Milk Chicken Bomb (24 page)

I can't curl, says Solzhenitsyn. Holds his hands over his ears. Vaslav grabs him by the shoulders, hauls him over the icy sidewalk to where his truck idles. Opens the door, pushes him in. Solly keeps his hands tight over his ears. Vaslav spits on the ground. Reaches over and pulls Solly's seat belt over his waist, snaps it shut. Pulls the strap tight.

Can I sit in the back? I ask. Vaslav shrugs. Are you dressed warm enough? I hold up my mitts. Don't sit in the snow, he says. I got snowpants, I say. See? I can sit anywhere. Keep your head down, he says. Pavel Olegivich, don't crash the truck.

We drive out to Okotoks. I bump up and down against the straw bales. Out, up the hill, out of town. Houses go by, their driveways covered in snow, belts of poplar trees here and there in the fields. I watch Vaslav, in the cab, talking non–stop. Pavel drives with one hand, a Styrofoam Red Rooster cup in the other, lifting up and down when the truck bumps to keep the coffee inside. He should have gotten a lid. I wonder how Pavel can drive with only one eye. I wonder if his eye gets tired. I close one eye for a while, try to watch the road.

Solly stares straight ahead, sunk down low on the seat, hands still over his ears.

We go left at the highway. Up over the hills, the Sheep River Valley cutting by. You can see the radio towers from here, way up in the hills, blinking. I think they're radio towers. What else would be so tall and blink? Maybe they're signals for airplanes. Maybe they're thermometers for the centre of the earth. I wonder how tall they are. I wonder if they have a fence to keep you away.

Okotoks is the biggest town around, all right. Every time I come there's a new subdivision being built. Pink stucco houses and blue aluminum–sided houses. They've built streets and sidewalks in an empty field, the ground all dug up, bare and frozen, no houses yet. I guess they'll build houses around them when winter is over. Looks like a town blew away, like all the houses and garages scattered in a tornado, leaving just dirt holes and curbs.

In Okotoks they've got fast–food restaurants with drivethroughs, car dealerships with big flags and banners, rows of new trucks with the prices written on the windshields. They've got an elementary school and two junior high schools, they've even got a Catholic high school. We stop at a
set of stop lights and I make sure to stay real low in the box of the truck. You never know what sort of things people in big towns like this will get set off by.

We pull up into the icy gravel parking lot at the Okotoks Recreation Centre. Curlers from High River and Nanton stand around their trucks, smoking, filling out their forms. The Russians' second stands by his truck, tugging on his moustache. I sit in the back of the truck while Pavel and Vaslav undo Solzhenitsyn's seat belt and pull him out onto his feet. Hands over his ears.

Now, this isn't Kreshick's ice, recall, says Vaslav. Be ready for uneven surface, vague and shifty pebble. Who knows what the temperature is like in there? The humidity? Don't take anything for granted is all I'm saying.

The Marvin Pentecostals drive up in their big brown station wagon. The Pentecostal reverend turns off the engine and gets out, opens the doors to let out his team. They wave to us and don't smile and head inside in single file.

Solzhenitsyn opens his mouth and doesn't make any sound. I can't curl, his lips say.

Call shots, says Vaslav. Skip. Lead.

Solly opens and closes his mouth. Blinks his red, red eyes.

Vaslav wraps both hands around Anna Petrovna back near the end of her shaft. Heaves her behind his head like a baseball bat, and swings, cracks Solzhenitsyn square between the shoulders as hard as he can. Solly pitches forward face first into the side of the truck and slumps down into the gravel. A few curlers whistle, take off their hats. The Russians' second crouches down beside Solly, face first in the snow. Turns him over onto his back. Solly coughs.

You've got to have some dignity, says the second. He stands up and walks across the parking lot to the recreation centre.

So Milo Foreman walks into Jarvis's office, says Solzhenitsyn.

I don't want to talk about Milo Foreman, says Vaslav.

So Milo Foreman walks into Jarvis's office. I had this dream, he tells Jarvis.

You can't sleep because someone fell in a rendering vat?

You can't fall into a rendering vat; you have to jump. I can't sleep because there's an icicle in my kitchen sink. I stayed at that junior high school art teacher's place.

The kid, says Vaslav.

She said I was overheated. She gave me some pills but I still couldn't sleep. Milo had this dream.

I don't want to talk about Milo Foreman, says Vaslav. He bends down and grabs Solzhenitsyn under the armpits, grunts and heaves him up.

The Pentecostals are going to make a mess of us, says Solly. Vaslav pats him on the shoulder and nods. We all walk slow–like into the Okotoks Recreation Centre to watch the Pentecostals make a mess of the Russians.

We wait for the truck to warm up, afterward. Pavel stands a ways off in the parking lot, staring out at Okotoks, arms at his side. Exhaust drifts past his ankles. He stands there and then bends down, picks up an old pop can. He throws it at the wall of the recreation centre. He shouts, something, Russian I guess. He picks up a rock and throws it as hard as he can at the Okotoks Recreation Centre, shouting in Russian. We wait for truck to warm up.

Hey, kid.

Constable Stullus leans out the window of his car. I stop, hitch my backpack up on my shoulder. He waves me over.

Get in, kid, he says. I pull open the icy back door.

The man in the passenger seat wears a heavy wool jacket, a white shirt and black tie. Thin black glasses. They turn in their seats and crane their heads around to look at me. I pull the door closed and pull off my mitts. Rub my cold fingers together in the warm car air.

Everything all right, Constable?

He gives the man with the tie a long look. The man with the tie starts to dig in a leather briefcase.

Where's Howitz? asks Stullus.

I shrug. I haven't seen him in quite a while.

Quite a while, says Stullus. You been in his house lately?

Deke doesn't let anybody in his house, I say. He told the Russians that he'd shoot them, even though their boiler exploded.

The man with the tie pulls some paper out of his briefcase, and a heavy, metal pen. I watch his lips move while he writes That He'd Shoot Them.

What's going on? I ask.

Well, says Stullus, we're heading over to your friend Deke's house. Just to ask some questions.

Are you a policeman? I ask the man with the tie. He chuckles to himself. No, he says, I'm an accountant. I'm much more serious than a policeman.

Stullus puts on some mitts, pulls the earflaps of his big black hat down. We all get out of the car and walk up to Deke's door. Stullus knocks with the backs of his heavy knuckles.
Howitz, he shouts, Howitz, you have to let us in. I have someone from the federal government who's interested in seeing you. He bangs again. We wait quite a while. We wait, and Stullus rattles the door handle. He twists up his face. Leans over to try the closest window; it pushes right in. He reaches inside, grunts, strains.

Say, he says, is your arm long enough?

The accountant sticks out his tongue, reaches through the door, stretches as far as he can. The door unlocks and swings open.

Deke's house is a mess: the sink full of dishes,
IGA
bags full of empty ravioli cans, red sauce dried, lids folded back. Dust; white sawdust on the counters, marked with fingers, coffee rings. Dirt on the floors, brown bootprints and dried puddles.

Stullus steps past the open dryer door and the halffolded ironing board and opens the door to Deke's cellar. He reaches into the dark and pulls a string. Somewhere down the steps a light bulb comes on. Exposed studs with no drywall, old bricks, cobwebs. We walk down the narrow wooden steps.

The cellar isn't so much a room as a big hole. Dirt floors that curve up into old brick walls, nothing flat. The accountant has to duck his head. A light bulb hangs on a wire.

Stullus pulls his big black flashlight off his belt. Passes the beam around. There's piles of dirt all over, scraps of wood. Sawhorses, a circular saw, the cord just lying on the ground. Two–by–fours and what's left of forklift pallets. Dirt everywhere, some of the piles as high as the cellar roof.

In the corner there's a hole. No, a tunnel. Stullus shines his flashlight on the dark gap. Narrow and rough, heading a little down. Some two–by–fours wedged between the top and bottom.

You've got to be kidding me, says Stullus.

I've never seen a tunnel. Tunnels on
TV
and in comic books, but I've never seen a real tunnel. Wood beams, four–by–eights,
hammered together, brace the ceiling, the walls. The flashlight shows rough walls, tree roots. The tunnel narrows, none of us can see where it ends up. The accountant peers down the tunnel.

How old is this town? he asks. I mean, it can't be more than ninety years old. There haven't been any floods or landslides. Surely nothing overtly geological in the last hundred years.

Absolutely unbelievable, says Stullus.

Do you think he's down there? asks the accountant.

I am not crawling into a tunnel dug by Deke Howitz into the gullet of hell. Spelunking? He shakes his head. I never thought he was actually going through with it.

He can't be far. You've got a flashlight. How far back can he have dug?

It's not how far back he's dug, says Stullus. God knows where he is.

What do you mean? I ask.

Stullus looks at me kind of funny. Shines the beam down the tunnel. Well, he says, depending on who you believe around here, Howitz wouldn't be the first Marvin resident who's taken to digging over the years.

Deke Howitz, shouts the accountant, hands cupped around his mouth, down into the tunnel. Mr. Howitz, my name is William Rutherford, I'm from Revenue Canada. Mr. Howitz, we need to discuss irregularities in your accounting practices. I need information from you, to forward to the Alberta Securities Commission. Regarding a company called Davis Howe Oceanography.

We wait. The cellar is cold, even colder down in the tunnel. I almost think that I hear ringing, somewhere in the distance, in the dark.

Can't we just go loot his filing cabinet? asks Stullus.

The accountant shakes his head. Hardly ethical. Of course, he says peering into the dark, most tax frauds don't escape underground, either.

Get out of here, kid, says Stullus.

Thanks for all your help, says the accountant.

I blink. Oh yeah, I say. Right. Well, anything to help Revenue Canada, I say.

They stare down the tunnel, the flashlight beam not quite reaching far enough to see.

The mailman comes up the street, whistling. Stands on Mullen's porch and digs in his bag. Drops in a few letters and a rolled-up flyer. Hitches up his sack and walks up the street. I stand on the opposite sidewalk, hands in my pockets. Sometimes I shake around to get the snow off my shoulders. Sometimes I blow on my hands and rub my cheeks.

Mullen's dad comes out of the house. Stops to take off his plaid scarf and retie it around his neck. He looks in the mailbox and makes a face, lets the lid clang shut. He pulls his toque down further on his forehead and walks out to his pickup truck. I watch him roll up the extension cord. He sits in the truck for a while, exhaust puffing out the back. Once the truck is warm he drives away.

I knock on Mullen's door. Kick at the new snow. He opens the door with a spoon in his mouth, barefoot. The sleeves of his grey sweater down past his hands.

Hey, do you want to sell lemonade today?

Mullen thinks about it. Takes the spoon out of his mouth. I guess there isn't much else to do, is there?

I guess not.

Well, let me get dressed then.

We sell lemonade. I cut up lemons with the long knife and drop them in the pitcher. What I do is, I cut up a bunch of lemons into wedges; cut them in half, then halve the halves and put the wedges in the pitcher with the ice. We have this other jug, and I put in a little bit of water, and then the sugar. I stir the sugar into that little bit of water 'cause it dissolves easier, when it's cold, a bit at a time. We learned about dissolving in science class, and that's when I thought of lemonade.
Mr. Weissman said that water is the universal solvent, which means it can dissolve anything. I squeeze about a third of the wedges out into the thick syrup until it turns yellow. I pour in more water, stirring with the wooden spoon, and then I pour the whole jug into the pitcher, with the ice and other wedges.

Mullen sits in his snowpants on the step, the fuzzy white snow not too hard on the steps and on the sidewalk. Mullen blows a bubble. Kicks his boots on the porch. I sit down beside him on the step. We watch it snow. Mullen reaches a foot down onto one of the lower steps and stamps in the new snow. It puffs out, like ripples in a puddle. White flaky ripples. We watch it snow.

You walked all the way to Aldersyde?

I got a ride most of the way.

That sure would take a while, walking all the way there.

Yeah.

Much going on in school?

Not so much. I don't follow geometry very well.

Right.

Hey, says Mullen, do you think you can take some books back to the library for me? I've still got all these books about David Thompson. All the good they did me.

Yeah, I say. I'll take them with me tomorrow morning. Are they pretty overdue?

He shrugs. Probably.

Right, I say. Probably.

Sometimes it gets cold in Marvin, real cold. Low sky and windy, snow drifts over driveways, cars stuck. Country kids miss school when the buses can't make it down their road. It gets so cold you need to be inside, even when you don't want to be.

Sometimes you can sled, with a scarf, with snowpants. You get wet socks, your nose turns pink and runs and the snot freezes to your face. Sometimes the wind blows down off the mountains, out of that chinook arch, and it's like fall again: snow melts, people walk around with their jackets open. We throw snowballs. But sometimes it gets cold.