August 22: Here Was Fun, Ice Cream Truck, Circus

So out of the gate of the railroad and into the streets of Dresden marched the light opera.  Billy Pilgrim was the star.  He led the parade.  Thousands of people were on the sidewalks, going home from work.  They were watery and putty-colored, having eaten mostly potatoes during the past two years.  They had expected no blessing beyond the mildness of the day.  Suddenly--here was fun.

Billy did not meet many of the eyes that found him so entertaining.  He was enchanted by the architecture of the city.  Merry amoretti wove garlands above windows.  Roguish fauns and naked nymphs peeked down at Billy from festooned cornices.  Stone monkeys frisked among scrolls and seashells and bamboo.

Billy, with his memories of the future, knew that the city would be smashed to smithereens and then burned--in about thirty more days.  He knew, too, that most of the people watching him would soon be dead.  So it goes.  

And Billy worked his hands in his muff as he marched.  His fingertips, working there in the hot darkness of the muff, wanted to know what the two lumps in the lining of the little impresario's coat were.  The fingertips got inside the lining.  They palpated the lumps, the pea-shaped thing and the horseshoe -shaped thing.  The parade had to halt by a busy corner.  The traffic light was red.

This whole passage is filled with comedy and tragedy.  Billy is marching through the streets of Dresden in silver boots, his hands crammed into a muff.  The Dresdeners are pulled out of their dull lives for a few seconds because of this spectacle, the way I was pulled out of my daily drudge yesterday by a solar eclipse.  The slightest shift in routine, and suddenly a day can transform into a circus.

My day was pretty humdrum.  Got up at the same time.  Took too much time in the bathroom before I left for work, thereby forcing me to run up the stairs to the time clock when I got to the medical center, as usual.  Patients and phone calls and medical records all day.  Same thing I do every day, Monday through Friday.

Let me tell you what turned my day into a circus this evening:  the sound of the ice cream truck.  As I got out of my car, I could hear its bells in the distance.  I couldn't tell the direction the music was coming from.  So, I ran into the house, yelled "Ice cream truck!" to my son, and he came barreling down the stairs, pulling his shoes on.

We jumped in my car, and started circling streets in search of our quarry.  It took about seven minutes and one phone call (I know the guy who drives the truck) to track down a Sno Cone and an M&M ice cream sandwich.  But it was worth it.  It made me feel like a kid again for a few minutes, waving my money in the air, running after the ice cream truck on July days.  And just like that, my day was a circus.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for his son and ice cream trucks.