No Ice

Cody Kucker

I.

"No ice."
"No ice."
"No ice."
And after dragging a cordially down-slant look from the cashier to the man behind him, Carpenter faced the cashier again, and said, as if for the first time, "No ice."
"It’s a day for ice," the man behind him went on, "Where you comin' from?"
"Work."
" Who isn't?--No ice---where's home?"
"Shirley Street."
"Shirley Street! But I'm on Beckham."
The cashier: "Sir," drawing Carpenter to look at the brown tray as he slid it to the right a full extension of his two fingers. "What can I get you, Sir."
"Just hold on one minute. Shirley Street---How come I neva' seen ya?"
Carpenter was holding his tray with both hands and chewing a french-fry. His sunglasses were still on and he dropped his face slightly to slide them a cuticle down the bridge of his nose to look at the man in the flannel shirt with shred-off sleeves.
"Out early. In late."
"You got a wife?"
Carpenter turned his head back around and looked into the parking lot and the sea gulls convening in the recent shade. They scattered and a white Kia drove by. He turned his head back to the man who was now talking to the cashier, pointing to the pictures on the menu and making the shape of a big burger in his hands, before holding up two fingers and nodding them twice to emphasize that he was hungry: two number fives. 'No ice' he heard the man say again, shaking his head, pulling bills out of his wallet.
"What's with the ice?"
"Whats's with the ice?"
Carpenter had revolved to nearly facing the man head on, his sunglasses raised to his hair line, the dust of baseball fields or long jump pits, tawny, climbing into his eyes, caked in the lines, the vein in his left forearm letting the black hairs stand.
"Its ninety degrees," the man said, "how you s'pose to cool down."
"Sir," the cashier extending his fingers and sliding the tray.
Carpenter stayed where he was and the man in ash cargo shorts and worn loafers walked by him. Carpenter proceeded to the ketchup tank and filled the cup he was scraping with his last french-fry when he realized he was being spoken to:
"So you got a wife?---Where's she?"
There were lettuce shreds hanging out the man's mouth while he did his best to avoid the loss, gulping at them on their way down. Carpenter turned around in his booth, thought the man was a doting slob, and turned back around and crumpled the ketchup cup and the napkin, and after tipping his cup for the last drop of his drink, put the crumpled papers in the cup and stood up. The man was unwrapping his second burger. He heard the man begin to speak and he was in the seat across from him.
"Shut your fucking mouth when you chew." And then he rubbed the man's thin, receding hair and pushed back his forehead lightly. The man finished unwrapping his burger and with it in his hands said, "I see."

II.

The man left the restaurant and went to the grocery store. He added something to his cart in each aisle, analyzing the back of packages closely and indiscriminately: toothbrushes, batteries, jelly beans, dog bones; taking them off the rack, putting them back, taking another, looking more hastily, putting it back, and then moving on to add items to his carriage without a thought.
"Homo-gen-ization," he said to a homely woman beside him with a carpeted scratching post in her cart. "Think it will stay fresh?---Milk," he said with skepticism.
She smiled and passed looks over him to try and signal that he was in the way. "Oop." And he moved on.
He went to the eggs and opened the cartons one by one and looked over the eggs, lingering in the middle of the shelf and taking note of the hands that would do the same to his right and left and lessen the stock. A hand with chipping red paint on the nails angled in on his right. He followed the arm up to the shoulder. The woman looked away when he got to her face and put the eggs in her carriage. He took the carton in his hand and put it in the seat of his carriage and moved back toward the milk, behind the woman. The wheel of his carriage started grinding, and then squeaking. She moved to the right to let the squeaky cart pass and pulled her carriage back a bit when she noticed it was the man. He was in the milk fridge again, his index finger and thumb stroking the gray stubble on his chin, turning his head to the woman every two or so strokes. There was already a half gallon of milk next to the eggs in his carriage and he replaced it with a different brand. Noticing the woman with the chipped-paint nails was still in the cooler, he perused the creams until he inched his way to the yogurts and started reading labels again. Through the fog of the open glass door he noticed the khaki blur of the woman heading back in the direction of the eggs. The grocer had slipped in between him and his cart and he collided with him turning around. He got to his carriage and squeaked into the dog food aisle: her cart was full. He put his hands in his pockets, left his cart in the aisle, and made his way to the side door to the parking lot.
It was the end of dusk and the lamps were freckled with insects. White arms caught the yellow lights and car doors slammed. The man stopped on the edge of the sidewalk and looked into the windows of the transit bus that drove by: out of service, the neon and the standing poles. He crossed the parking when the bus passed and walked toward the front of the grocery store. Stopping at the intersection, he crossed back again and walked toward the main entrance. The woman he saw at the milk pulled up to the stop sign and looked left before speeding straight. Standing with his hands in his pockets, shifting to the balls of his feet in his loafers, he stood on the corner of the sidewalk and looked up at the lamp and to the grocery store entrance before continuing his way in that direction.
There was a group of teenage girls waiting for a bus outside the apparel entrance on the way to the main entrance. Getting past them he turned and watched people go in and out from an angle. When he turned back around he saw Carpenter pass in his truck and quickened his pace to the front entrance and beyond it to the gardening entrance where the lights had been turned off. He heard the vicious rumble of a truck engine barrel out of a stop, the rev, the blow of smoke, and someone curse. There was a bench with flower pots, home to some kind of crawling plants, on both ends and he sat in the cooling dark and watched the people enter and exit, his right ankle on his left thigh. With a calm swipe, he streaked wet on his forehead, and brought his finger and thumb back to his stubbled chin.