A color photo of an abandoned ice cream cart. The truck on its side, a ruin. The attendant umbrella to shade both the owner and the customer, bent hazily now to one side; a lopsided disfigurement of what had been.
What “had been” was the cheerful sound from the ice cream cart. A bell ringing and a voice singing, “Helado!” “Ice cream!” “Ice cream for sale!” Then came the happy faces of the neighborhood children, surrounding the ice cream cart and its owner with laughter, clamor and jostling.
The ice cream cart man and his goodies provided more than ice cream. He brought sweetness to the kids, and relief, if only for a few moments for the mothers; They knew their young ones were safe.
The ice cream man would extend “credit” to those who did not have the cash to pay for his treats with the promise that they could pay him back later. One of the fulcrums bringing families together. A true neighborhood.
ICE silenced the ice cream cart man.
Toppled his wares.
Destroyed his cart.
No one knew where the ice cream man went. His whereabouts untold. Another nobody in an ever-growing list of nobodies. But an important somebody to those who remember. I have not forgotten and I don't even live there. Those who knew him well, along with onlookers and readers like us, we have not forgotten.
One man's destruction destroys us all.
A colorful ice cream cart abandoned.
The old man arrested.
A family without a grandfather, a father, a son, an uncle, a nephew, or a brother. All of these.
A neighborhood diminished in size and sweetness.
A nation bereft of its honour.