Milk Chicken Bomb (23 page)

Upright? asks Mullen's dad. Baby grand?

They start to wheel the piano down the ramp. A brown upright, on wheels, a black blanket half–draped over the top, not quite covering all the keys. They huff and heave it down the ramp. Stop to get their breath, clap their hands, find their grips. Brace their shoulders and huff, push it down to the street, then they all squat and catch their breath, and hup the piano the few inches onto the curb. Clap their hands. She smokes and smokes. Then grunt and up, they stop mid–heave, wait, one second, two, then up more and the whole thing onto the sidewalk. They pant. Hold the smalls of their backs. Then shoulders and groans and they push it up to the store.

After a long break, they bring the second piano down the ramp, black and long, like on television, in black–and–white movies. It looks even heavier. Mullen's dad whistles. She smokes and sometimes looks over at us but doesn't really pay attention. Just watches, smoking, until both the pianos are inside, then she follows them and shuts the door.

After school I like to go over to the Russians'. Pavel and Vaslav sit out on the porch in their heavy coats. Pavel shuffles cards.

Where'd you sleep last night? I ask them. Are you still sleeping at Mullen's?

Vaslav coughs. I'm getting a cold, he says. I just want to do my laundry. I want to shave in hot water and leave my razor on the sink. He coughs. Drums his black leather fingers on his coffee mug.

Don't you ever go home? Pavel asks me.

Sure, I say, every night. Just like everybody else.

Right, says Pavel. Just like everybody else.

You guys are from Russia, right? I ask. Russia the country? How come you guys never talk about Russia?

Vaslav coughs, spills some of his coffee. What is there to talk about? he asks. Pavel deals us cards. Five cards for each of us, six cards, seven cards. Slow down there, says Vaslav. Fans his cards out.

Solzhenitsyn drives up in his hatchback, the engine rattles to a slow stop. He gets out with a paper bag from McClaghan's. Walks up to us, sitting around on the porch in our mitts and blankets, doesn't say anything. He pulls cardboard boxes, new ratchet bits, out of the bag. Something small, with wires and a dial. Rubs his red eyes. He pulls a little white mask over his mouth and nose, ribbed and a bit fuzzy, the elastic strap tight around his messy hair. Fills his pockets with screwdrivers, a hammer, other tools I've never seen. He opens the door of their house and goes inside.

Got any sixes? asks Pavel.

Fish.

In Petersburg, says Vaslav, there was this guy, Ivan Mortz was his name.

Don't tell him that story, says Pavel. He's just a kid.

It'll be good for him. Shake him up a bit. You think you've got a pretty good handle on things, don't you, kid?

I shrug. Got any jacks?

Vaslav makes a face and hands me a card. Ivan Mortz was into some bad stuff. Real bad. I can't even tell you what Ivan Mortz was into, you'll get bad ideas. Stuff you've never heard of here in feedlot Alberta. You're better off thinking people go about their business, that life turns out all right.

Play cards, says Pavel.

I'm playing cards. Any fours?

Fish.

Ivan Mortz wasn't from Petersburg, he was from Edmonton, Pavel says. Remember when we lived on Jasper Avenue in Edmonton? You worked in that print shop, Gus's Print Shop.

Play cards, Vaslav says.

Vaslav leans close to me. Ivan Mortz thought he was a big–time crook, stealing cars and selling dope all over Petersburg. He'd buy dope at whatever Asian border and sell it cheap in Petersburg, in Kiev and Minsk. Drove this old Volvo, must have had 500,000 kilometres on it, he was back and forth so often across the Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia.

Don't tell him this story.

I shuffle my cards. I know about gangsters, I say. I watch television. Selling dope is selling drugs. There're some kids at the junior high school that sell drugs.

I bet there are, says Vaslav. Anybody have a queen? It's not your turn, I tell him.

Gus's Print Shop did most of their work on takeout menus, see, Pavel says. Pizzerias and Szechuan, and Thai and Vietnamese. Any kind of food you could imagine. Vaslav here used to mix the ink and sort out the letters for Gus, and then
Gus would set the type and run the menus off. You could ask Vaslav here about any item from any restaraunt in town, he'd tell you.

Shut up, Vaslav says, drinking coffee.

Hey, Vaslav Andreiovich, you could say, how much is the pork vermicelli at the Double Greeting House? Number seventy–two, he'd say, $4.50. He could tell you the phone number for Ernie's Chicago Style Deep Dish, and what neighbourhoods Lee's Noodles would deliver to for free. Sure was handy, having Vaslav around.

Ivan Mortz ran out of luck, Vaslav says. They duct–taped his head to the pipe under the sink and gave him a syringe full of bleach. He makes a choking sound, rolls his eyes into the back of his head. That was the end of Ivan Mortz.

Ivan Mortz lived down the hall from us, Pavel says, in this old building on Jasper Avenue. He did his laundry wearing a pair of wool slippers and a tiny satin housecoat. He liked to sit in the hallway and read the classifieds in the
New York Times
while his dishwasher was running. Always looking at the job ads in the
New York Times
. Senior Executive, Accounts Payable, he'd say, I could do that. Remember that, Vaslav? You always said his dishwasher was too loud.

Solzhenitsyn comes out of the house. He smells like burnt hair. Sits down heavily on the step, lets the hammer fall out of his hands into the snow. He glares ahead and pulls the mask up off his mouth. A white circle where it pressed on his raw skin. Just leaves it on top of his head, his hair sticks out all around. Glares ahead. Across the street Constable Stullus sits in his car, reads the newspaper.

Did you sleep at Mullen's last night? I ask him.

I slept at Mary's, Solzhenitsyn says. I couldn't sleep, because of her cats. Like steel wool in my throat. Trying to sleep under this catty afghan on the couch while she sits at the table in the corner, flipping through the Sears catalogue.

Is that Mary works at Steadman's? She has a lot of cats?

The cats sit on the countertop, Solly says. One of them sits in the kitchen sink. Me wheezing, with an open mouth, trying to breathe. He glares at Stullus, across the street.

He probably isn't even in there, shouts Solzhenitsyn, his voice cracking. Stullus rolls up his window.

He's learning to check by multiplication, says Mullen's dad. Leaning out of the not–so–open door. I fidget on the step. He leans out the door and I stand on the step and he sighs. You want to take the toboggan out? he asks.

No, I say, that's all right. I'll just go home.

Home? says Mullen's dad.

Across the street, in Deke's house, hammering.

The voyageurs paddle their caravans from every direction to the steamship. Banquet halls and chandeliers, the heavy paddle wheel, chugging through the sand. It's not easy, working for the Petersburg Steamship Company. You could end up in the boiler room, shovelling coal, or polishing the steam stack, on a scaffold, way up in the air. Good thing I know how to make manhattans and mint juleps. They give me a little tie and a white shirt. I have to roll up the sleeves. They give me a tea towel. Every day I polish all the different glasses, make sure we have all the right bottles. I put cherries in bowls and fill a bucket with amaretto, for washing. Every night the voyageurs come in and sit at the checkerboard tables and play cards. I pour two glasses of beer at a time, one in each hand.

We sail the ship through the desert, steaming away, past Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. We steam through the Ukraine, past all the aluminum smelters, smokestacks as far as the eye can see, puffing away into the dark sky. We pass signs, arrows point in different directions, China, Russia, Georgia. The Municipal District of Foothills, 6,000,004 miles. Just doesn't seem far enough.

Then it's time to go underground. We all go down and shovel coal into the Gravity Boiler. It steams and groans, its pipes and bellows blow steam. Voyageurs take their shirts off, wrap their sashes around their foreheads and heave the pumps. We shovel and pump and the huge iron Gravity Boiler gets hotter and hotter, and the hotter it gets the heavier the steamship gets. We make the Gravity Boiler so heavy that the steamship starts to sink. We sink right through the sand, down into the bedrock.

When I'm not shovelling I'm pretty busy bartending for the voyageurs. The hotter it gets, the more they have to drink. I throw my white towel over my shoulder and pour them Cuba Libres and Singapore slings. I wash all the glasses in the amaretto sink.

We sail down, down, down. We sail deeper into the rock, until it gets all red and molten, and we sail down into the lava, where it gets so hot we have to put on our welding masks and oven mitts, and shovel, shovel, shovel. Maintain radio silence! hollers the captain. Watch out for leaks! We run out of coal. We cut up the cupboards, the card tables, the pool cues and shuffleboards, and burn them in the Gravity Boiler. We throw in our leather jackets and workboots, and all the empty amaretto bottles. It's sure a lot of work, this sailing underground. Hopefully we get there before we run out of stuff to burn in the Boiler. I'd hate to get stuck, somewhere in the hot red rock strata, not even at the centre of the earth.

In the hallway Dwayne Klatz sits leaned up against the wall. An empty plant pot between his legs. His face, his hands, all smeared with dirt. Clumps of dirt all over the floor. A few scraps of plant leaves, some branches.

Dwayne?

Dwayne squeezes his eyes shut, groans.

What happened, Dwayne? Pete Leakie crouches down, puts a hand on Dwayne's forehead. Damp and pale. What's going on?

Dwayne opens his mouth. His teeth black with dirt. Tries to talk but his mouth is too sticky, his tongue too big.

Did you eat a plant, Dwayne?

He nods. He coughs, spits out some muddy spit on the floor.

Okay, Dwayne, Pete says, you have to stay right here, all right? Stay right here and don't go anywhere. He stands up and grabs me. We have to go find a telephone, he says. What's a telephone got to do with eating plants? I ask him. Just come on, says Pete. Dwayne lies on the ground, spits out some more mud.

Come on, says Pete. We creep around the hallway sneakylike. At the pay phone outside the office Pete picks up the receiver. Dials just one number. Hello, he says after a while. Yes, I'd like to speak to the poison-control people. Yes, poison. Well, he says, that's what I need to find out.

I ate wax once, Pete tells me, his hand over the receiver. And my mom called the poison-control people. They told her not to let me drink milk, and to make me throw up. They'll probably tell us to make him throw up. But we should find out, just in case.

Hello, says Pete. Yes, well, my friend ate a plant. Well, I don't know, because he ate the whole thing. There isn't any
left. Yes, all the leaves and branches. He even ate the dirt. No, I don't know what kind of dirt either. I could go back and look. What's that? Well, I guess I can wait. But he doesn't look good.

We wait in the hallway.

They don't seem to know, Dwayne, says Pete Leakie. They don't seem to know what we're supposed to do. Dwayne lies on the ground, curled up in a ball. Gags and heaves a bit, choking sounds.

My stomach hurts, says Dwayne Klatz.

I bet it does, Dwayne. I bet it does.

I just want, he says, I just wanted, you know. How come she pays attention to that guy? What's he done?

I don't know, Dwayne. I don't know.

I think we should make him throw up, says Pete.

Some teachers come around the corner, cups of coffee, piles of notebooks. Shouldn't you boys be outside for recess? asks a teacher. Pete Leakie starts to say something and Dwayne coughs up a clump of dirt, some leaves, onto the floor.

We sit on the bench outside the office. Heaving and choking, wet splashing sounds come from inside. We swing our feet above the floor. Pete stares down the hall, where a grey window shines down on the streaky floor. He looks over at me, panicked.

We're moving, he says.

Where are you moving, Pete?

My dad bought an acreage. Out in the country. It's all outside. There isn't anything around.

An acreage in the country?

What am I going to do?

I think about it for a while. I sure would like to live on an acreage, I say. Think about it, Pete. All that time to yourself. All that space. Is there a forest? Are there hills?

Pete's wide, wide eyes don't blink. He looks away, down the hall, then down at the floor.

Sorry, Pete. Sorry about that.

We listen to the gagging and splashing inside the office.

Vaslav bangs on the window of Solzhenitsyn's hatchback. Bangs with both fists; he has a brown leather glove on one hand, a yellow wool mitt on the other. Two scarves, his big leather hat, the wool lining scraggly and brown. I think he has a toque on under the hat, it sits back on his head like there's a cartoon lump, hit with a hammer. His beard is black and thick now, except for a pale sliver of a scar on his chin where no hair grows. He bangs and bangs on the window.

The car shifts, something bangs hard against the roof with a dull clunk. Thick Russian shouts inside. The door opens and Solzhenitsyn crawls out, his hand clutched around his forehead. Stands hunched over, his red eyes narrow, staring at the ground.

I can't curl.

Shut up.

I can't curl.

Shut up.

If I can't sleep then I can't curl. I haven't slept all week.

We need to stop for coffee, says Pavel.

I'm going back inside.

Curling! barks Vaslav. It's our sworn duty to humiliate every curler in this whole Municipal District of Foothills. Better rocks. More points. He shakes Anna Petrovna.

We can't drink that Okotoks coffee, says Pavel. It gets my ulcer. We have to stop at the Red Rooster.