Milk Chicken Bomb by Andrew Wedderburn Read Free Book Online

gets wrecked. But who wants to stop skateboarding? So why buy a good skateboard? He bites off the last of his apple and throws the core out into the street.
    You ought to get McClaghan, says Mullen. Everybody in town wants something bad to happen to him, all his tenants, I bet everybody else too.
    My buddy had this Ford Pinto, says Paul Grand. Little tiny car. We’d all pack right in there and drive, I don’t know, anywhere but here. Like in Okotoks, all the parking lots arepaved, right, so we’d go there. You should see the curb cuts on the sidewalks – it’s, like, everything is round. Yeah, all the people in town are like pink-stucco-garage types that yell at you for skateboarding on anything, but it’s worth driving all the way out there for those curb cuts. They’ve got railings on the stairs. It’s perfect.
    The best thing in Okotoks, though, there was this lawyer, right. Had this empty swimming pool. I don’t know what kind of chump builds a swimming pool in Alberta, it’s not like it’s ever warm enough to go swimming, but whatever. He had a swimming pool, empty eight months out of the year. We’d drive out there and skate it as long as we could, before the lawyer called the cops. It was like California. You’d get right up out of the bowl. We took pictures. Then the cops would come and you had to pile back into that Ford Pinto and drive the hell out of Okotoks.
    This one time, we get there, and it’s pretty late, so we figure everyone around is in bed. And it’s dark and all the lights on the street are out. We get all around and my buddy Dave Wave goes in first. Takes a run back from the patio, from this lawyer-white fence, and runs and jumps into the pool on his board and hits the concrete and we all clap, quiet-like ’cause it’s so awesome, and then Dave screams and falls off his board and hits the concrete and hollers as loud as he can.
    So we jump in the pool and the whole thing is full of jacks. You know, jacks, like marbles and jacks, little steel jacks. He hit those and his wheels locked and he flew off into the pool and was sitting there, he had jacks stuck in his arms and his jeans all tore up. And then the lights come on and there’s the lawyer, laughing, Come back any time, you punks, he said, and turned off the light. We carried Dave back to the Pinto and drove the hell out of Okotoks.
    Paul Grand takes out some cinnamon gum. Unwraps a stick of cinammon gum, then another, puts them both in his mouth.
    Well? says Mullen. Did you break his windows? Steal his car? Shit on his doorstep?
    Paul puts a third piece of gum in his mouth. Chews and chews. We got him with The Milk Chicken Bomb. He laughs and chews.
    Mullen frowns. What’s The Milk Chicken Bomb?
    Paul Grand stops laughing. Turns and looks at us, like a grown-up. Kid, he says, The Milk Chicken Bomb is the worst thing. The very worst possible thing. Nobody should ever build The Milk Chicken Bomb. I don’t like even knowing about it. Like, because I know, I might tell somebody, and they’ll build it, and it’ll be my fault. The Milk Chicken Bomb is the worst thing.
    What’s The Milk Chicken Bomb?
    If I tell you, you’ll build it, says Paul. The Milk Chicken Bomb wrecks everything. You can’t clean it up. You can’t ever get the building back. That lawyer tried to sell his house, and couldn’t. Nobody would buy. We’d drive by and take pictures of the For Sale sign. He couldn’t give that house away. If I told you, you’d build it.
    I promise I won’t ever build the Milk Chicken Bomb, says Mullen, I promise. Please please tell me.
    Paul Grand gets up, scratches his sideburn. Rolls the skateboard under his foot. I’ll see you kids around, he says. Pushes down the street, sliding around all crazy on the ice. I don’t think he’ll fall off, though. Ollies off the curb into the street, skates down the street. Slow and easy,