The Good Humor Man
by Lou Macaluso © 2006
“My name's ‘Sergeant Friday' today,” Mike said.
“You were ‘Friday' yesterday!” I protested.
“Yeah, but you were him two times before!”
“Okay, but I'm ‘Sergeant Friday' tomorrow.”
It never mattered who was ‘Sergeant Friday.' Our favorite television-police-name always emerged.
“Do you see what I see, Joe?”
“Looks like a body in the Charlestons' bushes, Joe!”
“Let's go take a look, Joe.”
“Okay, Joe!”
On the morning of June 1 st , 1956 Mike and I played Dragnet on Mike's front lawn. Our mothers drank coffee and gossiped inside his house. I was five-years-old, and Mike was four. We were alike in ways that bonded us like brothers. We both loved the action TV shows, Dragnet, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, M-Squad, and Have Gun Will Travel . Our joy of reenacting the roles of heroic and villainous characters from our favorite episodes bonded us even further.
Just as in the real TV drama, we carefully approached the Charlestons' front lawn directly across the double sidewalk in front of Mike's front lawn. Cautiously, we peeked over the bushes to view the body.
Suddenly, Mr. Charleston, holding a stepstool and a paper bag, appeared on his front porch. He was a burly-looking man in his fifties with thinning gray hair and a big beer gut that forced his torn sleeveless T-shirt out of his work pants and exposed his hairy navel. At first, he looked straight ahead and didn't see us at all. Then, he glanced to his right, spotted us and bellowed, “How many times I gotta' tell you kids ta' stay off my lawn! Go play on your own lawns!”
We darted toward Mike's lawn; however, an adult screaming at kids was so common back then, he hadn't scared us much. From the safety of Mike's front lawn, we watched what he was doing.
Mr. Charleston took his stepstool and placed it below a window on the face of his house, not far from where the bushes hid our dead body. From the paper bag he took a squeegee and squirt bottle full of blue fluid. He climbed the stepstool and placed himself directly in front of the window.
With his back turned to us he presented a perfect opportunity for two little boys to act like two little boys. We made monster-like faces at him and rude noises that we hoped he couldn't hear. He continued his work; either he didn't hear us, or he was ignoring us.
Then, without warning, Mr. Charleston fell backwards from his stepstool, landed on his bushes, and rolled onto the ground. Mike and I were connoisseurs of The Three Stooges , and this stunt rivaled any slapstick routine we'd seen, and we burst into laughter.
But Mr. Charleston was holding his chest and gasping for air.
We stopped laughing, and Mike ran into his house and called for his mother. From his front lawn, Mr. Charleston turned and looked at me with helpless, painful fear in his eyes. I wanted to run, but I couldn't. Fear and shame simultaneously shot through my body.
I had mocked and laughed at him, and now he might be dying.
Mrs. Charleston, a heavy-set woman, ran from her house and cradled her husband.
My mother and Mike's mother came running.
Someone had called an ambulance, and the distant siren grew louder and louder. Neighbors trying to comfort Mr. and Mrs. Charleston filled the double sidewalk. The ambulance drove right up the double sidewalk between the houses to where Mr. Charleston lay. The attendants turned him over and rested him on the stretcher, and it was evident to everyone that he was dead. Our mothers walked Mrs. Charleston to the ambulance and helped her into the back to ride with her husband.
Neighbors stood around for a while after the ambulance sped away and said useless things such as, “I just saw him last night, and he was fine!”
“Geez, and he was just getting ready to retire.”
“What's she gonna' do now?”
“Goes to show ya', ya' never know. Ya' just never know.”
After a short time, the crowd dispersed. I found myself alone on the lawn, just as I had been when Mr.Charleston had looked at me with those fearful eyes.
As I started to walk home I heard the familiar tinkling bells of the Good Humor truck coming down LaSalle Street.
Kids ran to buy Popsicles and ice cream as if nothing had happened.
I listened briefly to the tolling little bells and the laughter of the kids, and then I ran to join the others.
END
Bio:
Lou Macaluso is a Chicago native, writer, and high school English teacher. His most recent project is a creative nonfiction book entitled Clown Town about growing up in Chicago during the 1950s and overcoming traumatic experiences. He currently resides on the southside of Chicago with his wife, Dorinda, and four dogs.