The Ice Cream's Bitter Aftertaste
Ethel had taken a position as the French private tutor for the children of a prosperous merchant family. The home was typical of the nouveau riche, with no social ties to the upper class.
She had chosen to go by the alias Gertrude Jackson, saying she did not want to reveal her true identity. It was a name formed by combining her middle name with her maternal grandmother's maiden name.
Carlyle had begun attending the Grammar School near their apartment.
Located between Irving Place and Third Avenue, their apartment sat on the delicate border between middle-class and slum neighborhoods.
To the northwest of Irving Place stretched the middle-class residences of office workers, while to the southeast of Third Avenue spread the squalid Gas House District, where rows of coal and gas tanks stood in a line.
Even at school the two classes never mingled and played separately. The slum children would fight with fists at the slightest provocation.
With German and Irish boys seizing control and enforcing their dominance, the recently surged Italian and Jewish children were clashing fiercely.
Carlyle was treated as a complete outsider, belonging to nowhere.
He was the student in his class who wore the cleanest and most elegant clothes. His academic performance far outstripped that of his classmates.
When teachers discovered he spoke French and Latin, they encouraged him to skip a grade. He attended classes with boys a year or two older, but his size protected him from serious bullying.
At his young age the advantages were forgetfulness and adaptability.
After a year and more of New York life, the existence in France had come to feel like a faded dream. Sometimes even familiar French words refused to surface.
Chores were handled by the servants, and the remnants of a life of enjoyment were left only in his proper posture, his refined speech, and his flawless table manners.
Ethel’s tiny stipend was spent almost entirely on rent, while the cost of living was covered by selling jewelry and valuables. Life was far poorer than before, yet it was possible to maintain at least a shred of dignity.
When Carlyle turned eleven his height matched Ethel’s. The clothes he had brought from France had been worn out at every seam and hem. But the shoes had long since become unrepairable.
As summer vacation drew to a close, Ethel, after much hesitation, bought him sturdy leather shoes. They were large enough for an adult, but with several pairs of socks worn and the laces pulled tight they would fit.
On the way home she pointed excitedly at a hokey-pokey cart in front of Union Square.
“Carlyle, shall I buy you some hokey-pokey?”
The sweet ice cream, wrapped in wax paper and shaped like a brick, was something Ethel preferred over Carlyle. She headed for the cart without waiting for his answer.
It was a hot afternoon and her throat was parched.
“A piece of hokey-pokey for one penny, and a brand-new ice-cream cone for two pennies! Molto delizioso!”
The Italian hokey-pokey man shouted in a lively mix of English and Italian.
That summer the new style of ice cream—scooped onto a wafer cone rolled into a horn shape—had become wildly popular.
As proof of the craze, the cart was surrounded by children crunching happily on the cornucopia cones.
“Ah… so that’s what they mean by ‘cornucopia’!”
Ethel called the ice-cream cone by its elegant name.
Carlyle glanced sideways at her. He wanted to try it, but his expression clearly showed worry about the price. She always chose the better thing over the cheaper one.
“Mother, shall we buy a cornucopia and share it?”
“…Shall we?”
Carlyle smiled like a happy little boy as he ate the cornucopia with Ethel.
“My grandfather never allowed anyone to eat the ice cream sold by the hokey-pokey man.”
Her smile as she recalled her childhood was something Carlyle had not seen in a very long time.
“Why not?”
“Back then it was called a ‘penny lick.’ You paid one penny and a small glass would be filled with one scoop of ice cream. You licked it clean and handed it back. The glass was then rinsed in a bucket of water and used again for the next customer. That’s why eating ice cream often made you sick to your stomach.”
“Ugh…”
Carlyle’s neat, well-mannered face tightened with a frown, and Ethel laughed out loud while ruffling his hair.
“When you frown like that, you look just like your grandfather.”
“I do?”
On the walk home Ethel told Carlyle the life story of her maternal grandfather, the “poor white trash” she had once despised, from his humble beginnings in New York to his eventual success. The tale held quite a bit of interest for the Douglas Lancaster he believed her father to be.
“Because you’re the daughter of Douglas Lancaster… I can endure it too. Since you’re like your father, you’ll stay by my side.”
When they reached the fourth floor of their apartment, climbing the narrow, steep stairs, they found the front door wide open and exchanged puzzled glances.
“Did you forget to lock the door?”
“…I don’t think so.”
Ethel’s face suddenly went pale. She dashed inside, and Carlyle followed at once. Only then did the half-loosened door hinge become visible.
The house was in total chaos. The few belongings were scattered everywhere, and the little jar they kept their cash in had shattered.
Ethel staggered toward her room.
Carlyle knew exactly where his mother kept the largest sums of hidden cash. His heart sank like a stone.
He remembered the 1893 bank panic, when so many prominent families had collapsed. Ethel had never trusted banks, so the remaining money was kept under the mattress and withdrawn little by little.
Carlyle stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the overturned mattress half on the floor.
“Ugh… This can’t be happening. Where could it possibly be worse than this? Where did I go wrong in my life…?”
Ethel collapsed onto the wooden floor, forgetting even that her son was watching as she wept like a child.
Carlyle knelt beside her, placing his arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him and sobbed.
The fact that Ethel was not as tall as he thought hit him anew. Her slender, trembling shoulders were so small and fragile that he felt a sharp fear.
Only a few months ago she had been a distant adult, yet she now seemed far more fragile than he, an eleven-year-old boy.
Beside the lingering sweetness of the ice cream came a bitter aftertaste. The fleeting happiness left a sharp, bitter afterglow on the tongue.
For a boy facing such extremes, there was no other choice but to grow up quickly.
He had to skip over the long, painful process of realizing that parents were imperfect humans who sometimes made wrong decisions.
“It’s all right, Mother. Don’t worry. From now on I’ll earn money too.”
The days of falling asleep cold and hungry had become frequent. Each time Ethel’s voice would linger in his ear.
“Cold, hungry… and miserable, right?”
After much thought, Carlyle finally asked her.
“Mother, how about moving? Just one or two blocks east on Third Avenue, the rent would be half here, and we’d have two rooms—our current situation needs them.”
“Carlyle, no. That place is too dangerous.”
Ethel, already wasted away from sharing her food with her growing son, refused in a tone as sharp as a needle. The last psychological line she had drawn was along Third Avenue.
Carlyle wandered the neighborhood, observing what his classmates were doing.
From what the others said, the preferred jobs were department-store cashier or office errand boy. They paid two or three dollars a week and kept you indoors. Competition was fierce and no one quit, so openings were rare.
Next was messenger boy, riding a bicycle to deliver papers or telegrams. A bicycle was essential.
While saving for a bicycle, Carlyle decided to try being a newsboy. He bought a piece of hokey-pokey from a classmate who worked as one and learned what he needed to know.