“You forgot all the others,” I say. “Point for Niki.”
“Yeah, you can be the one to tell her when we get out of here.”
Rocky Horror bursts through the tree line, the rifle in his hand. The others follow him, taking in the scene. He turns to Jamar, Taylor, and Cara, telling them to go back into the woods and stay out of sight. “If something happens, run. Get out of here.”
Cara nods and leads Jamar and Taylor into the trees as RockyHorror turns his attention to me. I run around to the rear of the ice cream truck—the Mexican hat dance drowns out something Rocky Horror calls after me.
The back of the ice cream truck is open. I round the corner, expecting some horror show to greet me.
Instead there’s a short, thin man with light brown skin. He’s shouting out vocalizations to the music as he vigorously whisks something in a large steel bowl. He glances over at me and startles. His whisking hand goes wild, and something thick and syrupy goes flying up to the ceiling.
He puts his hand to his heart and shouts something, but I can’t really hear him over the music. Rocky Horror joins me, pointing the rifle, and the man’s hands fly into the air.
“Don’t shoot!” That I understand.
But the man is alone in his truck. There’s no Kid in sight.
“Let me turn off the music!” he shouts, pointing toward the front of the truck. Rocky Horror motions with the end of the rifle for him to go ahead, and the man cautiously walks to the front. The music snaps off and he returns, his hands still high above his head.
The man is in his forties, maybe. He has a salt-and-pepper beard, but the gray hasn’t spread yet to the thick waves of black hair slicked back on top of his head.
“Please,” he says, speaking with a Spanish accent. “Don’t shoot me. My brother, he is alone out there. I play the music for him.”
“Andrew?” I turn to see the Kid standing by the trees. He’s holding the hand of a boy with Down syndrome. Rocky Horror immediately lowers the gun.
The man in the truck jumps down between us, his voice rising to sound happy and excited, but I can still hear some anxiety in there. He says something in Spanish that I can’t recognize but then repeats it in English—I assume for our benefit. “Hector, come meet our new friends.” He puts his hand out to Rocky Horror, using the other to gently push the rifle down a bit more. “I’m Ramiro. My brother is Hector.”
“Rocky Horror.”
Ramiro quirks his head and smiles wide. “Beautiful name. Nice to meet you.” He turns to me. “I assume, then, that you are Andrew?”
I say yes and shake his hand.
The others emerge from the woods and introduce themselves. Ramiro says hello to everyone, the atmosphere slowly growing less tense.
“Hector!” he calls out to his brother. “Why don’t you come say hello if you want, and let our friends warm themselves by the fire while I finish the ice cream.”
Ice cream? I mean, I know it’s an ice cream truck but, one, it’s probably not even forty degrees out, and two through one million, it’s the fucking end of the world. How is he making ice cream?
But before I can ask, Hector comes over, reaches out, and hugs me. “Hi, Andrew, I’m Hector,” he says.
“Nice to meet you, Hector.”
He turns to Rocky Horror and introduces himself and hugs him, too. Rocky Horror tells Hector his name and watches him go say hello to, and hug, the others. And I realize Amy isn’t there. Cara tells me she waited by the road with Henri-Two—probably worried we’d allbe murdered and wanting to spare her one-year-old that fate—and says she’ll go get her. Rocky Horror turns and follows Ramiro into the truck. Knowing the Kid is safe with Hector and the others, I follow him.
“Do you like ice cream?” Ramiro asks, back to whisking.
“How do youhaveice cream?” Rocky Horror asks.
Ramiro motions around him. “It’s an ice cream truck.” Then he winks at Rocky Horror and laughs. “I would not call itrealice cream had the whole world not shit the bed. I love that phrase,shit the bed. But ice cream, yes. Sadly, until I can find a cow small enough to fit in this truck, we are stuck with—” He moves the metal bowl and opens the steel door to the chest freezer, taking out several bags followed by cans and a plastic bottle. “Powdered milk, condensed milk, evaporated milk, and on those depressing days when we no longer have shelf-stable milk, raspados.” He shakes the bottle of cherry syrup, then drops it all back into the nonworking freezer.
“Unfortunately”—he shrugs as he returns to whisking the fake ice cream—“Hector is not a fan of raspados, but I make him ice cream as long as I can find the ingredients to do so. If I do it well enough, he hardly can tell the difference.”
“That’s a very nice thing for you to do.” If I didn’t know Rocky Horror to be a cynical bitch like I am, I’d think there was a bit of joy in his eyes. But, yeah, even I can see the kindness in Ramiro’s actions.
Ramiro turns to look at us again, then out the open window of the ice cream truck. “Well, there isn’t much else left to do these days. Why not spend the time we have doing kindnesses for those we love?”
Again, my heart breaks for Jamie. The kindness that’s missing from him. Was it my fault? Was I not doing enough to remind himthat there can be good in the world? Maybe I should have stayed with him. Gone with him to Fort Caroline and tried to stop him before he got there.
