The Ice Cream Man

What are you afraid of?

Thinking about this question while I'm at a birthday party with a few of my good friends and a myriad of peers, isn't my cup of tea. Everybody is cackling and making out and getting wasted off of their asses. The last thing I want to do is reveal to the whole junior class that I'm afraid of The Ice Cream Man.

Yes...I did say that. The Ice Cream Man.

No...not a crazy movie character or some other whatchamacallit doo-dad.  I'm talking just the plain old ice cream man.  The guy that rolls down your street every other weekend smiling and vomiting buckets of joy.

Yeah...that guy.

Except...not that guy.

It's a little hard to explain, and it's a subject that not a lot of people can relate to. I can already picture what everyone will say when I answer the question.

The ice cream man? Really Bobby? What a pussy!

Well, maybe they had a different ice cream man then. Maybe their ice cream man was Santa Claus's doppelganger shitting jovial elves and gifts for everyone, because my ice cream man?

Absolutely petrifying.

So instead of unpeeling the layers of my soul I say, "Death?" It comes out as a question.

"Oh, man you're one of those guys?" Tyler whines slapping my back. I'm not that nerdy protagonist who has a hoard of equally nerdy friends who all get together and complain about the inner ugliness of the Popular People. Nope, Tyler is a ladies man. Girls can't get enough of his bod. So instead I'm the nerdy best friend that makes his hot ass best friend look appetizing in front of the ladies. I don't complain about the apparent bad personalities of our school celebrities with anyone...I do it by myself. If I note that Britney Carter is an absolute skank, Tyler has something to say about how when he slept with her she was a little angel.

......

Just don't question it.

Don't get me wrong! I kind of make it sound like Tyler is one of those "friends" who isn't really my friend but is just using me. The truth is we've been friends for as long as I can remember. He just got the balls to grow up and live a little. I'm a coward...and I always will be.  Tyler gets that I'm a recluse but, he still thinks that I can be "saved" so he insists on bringing me to these lame ass parties with our best girlfriend Robin Peterson. The only girl that Tyler hasn't slept with that I know of is Robin. She isn't hot or skanky like the rest of the girls that hang off of him. She has some flab; I'm not going to lie. Her gut does poke out quite a ways. In no way does that take away from her beauty though. Her hair is long and chocolate brown, falling down her shoulders like a creamy waterfall. She has her own style. She doesn't wear what everyone else is wearing just because it's "in" she wears whatever she wants because she likes it. She is like every other girl in the way that she is very insecure with her looks, but when she is around other people she doesn't let it show. She walks with the confidence of a super model, and it definitely makes her look like one. I play video games with her every Tuesday from four to seven, she likes RPG's and I can relate.

In short....she's too good for Tyler.

Too good for me.

Though I've never had any thoughts of getting with her...I'm sure Tyler has. Sometimes I catch him looking at her with this look of adoration. I think she's the only girl he hasn't touched because he doesn't want her to think that she is like all the rest. I can understand that.

Let's just say that I root for them.

We're on our way home now walking in the dead of night, the light dribbling rain splashing against the wet ground with vibrating waves. Tyler has his arm wrapped around my shoulder while he sings Baby Come Back that old Player song with a slightly drunken slur. He's not too wasted; he's just got a moderate buzz going on. Robin laughs at him beside me her arm around my waist as we trudge towards home. We opt out of riding cars to parties; it always clears heads a little more when we have to walk. Plus it's bonding time.