Milk Chicken Bomb by Andrew Wedderburn Read Free Book Online Page A

even on the ice, like he’d never fall off. Like he wouldn’t even know how.

The Russians let us sit in the back of Pavel’s truck on the way to the Marvin Recreation Centre. Pavel keeps hay bales in the back, for weight, he says, and you can lean up against them, looking backward while he drives. Mullen’s pockets are full of elastic bands – we shoot them off our fingers at light posts, stop signs, station wagons.
    At the recreation centre people stand around the parking lot, lean on the boxes of their trucks, smoke. Curlers hold their cigarettes with their thumbs and first fingers, except the women from the post office, who smoke between the first and middle finger. Curlers wear heavy jackets with fleece around the collars and no gloves, big round sunglasses like policemen in movies. They smoke their cigarettes and drink beer from coolers in the backs of their trucks. Vaslav unscrews the lid of his flask and takes a long pull, then another. Kids from the church with gym bags hurry to their swimming lessons. Old men come up to the Russians and lean on Pavel’s truck, pat them on the shoulders. Good group this year, eh? No goddamn picnic. Pavel comes back outside with forms on a clipboard. Everybody takes turns signing with a green stub of pencil tied to the clipboard with a string.
    Solzhenitsyn is the skip, and Vaslav is the third, and Pavel is the lead. Their new second is a bald man with a moustache, he comes over and shakes their hands and mumbles behind his moustache and they all slap him on the shoulder and shake his hand. He signs the forms with the stubby pencil. Vaslav passes him the flask.
    You going to win today, Vaslav? I ask.
    Vaslav makes a hacking sound. People in this town, he says, they don’t know from curling. Couldn’t give a damn. They don’t even name their brooms.
    Does your broom have a name, Vaslav?
    He reaches into the back of the truck and pulls out a curling broom, long and white-handled, a black cloth sock pulled over the bristles. This here, he says, is Anna Petrovna, the best curling broom in southern Alberta.
    Hey, Pavel, Mullen says, does your broom have a name? Yeah, Pavel says, Broom. He takes a drink out of the flask and laughs.
    Inside it’s hard to hear, with all the overhead fans and people talking, and everything smells like cigarette smoke and chlorine from the swimming pool. Some Dead Kids from the sixth grade stand around the pay phone by the concession stand, take turns listening and snickering. They flip through the phone book and make phone calls with nickels, say things I can’t hear and then laugh and hang up.
    In the rink curlers wander around, stretch with their brooms, rub their sliders with the sleeves of their jackets. The United Church curlers stretch on the floor, with purple stickers on the chests of their sweaters: My Name Is and the Alberta Natural Gas genie, like they make us wear at school when we go on field trips. They laugh and eat cookies. And the Golden Oldies hockey team that Mrs. Lampman’s husband plays with, in their high-topped sneakers, laughing and holding their beer guts. Steadman’s Drugstore always has a team and Ackmann’s Arena and Mill Store always has a team. They slide up and down the ice, some of them with flat black-bristled brooms and some of them with yellow long-bristled brooms.
    When do you play, Solly? asks Mullen. Solly sits on a bench, stretches out and touches his toes. Touches his forehead against his knees. You know, he says, eventually. Go get some snacks. Go play marbles or something. He sits up, reaches in his pocket. Pulls out fifty cents and catches it back in his fist.
    Out-turn, says Solly.
    Come on, Solzhenitsyn, just give us the money.
    I hold up my arm, like he does when he wants Pavel or Vaslav to throw an out-turn.
    Good, he says. Okay, take-out.
    Mullen shoos me aside. He sticks out his tongue and pretends like he’s got a curling broom. Taps it on the ground in