Texas

I'm in the ice cream shop, sitting in the office in the back when, seeing a man and a woman at the counter, I start walking to the front of the shop and call out hello.
'Hello,' I call to the man, who is standing directly in my line of sight, and who is shortish, quite fat and has a grey beard and grey hair and is wearing a faded ash-grey Hawaiian style shirt and combat shorts.
'Hello young lady,' he says.
'Did you just call me young lady,' I say to the man as I reach the counter.
'Yes, yes, I did,' the man says to me, 'aren't you a young lady?'
'Um,' I say, 'have a really good look at me and I think you'll find the answer is a no,'
The man laughs, and so does the woman, who is much shorter and standing next to him.
Then the man says-'Woah, looks like you spent the night in a tattoo parlour,'
And because I don't know what else to say I laugh and look down at myself and say-'It would have taken more than a night for all of this,'
Then, the woman, who has her hair cut in a blond bob and is wearing a dark blue tee shirt and mum-style Levi jeans, tells me that the man, who it will turn out is her husband, asks me where I am from.
'Melbourne,' I tell her, which is a lie.
And for a few minutes we talk about Melbourne, what's the best place to visit and at what time of the year and so on.
Then the man and woman ask to try ice cream flavours.
'You got banana,' says the man?
I tell him yes, we do have banana, and I dig in the banana ice cream tub with a tasting stick and hand it over to him and he tastes the banana and then tells me he will have that, in a single sugar cone.
I serve him up the single banana in a sugar cone and then the woman tells me she would like a mint chocolate chip.
'Why is the mint chocolate chip pink?' she asks me as I lean into the freezer to scoop the ice cream, 'shouldn't it be green?'
I have no real answer for her question so I make one up, telling her that due to a chemical change during the freezing process and contact with dairy product, there is an enzyme in this species of mint that turns pink, and that if she were to put this kind of mint in a container of milk in the freezer at home, she would find the same thing happening.
So then, after they have their ice creams in their hands, they stand in front of the counter eating them and we talk about where they are from.
'Dallas, Texas,' the man tells me.
'Oh,' I say, 'as soon as I hear the word Dallas, I get the theme tune from the TV show in my head and see the opening titles, that split screen thing, and then I see Southfork,'
The man and woman laugh.
Then the man starts to open his wallet.
'You know what kind of money we have down in Texas?' he says.
I don't say anything because he is already putting a Mexican 100 peso bill on the counter.
Then he laughs, but I don't because I think he might be attempting a racist joke and I do not want to encourage him.
Instead, I tell him what a beautiful colour the note is and what gorgeous art work it has on it.
'Yeh,' says the woman, 'every other country has beautiful money, except us. Our money is ugly,'
'Yeh,' says the man from Dallas, Texas, 'it might be ugly but everybody wants it,'
I am staring at the man now and getting annoyed and I start thinking, yes, a lot of people want a lot of things American, but like the money, a lot of the stuff they want is just ugly and overrated.
Then Krista, who has just come into the shop, and is standing to the left of the man, says that there's a lot of counterfeit US money in circulation.
'The secret service,' she says, 'apart from guarding the President, it's their job to travel the world and find and destroy counterfeit dollars,'
And then, while I turn my back on them to clean the ice cream scoops, these Americans talk about their money and various other American-themed topics.
Then, as I turn back to join them, the woman from Texas says, 'Hey, have you ever been to New Zealand?'
I tell the woman no, I have never been there and because I have no other information to offer on New Zealand, I tell her that the relationship between Australia and New Zealand is perhaps a bit like that between the US and Canada, a kind of friendly rivalry that we invent for no good reason but to have rivalry and pick on another country's accent.
'I know the French hate the Canadians,' the man from Texas says, 'and you wanna know why?'
I tell him yes, I would like to know why.
And he says- 'It's because like we got the African Americans, the Canadians got the French,'
Then the man and woman laugh.
And even though what he has said might get laughs in some places in Texas, here in California I do not find it funny so I just stand there looking at the man from Texas, and say nothing.

And I do not laugh.

Hat

It's Friday night and I'm up front, working the ice cream counter, when in walks a short grey-haired older woman wearing glasses and a hat on her head.
I like her hat so I tell her.
'Ooh, I like that hat,' I say to the woman, who is looking down at the tubs of ice cream in the fridge, 'I like those badges you have on your hat,'
The woman looks up at me.
'Oh,' she says, 'yeh, it's a cute hat, isn't it!'
I tell her yes and then I ask her what flavour ice cream she would like.
'Um,' she says, 'I'd like a double scoop of Thai tea, and a double of chocolate chip,'
'Cup or cone?' I say.
'Cup,' she says and I turn to take an ice cream scoop and a polystyrene cup and then I lean into the ice cream freezer and start scooping from the tubs .
'I get ice cream once a week,' she tells me when I hand her her her cone, 'once a week on a Friday,'
'Oh,' I say, 'that's a nice routine,'
'Yeh,' she says, 'you wouldn't know it to look at me, but 14 years ago I was fat,'
'Oh?' I say.
'Yeh,' she says, 'I had surgery,'
'Woah,' I say, 'that's drastic,'
'Yeh,' she says, 'I lost 150 pounds,'
I tell her that being a foreigner, I'm not good with weight, and does she know how much that is in kilograms.
She says no, she does not know, but she looks over at Jeff, who is standing next to me, and says, 'Him. I lost one of him,'
At this I start laughing and so does she, and so does Jeff.
Then she puts down her ice cream, holds up her hand and shows how the surgery takes place.
'This is my stomach size,' she tells me, making a scissor motion half way up her hand.
I say woah again and then ask her why she had the surgery.
'I didn't want to be fat and 50,' she tells me, 'I couldn't get up the stairs without holding hand rails. My knees hurt,'
She says she didn't have diabetes but she was waiting for it.
'Fair play,' I tell her, 'if you felt bad,'
'You know, the doctor told me not to buy any new clothes,' she says, 'for the first year. But I did,'
Then she says she bought a sweater soon after surgery.
'I bought this red sweater,' she says, holding her hands at her waist as is if she is holding imaginary sleeves of an imaginary sweater, 'and you know, after only a few months, I could wrap the arms of that sweater around me once, and then twice,'
Then she tells me that's when she started buying second hand clothes.
'No new clothes, now,' she tells me, 'I got into the habit of buying second hand clothes when I got unfat, and I haven't gone back,'
I laugh at this and so does she.
Then she tells me eating out is an issue.
'It's an issue, because everywhere you eat,' she says, 'they give you enormous amounts,'
'Yeh,' right,' says Jeff, 'Once upon a time we were told to eat everything our plate, but in those days the plates were smaller and there wasn't that much on them,'
Then, while I go off to serve ice cream to other customers, the woman in the hat stands quietly at the counter eating the Thai tea and chocolate chip ice cream from her cup.
Then, when I have finished serving I turn back to her to talk to her again, but before I can speak, she holds up her spoon points it at me and says, 'Y'know what eating out in the USA is like?'
'No,' I tell her, 'what?'
'It's like being force-fed,' she says, looking right into my eyes and emphasising each syllable by stabbing at nothing with her spoon, 'like being force-fed.'

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Valerie

In the morning I go to Krakatoa, the hipster cafe in Golden Hill, to meet Valerie and we are sitting at a table outside, talking, when her breakfast, a plated chicken sandwich with what looks like a scoop of ice cream with bacon in it, comes.
'Jesus,' I say to Valerie, 'that looks like vanilla ice cream with bacon in it,'
'Hmm,' says Valerie, 'ice cream with swine,'
We laugh at this and Valerie lifts the top piece of bread from her sandwich and looks in.
Then she puts the bread back on and starts eating while I smoke my e-cigarette and drink my coffee and we talk about Ebola.
'I'm about as scared of that as I was of SARS and the KY2 virus and Isis,' says Valerie.
'And bird flu,' I say, 'remember when bird flu was going to kill us all?'
Then Valerie tells me you have more chance of being killed by a cop than getting Ebola.
'30,000 gun deaths a year,' I say, 'And it appears to me, that if you are a black man, you got way more chance of being killed by the cops than being killed by someone from Isis,'
'Yep,' says Valerie, 'And Isis won't kill me anyway. They're not interested in killing brown people. It's white people they're pissed off with,'
Then we talk about Valerie's online makeup business and then Valerie asks about my future.
'What's the plan for your future?' she says to me.
'I think I'll have to leave San Diego,' I tell her, 'and go somewhere, anywhere, and open a small appointment-only tattoo studio,'
'That's a good plan,' says Valerie who is still eating her chicken sandwich, 'vague, but at least it's a plan,'
Valerie then tells me about her friend in Pahoa who is a cosmetic tattooist with a tiny room which she rents out part-time to a massage therapist.
'She goes to Maui every few months,' Valerie tells me, 'for a couple of weeks and makes, like, thousands of dollars,'
I tell Valerie this is the kind of thing I would like to do, but without the going to Maui bit, and that it is time to sort out some kind of future for myself because I am terrified of a solitary old age where I am in bad health and financially compromised.
'I have to do something now,' I tell Valerie, 'I am terrified of dying old and alone and poor in a gutter with a goat licking my face,'
'If you die with a goat licking your face, you won't be alone,' says Valerie sticking her fork into the swine ice cream and smiling at me, 'You'll be with the goat.'

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Iraq

We are passing the bus stop outside of the ice cream shop when I see a little boy, who is probably about 5 or 6 and the cutest child I have ever encountered, sitting on the footpath.
He has blond hair, like Lego child hair, and is wearing something like a blue school uniform and drinking something red through a straw from a big plastic see-through cup.
'Hmmm,' I say to him, 'that looks nice,'
'Yeh', he says, 'and I am going to a birthday party,'
'Wow,' I say to him, 'how exciting is that!'
Then, a blond bearded long haired man in a wheelchair, with a big gift wrapped box in his lap says, 'Yeh, we're going to Sunshine's party, she's turning 1.'
'Woah,' I say, 'that's a big present for a 1 year old,'
'Yeh,' says the little boy, 'but we can't tell you what's in it because it's a surprise,'

'But,' I say, 'I don't know Sunshine and I'm not going to the party so you can tell me,'

'Okay,' says the little boy, 'it's a musical toy, it makes musical sounds,'

'Oh, my god,' I say, 'that's going to be so exciting for her,'

'Yep,' says the little boy.

'I hope you have a good time,' I say to him as we walk off toward the car.

'We will,' he calls to me.

As I open the car door I give him a thumbs up.

And he gives me one back.
Then I give him a thumb sideways, and he gives me one back.

Then I give him another thumbs up and he gives me one back and I laugh and he smiles at me and drinks some more of his red drink.

In the car Krista tells me a story about the boy and the man in the wheelchair.

'He's an Iraqi veteran,' she says, 'and his wife divorced him and that's his little boy. He wheels him to and from school on his lap,'

'How sweet,' I say, 'that might be the cutest child on the planet,'
'Yeh,' says Krista, 'and one time, he dropped his wallet on the bus, while riding with his little boy and so he wheeled as fast as he could to the next to bus stop to get his wallet back but by the time he got there someone had already stolen the wallet,'
'No fucking way!' I say.

'Yes way,' says Krista, 'and what sort of bad fucking karma do you suppose the person who stole that wallet's gonna have?'

'Arse cancer,' I say, thinking of the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone, 'yes, arse cancer.'

 *******

Now look at my shop and get a print. It'll make your life so much better.

Flowers

Last night, at a bar where I've gone to serve celebratory ice cream and root beer floats, a woman interrupts me as I'm laying out the plastic cups, plastic spoons and plastic straws.
'Um,' she says, 'have we, like, met before?'
'I don't think so, I've just gotten back from England,' I tell her, standing there with my hands full of plastic, 'and I don't know many people in the area,'
'Oh, wow,' she says, 'you look, like, so totally familiar,'
'Well,' I say, 'sometimes I am in the ice cream shop on the corner, and I have a little shop there where I sell my art, but...apart from that...'
Then I ask her if she is the owner of the bar.
'Nooooo,' she says, 'I'm here with Onions and Orchids,'
'Oh,' I say, 'what exactly is that?'
She tells me Onions and Orchids is an organisation that informs people of what is ugly and what is beautiful, architecturally, in the neighbourhood.
'See,' she says, showing me a brochure and pointing out different buildings and roadside features, 'these are the Orchids and these are the Onions,'
I look at the brochure and everything on it looks the same to me-modern buildings with glassy facades, an inoffensive parking sign that Warhol might have liked to silk screen, some other buildings with wood stuck to them, a park bench, a black and white tiled mural.
All of them unremarkable.
'So,' the woman tells me, 'we have our booth here and what you can do is, like, vote for an Onion, or an Orchid.
I turn to see they have what look like polling stations set up, with iPads in them, so party-goers can record their onion or orchid verdict on the work of architects or civil engineers or street sign designers or artists.
Standing there with my hands full of plastic feeding implements, I want to say to the woman that someone probably went into debt to go to art or architecture school and they've graduated and designed these things so that people like her, people they've never met, from the suburbs of San Diego, are now going to pass judgement on.
But I don't.
Instead I look out over the tables of people in front of me.
And feeling slightly uncomprehending, as if I have just come-to from an MDMA blackout, I watch them push and pour burgers and fries and beer and Coke into their mouths while I passively listen to the woman from Onions and Orchids as she continues to tell me what, according to her, is worthy.
And what is not.

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