with Gord on the punk front, not since he opened Icy Dream. Punks streamed in at all hours, hot and cold running punks, and Gord discovered his group nemesis. They scared off the kind of customers Gord wanted — moms with kids, for example, not to mention the considerable number of people who shuffled in solo just to buy a single cone or hot fudge sundae, some small confection to brighten up their lonely, ho-hum lives. These customers were depressing, yes, but at least they didn’t make trouble. There is not much sadder than a fat guy in his fifties sitting alone in the back of an Icy Dream plastic-spooning soft-serve into his mouth, but there is one thing sadder, and that’s watching the same guy flinch every time the jolly group of teenage dicks in the next booth erupt into gales of comradely yet somehow malicious laughter.
The punks would invariably order small orange pops and skulk in the corner booths spinning coins and shooting the shit under their breath until the gales of brain-dead testosterone-stupid laughter erupted, a sound that was like the pig-squeal of microphone feedback to my father’s ears. For a while he tried the “Eat something or get out” tactic, at which point the punks would invariably pool their change and place a single order of small fries to see them through the next hour of customer alienation.
Get the hell over there, Gord would hiss at me then, and tell those punks to pound salt. Or else you’ll bust their skulls, tell them.
They have drinks, I’d say.
They don’t have drinks! They got a cup full of gob after chewing on their goddamn straws the last hour. Put your hat back on.
Usually when I had to confront the punks I would remove my paper hat because it made me feel like a tit.
I look like a tit in the hat, Gord. They won’t take me seriously.
You don’t look like a tit in the hat! It’s your uniform. A uniform gives a man an air of authority.
An Icy Dream uniform does not give a man an air of authority.
You take pride in that uniform. You have nothing to be ashamed of. That uniform puts food on the —
Oh Jesus, I’m going. I’m going, Gord.
Stop calling me that! If you’re too cool to say Dad you can damn well call me Mr. Rankin.
Calling him Gord was still a new habit at that point. I’d acquired it not long after I turned fifteen. It hadn’t been intentional, the first time I’d done it — I can’t even remember what the circumstance was — but once it was out and in the air between us I could tell I had kind of broken Gord’s heart. After that I couldn’t seem to stop.
Hi guys, I would greet the punks.
And what would happen next depended entirely on the punks in question. Sometimes the punks were my friends. They would smile up at me with their greasy, fry-fed faces, make an ungenerous remark or two about my hat and I would respond with a cheerful threat to shove my hat up their asses. After some back and forth along these lines I would tell them they should come back between around five and seven next time because that’s when Gord went home for supper and then we could all hang out and I would give them free Cokes if they were nice to me.
Meanwhile, I’d say by way of wrapping things up, my dad requests you remove your dirty punk asses from his family establishment.
But Rank, Scott was thinking he might like a fudgy bar. He hasn’t quite decided yet.
We don’t want your business, boys. You bring the tone down. Bad optics, scuzz like you chowing down on our fudgies.
Why don’t you chow down on one of my fudgies sometime, Rank?
Ha ha ha. Oh my god. Nice one. Get out.
And the guys would snort and smirk just so not to lose face entirely, then shuffle their way out the door taking care to look extra dangerous and sullen for the benefit of Gord, scowling away by the fryer.
Those were the good days.
On the bad days, guys like Mick Croft showed up.
Mick Croft was one of the town punks who actually was a punk — not just a gangly, belligerent, functionally retarded teenage boy like the rest of us. He dealt drugs — of course — and brandished knives — of course — and had been expelled for kicking the gym teacher, a man with