The Yellow Truck

“Man, six bucks for an ice cream sandwich? Highway robbery.” Jack squinted at the menu slapped crookedly on the side of the bright yellow panel truck. Perry’s Ice Cream. Everyone had a restaurant on wheels these days. Knockoffs of famous characters grinned back at him with their dead eyes. He knew the actual products would be a deformed, melted version of the picture, and he found the irregular eyeballs and melting smiles to be unsettling. A nice, plain ice cream sandwich would hit the spot.

“Excuse me? Hello?” Though the sliding sales window was open, Jack saw no sign of a vendor even though the speakers puked out a chiptune version of ‘La Cucaracha’ at top volume. “Are you going to take my money or what?” 

The chill from the freezers seeped out from the window. Jack leaned in a little further, noting the container of ice cream sandwiches that could be easily opened from his vantage point. He looked as far into the truck as he could see, then checked over his shoulder to see if he had an audience. The neighbors could be so nosy. With no one in sight, Jack quickly snaked his hand into the window, opened the container, and grabbed hold of a coveted ice cream sandwich.

“Should’ve been doing your job, Ice Cream Man” he mumbled as he walked back to his house, mouth full of ice cream and perfectly soggy cookie. He casually tossed the wrapper into his neighbor Mrs. Crowley’s yard. Mrs. Crowley was the sort of woman everyone assumed was a witch, and the local kids would egg her house each Halloween and dare each other to ring her doorbell and run. She was probably a very nice lady, but Jack didn’t care enough to do anything about it.

The yellow truck sat on the street outside Jack’s house for hours, rotating through its jaunty but very limited playlist which, Jack noted, recycled ‘La Cucaracha’ far more than was probably necessary. Jack considered calling the police, but with his record and at least one warrant out for his arrest, he didn’t want to call any attention to himself. Still, he was surprised that no one else in the neighborhood seemed to have called. In fact, no one else in the neighborhood even seemed to pay the truck any mind.

The sky eventually darkened, and the streetlights buzzed on, and finally, the truck shut off its pixelated musical loop and trundled away.

As night settled in, Jack, not wanting to lose the sweet and ill-begotten taste of ice cream from his lips, didn’t bother to brush his teeth before crawling into bed.

His leg was missing. Jack searched around the house, tossing couch cushions and overturning tables, flinging plates and mugs from his kitchen cabinets, even checking behind the toilet just in case. But no leg. He licked his lips, tasting the smooth vanilla cream from his earlier treat. Jack’s brain fought to make a connection between the ice cream sandwich and his missing leg, but the thoughts were foggy and nebulous. The opening notes of ‘La Cucaracha’ floated into the room...

Jack launched upward, sweat pouring from his face as he shook off the nightmare. He tasted the residue of the ice cream on his lips, then flung the clammy sheets off his body to make sure his leg was, in fact, still there. ‘La Cucaracha’ played in the distance, just audible through his open window. At first, Jack was able to dismiss the music as a memory echo from earlier, but the music grew louder.

He lurched out of bed and towards the window, stopping to wrap his robe around himself so the neighbors wouldn’t get a peek at his genitals if they happened to be awake and also looking directly at his house. The familiar yellow panel truck was slowly turning onto his street, music playing at a volume just loud enough for him to hear clearly but still retain a dream-like quality. Jack had the strangest feeling the headlights were aimed directly at him as the truck crept towards his house, an inching pace that was almost sinister. It was far too dark to see if a driver was present this time, but Jack assumed there was one.  

Jack shut the window, muting the noise just a touch, and tried to get back to sleep. The song slithered into his ears and brain, worming around and preventing him from falling back to sleep. He promised himself that he would give the driver a stern talking-to in the morning if the truck were still parked outside his house.

As the sun started to peak over the horizon, the music finally died down, and Jack stood in the window watching the panel truck slowly crawl down the street. He hadn’t bothered to grab his robe this time, but the fog of sleeplessness had settled over his brain.

More than one cup of bitter, black coffee was necessary to get him ready for the ride to work. Slower reactions would make the commute more dangerous, he thought, snapping on his bike helmet. He cursed his revoked driver’s license, unsteadily mounted the bike, and started pedaling. At each red light, Jack took a generous swig out of his travel mug, and by the time he sat down at his desk, he was wired.

The sheer amount of coffee he drank that morning had agitated Jack’s stomach, so he was looking forward to having solid food by the time noon rolled around. A little something to absorb all that coffee. He walked to his favorite sandwich shop, a tiny hole in the wall a block or so down from his office. It was a checkered tablecloth affair (plus an easily accessible tip jar and an oblivious cashier, so he almost always broke even).

The welcome bell chimed merrily as Jack opened the door, but the chimes didn’t stop when the door closed. He paused, listening, then realized the notes formed a song. ‘La Cucaracha’ increased in volume steadily, and Jack was too busy frowning at the noise to notice when the hostess greeted him.

“Uh, sorry, table for one,” he told her, and she walked him to a booth by the window. Jack started to sit but realized he could see the bright yellow panel truck pull awkwardly into the parallel parking spot directly in front of the diner. He sprang back, an odd fear clawing at his chest.

“Maybe a different table,” he said.

The hostess shrugged and pointed him to a table near the kitchen. Jack slumped down in a chair that still let him see out the window. The menu, still as maddeningly crooked as before, was fully visible from this vantage point, and Jack noted that though the sales window was open, no one was manning the counter.

Jack couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched as he ordered his lunch, chewed, drank, wiped his mouth with his flimsy paper napkin, paid at the counter, helped himself to the tip jar, and walked out the door, every move soundtracked by the tinny tunes pumping out of the truck’s speaker. No one had approached the counter to buy an ice cream the entire lunch hour.

His muscles relaxed as he walked back to his building. The more the music faded with distance, the better he felt. He hadn’t even noticed he was so tense. Jack rolled his neck around, rotated his shoulders, and was just about to reach the automatic doors to his office when he heard it again.

The 8-bit notes of ‘La Cucaracha’ increased in volume behind him, and he swung around, fists raised and heart beating rapidly.  

His boss, who had been walking up immediately behind him, backed up. “Whoa, whoa, Jack.” Treating Jack like a panicked horse had, presumably, his boss’ desired effect, and Jack put his fists down.

“What’s got you all spooked? Bad sandwich?” His boss chuckled and then breezed past Jack into the office.

Still on the sidewalk, Jack caught a flash of yellow down the block. He didn’t wait to see the truck this time and rushed inside.

-

Jack was waiting, rather impatiently, to cross the street on his way home when a shiver ran up his spine. He looked over his shoulder, and his stomach seized. The yellow ice cream truck was also in line at the stop light, just three car lengths away. It wasn’t playing the music, but Jack thought he could hear it all the same. Jack wasn’t completely sure that the truck was following him specifically as he cycled through the neighborhood, but with each turn, he became more and more convinced. The truck kept a slow speed and stayed a modest distance behind his bike, far lower than the posted speed limit.

He stopped at the cluster mailbox at the top of his street, mostly to check the mail but also to see if the ice cream truck would keep driving. The truck slowed to a halt a few yards from the mailboxes, the staccato sounds still aggressively worming its way into Jack’s brain. Jack fiddled with the mailbox key and took an unnecessary amount of time inspecting each piece of mail, even the junk, but the ice cream truck still didn’t move.

Jack stared directly at the driver’s side of the windshield. It was so tinted that he was still unable to tell if anyone was in the driver’s seat at all. He flipped the bird just in case and got back on his bike. As he started pedaling the short distance to his house, the truck started following again.

A few houses down from his own, Jack heard the truck accelerate. His heart thumping, he quickly looked back to confirm that yes, the ice cream truck was speeding up and heading his way. He checked his surroundings for a safe place to duck behind, but only Mrs. Crowley’s rose bushes offered any sort of protection.

He darted towards the bushes, abandoning his bike and hurling himself into the roses in one semi-graceful movement that would have made a movie stuntman proud. The thorns bit into his skin, and one scratched dangerously close to his left eye. The truck had missed him, but Jack heard the screech of brakes.

Jack painfully extricated himself from the rose bushes, and the ice cream truck still idled in the road, ‘La Cucaracha’ blaring incessantly. The back door of the truck swung open with a creak.

“Hey!” Jack yelled, wiping blood from his face only to realize he also had blood on his hands and lots of other places because of the thorns. He lurched towards the back of the truck, his left leg dragging slightly. It would be bruised in the morning, he thought.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, asshole!” Jack rounded the back of the truck and leaned on the open door. No one was inside.

-

Through a narrow break in the curtains, Mrs. Crowley observed Jack as he yelled at the ice cream truck. He had always been an odd duck, that Jack, terribly messy. And just the other day, he had been standing at his window in the middle of the night with only a robe on. She had almost seen his genitals!

Mrs. Crowley couldn’t make out exactly what Jack was yelling, but she imagined it was full of swearing. He started to lean into the open back of the truck, and then in an instant, he was yanked inside. Before his legs made it all the way across the bumper, the doors of the truck slammed shut with such force that Jack’s left leg was severed at the knee. The bloody leftovers dropped unceremoniously to the pavement and rolled to the curb.

High-pitched notes of ‘La Cucaracha’ distorted with static, and the truck shuddered violently. Mrs. Crowley took a tiny sip of her tea and watched the menu sign spin as the truck convulsed.

With one last tremble, the truck stilled and the spinning sign stopped. The music had changed, and so had the sign’s content.

Perry’s Hamburgers, it read. Still crooked.

The truck slowly crept down the street, and she pinched her curtains shut.