The song was no song but it had been a song at one time. Nothing I had heard on the TV or on the radio or at my grandmother’s house. But it was music. It had been music once. I didn’t know many song names at that time. Only the funny ones or the ones that had their first line in the title. The song made me ache with something. I was too young to remember when the song had been a song. When the song had meant something to some people and how it had. I knew it was a happy song that was really a sad song. That much was clear even to a five year old.
I didn’t know what the song was supposed to mean. It was simple. It was loud. It was a signal to tell people something very simple. Something happy that was really something sad.
The song wasn’t about ice cream. The connections from the song were loose. The connections of the song were not flat and planar. This is why they create pain even for one so young. A pain that comes from void. A void of the connections before they are made or understood. On the surface the connections seem planar.
The song droned from the truck as it circled near. The humid air carried the song in sharp gusts. The song was more electrical friction than music. The truck’s speakers ground out the song and the song that is ground out carries furthest. The truck ground out the music and we heard it from a long way away. This was another connection. Somewhat linear. But the straight line connection of our ears and the song and the truck was complicated by the meaning of the song and the grinding of the speakers. The connection of the meaning to the song was further complicated by the lack of words. This is why the song hurts. It has no meaning on its own. And if there is no meaning in the one who listens, the force of the will to know recognizes the void that should be the connection. The void is recognized and created by the recognition. The void pulls meaning toward it. I could hear the music in the hot rusted metal handles of the merry go round. I could feel the meaning in my ears. They tickled with the vibrations of the ground out song.
I didn’t want to let go of the pump handle of the merry go round. I knew I couldn’t get money from my mother. I didn’t even want to ask. She was nothing at all for the ice cream truck and the guy who drove it. She’d seen him before and he could do nothing to right her capsized impression. He had fucked up royally, but he didn’t want to do anything to fix it for me. I didn’t have any money. I would only watch what other kids ordered and paid for.
“You don’t want that trash do you?” she asked.
“No. I was just wondering.”
The truck was a full white step van coated in its menu. It wasn’t the cost. She had the money. I wanted ice cream and I didn’t want it. It made me sick that I asked for it. I waited to the side as the other kids were processed through the line.
“Good, you don’t want that.” she had said and it rang through my head.
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