Jimson Shivers's Questionnaire

I am from nowhere. I am from everywhere. If you were to ask me where I was born, I'd tell you Ann Arbor. But that's not home anymore. Now the truck is my home. It's a simple life, traveling from town to town, bringing my Ice Cream to the world. No roots anywhere means no attachments. Nothing to stop me from achieving my goals except myself. Sure. I get lonely sometimes. Wish I didn't work where I slept, but the way I see it, the truck is my dream. It's not much, an old diesel run van from the 30's that I had to put my heart and soul into just to make it functional. I blow up an air mattress and park where I don't think I'll get noticed. After all the repairs, she runs like (almost) new. Yep. That's home. They just don't make 'em like they used to.

Right now? I spend money where I get money. My Truck. I don't want to make it seem like this truck is my whole life, but at this moment, I have no choice but to spend the money I make selling this stuff on repairs. What little I have left over goes to food. I keep a hot plate in the back, for the ingredients I need to roast (almonds, bananas, and such) and I have gotten crazy adept at cooking whatever you can think of on it. Sort of a sad life, but hey, that's just how it is. If I have money after the food bill, that goes towards a savings account to finally open a for real storefront. But shit is getting more and more expensive every day. Gotta turn to something else.

You know, when some people talk about "food insecurity" I get the feeling they've never actually experienced it. It's always people on television speaking on "relieving insecurity" or "opening stores in food deserts". But they don't know. They've not spent months at a time with the constant pang of mild hunger dug in just behind their navel. They haven't watched their father go hungry because he could only scrounge together enough food for only you and your mother to eat that day. Never been to a free clinic, and had CPS called because of how skinny you were. It's not "insecurity". It's Hunger. And yet, through all of that hunger, I remember. twice a year my mother would make ice cream. God. It was the tastiest thing I think I've ever eaten. And it was so perfect, and special, and would melt the hunger away, despite the fact it was freezing. Everyone deserves this. Everyone. I'd do anything short of killing to achieve this. To spread that joy to anyone hungry. I know I can't fix the hunger of the world. I would be mad if I thought I could. But at the very least, I can make a few happy memories for those that suffer from it. 

I had had my truck for a year. I was traveling, As I do. It was the weekend of July fourth in the middle of Alabama. I had parked in a pretty good spot, and was making much more than I was used to. I got thinking, "What if this is my big break?" What if I stay here, and make enough money to actually seed a restaurant? Then I saw her. A little girl, couldn't have been more than 10 years old. She had a cone of my ice cream in her hand, and was running away from an adult. Like, scared running. She was at the back of the crowd, so no one else seemed to notice. I don't really know what came over me, but I chased after them. By the time I caught up, the person she was running from had already caught up with her. He had her by the wrist. He was shouting something about "I should turn you in right now" "Can't find the money for one cone you have to steal it?" And then when I saw her, my throat caught. She was emaciated. Hungry. Like I know hunger. I walked up to the man and told him to let her go. That I would give them both a free cone. He seemed to calm down after that. But that stuck with me. A child was hungry. I fed her for free, like no one ever did with me. She cannot be the last.

The first is my Mother. I love that woman to death. Raising three kids, working a job, all while helping my father, after his accident. Medical bills, horrible job, three kids, and yet she still. Kept. Pushing. All of us are out of the house now, my father passed, my sister a doctor, and my older brother a colonel in the Marines. She's comfortable now. Living well. She saved for retirement, even through all of that, and now she's living the life she deserves to. 

Then there's Jack. The man who taught me the ice cream trade. He ran a local store in my hometown, and when I first started working for him, trying to learn his recipes, and perfect them for myself, he was supportive, in his own way. He was a brilliant desert chef. Making ingredients and cooking and freezing work together like some kind of wizard. But he definitely wasn't one. He bought me the truck after I'd been working for him for fifteen years. He was closing the store, and spent some of that money to buy the truck for me. Told me to "Share it all with the world. Every last drop you make. Every corner of the globe"

The last is Carol. My highschool sweetheart. I'm not still in love with her or anything like that, she was just the first person who heard my dream. To share my ice cream with everyone. She's still super supportive. When I make the time to swing back into town, we hang out, shoot the shit, and she tries new flavors. It's nice to have a friend like her.

My father was a good man. He worked two jobs. Never had time for us, if he had made it, he wouldn't have been able to support us. It was work, sleep, and on rare occasions for him, food. One day, working at the sawmill he worked at, he fell, took a bandsaw to the skull, and never woke up. He was in the hospital for months, he died there, and they charged us for the space his body took. I did go to school, learned what I could, but I dropped out at sixteen to work. My sister didn't, and my brother was already out of the house. If I did fit in, it wasn't obvious to me. No one was unkind to me, but it was obvious to most people that I was without, and those who are with will never understand that shame. My mother. Ugh. My mother. She was an absolute saint. Raised me right, despite all that happened. None of us came out of poverty with any addiction, or criminal history, we left the right way. She broke the cycle, and I will do what I can to help others break it too.

Love is not an easy word. I have had fleeting crushes. Girls who were pretty, or kind, or intelligent enough to draw my eye. But I don't think I ever loved any of them. Carol was the closest I ever came to true romantic love, but I really don't think it would have ever worked out. We dated for a couple years, and I told her I loved her, but at the back of my mind, there was always the dream. She couldn't have stopped me from doing that. Travelling the country, giving my Ice Cream to the people of the world. I think that for that feeling to be love, I would have to be willing to give up my dream for them. And I would never do that.