hedging for future sins, I scribble on the back of a business card and hand it to one of the men: FOR SANTA, ONE FREE CHOCO TACO.
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If you liked this one, try another . . .
