Today is one of those days where everybody listens to the radio. No matter the color-televisions in their parlor, the sweltering of summer gets them out on the patio like it's the 1900s. Stick days like this, where the sky is honey and the asphalt scorching, they only got energy for audio and redundant babble. 'Set up the sprinklers, cause it's gonna be a hot one today!' Well gee, nobody would be listening if it wasn't, so like, obviously.
It's ice cream for the little ones, crass pool parties for teenagers, and nostalgia for the adults. Nostalgia, of course, means all of the above. That's why Mollie finds herself in front of 'Donny's Parlour'. The title is scrawled on a plain white sign in a slanted cursive, underlined by an awning which alternates pastel pink and blue. From the roof, a giant cone juts into the sky. Long ago it was topped by a gleaming soft-serve spiral until either punks, or a big gust of wind, nixed the idea. It was certainly punks who got a dead sheep stuck in it that time a few years back. Head first, so it's big ole tush would hang out. From afar, it looked pretty much the same as the plastic ice cream, but when you got close you'd see it all hairy and flea-ridden, and generally opt to drive thirty minutes to the next closest cone - some chain franchise way up in the city. Donny (she assumes that's his name) never got to taking it down, though; kept it up there decomposing, and wouldn't even pick up the bones when they fell down to the sidewalk. He must've been awful grateful when one of the neighborhood boys finally mustered the guts to pick one up. With the nature of boys and all, that mess was cleared before dusk that same day. They didn't even sue the establishment when the group came down with a collective case of the stomach flu soon after. People say the skull with a bit of the backbone is still up there, having fallen back into the cone rather than out to the ground. Now, Mollie is only five-foot-two, so she hasn't a hope of seeing that, but all of her tall friends corroborate the claim to this day. That poor old sheep, she thinks.
Sweat toys upon her brow, making her ticklish. She swats it away with the back of her hand, only for another drop to fall promptly in line. If she's melting, the parlour must be a soupy mess! Hopefully she won't be stuck getting a malt served in a cone. Although now that she thinks of it, that doesn't sound too bad.
When she pushes past the door, she's expecting a breath of cool relief, but it's just as bayou on the inside. All she receives is stale air, a tinkle of the bell hung by the door frame, and a sideways glance. The place is empty, but Donny upholds an awkward silence of which he is seemingly impervious. He is a grizzly man, who looks miserable to be gussied up in his chalky white uniform, and that typical parlour cap which is just like the awning outside, but miniaturized and wrapped around itself. Mollie bellies up to the counter and all he does is stare. Desperate for conversation, she skims through the flavors, and actually finds quite a good one.
"What's in the 'Guilt-Free Ice Cream'?"
"Mashed potatoes and vanilla extract," he says. His jaw creaks from the exercise.
"Hmm. Interesting," she says, quickly moving on. Maybe it was his voice which triggers her synapses, although her frightening theory is based primarily on appearance, so maybe it is only the passage of time; nevertheless, a connection is made. This Donny fellow, he reminds her of someone. Mollie sneaks a look-see up at him, then gambles on a squint. Yes, he looks very much so like a rather unsavory-
"You recognize me, don't you? Yeeaaah you do. You're over there squinting, thinking 'could that really be him? Scooping ice cream, of all things?'. And you're having some serious second thoughts about giving me your business, but it is awful hot, as I've already said, and all this custard looks awful tasty, so you go ahead with trepidation. Then you ask when the last time the health department stopped by, and you play it off like it's casual, like you ask that at every restaurant you dine at. And I say 'health department' going all squeaky with the high note at the end like that, and an inquisitive cock of the head - kind of like yours now, as if everybody doesn't ask the same thing. Even though you'll only blubber in response, being the honest businessman I am, I'll still answer the original inquiry. I'll hem and haw, then exhale for a particularly long while, which, this far into this monologue," he gestures at the room and breaks concentration, signifying a short excursion back to reality from the theoretical, "you really ought to know the reasoning, and then, finally, I'll start. I'll tell you that I can't quite remember, but that I do remember that the last agent they sent helped me finish my latest batch of cherry cream, and that the shelf life of my product is roughly ninety days, so why don't you take a sample, and tell me yourself?"
While he was talking, he prepared a little spoonful of the bright red desert, Mollie was so entranced by his cantor, and his glazed eyes, that she missed this, and is now taken aback by the offering.
"Oh," she grabs it, takes another look, and pops it in, "mmhm," she swallows. Chilliness runs down her throat, dislodging the suffocating air, and dissipating sweat relief through her blood. "It's good. Sure hits the spot on a day like this. I don't think I've ever had expired ice cream, but this certainly seems fine." There is this peculiar tinge of flavor in it, something hardly detectable. She feels it is smart to keep that to herself, though.
"So then he was here within the last ninety days, most likely," he answers with a nod.
"Ah-"
"A fun fact about cherry, is that ninety-five percent of a focus group gathered by the Dairy Queen, were unable to correctly identify it compared to a batch of almond which was inundated with a red dye."
With a grin that is simultaneously toothy and toothless, Donny leans under the plexiglass spit-shield which protects the products, and triple taps the label which is skewered in the vat of cherry. It's a little manilla slip hanging like a flag above a deep crimson chasm, fluttering from the agitation of some combination of the three fans in e establishment.
But the slip says almond? Donny winks at her through the glass, then dunks a spindly index into the custard, excavating a sample of his own, which he slurps up with all the voracity and ambiance of a vacuum. Then again, this time his finger glistening with saliva and toying its way through the cream with dawdling spirals. His glistening eyes tell Mollie that her worst fear, the one just now materializing, is unabashedly true.
"Oh," she chokes. "Oh God!"
The minuscule spoon clatters to the floor. Mollie tries to spit the sherbet out, even though she swallowed it over a minute ago. At the counter, Donny is snorting in mild amusement, which is far more frightening than anything maniacal.
