When i was a kid, school let out for the summer and it was jumping ramps with my bike time, fishing the canal for large mouthed bass, mowing lawns for buying shit like slurpees, watermelon gum, going to the movies and the ice-cream truck. Our ice-cream man was a ol perv who gave little girls free stuff if they lifted up their pretty little pink summer dress and showed him undies. My favorite off the truck was screwballs - cherry slush and a gum ball at the bottom, second was push-ups, then rocket pops. It was the late seventies. Rock music was still hard, cars were still fast and we rode our bikes without helmets, skateboarded without knee-pads, stayed out until dark with no supervision. We turned out just fine. Video-games were stand up machines at pin-ball arcades, you fed them fucking quarters. You didnt hide in your house all day, no kid stayed indoors.
Even though i lived in South Florida i didnt grow up having a swimming pool. There was only one family that had one put in, a few had above ground pools, the rest of us had kiddie pools, home-made slip-n-slides and sprinklers. I didnt learn to swim until i was seven. To cool off from the heat I rode to the movies with my friends or sometimes alone. They played old Disney movie double features for a dollar. Herbie the love bug and Escape from witch mountain type of stuff. The movie Jaws kind of changed my life, until I saw a movie called Star Wars. I also recall The Warriors, Rollercoaster, and Carrie having some effect on my young mind. I went to the library on occasion too, i was obsessed with soccer and took out books about pele. I got into S.E. Hinton, and later Stephen King. I looked at rock magazines and anything that might have a half naked girl.
Addidas. All.day.i dream. about sex. Something changed. After awhile nothing else mattered, everything i did, wore, said, liked, faked, every fight , scar , tear, drop of blood, every note written, poem, song, goal i scored, any money i made, bike i rode, car i drove, every stupid hair-cut, body spray, truth, lie, every drug i took, cigarette smoked, glass i tilted back. Anytime i ever danced, pretended to like your parents, said it would be forever, said yes, we could be just friends.
It was hot today, i was in the pool thinking about screwball icecream. About the first time i fell in love, about bmx bikes. About the awesome sex i used to have with you, puffy stickers, trapper keeper notebooks. I got out dried off and drove to four different gas stations in an attempt to find a screwball. I looked online and now they make a two ball screwball. ( holy shit two disgusting after two chews gum balls at the bottom!) Im listening for the bells. The music that broken down looking white truck blares. Wheres the ive cream man when you need him?
