Not All Heroes...

CONTENT NOTE: You all know that playful melody that comes from every ice cream truck that passes through a neighborhood. But what everyone doesn’t know is that song has racist origins. It is based on a song that repeats the worst of racial slurs in the chorus. A reasonable facsimile of lyrics to the song will be in this story and the offending word will simply be replaced by [blank-o]. Most of us are legal adults here, so I’m sure you know the word.  

A massive, ridged black hand holds a popsicle stick, the last remnants of the popsicle now a pink blob running up and down Butch’s arm. Marlon, fresh fade, crisp shirt, massive gold cross drooping from his neck, ,bursts from the front door. His young eyes immediately notice the stick, confused.

“Honey,” Butch is peering a hole through Marlon but talking to someone over his shoulder, “can you tell Marlon what this is?”

Sheila is extravagantly dressed, lounging on the hood of the car in the driveway, examining her fingernails, expression hidden behind a broad set of Chanel sunglasses, silently mourning her lackluster existence.

“It’s a popsicle,” she says to her the gloss of her shellac.

“And can you tell him how many times I licked this popsicle?”

“Zero,” she drones. “You licked it zero.”

“Now, how long do you guess it would take a popsicle to get this sticky? This melted? This nasty? So that’s it’s all over my damned hand and I’m lookin’ like I just slapped the easter bunny.”

Sheila rolls her eyes, and looks at her humongous gold watch, “Twenty-nine minutes.”

“Did you look at your watch?”

“Yeah, I looked at my watch. What’s wrong with lookin’ at my watch?”

“It ruins the effect if you look at your watch.”

“Are you done?” Marlon moans. “Can we just go?”

“No, I ain’t done. Point is I wanted to enjoy my popsicle but because I sat out here waiting for your lazy ass. It’s all gone.”

“Well, there was nothin’ stoppin’ you from eatin’ it.”

“No, I wanted to teach you a life lesson, son. You are ALWAYS late. First time was fine, you was like ‘well, I wasn’t ready’. Next time, I said, OK we gonna do this tomorrow. You still was late. The next time, I give you a week’s notice. I gave you the wrong time so you would think it was earlier. I show up, you forget somethin’ and we late again. And now, I’m standin’ here lookin’ like a jack ass with a damned pink panther popsicle all over my hand.”

“Yo, what can I say, I wanna look nice.”

“Boy! We goin’ down the damned street. We ain’t goin’ to no Oscars. Nobody gonna see you and if they did, nobody gonna give a damned about you. Hey, honey, tell him what Teesha said about him the other day.”

“She called him squirrelly.”

“See, she called yo’ ass squirrelly. Nobody wanna date no damned squirrel.”

“I dunno. Squirrels kinda cute.”

“CUTE!”

“Yeah, Alvin and the Chipmunks was lit.”

“That’s a whole nother species, man. Don’t come up here with this Alvin and the Chimpunks bullshit.”

“Chimpunks are actually a part of the same family as squirrels," Sheila interrupts. "Sciuridae which includes marmots -- also called groundhogs or woodchucks.”

“I don’t believe I asked you a god damned thang!” Butch hollers, visible seething. “And how you know that shit to begin with?”

“I Wikipedia when I’m bored," she shrugs, typing away at her phone now. "It’s educational.”

“And I’m tryin’ to give this youngblood an education about business.”

“Hey, I’m here. Ready to go," Marlon notes, "What type of education do I need?”

“I’m sayin’ you take forever to get ready. You brush your hair a thousand times like you Marsha Brady. You press your shirts. You clean off your damned shoes when we usually just goin’ a few blocks.”

"And?”

“And you need to stop gettin’ ready like a bitch.”

“Hey!” Sheila hollers, her eyebrows lifting, “What I told you about that language! Just because someone takes a while to get ready, that's no reason to use misogynist slurs against them. That’s the problem with hip-hop music. Yeah, it leads to the empowerment of our people, but it also perpetuates harmful stereotypes --”

“OK, OK, OK!” Butch relents.

He hates when Sheila goes on one of her rants.

“Ya girl’s right.” Marlon tacks on.

“Ya’ll both tryin’ to distract me,” Butch goes on. “Point is I run a business and a businessman is always on time.”

“Well, why did you have time to go down to the store to get a popsicle.”

“I didn’t go down the street. An ice cream truck came up.”

“Wait. You got that ice cream from an ice cream truck.”

“Yeah what the fuck else I gonna get from an ice cream truck. Advice on my 401K? What the hell kind of question is that.”

“I’m just sayin’ that Ice Cream Truck song they play is racist.”

Butch is incredulous. He wants to move on, but cannot ignore this slap to the face. He thinks of all the fond memories of his boys and him eating ice cream in the streets after a rough and tumble game of street football. These lies couldn't be true.

Sheila doesn’t make things any better as she adds her two cents, “I tried to tell him! He didn’t believe me!”

Butch laughs. He had heard this rumor before, but never believed it, especially coming from Marlon or someone who gets all their information from Wikipedia. 

“Ya’ll both crazy.”

“You ain’t heard the lyrics?” Marlon presses.

“It ain’t GOT no lyrics. It’s just music.”

“But the music is based on lyrics from the early 1900s and the lyrics are racist.”

“Now, you just bullshittin’ me.”

“Yeah, that popsicle stick of yours is racist as fuck,” Marlon says, pointing at it. “Wanna hear the words to the song?”

“I don’t need --”

“There’s a [blank-o] on the sidewalk

There’s a [blank-o] in the hay.”

“OK, that’s kind of bad.”

“There’s these a [blank-o] in street 

Another [blank-o] down the way..”

“OK, I got the point.”

“And if I want for all the [blank-os] 

To come on by my way.”

“A’ight!! You made your point!”

“I just yell to the air and then I 

Kindly say.”

“OK.”

“[Blank-o] love a watermelon, Ha, ha, ha.”

“Alright, that’s enough.”

“[Blank-o] love a watermelon. Ha, ha --”

Click.

A Glock is instantly aimed in Marlon’s face. A film of sweat, not born of heat, is instantly on his brow as Butch aims the gun straight at his head with intensity in his glare.

The usually lackadaisical Sheila has jumped up from the car, her painted lips open in shock. She nearly falls over in her skyscraper high heels.

Butch, realizing his overreaction and the scene he’s made, sighs to himself and puts the gun at his side.

“Come on, nephew,” Butch says, a slightly apologetic tone to his voice, “let’s go do this driveby.”

Marlon is still a little frazzled, but he checks for his own piece, It’s in his waistband where he left it. They start to walk toward the car and then a beeping begins to sound.

“Shit,” Butch moans.

“What?”

“School just got out.”

“And?”

“Fool, what I look like doin’ a drive-by witt kids around? I ain’t no fuckin’ Jeffery Dawmer.” Butch thinks about it and then shakes his head. “I’ll give that fool one more day t’get the money. Then he ghost.”

“That’s bet,” says Marlon.

“Well, yo’ ass dressed up already, let’s get some grub.”

“Sure thing, unc.”

They all position themselves in the car, Marlon in back, staring into space, thinking. Sheila sits on the passenger side with her legs pressed to her chest and arms wrapped around her like she’s cold even though it’s one hundred outside.

Butch glares over from the driver’s side.

“Why can’t you ever sit like a normal person?”

She just looks at him with those big ass eyes he always made fun off. He can feel her eyes watching him, judging him even beneath glass.

“You know we ain’t normal people, honey,” she simply says.

Then he has a premonition.

“Hey kenfolk,” says to his to the back seat. “I was just thinkin’,”

He’s rubbing his chin with his gun. 

“A month ago, we missed a drive-by and the dude came up witt the money the very next day. The next one we missed, the guy skipped town like he got an anonymous tip. And there was one a few months ago, that you just talked me out of.”

“Yeah, unc? And?”

“You don’t be dragging on purpose so you can save these fools' lives?”

His voice sounds young, too innocent for this as he trembles to say, “Nah, unc. Why would you think that?”

His uncle pauses and thinks a moment. He doesn’t like being fooled. His brow wrinkles to the thought of it. The silence is stark and only intensified by the big black gun sitting in Butch’s lap. The sudden noise breaks it with a start.

“I want Burger King!” says Sheila. “And we’re all getting Impossible Whoppers!”

The suggestion that he eats fake meat is the deepest affront to Butch’s sensibilities.

“What the hell! Fuck that shit!”

“Have I ever told you about how they slaughter those cows?”

“Only every damned day for the last three fuckin’ years. I can’t take a dump witt out you tellin’ me that bullshit.”

“Well, I don’t wanna eat no food if I gotta torture animals to do it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Butch puts the keys in the ignition knowing changing Sheila’s mind is a pointless venture.  

Sheila, in the meantime, glances back at Marlon, giving him an inch of a smile.

The recognition is just perceptible enough for Marlon to notice as the car pulls off.