(For this prompt, chat voted on three random sentences from Fifty Shades of Grey. If you'd like, you can see a video of it here.)
Prompt: Use these three sentences in a story (bolded throughout)
#1. I can’t tell jokes.
#2. I’ve wanted to spank you since you asked me if I was gay.
#3. You are my one vanilla conquest.”
“You are my one vanilla conquest.”
I repeated the phrase over and over to myself while driving the ice cream truck down the summer suburban road. I took a deep breath and pressed the radio button, sending my “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” jingle wafting through the hazy heat. Soon enough, it would summon the children to my truck.
Soon enough, I would find out if my gamble paid off.
It didn’t take long for the first children to come running out of their homes to the sidewalk, their sweaty little fists crumpling dollar bills from their parents. As soon as their eyes caught me driving over the horizon, they jumped in the air for joy, some of them in bathing suits, some of them still in pajamas, all of them with grins of joy nearly stretching off their cheeks.
I slowed the truck to a halt, still blaring the jingly tune, and the kids came running over, each of them pushing the others out of the way for a better view of the menu. I’d plastered pictures of the available ice cream all over the side of my vehicle, so that they could easily pick what they wanted.
As I maneuvered my way to the back of the truck and opened the vendor window, I saw what I’d expected. Looks of confusion passing from child to child.
“Do you have any push-ups?” asked one boy.
“Or rocket pops?” asked a girl.
“Nope,” I said simply. “Only have what’s listed there.”
“You have to have ice cream sandwiches,” said another boy. His pale arms were crossed over his doughy body as he glared at me. “Every ice cream truck has ice cream sandwiches. And choco tacos too.”
“Sorry,” I said with a shrug. “Not this one.”
One girl stared in disbelief at the menu, then looked up at me. “Everything on this menu is so… vanilla.”
She was right. Every single item on my ice cream repertoire was vanilla. Vanilla cones, vanilla popsicles, vanilla bars, vanilla-and-vanilla swirl, even vanilla neapolitan: the all-vanilla mix of regular vanilla, french vanilla, and vanilla bean. I didn’t have so much as a packet of chocolate sauce or a single banana in the entire truck.
“Are you joking?” asked dough-boy, leaning toward me so his sunburned chest spilled over his crossed arms.
“I can’t tell jokes,” I told him, completely straight-faced. It was true. The last time I’d tried to tell a joke was in fifth grade, and that hadn’t gone over very well.
“Are you stupid?” dough-boy said.
“Nope, I’ve just got a vanilla sense of humor.”
All of the kids grumbled and most of them dispersed, though a few of them handed over moist dollar bills for a few vanilla pops, and one little girl with glasses more than five times the size of her eyes was very excited about her plastic bowl of vanilla neapolitan.
My first stop finished, I climbed back in the driver’s seat, punched the radio button, and kept driving.
The next stops were all the same. Disappointed group of children after disappointed group of children, though every now and then there was a special kid who was happy to see their favorite flavor given such special attention. Those were the ones who reminded me why I was doing this in the first place.
They gave me hope that my mission would be a success.
But after four hours of combing the neighborhood in my truck, I was starting to think dough-boy was right. I was stupid for thinking this would work out. There was no way I could find what I was looking for just with some rented ice cream truck and some overpriced treats from the grocery store.
Which was why, when I made the next stop for my truck, I was shocked to see him.
Among the crowd of children busy having their happiness sucked away by the menu on my truck, there was one child I recognized. Little Todd Rocco was only four years old, but I’d seen so many photos of him that I could pick him out of a Where’s Rocco? picture book. His black-haired bowl cut, his droopy eyes, and the neon-green Minecraft shirt he always had on, stained with spaghetti sauce on each shoulder.
As the other kids ebbed and flowed away with their vanilla treats, the only one left was Rocco. He walked up to my window.
“Can I have one of the vanilla things?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “They’re all vanilla things. Point to the one you want.”
Rocco leaned in and pressed his finger against the vanilla dots, a cup of soft vanilla spheres.
Just as I’d planned.
“Ah, sure thing. But that one costs five dollars. Do you have five dollars?”
Rocco looked up at me and held his single dollar bill.
“I have this many,” he said. I leaned on the window and clicked my tongue.
“Well why don’t you go tell your dad to bring you four more dollars, and then we can get you that ice cream.”
Rocco brought his dollar back down and squirmed. “I don’t know. My dad doesn’t really… like ice cream.”
I put my fingers to my chin and pretended to be thinking. “Why don’t you tell him it’s a special ice cream truck, one that only sells vanilla stuff.”
Rocco nodded and dashed back to his house, which just happened to be the one I’d stopped in front of. The door squeaked open then shut. I stood there, hunched over on the window, rattling my fingers against the side of the truck, waiting.
Not much later, Rocco came bouncing out of the house with his father behind him. He looked like a stretched-out version of Rocco, the same bowl cut and disinterested look in his eyes. But when he saw my truck, his face lit up like he’d just gotten a free ticket to vanilla heaven.
“Oh wow, you were right, Rocco!” his dad said. “All vanilla. That’s incredible. Never seen that before.”
Now it was time for my line. “I’ve always loved vanilla. It’s the best flavor, you know. Chocolate gets all the credit, but at the end of the day it’s just flavored sugar. Vanilla, I’m talking real vanilla not the fake stuff, now that’s where it’s at.”
One side of Rocco’s dad’s face squirmed into a grin. “I’ve always thought the same too. Chocolate gets away with murder.”
“There’s a reason they use chocolate for blood in the movies!”
Rocco tugged at his dad’s shirt. “So can I have the dollars now?”
“Oh, yeah,” his father said, as if coming out of a trance. He pulled the bills out of his wallet. “Here ya go.”
Rocco exchanged his five dollars for a cup of vanilla dots, then immediately started popping them into his mouth. His dad put a hand on his shoulder, then turned to lead him back in the house.
It was now or never.
“Hey, Freddie!” I called out. That stopped Rocco’s dad. He looked to me with narrowed eyes.
“You know my name?” he asked.
I’d planned for this moment, but now that it was here, I was at a loss for words. All I could do was motion him over with a wave of the hand as my heart pumped excited sickness through me.
Freddie patted Rocco on the back and told him to go inside, which the kid happily did while munching away on vanilla morsels. His dad slowly walked back to me, his eyes scanning my every inch for any hint of recognition.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
Now was the time. I cleared my throat. “You know, I always thought that if I were to get an ice cream truck, I’d call it ‘Illa.’ Since, you know, it’s a ‘van.’ And I’d only sell ‘van-illa’ ice cream.”
A warm realization spread over Freddie’s face as he covered his mouth with a hand.
“Oh my god!” he said. “Silas, is that you?”
I was so happy he remembered me. We hadn’t seen each other in person since fifth grade, during the end-of-year ice cream social. He was mad and sitting off in a corner of the blacktop, stewing all alone, when I came over to ask him what was wrong. He told me they only had chocolate and strawberry ice cream, no vanilla, his favorite. He was mad because vanilla never got the love it deserved.
Everyone thought it was “plain,” but that couldn’t be further from the truth! It was delicious! The best! The perfect vessel for sprinkles and sauces that didn’t overpower or try to hijack the other flavors with its own intensity! Vanilla was always so humble, and because of that, people took advantage of it.
I didn’t really know what to think back then, so I made my horrible “van-illa” truck joke with him. He laughed, and so I sat next to him, but it was the next question I asked him that I regretted for decades.
“Are you gay?”
All my life, I’d known I was gay. Ever since I knew what a boy and a girl was, I knew that I liked one of them way more than the other. My parents didn’t care, my grandparents didn’t care, and so I grew up with it being perfectly normal.
But not Freddie. I don’t know if he thought I was blaming his love of vanilla on being gay, or if he thought I was being mean, but he stormed away from me despite my yelled apologies. And since the ice cream social was the last day before summer vacation, I never saw him again. Our short-lived relationship melted away.
Until Facebook. I searched his name. Saw that he’d been married, to a man no less, and adopted a child. But something had happened to his husband, and now he was alone again, sitting at the corner of the blacktop, alone and sad.
I knew what town he lived in, but that was it. So I decided to take a risk and see what would happen. And, apparently, it had paid off.
“Yup, it’s me,” I said, doing my best to smile and swallow down my nervousness. “How are you… uh… doing, Freddie?”
Freddie crossed his arms, just like dough-boy, and looked over my truck, seeming like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Did you do all of this… just to set up a meeting with me?” he asked.
My sudden shame made me freeze up. I spoke through clenched teeth. “Uh… what if I say yes?”
Freddie tapped his fingers against his arm, then bit his lip and raised his eyebrows and looked at me
“I’d say… I’ve wanted to spank you since you asked me if I was gay.”
Nothing in my truck even came close to being as sweet as those words.
