The ice man came with a horse and a wagon and a block of ice that weighed three hundred pounds and he carried it up the stairs with a pair of iron tongs and a leather strap over his shoulder. The ice man was the strongest person on the block. He carried winter into your kitchen in July. Before refrigerators the ice man was the difference between fresh food and spoiled food. Between milk for the baby and no milk for the baby. The ice man was essential and he was invisible. Like everything essential.

The ice box sat in the kitchen and it held one block of ice and the block lasted two days in summer and four days in winter and when the ice melted you put a pan underneath to catch the water and when the pan overflowed you had a flood in the kitchen. The ice box was a negotiation with temperature. You were not keeping things cold. You were slowing down the warm. The ice man understood that. He was not selling cold. He was selling time.

The kids followed the ice wagon in summer. The horse walked slow and the ice dripped off the back of the wagon and the kids caught the chips that broke off when the ice man scored the block. You put the ice chip in your mouth and it tasted like the street and the sawdust the ice man used to insulate the blocks. That taste. Cold and dirt and summer. Nobody who grew up before refrigerators forgot that taste. It was the taste of a city that had not yet figured out how to be cold without help.

The ice man on our block was named Abe and he had arms like a longshoreman and a voice that carried six floors. He would stand on the sidewalk and yell ice and the windows opened and the women leaned out and held up fingers. One finger meant one block. Two fingers meant two. Abe read the building like a menu. He knew who was cooking for a family and who was cooking for one. The ice man knew everything the laundry line knew. He just learned it through a different window.

The refrigerator killed the ice man. The electric box that kept itself cold without a horse or a wagon or a man with iron tongs. The refrigerator was better. Nobody argues that. But the refrigerator did not yell up to your window. The refrigerator did not know your name. The refrigerator did not give ice chips to the kids on the sidewalk. The refrigerator solved the problem and eliminated the person and that is the story of every improvement in the city. The problem gets solved. The person disappears.

See also: Seltzer Man, Corner Phone