Milk Chicken Bomb

by Andrew Wedderburn

  Mr. Howe –

  I’m not going to stand here all day explaining oceanography to you.

  Mr. Howe, if you could please be on your way.

  You’re worried that I won’t be able to pay off the loan, aren’t you?

  She folds her arms across her chest.

  Deke reaches into his pocket, takes out some throat drops, the lemon kind. Unwraps one and puts it in his mouth. The smell of lemon and medicine fills the air. Well, he says, I could always go down to the Caribbean. There’s a lot of those cruise ships down in the Caribbean, and yachts. If worse comes to worse and the legitimate aspects of the business don’t work out, I might go down to the Caribbean and find one of those cruise ships. I figure we could get right up close to it, underwater, in the submarine, and then come up to the surface. Surprise it. And then my crew, we’d get in little boats, and we’d need ropes, with those hooks on them – what do you call those? Grappling hooks, I say. Right, says Deke. We’d all climb up onto the cruise ship, I guess we’d have to have guns, so that would be another start-up cost. That’s what we’re talking about, right? Start-up costs? We’d make everybody give us their wallets, and their wives’ wedding rings and jewellery. We’d knock over the fancy statues and play the piano drunk. Then we’d slip back into the depths with our plunder, leaving the ship to sink. I figure we’d do it that way, not just in the Caribbean, mind. So what I mean is, supposing my legitimate maritime business comes up short, there’ll always be some way to pay back that loan, owning as useful a piece of equipment as a submarine. What do you think?

  We have a seat on the steps outside so that Deke can light a cigarette. The rain comes down in a slow, icy wash. Not really big drops, just kind of this constant, cold wet. Water drips off his nose.

  Well, I suppose that wasn’t my finest moment, he says.

  You ought to get them with the Milk Chicken Bomb, I tell him.

  The what?

  The Milk Chicken Bomb. It’s the worst thing.

  How do you make a Milk Chicken Bomb?

  I shrug. I was hoping you’d know

  Deke sighs and stands up. We should’ve just driven the damn El Camino.

  At school today it’s tricky, on account of the electric tiles. The black ones are all right, but all the white ones in the hallways have about sixty million volts in them. I have to hop from black to black, so as not to get all cooked up into a cinder. Makes it real slow, moving around, because sometimes the tiles alternate, like a checkerboard, but sometimes they spread out. Sometimes the floor will be all black, like an oil slick on television, and then it’s easy going. But sometimes the floor just whites right up. I can’t go down the hall to the gym at all, and in the hallway to the library there’s just one row of black tiles right up against the wall; I have to shuffle sideways, with my arms up against the lockers, to keep from falling over.

  At recess Mullen and I go over behind the gym to throw a tennis ball. We like to throw the tennis ball at the wall and catch it.

  The way I figure, Mullen says, we can go down to the train bridge after school. Did you know there’s a tunnel under the train bridge, goes right into the riverbank? He roots around in his bag, gets out a hard hat with a light on the front. Hands me a pair of goggles, like pilots wear. You can wear these, he says, and I’ve got some of my dad’s gloves. The heavy kind he wears to smash ice.

  Where’d you get that hard hat?

  It was in our basement. In a box. My dad’s got all sorts of crazy stuff down there, packed up in boxes. Wish I’d found this a long time ago, he says. He fiddles with the light and it blinks on. He points it into his face and blinks. Stares at it as long as he can manage then twists it off again.

  Mullen, I probably shouldn’t stay out. I mean, after staying out at Deke’s all night and almost getting pneumonia. I might hear about it.

  You might?

  Well, you know. Eventually.

  I hear about everything, says Mullen. My ears ought to be bigger. Anyway, I’ve got this scarf too. See, it’s blue, you like blue, don’t you?

  I throw the ball at the wall, let it bounce before catching it. If you don’t catch it you have to chase it before it rolls down the sidewalk onto the playground. Mullen throws the ball and I miss it. The ball rolls down the sidewalk. Rolls down the sidewalk and some kids come around the corner, one of them reaches down, picks up the ball. Aw hell, says Mullen. Aw hell.

  These are some real Dead Kids, six feet down. Their hair all combed and pictures on their T-shirts, little surfboards, or skiers with sunglasses. Dave Steadman, his dad owns the pharmacy. Drinks a cola out of a can. Dave Steadman is two inches taller than me, he must weigh more than a hundred pounds. He plays hockey on a team where they’re allowed to board check.

  Hey, says Dave, it’s the Feedlot kids. He tosses the ball up, catches it. Well, the Feedlot kid and the kid who wants to be just like him.

  Take off, Steadman, says Mullen.

  Steadman looks over at his friends. Throws one of them the tennis ball and walks right over to us.

  Seriously, he says to me, what’s the deal with hanging out downtown all the time with this loser and his gangster friends?

  What the hell are you talking about? asks Mullen.

  My dad says those Russians are criminals, says Steadman. That the RCMP take pictures of their house and one day they’re all going to jail, for selling drugs and keeping dead people under their house. Other stuff too, way worse stuff.

  Your dad sells drugs, says Mullen.

  My dad’s allowed to sell drugs, says Steadman. He’s got a licence. It’s hanging in his office.

  It’s a good thing your dad isn’t a detective, says Mullen, or we’d have a lot more crime in town. People shooting each other in the street, everybody’s car getting stolen all the time. Detective Steadman, everybody’d say, where’s my car? And him just standing there all slack–jawed. Glassy–eyed. Thank your dad for me, Steadman, for not becoming a detective.

  I’m going to beat the hell out of you, Mullen.

  Mullen shrugs. I bet I can smoke more cigarettes than you, he says.

  All the other kids go quiet. Steadman sticks his hands in his pockets. You don’t smoke. The only kid in the fifth grade who smokes is Christine Sutz. And Jenny Tierney, but she doesn’t count ’cause she should be in junior high by now. Mullen shrugs. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, Export A blue, Deke’s brand, nearly full.

  You probably haven’t even got any matches, Steadman says, but nervous now. The other kids poke him in the back. Smoke a few, Dave, they say. Let’s see him throw up. Mullen puts a cigarette in his mouth, lets it hang in the middle, the paper stuck to his lip, the way Deke does. He gets a pack of matches out of his pocket, the kind they give you at Red Rooster. A blue cover with a green tree. I bet I can smoke more cigarettes than you, Steadman, he says. He lights a match, sucks at it with the cigarette. He coughs, then takes a long drag. Makes a show of inhaling, waits a few seconds, then blows out a thick cloud.

  Steadman takes a cigarette out of the pack. Turns it over a few times. Takes the matches. You’re turning green already, he says. You can’t even finish that. Mullen smokes. Are you a detective too, Steadman? Inheriting the family business? Steadman tries to light a match, can’t. Tries again, can’t. He puts the cigarette in his mouth, folds the cover of the match-book back over a match, pulls it out. Lit. Then he coughs the match out trying to suck it into the cigarette.

  Here, Mullen says, smoke this one. Gives Steadman his cigarette and lights another. Tobacco smoke hangs in a cloud. Smells like the inside of Deke’s El Camino, like the curling rink after a garage sale in the spring. Steadman has a drag and coughs. Mullen coughs and has a drag. They smoke.

  Pete Leakie comes around the corner. Stops and takes his time getting a good look at everything. Hey, Mrs. Lampman’s coming, he says, any second. Everybody looks at everybody else. Over here? asks Steadman. Right this way, says Pete Leakie. Steadman drops the cigarette, crushes it
with his running shoe.

  Mullen has another drag. You’re green and yellow, Mullen says. Steadman makes to hit Mullen in the face when Mrs. Lampman comes around the corner, eating a sandwich.

  Mullen, you’re smoking, she says. He drops the cigarette, stomps it out. Mrs. Lampman wraps her sandwich in a bit of cellophane. Everybody stands there not saying anything. She walks over and holds out her hand. Mullen gives her the cigarettes. He’s got matches too, says Steadman. Mullen hands her the matches. A kid who tells on another kid is a Dead Kid, he says. Hey, she snaps, that’s enough. She takes Mullen’s hands and walks away with him.

  You better run away now, Steadman says to me. His face still pretty green. Pete Leakie and I run away.

  It keeps raining. The ice gets thicker. The Russians build a ramp in the street with plywood and a few old tires. They freeze it with the garden hose. Pavel and Solzhenitsyn roll old steel garbage cans out of the garage while Vaslav sits on the step, scribbling in his notebook. They tie on their skates and take turns skating down the street and over the ramp, over as many cans as they can. Pavel clears two, arms windmilling. Solly gets over three. Pavel catches his toe on the way over a fourth, goes heels over head onto his face. My eye! he shouts, lying on the ice. They both get down on their hands and knees to look for Pavel’s glass eye. He keeps one hand over his face, like he’s embarrassed by the hole.

  Hey, Vaslav, I say, you ever been to Uzbekistan?

  Vaslav taps his pencil on the side of his face. Makes this hollow knocking sound. Uzbekistan? Where the hell is that?

  The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, Vaslav. It’s in Russia.

  I’m from Petersburg, he says.

  No, you’re from Leningrad, says Solzhenitsyn.

  And now that I’m not there, I don’t have to call it that.

  You never went to that big Uzbek desert? I asked.

  When I was a kid, we went to the Ukraine, says Vaslav. For a field trip. They showed us an aluminum smelter. We all had to wear badges. Solly, he shouts, you know all about geography apparently. You ever heard of Uzbekistan? Solly doesn’t say anything.

  Hey, Vaslav, I say, you’ve lived on this street for a long time. Longer than anybody.

  I have not, says Vaslav. Kreshick down there on the corner, he’s lived here since before there was electricity in town. Look at that hedge of his. I’m not some old derelict.

  You know that shop, I ask, across from the post office, with the windows papered over?

  The windows aren’t papered over anymore, Vaslav says. The Lévesque junk shop. Antique shop, he called it.

  The what?

  They sold, you know, china plates and old bed frames. Candlesticks. He had rocking chairs. You know, junk. It’s got a basement, they say. Full to bursting.

  Pavel sits up, grins. Brushes his eye off on his coat lapel, breathes on it. Stretches out his face and pops it back in. Vaslav writes something down in his notebook, then crosses it out. Full to bursting, he says.

  When the wind gets too cold, we all go inside. Mullen’s dad shows up with Mullen and a case of beer and the four grown–ups clank their bottles together around the table. We sit around the table and listen to the wind scrape along the ice. The frozen windows tug on their hinges. All over the house, patches of duct tape along the edges of the windows keep out the rain. Plastic bags stick out of cracks. Striped Hudson’s Bay blankets hang in doorways.

  Mullen’s dad and Solzhenitsyn talk about politics, with a lot of big words I don’t get, something about Russia. Vaslav writes in his notebook. Pages and pages. Chews his pencil. Solzhenitsyn brings out some chicken soup. Mullen and I slurp our soup and mostly they ignore us and talk about politics. We slurp pretty loud to see if they’ll get edgy but sometimes they just don’t care what we do.

  Solzhenitsyn gets up and goes into the kitchen. They all watch him. Vaslav leans out over the table and whispers, Twenty bucks on the girl from the junior high school, that new art teacher.

  What, all flaky–like?

  Saw him help her out with her groceries the other day. Had the bottom go out of one of her bags, see. Cans and cartons all over the place.

  I don’t know, says Mullen’s dad, it doesn’t seem likely. I thought he was all for the pharmacist’s wife.

  Sure, goes without saying. But this art teacher …

  Solzhenitsyn comes out of the kitchen with a bubbling pie plate. Oven mitts. Everyone shuts up and looks all innocent-like. Solly sets down the pie. The brown crust steams and bubbles, red juice runs out of cracks and hisses overtop of the crust.

  What on earth is that?

  It’s a tomato-soup pie, says Solzhenitsyn. Everybody looks blank at him.

  You know, tomato-soup pie. Cabbage, potatoes. Like I used to make when we lived above the taxidermist. He cuts into the crust. The pie bubbles like a vinegar volcano in science class.

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of tomato-soup pie, says Vaslav.

  We made tomato soup pie in Petersburg, when Brezhnev was in charge. Couldn’t get anything fresh, just canned cabbage and tomato soup.

  We lived in Edmonton when Brezhnev was in charge, says Pavel. You mean Andropov.

  No, Andropov came later. I mean Brezhnev. You know, in the sixties. Pointy ears, jowls. I was in high school.

  You mean Andropov, says Pavel. Andropov was first, then Brezhnev. We were in that place on Jasper Avenue. I never saw any tomato-soup pie.

  They both look at Vaslav. He holds up his hands.

  Don’t ask me. I’m a conscientious objector.

  The house rumbles. We all stop talking and look around. Solzhenitsyn stands back up, pulls off the oven mitts. Cocks his head.

  The sink? asks Vaslav. Solzhenitsyn shakes his head. Mullen reaches out his fork for the pie and Solzhenitsyn holds his finger up to his lips.

  A groan, like wood stretching, and a long rattle. Metallic and hollow. Solzhenitsyn walks over to the radiator. Squats down and puts his ear close to the heavy coiled pipes. It’s that goddamn hot-water tank, says Vaslav. Solly turns the valve on the side of the radiator, just so. He stands up and goes into the kitchen. We all stay quiet, listen, watch the steam from the pie. He comes out of the kitchen with a ball-peen hammer. Goes into Vaslav’s room. We hear a ping ping ping of soft hammering on iron.

  There’s a longer, slower groan, more of a sigh, which tapers off into a thin hiss out of the radiator. The hiss fades into a low hum. Solly comes back out, sets the hammer down on the window sill. Sits back down and starts to cut more wedges of the pie.

  A house is under pressure, he says. Water, steam, gas, air, shit. More delicate than you think.

  We hold out our plates and he dishes out hot red pie. Mullen reaches out across the table for the water jug and winces. His dad puts down his fork.

  Let’s see.

  It’s fine, Dad, come on, says Mullen. Blows on his pie.

  Did the bandage come off?

  Can I have the water, please? asks Mullen. His dad reaches over and pulls his sweater down over his shoulder. The tape has pulled off the top of his arm. Hot, puckered pink skin underneath. Mullen’s dad pulls the white bandage back over and pushes down the gummy tape.

  How’d that happen? asks Pavel.

  My son has the good sense of a washtub. Took it into his tiny head to find horizontal fireworks and stand in front of them.

  Schblaow, says Mullen. Holds his hands up, fingers spread. It was blue. Bluest thing I ever saw. Right close-like. He squirms away from his dad’s hands, pulls his sweater back up. We all blow on our hot red pie.

  At school we play kickball. Kids stand at the bases or sit on the bench, all wearing jackets and complaining about the rain. Can’t we just say inside? ask all the kids. The rain is cold and gets right inside your jacket, inside your boots. It drips out of your hair. Mr. Weissman wears a yellow rain slicker. Blows his whistle and waves his arms. Come on, he says, you’ve got to keep moving. Keep that blood going! The pitcher rolls the big rubber kickball down the wet diamo
nd, water spinning off in beads, and kids kick it off into the field. It splashes when it hits the wet, frozen grass.

  Pete Leakie walks up to home plate. Takes his wet round glasses off, breathes on them. Rubs them on his shirt. Puts them back on and squints.

  The pitcher rolls the ball down the icy diamond and Pete steps into it and misses. His boot flies off. He rubs his glasses and stands there on one foot while the pitcher walks out, picks up his boot. Throws it back to him. The pitcher bounces the ball while Pete puts his boot back on. He runs out toward the second pitch and misses again. Kids sit on the bench getting wet. Out in the field kids stamp in the wet grass.

  The third pitch rolls down over the thin wet ice and Pete kicks the ball, it makes a solid thwopping sound and flies out between second and third base. Pete looks pretty surprised. He runs out to first base and kids yell and whistle. He runs out to first base and there’s this big crack and all of a sudden I can’t see. Everything turns black and white and I can’t see, it’s like when you close your eyes after staring into a bright light, and I can’t see anything except Pete Leakie, a foot up in the air, not quite at first base. Up in the air with his arms and legs sticking straight out like a starfish, black against white. There’s a huge crack and crash and then we’re all standing around, confused, kids screaming and crying. Kids stand around with their hands over their ears and Pete Leakie lies there on the ground. Mr. Weissman shoos all the kids away. Pete Leakie lies there and the ground is dry all around him, and you can see his lips moving, like he’s talking to himself, steaming there on the ground.

  Mullen’s dad looks at his watch. The pitcher. The No Dogs Please sign. Us.

  Come on, you guys. It’s the middle of the day. What are you trying to pull? asks Mullen’s dad.

  School’s closed.

  He looks up into the sky. Not so cold, he says. Hardly any snow. What is it this time? Teachers’ strike? Gas-line break?

  Call the school, says Mullen.

  What did you do this time? Did they send you home?