A Snowball's Chance
by William P Tandy

The Chicago wind blew Zeb and Dan into Baltimore, by way of Norfolk, and the hot stink of summer had brought with it the need for serious refreshment. Traffic was bad, stop-and-go through the radiating Route 40 funk. And so my girlfriend and I seized the opportunity to indoctrinate this pair of strapping mid-western lads in a heat-beating Charm City tradition.

"Let's take 'em down to see the prostitots," my girlfriend said to me.

"Good idea."

"Prostitots?" our guests sweated inquisitively from the back seat.

"Don't worry," I assured them. "They don't disappoint."

"Never," my girlfriend concurred.

She turned toward the back seat. "So," she said, putting them on the spot. "You boys ever had a snowball?"

Like the blossoming of flowers and the greening of trees, the onset of warm weather each year triggers the opening of dozens of roadside shacks throughout the Greater Baltimore Vicinity. You'll find them tucked behind larger businesses, on the far side of parking lots, and, sometimes, in the middle of nowhere. It's in these small shacks, most no larger or more elaborate than the average backyard shed, that many area teens get their first taste of work, and thousands find relief from the swelter...

If you've ever had a Slurpee, Icee, or snow cone, you've as well had a snowball, being little more than shaved or finely-chopped ice doused in sweet, flavored syrup. The variety of flavors can be ridiculous: pineapple, vanilla, cinnamon, blood orange, tangerine, egg custard. Some, such as "Batman" and "Spice Girls," are more open to conjecture.

I'm given over to modified classics, like the "Route 40 Julep" – my own concoction, consisting of a tall peppermint snowball with a healthy splash of Wild Turkey, well mixed. The booze calls for a delicate hand: too much kills the ice, while too little is pointless.

Some stands even throw marshmallow into the mixture. But mallow or not, they're everywhere – cold, cheap, and easy to make, sealing their perennial popularity.

My favorite snowball stand sits in the corner of a gas station parking lot on Route 40. It's usually staffed by "prostitots" – coochie-cutter-clad 15-year-olds with little apparent knowledge or interest in where babies come from. But they'll know all too soon, unfortunately, and about things like teething, before the excess syrup drowning their ice rots their own teeth.

Some evenings, the place looks like a convention for the Amateur Streetwalkers Guild, lace-ups and make-up, push-ups with nothing to push up. A few hang around the nearby picnic table. They don't actually work there – they just sit around, cranking out Top 40 on the shower radio they've brought with them. The epitome of roadside teenage cool.

The Junior Pimp League was recruiting from the front seat of their car when we pulled into the parking lot. The shower radio sat on the picnic table, blaring on as one of the regulars strolled over to the driver's window of the pimpmobile. She leaned through, ineptly advertising her wares to the JPL, who despite their best efforts, didn't appear to know what came next.

We parked the car and walked up to the stand. The screen on the window flew open as the girl inside handed the people in front of us their snowballs.

"Thank you," she said. "Have a nice evening." And quickly slammed the screen shut.

We stepped up to the counter. The screen flew open.

"Can I help you?"

"I'd like a large pina colada," I said. "Please."

My girlfriend quickly chimed in.

"I'll have a large half-pina colada, half..."

"OK, wait a second," said the girl in the stand, scribbling frantically on her order pad.

"Half-pina colada, half-mango."

Zeb and Dan gazed in saucer-eyed awe of the wide assortment of flavors.

"Can I have a large orange?" asked Dan.

"We're out of orange."

"Oh."

Zeb jumped in. "Do you have tangerine?"

"We're out of tangerine."

"OK."

Dan tried again. "How about lemon?"

"Out of that, too."

"Cherry?"

"Nope."

"Try the colada," I said. "It's great with a shot of Myers's."

"What does Batman taste like?"

"What?"

Someone snickered. "Ask Catwoman."

"Huh?"

"Never mind," added Zeb, perusing the flavors.

"Got any 'lope?"

"Yeah," said the girl. "Wait. What?"

"Cantaloupe. Like the signs along the road."

"Oh, yeah."

"I'll have that," said Dan.

"He got 'lope!" hollered Zeb. "How about blood orange?"

"Yeah."

"I'll take it."

She slammed the screen shut. Suddenly, a dense cloud of smoke descended upon us. Laughing. Smokebomb.

A junior pimp approached us.

"Sorry," he said. "Did that bother you guys?"

"Not really."

"Oh, OK. Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it."

He rejoined the ASG/JPL joint conference that had convened at the picnic table. "It did, too, bother them!" Dan heard one of them laugh. "I heard one of 'em coughing."

When the snowballs came, we paid and split, while the ice still held promise for booze.

"Have a good evening," she said, and slammed the screen shut, then open.

"Can I help you?"

William P Tandy is a writing machine whose zine Smile Hon, You're in Baltimore is but one of his many projects. Check out leekinginc.com or soberbrothers.com.