Sweet Alchemy

A frozen treat offers a taste of alternate realities.

When Noah heard the tune Turkey in the Straw coming from the street, he walked to the bay window and parted the blinds to take a peek. Waiting at the curb was an ice cream truck, reminiscent of his childhood, but not one he had recalled seeing since he was a little boy. When he and his wife Cassidy moved from the city, it never crossed his mind that these vintage vehicles would still exist in suburbs.

“We’ve been in this house for a few weeks, and you’re already spying on the neighbors?” Cassidy asked, coming up from behind him. Noah turned to see she was carrying Jack, their three-month-old baby.

“There’s an ice cream truck out there,” Noah said. “Not only that, our neighbors, the Brooks and the Carters are actually buying some ice cream.”

“You mean their kids?” Cassidy asked.

“No, the adults. There are no kids at all.”

Cassidy walked up to the blinds and Noah held them open wider so that she could see better.  The Brooks were walking back to their house, wide smiles across their faces, giggling excitedly as they began to unwrap the frozen treats. The truck was painted white at the top, with a faded baby blue stripe around the bottom. It was old, almost decrepitly so, the bumpers starting to show rust around the corners and the paint stressed. The speaker atop the cab continued the repetitious melody.

“That’s the kind of truck we were supposed to avoid as kids, run by a forty-year-old guy named Skip, with a paper hat, who lives in his mother’s basement,” Cassidy said.

“Yeah? The Carters look pretty happy with what they got. That means Skip is lacing his dreamsicles with something especially made for adults. I, for one, am going to find out what. Also, did you ever stop to think that Skip is just caring for his elderly mother, and that’s why he’s living at home?”

“Good luck with that.”

Noah opened his wallet to check if he had any cash before walking outside to approach the man now affectionately known as Skip. The window cut out in the door was lacking any movement, until Noah walked right up to it. A well-kept elderly man with gray hair and mustache popped into view, sans paper hat. He wore no hat at all, was dressed in white pants, a white vest and a baby blue shirt the same shade painted across the truck.

“Well, hello there, young man!” he said with enthusiasm.

“Hi, I was just curious what all the fuss was about, seeing my neighbors out here. I didn’t know ice cream trucks were still a thing.”

“Ah, yeah, you don’t look so familiar. You must have moved into the Henderson’s place. My name is Frank,” he said, pointing at his name tag. “I’m at your service.”

“Frank, I’m Noah, and the woman still looking at you through the blinds is my wife, Cassidy.”

Frank peered out past the window and over the window’s mini counter. Cassidy quickly let the blinds close shut, hoping she had gone unnoticed, as Frank chuckled.

“No problems there, Noah. I’m used to it. You tell that sweet, young lady of yours I’m harmless. As a matter of fact, since you’re new here, the first one is on the house. Now you can tell her this little experience didn’t cost you a dime.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

Noah looked over at the side of the truck, suddenly realizing that the choices were unusually small and nondescript. There were five pictures of the same popsicle in different colors with no branding. The description was a single word — the color, but not the flavor — red, blue, green, yellow and brown.

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, Frank, but I’m not seeing the usual,” Noah said.

“How so?” Frank asked.

“No Firecracker, Push Pop, Drumstick or cookie sandwiches.”

“Those ain’t nothing to wink at. Mine here have got all the fun and flavor a man of your fine tastes would want or need. I guarantee they’ll take you back to a time better remembered.”

“How do I know what flavors they are? They only list the colors.”

“That’s half the fun of it, friend. Besides, if you don’t like it, I’ll refund your money.”

“You got me there.”

Noah looked over the colors carefully, deciding the safest best would be red, which would either be strawberry, cherry or raspberry, all palatable on that hot summer day.

“All right, Frank, I’m going to take my chances on red,” Noah said.

“A man after my own heart. Can’t go wrong with red.”

Frank reached back into a cooler, pulled out a popsicle wrapped in white cellophane, with the letters R-E-D written on it. Noah took the cold dessert and said, “You’ve got your business strategy down, Frank. No fluff on the marketing or branding.”

The old man smiled a little too crooked for Noah’s comfort and saluted without saying another word, got back into his driver’s seat and slowly pulled away. The music once again echoed throughout the neighborhood as the truck turned a corner out of sight. Noah started walking back to the house while unwrapping the popsicle. Halfway across the front yard he took his first lick.

Twelve-year-old Noah stood in the entranceway to Adventure Arcade, listening to the bleeps and blips of hundreds of arcade games. Metal balls bounced off bumpers on the pinball machines, plinking continuously, the sights and sounds familiar and welcoming. A disco ball on the ceiling was slowly turning, casting reflections of light off Noah’s shirt and shoes. He didn’t know how he arrived there. A distant thought was telling him that his mom dropped him off with a pocket full of quarters and a few dollars for a pizza slice and a drink.

“Hey, kid, you going in or what?” a voice asked behind him.

“Sorry. Yes, I’m going in,” Noah said as he stepped aside. 

The carpet was colorfully speckled, and the walls were painted red at the top and yellow at the bottom. Game cabinets surrounded the single, large room, with just enough room to walk between the rest that acted as corridors between the aisles. Kids hurried back and forth to the change machine, anxious to continue their games before the timers ran down. Most of the light was cast from the inviting glow of the screens, calling out to Noah to play the afternoon away.

All of his beloved games beckoned: PAC-Man, Galaga, Frogger, Donkey Kong and Centipede. A few girls about his age noticed him walking through, turning his head side to side to inspect the beautifully rendered title decals. They giggled as he passed, and one of the girls dared to say hello as they all walked off laughing with their heads down. A warm sense of approval washed over him as he kept walking. That’s when his favorite game, Defender, caught his attention.

Surprised no one was already playing, he dropped a quarter into the slot. This had been the favorite of his classmates, too, hours and allowances spent playing any weekend that their parents would drive them up to the mall. Hall of fame scores popped up, but Noah didn’t recognize any of the initials. He didn’t recognize this arcade either. There was a familiarity that was vaguely comforting, nostalgic, yet surreal.

When the first alien Lander appeared on screen, Noah controlled the spaceship, shooting and maneuvering becoming second nature. While he wasn’t poor at the game, he never remembered being especially good, either. This time it was different as was apparent by the gathering crowd. Each and every narrow miss, duck and dodge resulted in adulation from the other kids. As they formed a huddle around him, what followed was a sense of safety and security that Noah was unfamiliar with at any time in his youth.

The girl that said hello earlier sidled up beside Noah and put her hand on his shoulder to watch closely. The score kept rising higher until it was well into the millions. That’s when a dizziness started to overcome him, beads of sweat forming, the heat of the moment drawing out an elevated level of unmatched excitement.

The scene was suddenly punctuated by shouting in the distance. An argument was happening somewhere. It was Noah’s parents, sinking into another one of those same drunken disputes each weekend. His father would arrive home late from the bar on Friday night, while his mother had chosen to drink alone from a hidden cache of vodka. He looked around at the other kids, the girl next to him smiling up, approval unwavering. No one else could hear it.

Distracted, Noah’s final life in the game had ended. Cheers erupted when he entered his initials on the screen, pats on the back demonstrating friendship and comradery. He could never remember much of that at this age. The braces, headgear and acne kept kids at a distance, unless they were cursed with the same adolescent maladies. Teasing was a regular occurrence. None of that was true of his present self, which started to break down the reality. 

Noah turned to face the girl. She was holding his hand up gently, writing something with a pen onto it. Her phone number. Was it her phone number? He couldn’t tell, every word she was saying fading into silence. The room was spinning, a glow of screens fading one into another, until the world of Adventure Arcade went completely black.

Noah was looking at his wife with a blank stare while holding a popsicle stick stained red by food coloring. She was saying something, shaking him by the shoulder, and the wave of his present reality crashed over him, with all of the sights and sounds of the neighborhood coming alive. A car drove by, birds chirped and grasshoppers strummed their wings.

“Hey, space cadet! Can you hear me?” Cassidy asked.

“Yes, I hear you. I just had the strangest… dream.”

“Dream? What are you talking about? You’ve been standing in one spot, eating that popsicle for the last twenty minutes.”

“It was the strangest sensation — the strongest case of déjà vu I’ve ever had. Except it wasn’t déjà vu. It was so real. I was at an arcade, me when I was younger, but not the real me. It was me without the braces and headgear, the acne or lack of self-esteem. The kind of me that I wished for all of my life, that never came to be until after we met.”

Cassidy had her head turned slightly, the way she did whenever she was listening intently, understanding that Noah was discussing matters that had emotional weight. He wasn’t joking around or playing a trick. She recognized those formative years were some of the worst of his life, causing a great deal of stress and anxiety that he never dealt with fully.

“Was it just you? Were your mom or dad there, or your brother?” she asked.

“No, not physically present. I could only hear the shouting in the background. The argument they were having is what started to bring me out of it, back here.”

“For the better, I hope.”

Noah made a point to look directly at her instead of beyond her, so that she understood completely. There was nowhere he would rather be, than with the person who had always accepted him, defects and all. Whatever sanitized reality he just experienced, was no reality at all because it wouldn’t have led to a life with Cassidy.

“Absolutely, for the better. You’re the one that helped me survive that mess. I would never want anyone or anything different.”

She kissed him on the cheek and started to walk inside the house. As she turned, he noticed the writing on his hand. It was a phone number, written in ink. For a moment, ever so briefly, he wondered if he called, would the girl answer, now a woman?

Cassidy turned back to see Noah looking at his hand, turned an eyebrow up slightly and asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Never better. Let’s go inside so I can wash my hands. We already have one sticky baby to deal with — we don’t need another.”