|
CIRCUS DELIGHT
I always saved the diamonds for the last. Making my slow stop and go cruise up and down the cul-de-sacs of the outlying subdivision, I marked the time intricately with my bell: The ice cream man's jingle is his pride, his signature, his song of songs to the kingdom of summer. The bellcord ran loose' in my right hand over the callus it had made across my palm through the course of the season, as I steered with my left. The dusk would seep over the Van Gogh fields beyond the tract houses and begin to submerge the sunset palette in blue ink. I would watch the west, for the white glow of the park lights to push back that inkiness, erecting a canopy of illumination over its patriarch oaks and elms. I had a final customer in the corner house of the last cul-de-sac, a man who always bought ice cream sandwiches for his two small daughters, and his rottweiler. Yes, there was order in my universe, and an arrangement to my days that summer.
Dropping my foot on the accelerator, I would rock and roll past the ornamental scroll of brick emblazoned with the motto CRESTVIEW in letters of wrought iron, and rip through the night down a stretch of the old state highway. That old Dodge van rattled like hell. A mile or so down the highway, just past the firecracker stand, I'd pull in at the Git'n'Go and buy a six pack of whatever was on special. There was always a special. Sometimes it was Heineken, sometimes it was Brown Derby. Didn't matter. I'd gas up if the tank was low, but I didn't like to spend too much time at it: On the diamonds, the first innings were already being played. Night league heaven was in session. I'd flip up the lid of the freezer and nestle the beer down among the fudgesicles and banana bombs with the last of the dry ice. Drop the lid, turn round in the seat, slam the shift into drive, and that old ice cream truck put on her wings and flew.
I always snuck in the back way, down the little road that split the university golf course in half. At the field up at the front end of the park, the one with two diamonds, the biggest and sturdiest bleachers, permanent concrete block admission booth, restrooms, and concession stand, and a cyclone fence to close the perimeter, the rent-a-cop was guaranteed to come out and chase me away. Gave 'im something to do, and besides the Kiwanis bozos in the concession stand didn't like competition. But at the back diamonds, the ones with rickety swaybacked stands, Porta potties, and just one woman in a pine-green plywood shed selling canned pop, stale chips, and candy bars; at the back diamonds my fans loved me. Even the woman in the shed loved me. I was the ice cream king of the summer leagues. I'd fishtail the van on the nice little dogleg where the road went over the creek, lurch through the turn into the park, and as I steered off the asphalt onto the grass, ringing my bell like a madman, my nightly hero's welcome would converge, with clamor.
Myself, I've never found a better combination of business and pleasure. Making the circuit of the five back diamonds trailing a raggedy-ass parade of kid-sisters and kid-brothers as the truck bumped over rutted grass and bare dirt, I would deal out frozen sweetness on a stick and take in cold cash to the tune of a hundred bucks inside of forty-five minutes, on a good night. Then, having surveyed all that I ruled, I would pick the game of the evening.
Every kind of ball was played in that park. I never figured out the system of rotation: I just enjoyed it, like a sinner standing at the back of the revival tent. The littlest leaguers hit a molded rubber ball off a standing stick, or swung and usually missed a designated dad's pitches. The Lolitas of softball would break my heart and make my gonads tingle with every underarm toss of the white grapefruit. Their polyester uniforms were a study in dynamic tension. Then there was adult men's softball: Lethal affairs fueled by beer, profanity, and middle-aged machismo. But the game I liked best to watch was intermediate boy's hardball. Young teens who've been playing ball since they were littlest, who are getting hard, wiry, and serious. On an intermediate diamond, the bat cracked sharpest on a hit, you saw hustle on the field, and the throws were snapped out flat and hard.
I'd find the game to watch for the night, and park the van at the right field end of the vee of family cars that embraced the diamond. I'd kill the engine, reach back and fish the sixpack out of the freezer, put up my feet up on the dash, pop open that first beer, and offer a libation to the holy lights of the diamond. Ever since that summer I've known the secret: Baseball is the only religon in the world which sends the ordinary devotee to heaven before he dies—and pilgrim, you don't have to travel to a major league park to find salvation.
|
