It was a sunny spring afternoon in 2015 when Dennis and Efrain took seats across from one another in a coffee shop near the Salem airport. Efrain’s black and red tracksuit stood out next to Dennis’s all-grey ensemble. Efrain took his coffee black, while Dennis worked a large mocha topped with whip cream.

“I thank you for coming,” Dennis said, a little stiffly.

“Sure,” Efrain said. He was guarded and didn’t know where this was headed.

Dennis took the lead, plunging into a list of complaints: Efrain boxed his drivers in, dropped prices, even catcalled people. Efrain sighed or shook his head in denial at each allegation. Sure, he’d made mistakes, but they both had. Dennis’s drivers weren’t exactly angels, he said.

“The skinny one,” Efrain continued, “one time he drove for ten or fifteen minutes in front of me.” He described how Mike had found him on the road one day and pressured him like a racecar driver on a straightaway, weaving left and right to keep Efrain from passing.

Dennis admitted that was his fault. “He was acting under a direct order,” he said.

“Perhaps we both have made rash decisions on how we deal with each other,” Dennis continued. “I could’ve definitely been more diplomatic at certain times.”

“That’s true,” Efrain agreed, nodding. Despite the opening volley, Efrain wasn’t nervous. As far as he was concerned, he hadn’t overstepped any boundaries. Maybe he could have been more diplomatic at times, but it was Dennis who had escalated the conflict — twice.

Dennis didn’t want the conversation to get stuck in an infinite loop of accusations and denials. This sit-down was a chance, maybe the only chance, to get answers, clear the air and possibly find common ground. He gradually changed the subject to their mutual interest: the ice cream trade. The two talked at length about different aspects of the business; where to buy product, competitors who had come and gone, regulatory hassles. Start accepting credit cards, Dennis urged Efrain. “It increases your profits immediately.”

Dennis had emptied his massive mocha and was fidgeting with the cup. Efrain’s coffee sat untouched after nearly an hour.

After a pause, Dennis said he appreciated Efrain’s tenacity. “I give you respect for that,” he offered.

Efrain nodded. “Well, I’m happy, and I give you respect,” Efrain said in response.

There it was: an opening. Glasnost.

“Sometimes I think we both enjoy antagonizing the other,” Dennis observed.

Efrain considered it for a moment.

“Yeah,” Efrain said finally. “I think that’s true.”

Dennis had laid the ultimate card on the table: acknowledgement that their fight was futile. There was no rational explanation for the Cold War — no reason for two men to fight over something so much they were willing to destroy it. They needed a way out, a recognition of their shared humanity.

“This next year, there will be one little girl working a cart,” Dennis said. “I will take it very personally if she is harassed in any way.” This was something that had been eating him for months. It may even have been the true reason he was sitting at this table. He leaned in and looked Efrain in the eye. “She is my daughter.”

Jazmyne was turning 14 this spring. It had been ten years since her tears over a mangled popsicle had propelled Dennis into the business. He planned to set her up with a pushcart at River Road City Park a few afternoons a week. “This will be her first job. I ask for respect for this one person, more so than you would give to anybody else.”

“Well, I never talk to any of your employees, you know?” Efrain said. “Never. Anybody — ”

Dennis cut him off. He didn’t want to re-litigate the past. Dennis appealed to Efrain as one father to another. “Family is different,” he said. “And that’s something we both understand.”

“Yes,” Efrain said. “I do understand that.”

Dennis decided that this was the moment to float his big idea, an idea that only weeks ago would have seemed ludicrous. Both men had to drive once or twice a week to Portland to stock up from the region’s only wholesalers. That was six hours a week spent commuting rather than selling. “So why the hell are we both driving to Portland?” Dennis asked. Why not team up?

He and Efrain were the two main players in the Salem ice cream world, successful enough between them to crowd out any serious rivals. At the same time, neither would ever be big enough to force the other out of business.

Dennis had even thought ahead further, and suggested that they could set up their own ice cream distribution hub in Salem. They could service the whole area! Eugene, Stayton, Lincoln City, Woodburn — every one of those cities was a market ripe for expansion.

The plan would involve significant investment and risk. A large enough cold storage space, plus enough product to get them started, could cost as much as $75,000. And if someone didn’t show to pick up an order, they would be left holding the bag. But if they did it right, they could set themselves up as the ice cream kingpins of central Oregon.

First, though, they would have to trust each other.

“We can’t agree on everything,” Dennis said.

“Yeah. Definitely. No.”

“But if you and I swing that size stick, there is nobody in this town that drives an ice cream truck who will not listen.”

The thought had occurred to Efrain before. Still, he was surprised to receive a business proposal from the guy who had threatened him to his face and once chased him all over town. But Efrain was a man who understood opportunity. That’s what got him here — to the U.S., to the ice cream business, to this negotiating table.

“There’s no limit to what could happen,” Dennis said. Efrain agreed to think about it.

They stood up, smiled, and shook hands for the first time. There were kids out there waiting for their trucks to come around the corner.