Traffic in Humboldt

I heard the sing-song happy music broadcast out of a scratchy speaker outside my apartment and knew that my local ice cream truck was driving down my block. I grabbed a handful of change from my change mug and dashed outside to catch the truck that would happily coat my mouth with lactose-based soft serve.

Luckily, a hispanic kid had flagged it down and was getting a banana boat ice cream cone. I asked for a Boston Shake when it was my turn. As I waited for it to be made, I had to breathe in the exhaust fumes that sputtered out of the truck. "I bet if you stand here long enough, you could get high," I wondered.

But then I also remembered having a conversation with someone about another way to get high from the neighborhood ice cream truck. It began with the observation that the truck had been out one night around 1:30 a.m. Now I know that only naughty children are out that late but I'm sure that those same naughty children may be able to get some naughty treats from the possibly naughty ice cream truck. And none of those treats would be lactose-based.

If the truck is as naughty as it seems, then it is only one of many ways to traffic naughty treats in my neighborhood. Through careful observation ( not even as a reporter but as a person who spends hours sitting on his apartment's front steps in order to get clear phone reception), I've come to realize that all I'd have to do to get high would be to talk my neighbors.

I can ride up on a bike and nod to the right person and he would leave his place of holding up the steel gates by the sidewalk and exchange whatever I'd like. Since I don't have a bike, I could drive up to another section of my block, say 'Hey' and another guy would hop into my car while I drove around a couple blocks and made a transaction in the privacy of my car.

If it were a few months ago, I could have just walked around near my place and looked for small dime bags stashed out in the open so no one person would be caught with them. They would be lodged between the post and wire mesh of a fence on the sidewalk, hidden in a hole between the edge of a sidewalk and the ground (where hopefully the rats wouldn't find them) or even in the cylindrical cones used to prevent people from reaching around to the nob on the inside of a steel gate. The tactical officers from the Shakespeare District station somehow caught on and searched my street for all the little nooks and crannys that hid the naughty treats.

I pondered all this as I sipped my shake and realized that I'd soon be saying goodbye to this neighborhood. I began to feel an odd sensation in my head after downing half of the Boston Shake. I probably wouldn't be able to run after the ice cream truck in my new neighborhood of Lincoln Square. And if I did, I'm sure they wouldn't serve the same tasty treats as my current neighborhood. My motor synapses seemed to be slow in functioning and I felt like I was wearing someone else's heavy perscription glasses. Everything began to be funny, even Saturday Night Live. There would be no more late night fixes from the ice cream truck...or was it a whale? I know it was big and blue and had eyes painted on the side. I wonder if the truck could fly like the Magic School Bus and play "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been" by the Grateful Dead.

I'm sure gonna miss those Bostson Shakes.