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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/middleoflidl on 2023-06-26 19:25:08+00:00.
I will preface this by offering an apology to all the Scottish people I will doubtlessly offend by the following statement; the Scottish are weird. I moved to Glasgow in the Summer of ‘93 after my boss sent me, supposedly on a temporary basis, to manage the northern division of a major retailer.
Thirty years later I’m still here. I still feel like an outsider. The people here speak differently; they’re sausages are square and I swear they’d dip your first-born son in batter and stick him in a deep-fryer if you gave them the chance. We owe them penicillin, televisions, telephones and the enlightenment but witnessing a saturday night in the east-end of Glasgow would have you convinced they were all savages.
Even the Romans had the sense to build a great big wall to keep them separated. I realise I’m sounding very negative. I just think it’s important for people to understand that it’s not all kilts and haggis. There’s drugs, fights, sectarianism and… the Ice Cream Wars.
I never knew about the Ice Cream Wars before I moved to Glasgow, it’s a long and violent piece of Scottish history that I don’t have the time to fully explain to you today.
To summarise, it was a series of turf wars that erupted between rival ice cream vans and gangs in the 1980s. In addition to cones and slushies, vans were making huge profits from selling drugs and illicit items. Only the Scottish like a side of cocaine with their cornettos. Most people think it ended, and in some ways it did, but I’m here to tell you that the Ice Cream Wars are still around, you just have to live on my street.
I’ve lived in my house for the past five years. It’s a lovely semi-detached Victorian in the West End, just a few miles from Glasgow University. I live there with my wife, daughter and our granddaughter Poppy, who is overly fond of all things sweet. Of course when she heard the jovial ring of an ice cream truck one Friday evening she started bouncing off the walls.
“Oh please granddad please! Can I get an ice cream please!” She tugged at my sleeve as if her life depended on it. Unable to say no to her little rosy cheeks, I grudgingly searched my pocket for any stray change. Having heard that awful jingle, I sighed and resigned myself to having to leave my house. I took her hand and led her outside.
It was parked up at the bottom of the street, blaring that awful little tune. Be, boo, tee, tee, da, da. It was an old, rusted truck, painted in a sickening pink hue. The sign on the side of the truck read “Jerry Tibbins” - but the “i” had lost it’s hat and the Y was hanging off. Orange rust crept up the side of the vehicle, and if I were a mechanic running an MOT, I’d have failed it on sight.
I approached it tentatively and was strangely unsurprised when I saw that the man driving the truck matched the exterior. Jerry Tibbins was a gaunt little man with a series of tattoos of a certain popular football team and a small tear-drop just under his eye. His face was etched with groves and he looked as if he’d shaved himself with a butter knife. There was a large fresh wound on the centre of his forehead, oozing with yellow infection.
“Ice cream or something else bud?” He said pointedly, turning the van music off and looking at me as though I was a little ant that had crawled up through the cracks in the pavement. I knelt down by Poppy and pointed at the menu. “We ain’t got none of that in the pictures, we’ve got these shitty orange things that taste like piss or I can do you a ‘99 but I ain’t promising you the cream will stay in the cone.”
“Well, Poppy, what do you say?” I said, taken aback. Poppy looked up at me timidly and then glanced at Jerry Tibbins.
“Cone.” She whispered. Good choice, I thought. I’m not a fan of piss lollies myself.
“She’ll have the cone.”
“Aye, I heard her. Oh this hunk of shit.” Jerry hit the side of his ice-cream machine violently. He held the cone underneath the ice cream dispenser and it released a small dribble of ice cream pre-cum. Eventually a solid stream of thick viscous cream was ejected and all was well. It even stayed in the cone. “Quite proud of this one. Here lil girl, don’t give yourself brainfreeze now. Now, you, sure there’s nothing else you want?”
“A Rolex watch and a new wife, but I don’t want an ice cream, no.” I whispered to him carefully. He narrowed his eyes.
“It ain’t no rolex, but you can have this - oh wait - no - I think it’s here somewhere. Oh, yeh, just under all this crud. Got it!” Jerry Tibbins pulled out an old and rusted watch. There were dark red stains that I presumed was engine oil stuck in all the little cracks and divots. It didn’t look like much, but to a careful eye like mine, it’s value was apparent. It was a cartier. Vintage 1980. Shine it up a little and I’d clear a good couple of thousand on it. Old Jerry clearly had no clue what he had.
“Um - I - well it looks a good one.” I stumbled with my words.
“I’ll give you it for free, just cause I’m feeling charitable, to an english fucker as well, must be going mad, just promise you won’t go to any other ice cream vans alright? Any other motherfucker comes down this road with their little fuddy duddy tunes, you keep those blinds closed like a nun’s legs.” Jerry handed me the watch, gesturing to my window. “We got a deal?”
“You have a deal.” I shook his hand. Poppy’s ice cream was starting to melt down her hand.
“Good doing business with ya! I’ll be round against next week. Got a shipment of Playstation ones coming, fell off the back of a truck.” Jerry Tibbins said as he wrapped his hands round the wheel of his truck. The vehicle roared into life and I couldn’t believe my luck.
So giddy I was, that it wasn’t till a few hours later that I pondered the weight of what he had just said. Playstation Ones? We were on to five now. What was Jerry Tibbin doing selling twenty year old consoles? Did he think we were in the 90’s?
He came again and again, and each week he had something new to offer me. No one else in the street seemed to bother with him; we were a relatively up-market neighbourhood full of vegans and snobs after all. Thirty years ago this place would have been working class, but gentrification had resulted in the jaguars in driveways instead of hondas.
Still he came, every Friday night, at exactly half past six.
I got a platinum ring for the wife, just three-hundred smackers, a lovely little golden key-chain for the daughter and a little baggie of cannabis just to make the mid-life crisis go a little easier. It was the best damn ice-cream truck in the whole world.
“My most loyal customer.” He’d smile. “More of the good stuff?”
“As always.” I said. An odd sort of camaraderie had formed between us now. Our transactions were warm and friendly. That’s one thing about the Scottish, they’ll love you if you’re loyal, but boy, do they burn you if you’re not.
“I’m really happy I’ve got you Jim. No one on this street bothers no more, thirty years I’ve been coming here. Makes me feel real good, y’know, having a customer again?” Jerry Tibbins said to me. It was odd, but I noticed it then; that the odd little graze on his forehead had never healed, it had stayed the same, for the entire four months he’d been coming to me. “Got a shipment of PS1’s coming, fell of the back of a truck.”
Repetitive old chap. I pushed the graze out of mind. It was nothing. Had to be. I watched his van vanish down the street. There was a loud bang when his van fell out of view. Weird, but he’d probably blown out his exhaust.
It was an oddly hot summer’s day when another ice cream van came plundering down the road. Jerry wasn’t due for another couple hours and Poppy wanted an ice cream. What’s a man to do? Jerry wouldn’t even know that I’d broken my promise. I got the damn kid a cone and somehow I felt like a bad guy. You can’t win, I swear.
“I know you’ve been going to other ice cream vans Jim, I can sense it. I hope I’m wrong, man, but I’m - I’m worried dude. Everyone just fucks me off in the end.” Jerry said as he handed me a cone for Poppy and a small little bag of weed. How did he know?
“I wouldn’t do that to you Jerry.” I told him. His brows squinted and he suddenly grabbed the middle of his head where his graze was as if overtaken by pain.
He groaned all of a sudden. “Damn, this spot on the front of my head’s hurting me, migraines all day every day. Shit hurts.”
“Have you not got any painkillers back there?” I asked
“Only the kind that get you stuck on them.” Jerry grunted. “No more cheating alright, you’re mine. If I see you with another ice cream truck I’ll blow your brains out.”
And he drove off. Once again his van vanished and other loud bang. Poor sod really needed to get that exhaust fixed.
I was in the library the other day with my wife. Every week we go and pick out a book for the week. It’s boring as shit. She picks some period romance as usual and I browse the history racks. I like non-fiction, I can’t be bothered with made-up stuff.
One book caught my interest; The Ice Cream Wars. I figured it’d give me something to talk about with Jerry, for he’d surely been around for them judging by his prison tattoos and his… vernacular.
It was on page eighty-three when I nearly had my heart attack. It was a crime scene photo, of a blooded up pink van with the wind screen smashed in. A body lay still and contorted.
It couldn’t be.
No.
He was mottled blue and slumped over the ice cream machine with dried congealed blood forming a sad little …
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