Sandra Newman: The Country of Ice Cream Star

“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.

“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.”

Keepers twitch her freckle nose. She see how I ain’t care about no glass. And she throw the bat down on the floor. It make a bigger noise than I expect, a sounding blammer. Noise make me startle weak. My heart keep saying, Nay, my Driver cannot die, and then my mind remember it can be true. The loud noise seem like all the things on Earth that ain’t care if you frighten.

I say in careful voice, “Ya, better you ain’t break that. You get glass on you. That glass can hurt.”

“You got to stand with me,” say Keepers. “You keep going somewhere and then I ain’t know.”

So I get up on the chair and stand. Keepers lean back to my warm. Fire carry on, it going to go an hour now. The house’s upper part look darker as the roof fall into scraps.

Driver walk across the street to Asha Badmouth. He put his hand upon her baby belly and she push his hand away. This happen in the bottom of my vision, but I watch the fire. I get a watching trance upon me. Keepers gaping by.

All children glad to watch a fire. It help you feel the things you need to feel, like drinking whiskey do. So now I slip toward my grief and watch a finicky flame around a window. It move like restless water there, blue and gold and white. I feel my trouble, but I think of NewKing Mamadou, the boy I dream upon. Think how he kill me with his knife someday. And I feel crying like a painful coldness in my jaw. But I ain’t cry.

Then the burning house’s door flap open, staggering wild. Smoke come hazy out, and from the smoke, a person run.

I yell and Keepers yell. I terrify senseless for my Driver, every fear flash white in me. But Driver, Asha Badmouth and Jermaine stood screaming just like us. It ain’t our people in the fire.

Be a stranger boy. At first he looking like a shadow, black against the fire’s bright. Then he come out whole and running strong. He the only one ain’t scream.

Ain’t no fire on him when he come out, but Asha Badmouth frighten. Splash him wild. He startle, skid and fall. Then Driver tackle him. My brother never wonder if a person be a risk. He warry and particular, will stop that person first.

He wrestle with the frighten boy until he get a throat-lock on. For a breath, is quiet. Only fire still rush and snap. Then Driver shout, the boy gone kick again.

Keepers swear and say to me, “Ice Cream, it be a sleeper. Ain’t in Europe.”

“What?” I try to hear what Driver say. “What ain’t?”

“Sleepers ain’t in Europe.”

The boy twist, and I see him clear. I breathe cold into me. The head got yellow furrish hair. The boy got plastic baby skin, he be a yellow roo. Driver holding on a roo. Now panic grab my breath.

I run downstairs before I think. Somewhere Keepers shout at me, all high and frighten, till I shut the door upon her voice. Outside the day stripe hot and cold from fire.

IBE THE ONLY LIVING SENGLE EVER SEEN A ROO. THEY AIN’T TROUBLE Massa woods for years until this day. Only jones children, of thirteen and more, still known their fear.

It been a month before, by Tember when the summer still prolong. This night, I gone sleeping at the library, alone except my mare and hound. I like to be alone from Sengles, and I like to take my pony and my hound indoors. Be sweet in separateness to feel their faith. Driver give me talk about this habit — he say I be unmanageable since I got a horse. This saying true, but he ain’t recognize that I be better so.

The library a prettieuse and cleanish edifice. Been a place for books in sleeper times, but now the books is gone. We scratch them all to sell to Lowell in my mama’s time. Got one upstairy room at that library, it be round. This round room be my favorite joy.

My Money stubborn for no stairs. She want to stop, she clamp her hoof. But if you switch her, she will trot up fast and sudden like a going-upstairs horse that only bred for this. Room stink remarkable from her, but with the windows open, still can breathe without unhappiness. Yo, my hound ABC eat most her shee, in cleaning help.

Below the library window be a road, is mostly gone to bush. Become a shaggy meadow with bald patches where the street remain. Across this meadow road be Friendly’s, which say FRIENDLY’S on one sign, and FRIENDLY’S ICE CREAM on the other. This been a store for trading food. But I ain’t like to be called Friendly’s anything. I know it ain’t myself the sleepers meant, but it just feel disgusting. Then I remember ice cream been a food I never taste. I wonder what my mama dream to name me for this food, as if she name me Something Lost.

This Tember morning that I seen the roos, I woken early. Smoke my waking cigarette by the library window, looking out, and piney breeze come in to touch my face and brighten on my eyes. A sycamore grow close. Between its fingery leaves, can spy the Friendly store in bits. ABC stand by to whine. She think my cigarette be food. Ain’t never learn, she watch it going to my mouth.

Yo, into the meadow road below, a doe-deer walk. She snuff the bushes, in a worrying way like deer will do. I watch her, wish I got my bow. Ain’t guess I make my mark from here, but always be some lucky hope.

Then come a cracking loudness. It come again, it be like ripping, or woodpecker pecking hard, but twenty times as big. In the field, that doe rise up and buck lopside. Then she curling over and I see the beast shot through and through. Got blood more than hide.

And a boy jog into that bushy waste.

Then fear walk over me. I feel black water in my head from fear. He be a roo. Got brown furry hair upon his face and throat. He wear a roo suit — gray-green dapple thing, ain’t satisfy to be one ugly color, it be ugly twice. Creature mostly twice my size. And his skin whitish like a no-luck sky.

Then some dozen roos with furren face and ugly suit come out and gather in that road.

My heart flee, scrabbling in my chest. ABC take breath to bark and I catch at her muzzle quick. Tug her nose down, press my finger to her brow. Her boogly eyes stare at me. I shake my head, but she still strain her mouth. So I keep her snout fast while I spy the roos go swarming, through that sycamore I watch.