Lake Life

Abstract

Lake Life David James Poissant (bio) In Thad's memory, Nico's Ice Cream Parlor stands a turreted wonder on a hill, a citadel rising from the roadside, gabled, rococoed, daffodilled. In memory, Nico's towers proudly, a beacon in the dark announcing waffles curled to cones before your very eyes. The river below Nico's crowded with trout—rainbows, browns, brook trout—fish thick as bodybuilders' arms. On the porch, domed dispensers perch on the deck rails, waiting for your quarter, waiting to drop pellets into your small hand, fish waiting for this food to be flung. Then into the river the sand-tan pellets go, and this is what you've come for, this more than ice cream, this cacophony of pops and smacks that roils the water, of gills like bellows, echolalia of fin and scale, and you have done this, you've brought the river, writhing, into life. But Nico's, like the lake house, is merely what Nico's has become. Paint-faded, chestnut-pocked, the building on the hill [End Page 323] appears to be deflating. The deck rails' domes are gone, the railing replaced by mismatched two-by-fours. A mistake, Nico having left his empire to Teddy, the man's perpetually stoned only son who, since inheriting the parlor two years ago, has used it as a front to push merchandise that probably hasn't hurt his ice cream sales. Yes, if you're looking to get high, Nico's is the place to go. Tubby Teddy, who can work up a sweat just tugging the lid off a canister of rocky road, who has twin cobra tattoos on each forearm, doesn't just sell weed. No, Teddy sells weed: indica, sativa, hybrids, crossbreeds, loose leaf, pre-rolls, edibles. Anything Thad can get in Brooklyn, he can get cheaper and better from Teddy's mahogany chest. Summer evenings, Nico's is usually packed. But it's late. The after-dinner crowd has come and gone. Probably the rain's kept customers away. Everything shines with it: the staircase, the mildew-slicked front stoop, the pink-stenciled Nico's logo peeling from the windowpane beside the pink front door. Thad holds the door for everyone but Michael, who always nods and waves his brother in. Tonight, the ice cream parlor's empty. And Teddy's not here. Which has Thad quietly freaking out. What if Teddy was arrested? What if he's dead? Thad's not sure he'll sleep tonight without a hit. Until there descends over the parlor a smell, a body odor composed of perspiration, weed, and chicken soup. The scent's trailed by a clatter, beyond the counter, of white, saloon-style doors. A stomach passes through the doors, and Teddy follows, opening his arms. "Thaddeus!" he booms. Teddy's been peddling to Thad since they were teenagers, when he sold dime bags from the heavily bumper-stickered trunk of his beat-up Corolla. They're friends, as much as you can be friends with the dealer you see twice a year. Teddy approaches the counter, but he's stopped short by the prodigiousness of his own gut. Thad sympathizes. He's heavier than he'd like to be. What he can't relate to is Teddy's general dishevelment. [End Page 324] Gone is Nico's pink-and-white-striped shirt and paper hat. Instead, Teddy wears a turned-back Boston Bruins cap and teacolored Mossimo tee that Thad remembers being white once upon a time. The shirt is snug as a singlet, Teddy's nipples like jacket fasteners pricking through the front. From his collar, a tuft of hair uncurls, pubic and obscene. Saddam, Thad thinks, just after capture. Teddy extends a beefy hand, which Thad shakes. Only Michael and Jake know this man is Thad's dealer. The rest, let them assume whatever they'd like. Teddy moves to the sink behind the counter, washes his hands, and pulls on plastic gloves. Jake, Thad's boyfriend, orders first, a complicated concoction not on the menu. To hear Jake order food, you'd never know he grew up on milk and cornbread, on hens whose heads and...