Milk Chicken Bomb

by Andrew Wedderburn

  They rev their engines and throw out their clutches and the tires screech on the ice. None of them move for a second, back ends all drift out, right, left. Then they lurch and jump forward, all right at each other. I think they’ll all crash head-on, but they jerk out of each other’s way, veer out, zoom past each other. Engines grunt from gear to gear and the kids white-knuckled in the boxes all yell and lean into the cold wind.

  Jenny Tierney claps slowly, her cold, pink hands quiet.

  The trucks shoot out to the sides of the parking lot and then pull around, seven pickup trucks in a circle around the snowy edges. Sometimes they slide on patches of snow, buckle from side to side on black ice. The kids all toss around in the boxes. They lap the parking lot, one after the other, some of them flashing their lights. Lights swing all over, throw the walls of the junior high on and off, the yellow bricks blinking.

  Then someone honks their horn, a red Dodge, the ram on the hood bent and staring off to one side. All the kids in the box duck low, grip the sides tighter, and then the truck’s wheels lock. It pitches sideways with a grind, buckles. Kids fall from one side to the other, and the truck takes off, right up the middle of the lot. At the far end of the tarmac, another truck peels around, the snow behind it red from brake lights, swerves out of the lap and up the middle.

  Mullen claps, cuffs his mitts around his mouth and shouts, Kaboom! Kablam!

  In either box a kid stands up, leans forward against the cab. They raise the roman-candle tubes and all the kids duck down against the truck beds, disappear.

  Then green and red, bang! Fire and sparks blow up all over the fronts of the trucks, fire on the hoods, sparks and smoke on the windshields. Horns honk and we all shout and cheer, the trucks peel out, drive through the smoke and green and red afterflares, like Christmas. Teenagers stand up on the truck beds, roar and wave their arms, they all stand awhile until the trucks turn again and they fall down, hooting.

  We clap and shout while the fireworks blow up all over the trucks. The fireworks leave hot white spots on the backs of my eyes. I watch the trucks circle and buckle and I close my eyes and stare at the drifting colours, the hot white that fades into blue, into green. I move my eyes, closed tight, and listen to the clutches and engines and the white spots fade blue, they dart around, never quite where I’m looking, eyes scrunched up behind my eyelids.

  Aw hell, says Mullen. I open my eyes, the blue spots fade green. The trucks circle around, and out at the back of the parking lot the snow flashes red and blue, red and blue in long, quick sweeps.

  The RCMP car drives slow-like across the parking lot.

  Jenny Tierney walks along the side of the junior high. Calm, runs her hands along the bottom of each window. Mullen and I follow, duck when the RCMP blast their horn. Chases the pickup trucks in slow circles around the parking lot, careful on the ice. Some of the skaters ball up snowballs, throw them at the windshield. The wipers flick the snow away.

  Jenny stops at a window. Grins at us. She hooks her fingers under the sash and lifts. Ice cracks around the bottom. She lifts up the window and presses in at the mesh screen inside. Pushes in the corners and bends one inside. She pushes her head, her shoulders through the window. Pulls her skinny body up, lifts herself up and kicks her legs. Mullen and I each grab a black boot and push her up, inside. She falls down heavy inside. Mullen looks at me, his eyes all lit up. The police lights pan, blue and red, across the dark brick walls, across us. Slow circles around the parking lot.

  I fall in through the window onto the floor. Pick myself up and look around a dark classroom, the walls all covered in junior high serious stuff, maps and charts, a big grid full of funny-looking letters. The dark shapes of empty aquariums. I pull Mullen in through the window, kicking and grunting. We hear Jenny Tierney, laughing. Running, far away down the hall.

  We run in the dark. Tall metal lockers snap past. We run down the dark halls lit up exit-sign red. Damp and spilled, the clean white floors squeak when we slide, our wet boot bottoms. In the stairwells our feet ring louder and louder. The steel banisters bang and echo.

  At the end of the hallway a cart, mops and brooms, with a long dark shadow. Jenny Tierney runs ahead of us, her long legs, her heavy black boots stamping, half as many stamps as our short, panting footsteps. I hear Mullen yelling and laughing. Jenny Tierney runs ahead of us, sometimes she looks back. She laughs and laughs.

  Hélène pushes open the Red Rooster door. I wait a few seconds before I follow her inside. Try to scrape the snow off my boots quietly while she roots in her purse. She walks up to the counter and points to her cigarette brand. She picks up a bottle of aspirin from the countertop display. Reads the label.

  Do you have anything stronger than this?

  The teenager holds out her cigarettes. Stronger? You’d have to go to the pharmacy.

  Are they still open?

  They close at nine.

  She looks at her watch. Sighs and sets down the aspirin bottle. It’ll be fine, she says.

  Hey, the teenager shouts at me, put down the comic book. You always crease up the pages. Get out of here.

  I put the comic back on the rack. What time does the bus come? I ask him.

  Get out.

  Hélène watches me. Puts the aspirin into her purse.

  Are those for your ears?

  She stops. Excuse me?

  For the ringing in your ears, I ask. Do those help?

  Get out of here! shouts the teenager. He starts to come around the counter. I run out the door. Hélène stands there, hand in her purse, watching me.

  I run up the street, sliding in the snow. Sometimes I stop and scoop up a handful of snow to throw at a sign. The streetlights glow white with all the frost in the air. Across the lot where the grain elevators used to be it’s dark, just white drifts on the black ground, the rutted gravel. Behind the black lot, snow drifts on the railroad tracks, on the dirt service road, in the skinny trees beside the riverbank. Marvin, Alberta, is pretty small when you stop and look around: the businesses on either side of Main Street, the quiet houses with the narrow roofs in the street behind.

  It’s dark out there, along the river, but you know that if you made the mistake of walking over there you’d find the real dark. The real black heavy dark that doesn’t let you get away. You can’t see it but it’s out there, breathing, in and out, thick and heavy, and wet. As long as you don’t wander out over there you’re probably okay. I mean, it’s never come over yet, hungry, creeping through town, covering everything in thick, sticky, wet dark. Pulling everything inside. It hasn’t yet. I run and slide in the snow. Shuffle a little faster on the slippery sidewalk.

  I turn up Mullen’s street and there’s Pavel again, hands in his pockets, walking home. He sees me and waves.

  Why is it always just the two of us out this late? he asks. I pack up a snowball and throw it down the street. Yeah, I guess so, I say.

  He looks at me for quite a while, like he wants to say something. That look that grown-ups get when they’re all concerned. He looks at me that way for a while, then takes a deep breath and shakes his head.

  Tell you what, kid. We’ll get my truck and I’ll give you a lift home. Spare you the walk. It’s a bit of a walk up there, isn’t it?

  Well, it’s not too bad.

  Either way, kid, either way. We walk up the sidewalk, stamping in the fuzzy, light snow. Pavel fidgets in his pocket. Just got to get the truck keys out of the house, he says. Won’t take a second.

  He puts his key in the door, opens it. Then he gags. A thick cloud of stinging, stinking smoke pours out. All sour and nasty, like plastic, like when you leave the lid of the margarine tub on top of the toaster oven. We both gag and hold our hands over our mouths. What the, Pavel chokes. What the hell is going on?

  Inside we hear a thump, a crash. Hey, shouts a voice from inside, it sounds like Solzhenitsyn. Hey, is someone home? What the hell is going on? Pavel hollers into the house. Don’t come in, Solly yells, I’ll be right up. Don’t
come in!

  Pavel shuts the door. We both stand on the porch and cough. He spits on the porch and I do the same. The door opens and Solzhenitsyn comes out in another nasty cloud of smoke. Slams the door behind him.

  What the hell is going on? Pavel asks again.

  It’s the boiler, says Solzhenitsyn. The boiler’s blown.

  What do you mean? What’s that awful smoke?

  We’ve, Solly says and then starts to cough. Coughs into his black work gloves. Something’s ruptured in the boiler. And the glycol that’s in there, the boiler is all full of glycol, see, well, it’s pissing all over the place. It’s pissing out and straight onto the burner, which is fired up all the way, and it’s burning.

  Fired up all the way? Pissing all over the place?

  I shut it off. I shut off the gas.

  That’s our heat. It’s freezing out. Can’t you fix it?

  I can’t even breathe down there right now. I need to wait for the air to clear. But the whole house is going to freeze in the meantime.

  Pavel leans over, looks in his window. Presses his face up against the glass. Solzhenitsyn coughs and spits, a really awful, thick cough. There’s no way we can stay in there?, says Pavel. Solzhenitsyn leans over and coughs.

  We stand there coughing on the porch and some headlights come up the street. Mullen’s dad’s truck rattles to a stop in front of his house. He and Vaslav climb out. They see us and stop.

  Getting a little air? asks Vaslav.

  The boiler exploded, says Solzhenitsyn.

  What do you mean the boiler exploded?

  We’ve got glycol burning, apparently, says Pavel. It doesn’t smell like it’s anything you’d want to breathe.

  It’s moving through the pipes, that smoke, says Solzhenitsyn. It’s getting distributed. It’ll need a few days to clear through.

  Wait, says Valsav, is there heat?

  No. And there won’t be, not for a few days.

  So call the gas company.

  It’s the middle of the night, says Solzhenitsyn. I’ll call the gas company in the morning. Look, he says, tomorrow I’ll get everything fixed and it will be fine. In the meantime it’s midnight and it’s cold and we’ve got the kid here and I just want to go to sleep.

  Mullen’s dad sighs. Come on, he says. I’ll pull out the couch.

  Solzhenitsyn goes back inside their house. Holds his breath and opens the door. A white cloud puffs out. Vaslav pokes his head inside and jerks it back out, coughing and sputtering. Dear god, he says. Dear sweet god, what the hell is that?

  Solly comes back out a minute later, coughing. Has a mug full of toothbrushes, razors. A stack of towels under his arm. Pavel stands on the porch with his arms wrapped around his shoulders, lost. Vaslav starts to brush his teeth on the porch. Stops with his toothbrush in his mouth and looks down at me.

  What are you doing here anyway? he asks. It’s the middle of the night.

  Sometimes you just need to get out of the house.

  Vaslav gives me a sideways look. Then he spits his toothpaste over the porch. We all follow Mullen’s dad inside. Mullen’s in the living room in his flannel pyjamas, rubbing his eyes. What’s going on? he asks. I heard a lot of shouting. It woke me up. His dad rubs his hair, he squints.

  The Russians stand in the kitchen and brush their teeth. Mullen’s dad looks around the living room: his one sofa, his recliner. He opens the closet, gets out some fuzzy blankets, a few old pillows. Lays a few on the floor and a few on the couch. Pavel comes out of the kitchen with a glass of water and a salt shaker. Sprinkles in some salt, then tilts back his head, slowly twists his glass eye and pops it out. Drops it in the glass.

  Solly stares out the window at his house. How long does it have to cook like that before the seal breaks? he says to himself. I should have heard that. An airlock. I should have at least heard it.

  Mullen’s dad brings me an old flannel shirt to wear and a pair of wool slippers. I guess you two can sleep in Mullen’s room, he says.

  You’re sleeping over? Mullen asks.

  Yeah, I guess so.

  Mullen’s room is small and narrow. His clothes are in a basket in the corner. A plastic tub full of Lego blocks, a pile of comics on the dresser. There’s a picture of a woman above his bed, a picture in a little wooden frame. Black hair and glasses, and a pearl-buttoned country-and-western shirt, red roses stitched on either side of her chest.

  Mullen’s dad comes in with a sleeping bag, some blankets. Lays the blankets on the floor, the sleeping bag on top. Mullen sits on his bed and pulls his socks off. His dad waits until we’re both under the covers, Mullen on his bed and me on the floor, then he shuts off the light.

  Mullen sits up after a while. Sits up with his hands on his knees. Pretty late, huh?

  Yeah, I say, pretty late.

  Mullen lies down, turns over. Squirms for a while to get the blankets right.

  I listen to the Russians grumble and mutter, then gradually they’re quiet. Mullen’s dad makes a phone call, hushed. Then another. I can’t make out what he says. After a while all the lights go out.

  My arms feel too long. I try the arm up and under my head but my shoulder starts to pull. Turn over, both hands under my chest. I try to breathe steady. My hands start to tingle. I try not to move and they tingle and tingle.

  What if I never get to sleep again? I guess I’ll go crazy. Like old men in alleys in the city, like the little old grannies who yell at the waiters at Yee’s Breakfast All Day Western Noodle. Like the Hat Man at the credit union. But kids don’t go crazy, I don’t think.

  Over on my other side with my arm behind and it falls asleep right away. I can’t feel it. I try to turn myself over and can’t feel my arm. Reach around behind with my other hand and try to grab my shoulder but it’s too far. I sort of flop forward, push my forehead into the mattress. I lever myself up with my head and reach underneath and pull the arm out and collapse. Whew.

  When I’m crazy I hope I still get to have fun. I don’t know if crazy people read comics or go down hills or try to drink the most milk. I try not to look at the clock. If I see the time, I get all anxious because I can’t sleep and soon it’ll be morning and I won’t have slept and I’ll go crazy. I’ll get short of breath and have to roll over and I’ll be awake forever. Do you have to go to school if you’re crazy? Learn about Louis Riel and do sit-ups?

  Tomorrow will be Monday: school and inside shoes and the dim lights in the hallways, desks and foolscap and going outside at lunch. Compasses and protractors and the Northwest Passage. And all I ever do is wait around. Wait around for after school, for Friday, for Christmas. But what am I going to do? Wake up Mullen and try to tell him? Wake up Solzhenitsyn and Mullen’s dad, and tell them that I can’t sleep? How come it’s always my job to tell people when something’s wrong anyway?

  Mullen snorts and breathes heavy. He inhales through his nose and exhales through his mouth. His foot pushes up and down, up and down under the blanket. Like he was hopping up and down. When I’m crazy I hope me and Mullen still get along. I hope we still sell lemonade. I guess I’d understand if he didn’t want to sell lemonade with a crazy kid. If I go crazy, he’ll probably make the lemonade too sweet.

  Mr. Hyslop draws notes on the music-room chalkboard. Has this block of wood with five pieces of chalk all held together, draws five parallel lines across the board. Whole notes and quarter notes. He counts with his hand, back and forth and up and down, and we all sing songs, except most of the boys don’t sing, just open our mouths along with the words. I do my best not to yawn too much. Sometimes my eyes droop and my head bobs forward and I almost fall asleep. Pete Leakie nudges me every time my head starts to bob and I wake up and keep opening my mouth to the words.

  After school I go to see how the Russians are doing. Pavel and Vaslav sit on the porch in their parkas.

  Did Solzhenitsyn fix the boiler yet?

  Look inside, says Vaslav, there’s frost in the sink. An icicle hanging out of the faucet. My goddamn home.


  He’s at the hardware store buying tools, says Pavel.

  He was whistling, says Vaslav, making a sour face. Practically giddy. Like it’s the best thing that’s happened all year. It’s appalling.

  He says it will take a few more days to air out, says Pavel, before he can turn everything back on.

  But he can fix it, I say, right? He can fix anything.

  He can fix anything, says Pavel. Vaslav coughs.

  You should stay at Deke’s house until he does, I say. Vaslav coughs and spits on the porch. That miserable son of a bitch won’t open the door. Says he’ll shoot anybody tries to come inside. He thinks we’ve got that cop with us and we’re all out to bust up whatever loony scheme he’s cooking up in there.

  I heard at the Short Stack last night that he’s counterfeiting, says Pavel. He’s got a metal press, making his own quarters by the roll. Planning to flood the whole municipality with counterfeit coins.

  Fleer figures he’s building an aqueduct, says Vaslav.

  A what?

  You know, like the Romans used. Fleer says he saw that El Camino go by late one night full of scrap sheet metal. Figures Howitz is building an aqueduct piece by piece, to flood the credit union over land.

  Shouldn’t you be working on your novel? I ask Vaslav. He balls up his fist and coughs. He coughs for a long time. Sometimes he stops coughing and tries to catch his breath, then wheezes and chokes and doubles over and coughs again. Pavel hits him on the back and he coughs heavy and wet into his hand. He takes a deep breath. Opens his hand and makes a face, holds his damp, sticky hand away. Pats his pockets with his dry hand. Pavel unfolds his cloth handkerchief and hands it over.

  Who can write when there’s no heat? When you can’t go inside? He coughs, clutches at his chest. The proofs are out. In the mail. I’m on vacation, he says.

  I pull off my inside shoes to go out for recess and Pete Leakie says, Hey. I put my inside shoes on the shelf. Hey, are you going outside? asks Pete. He squints beside the door, his face pulled back into the dark. Squints at the bright white sky. It sure is a lot of snow, says Pete. He scuffs his shoe on the black doormat.