The Country of Ice Cream Star (2 page)

This be grimy task. Ain’t matter how perfect anything look in a closet. When you take it up, dust fly. Hurt vicious in your eyes. Times, be flittering moths, look like they born from dust that instant. But the clothes, they often still all right.

That day, ain’t scarcely nothing worth the carry. Food is rotten,
cloth be mold, books crumble like dry earth. Ain’t no metal but is rust. Keepers frustrate well, go swearing like a mally baby. Child be feroce to want, will rob the laces from a digger’s shoe. But this evac street be poory gone. We scratch out five houses, then slop tired in a raggity bed, upstairs of this cold house with scarce no windows. We waiting on the fire across the street to catch correct. Then we can go out staring, warm our face.

The only loot we find:

• 5 cans soup, 2 cans corn, 1 can condense milk, clean and bone. Other cans been rusten useless.

• 1 box allergic pharmacy, 1 Robitussin coughing drink.

• big coat for Asha Badmouth when her pregnant belly grow, ain’t prettieuse for nothing but it smell right.

• 1 bottle whiskey, 1 bottle gin. Other bottles unseal and the booze gone stank.

• these sleepers’ evac notice.

• a plastic baby, sort with arms and legs that you can turn. The painten eyes so worn, it make your eyes feel scary. Look the way dust in your eyes can feel.

A plastic baby be bad luck. The little children say it mean somebody going to die. Truth, littles always be inventing superstitions. One little say it, they all go believe, and tell it onward. Sometimes, I think the digger gods was starting from a little’s maginations. ‘They got a man inside the clouds that punish you if you is lazy.’ Dribble talk from ungrown heads. However that be, now my Keepers frighten.

On her neck, she wear the lastic string left from a candy necklace. Now, in fretting nerves, she wind the lastic round her pointer finger. Watch the fingertip swell bright, is like she strangle her own fear. Other hand got a cigarette. She been smoking this, and shake the ash on her own head. Be ash all in her bushy hair, for she believe ash kill nits. Keepers never had nits. This be proof to her it work.

And Keepers such a warry dirty cub, she hurt my heart. I ain’t
know what other children feel, but I swear I feel more. See my Keepers frighten, and it feel like swallowing ice. Yo, the child so vally proud, it hurt her arrogance if I pet her, if I touch her any way. She sit on the scurfy bed and look her miseries, I going to want to pat her head. But cannot pat no proud eight’s head.

Ya, beliefs be catching. Soon my nerves go jittery self. Somebody going to die – yo sho, somebody always going to die. Ain’t been a year that I remember when nobody die. Only Keepers too little to die, every child I love too needful, and my Sengle people be too few.

‘Damn you, Keeps,’ I say. ‘This person can be dying anywhere. Can be some Mass Army dying. More of them that die is wonderful.’

‘Nay, it got to be somebody I know. I find the baby.’

‘Yo sho. Maybe it be Mouse.’

She startle, and look up joyeuse and warry-eyed. But, thought by thought, she quit believing.

‘I ain’t never be so lucky.’ Keepers gripe her mouth. ‘Bet you Mouse gone find a baby. He want me to die right now. He want me to die sick.’

Now we smell the kindling fire across the street, a hoarsen sweetness.

I say, ‘You going to stop with that now, foolish.’

‘Ain’t no fool, I knowing right.’

‘You act like Keepers Two, sometimes.’

‘I ain’t. I act like Keepers Twelve.’

‘Keepers Noisy, all it is.’

‘You hate Mouse. Say you hate him and say I ain’t going to die. Somebody old like you die.’

‘Damn, quit that,’ I say. ‘Or next time Asha Badmouth stay with you.’

Keepers make a fart noise with her lips and swear again. I turn and grab the evac notice, start to read it loud, try to distract her into reading practice. But she only shut her eyes and yell the evac notice words. Remember almost all. Then we both go laughing,
yelling. Rival to say this faster-louder. Every Sengle know a notice of evacuation well.

When we finish, Keepers quit her screaming and pronounce, ‘Then sleepers gone evacuating and they go to Europe.’

‘Certain, gone to Europe.’

‘But where this Europe be?’ she say. ‘You never seeing Europe.’

‘Shoo, is farther distance, cross the ocean.’

Keepers frown in littlish scorn. She put the plastic baby on the floor, she done with dying. Dying finish now. ‘You ain’t know. I bet nobody cross the ocean never. Ain’t no Europe.’

‘Shoo, is Europe. Seen no maps?’

‘They pictures. Ain’t no Europe real.’

‘Bone, it ain’t no Europe. Sleepers all be hiding in the woods. They coming now, be angry how we robbing all their soup.’

‘They sleepers wanting us to have their soup. They leave it here. Nor it be no Europe. You lying and you ignorant and I be Keepers Twelve.’

Truth, this Europe mostly be a tale for pacifying littles. Most older children think the sleepers all be dead, but ain’t no proof. If sleepers gone to Europe or to hell, they leave the same bad silence.

What we knowing certain of them be a shorter list. We know their looks from pictures left on walls, from paper magazines. They had straight hair like fur. This grown in any different colors – yellow, orange, black and white. Skin was pinkish mostly, like a plastic baby or a roo. Some faces wrinkle up and baggy. Some lost most their hair. How Lowells say, this be from years – these sleepers living old as parrots.

Yo, be seldom pictures where the children looking normal brown, with person hair instead of fur. What we think, these been our greater parents in the Times Before. Ain’t sleepers but is children right.

We know the sleepers fled from sickness, a killing fever callen WAKS, some eighty years before. We know their goods, we guess
some facts of their abandon life. But their evacuation be a rumor of a mystery.

Most we can learn be from the evac notices themself. These notices all the same, is only numbers and the street names different. They say exactly this:

NOTICE OF EVACUATION

This is a final notice. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has ordered the evacuation of your street on
MONDAY MARCH 15TH
. A luxury air-conditioned bus is scheduled to stop at
1 SLEIGH ROAD
at
3
PM
, MONDAY MARCH 15TH
to transport residents to temporary shelter. Your temporary shelter is
RAMADA INN, WESTFORD, MA
. Residents should not drive cars to the temporary shelter or to the meeting place. An allowance of two pieces of luggage per household will be strictly observed. Each piece of luggage must be no more than 70 pounds. Both pieces together must be no more than 120 pounds. Additional luggage cannot be accommodated on buses and will be left at the roadside.

Medical checks will be required before passengers are invited to board. Residents suffering from WAKS
will not be allowed
to board the buses. This is for passenger safety. WAKS sufferers and their families should report to the Department of Public Health at 617 256 2412 for further information. Abuse of a medical inspector, verbal or physical, will be punished with no less than 30 days in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

Emergency Coordinator for Middlesex County,

Victor Espinoza

We got no knowledge of this WAKS, the sickness that destroy them. Been eighty years of quietness. No memory reach that fact. Some children think that WAKS be posies, but nobody know. Dead sleepers left so long, they got no skin to see no posies on. That body tell
you nothing but: ‘You frighten like a digger, child. You shivering and weak to look at me.’

And no one like to find a house with sleepers dead inside. Be a sleeper there, we burn the house with all its goods. Is glorieuse always when the house consume to fluffy ash and sticks, it make you happy in your eyes. The orange windows flaming out. Then it fall to its knees. Trees shivering around it, gladden with its crazy heat. And after, all be blackish fine. Inside a year, is growing flowers. Make you proud to be a Sengle, cleaner of the sicken world.

So now we watch the fire begin, me and Keepers Eight Fofana, standing at our upstair window. The burning house stand kittercorner to ours, in easy view, and Driver and Jermaine and Asha Badmouth come out, done with kindling. They stand watching, by a pile of water bags and soaken blankets, kept in case the fire escape. Truth, no fire will spread this day. Is soggy wet from morning rain. Still Driver make each hold a bag and blanket. So be drill.

House begin to look a little itchy, before the firelight come. As the flickering raise, it show clear in the bust-out windows. Is like it be a life we woke inside. Then the roof go staining black and fire squeeze through the stain. Fire make a hole and flames push through the roof like angry hair.

The flame and sky two different kinds of bright. Sun look tame and sleepy while this fire go left and right so huge. It make us big and bright with nerves, although we Sengles, kin to burning. Keepers settle staring to the fire, her mouth agape. I settle to my fire trance.

Then Driver look back and catch sight of us. He startle disapproving. Next, he stalking back toward our house, with angry face.

Keepers look to me. I say, ‘Yo Driver going to give me talk.’

‘Heed him, sure,’ say Keepers. ‘Got to be obedient.’

‘Like you be.’

‘Ain’t be obedience, town go fall apart.’

‘You wise as something. Ain’t know if it be dirt or wood.’

Keepers make a fart noise and she grin.

I say, ‘You wise as dirty feet.’

Then Driver there behind us in the open door. He nod me out, and I come peevish, sorry-tail. We go on down the hall, cause Driver guard his business from the littles. Everything a dignity for him.

Only been a year my brother Driver be the oldest. He sergeant in our wolfen time, when Sengles thieving rich. Girls all go in love for him. Hounds and ponies fear and trust him. Driver give four babies that I know, and three of them is living. And he got a liking strength, is like a big warm house that you can punch and kick on, and it never shake. It standing there despite you, knowing what it known before.

Now he easy kept, although he come to rule me down. I gone glooming at the carpet. Carpet mostly bone and clean. Is only a wedge of shadow by the window, made of mold. Mold show where it raining in. Everything smell green from that, and moody like my thought.

My brother say, ‘Must be responsible, Ice. Ain’t like to see you dabbit round with Keepers like a small.’

‘These poory houses, ain’t find garbage here or nothing. Ain’t about responsible.’

Driver never heed a foolish saying. You speak a foolishness, he act like this be forest noise that ain’t concern him. So he say, as if I never spoken, ‘If you ain’t work, no little think to work. You be third oldest.’

‘Ain’t third. Crow be third.’

He skew his eyes at me. ‘You counting Villa, babyish? Villa senseless as a moth.’

‘I count in numbers, it be three before me. You and Crow and Villa. Make me fourth.’

Driver get his seriose eyes. I look away and spot the bathroom only then. Ain’t notice this before, nor Keepers notice. Can see two towels there, is hung and perfect. Mostly Sengles got some towels, but these towels hard to keep. Every winter some of them get mold and cannot clean. Be towels in that bathroom, maybe there be soap and Robitussin, anything.

I only rile worse then. Ain’t justice that Driver right.

He saying, ‘You gone heedless something. Hothead round the place. Be fifteen years and got no plan for babies.’

‘I do what being true to me. I ain’t do nothing cause of something false.’

‘You ain’t do nothing cause you lazy.’

‘Ain’t getting babies with no Crow or no Jermaine.’

‘Ice Cream!’ my brother say, and his eyes fury. Then he halt and everything too still. I hear the fire like snoring sleep.

And Driver cough. Cough hard, and look surprise. He put his fingers to his chest, then he lift away his fingers, checking at the fingertips like he expect to see blood there. As if blood going to leak out through his skin. Sure, nothing be.

But I see clear, that cough hurt. And Driver gulp and suffer not to cough again. He frown his nerves.

‘Driver, you bone,’ I say in sudden fright. ‘The smoke do that.’

‘Sure.’ But Driver cough again, and catch his chest the same.

‘Ain’t got to breathe no smoke, goddamn.’

‘Been no smoke. Nor ain’t your problems.’

‘Sure, it ain’t my cough. Damn me for caring. Going to stop from caring.’

‘Nothing be to care about, Ice Cream,’ say Driver shortish. ‘Care about your lazy self.’

Then he turn and go downstairs and I be standing shaky.

Ain’t nothing happen, but I know. Driver gone eighteen and mostly children live to eighteen–nineteen. Then they get their posy sickness. He look at me with knowledge in his eyes, he let me spy his feary knowledge.

I want to go downstairs and fight him worse. My brother got no need to tell me who third oldest, second oldest. Driver staying oldest. I tell him in my mind,
You cannot die. I die before you die. Crow be sergeant if you die. Crow be a poison well and maggot, what he do to Sengle town you fear. My brother, keep with me
.

*

Then Keepers Mouthy yell my name. I got to go tend Keepers, who ain’t got no brother nor a sister. Who grown in loneliness feroce, without no brother’s loss to feel. Ain’t fear nothing worse than her own death.

In the room, my Keepers got a chair up to the window. She standing on this chair, and hold my oak bat in her hands. Aim upon a square of glass left in this window’s upward corner. ‘Going to bust that glass,’ she say joyeuse.

‘Yo sho, you seen it first,’ I say, and my throat haze with uncry tears. ‘Make war on it, go on.’

‘You ain’t want to?’

‘Sure I want to. Only said, you seen it first.’