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Ice Cream
"Who wants ice cream?" Dad called as he came in from the garage. He'd just finished replacing his Jeep's factory hard top with a brand new soft top, and was dying to try it out. Naturally, he wanted to share his accomplishment with the rest of us. "Yippee!" my little brother Mark cried out. I groaned in anticipation of the utterance that was sure to follow: "You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream!" He was failing second grade, but had this and several other annoying little rhymes committed to memory.I wanted to throttle him every time I heard one. My mom protested that it was much too early in the year to be traipsing around with the top down, but my father accused her of being a persnickety old lady, and she gave in at that point. Still, she wrapped herself in a sweater, tied a scarf around her hair, and made my brother and me wear jackets. "Mom," I whined. "This is ridiculous! It's sixty-five degrees outside. I'll melt in this thing!" "Debra J.!" I knew I was on the edge then. Using the whole first name was bad enough, but when she threw in the middle initial, you knew she really meant business. "Yes, ma'am." But as soon as her back was turned, I made my ugliest face and stuck out my tongue at her in lieu of telling her what I REALLY thought. When we'd all piled into the jeep and were buckled into our respective seats, my father pulled out of the driveway and gunned it down the street. "Wesley!" my mother said in a loud warning tone, and my father let off the gas with a disgusted look on his face. "That's better," she said sweetly and we toodled off toward the local drive in for our treat. Our timing was excellent, getting there just before the little league games began letting out. The parking lot was empty when we arrived, but by the time we'd ordered, nearly a hundred little leaguers were running helter skelter through the parking lot, the picnic area and the playground. Mark slurped his sundae down in what seemed like one continuous motion, and ran off to see some of his friends in the playground. One of them, a dorky little kid named Malcolm was wearing a scruffy blanket, a tricorn hat and a black eyepatch behind his glasses. In his hand, he held a plastic Star Wars light saber. "Ar! Avast there, matey!" he called to Mark, and gestured toward my brother with his sword. "Shiver me timbers if it ain't Cap'n Booger!" Before we knew it, Malcolm and Mark were engaged in a wrestling match for control of the light saber, as little dorks are wont to do. My mother got "the look" when my father started chuckling, and picking up on the cue, he left our table and went over to pull the boys apart. Unfortunately, he chose the precise moment in which Malcolm wrested control of the light saber away from my brother, and as he picked him up and away from Malcolm, the sword swung wildly and poked my brother right in the eye. Mark screamed like a little girl, and began crying. My mom went ballistic and ran over to assess the damage. My father stood there sheepishly, realizing that he'd played more than a small part in the debacle. Malcolm, idiot that he was, began crying too, maybe because he thought somebody was going to blame this mess on him. Knowing he was in the doghouse and unsure as to what he could do to escape, Dad started toward my mother to see how badly my brother was hurt. I sat at the table, still eating my banana split. I could see what was coming, though, and I wondered why, after all these years, my father couldn't. "Get away from him. You've done enough!" Mom said with ice in her voice as Dad leaned down to take a look at Mark's eye. She picked my brother up climbed into the back seat of the Jeep with him. My dad called me to go with them, and grabbing up my ice cream, I ran over and climbed into the shotgun position. Mom took Mark into the emergency room to make sure nothing was permanently damaged. The doctor said he'd just scratched his cornea, and it would be as good as new in a couple of days. Mark had to wear an eyepatch for a day or so, which was cool with him, because it made him a more authentic pirate than Malcolm. Malcolm felt so guilty that he gave my brother his plastic sword the next day, and Mom felt so bad for him she make him his own black satin cape. And I made out pretty well too, because while Mom and Mark were in the emergency room, I got to ride shotgun while my Dad took me offroading outside of town. Of course, I ended up wearing most of the rest of my banana split, and Mom wasn't at all pleased. But for me, it was a special night that I'll never forget. Years later, when I bought my own Jeep, the first thing I did was to put the top down and go to the drive-in for ice cream. My father isn't around any more, and my mom's too frail to ride around in a convertible. But when I drove the new Jeep into her driveway, she gave me a wistful kind of smile and told me to put on a jacket. Props to the CHPercolator List for the prompt |
