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.He would tailor it with two sets of wings and a propeller bolted to the nose, a rudder Miss Hawk would swear he salvaged from weathervane parts.And in that dream he sparked the engine and the plane sputtered and he snugged a pair of aviators over his eyes, and while his daughter and Miss Hawk watched and his dad manned the gunner’s seat, those ever-pink fingers strong and patient as a father’s, Winch took off in a contraption he’d hand-built to carry him from the earth.ACCELERANTA long time ago I shot Mike Twigg in the back with a potato cannon.We were getting shitfaced on flats of Kokanee at the marsh behind my buddy’s house.Twiggy dove sideways even as I grabbed for the cannon, but only his head and shoulders had cover behind the upturned lawn table when my thumb found the igniter.The potato thoowunked from the barrel and a husk of pool noodle floundered behind it – we used it as stock – and I watched the projectile beeline for the bastard’s kidney.It cracked him pretty good and he spewed curses like a foreman, but I just disengaged the chamber and sniffed the residue accelerant.—You deserve every goddamned shot, I yelled.Twiggy had violated the Code.Nowadays he pawns it off as a mere cock-block but it was more than that.Twigg, with his screwdriver-blade eyes and that smile like a bullmastiff, kiboshed my first real chance at losing the V-card, and to Ash Cooper of all people; I can still see those red bangs and the ponytail as it bobbed up and down the soccer field.Twiggy tells me to shut my yap because it’s not his fault I couldn’t wrangle another girl before college, but let me just say that the school of freshwater fish is pretty limited in Invermere, B.C.Twiggy trench-crawled on the dirt as I breeched another round into the cannon.I hear stories about guys who fashion “spud guns” that shoot thumb-sized morsels with compressed air.We dubbed ours a cannon because we’d constructed an ABS beast that launched whole potatoes with the power of propane combustion.I locked the chamber into place, injected a few hisses, and hefted the cannon onto my shoulder.—Matt, Twigg says up at me.—Matt, come on.Then I hear my pal Duncan laugh from the roof of his house, a dumpy panelboard bungalow that used to be a laundromat.He’s got a view of us from up there.Twiggy yells for help and Duncan says, —Yeah, I’ll help you, but he doesn’t move.I level the cannon where I suspect Twigg’s ass is, though I can’t be sure because I’m shitfaced and because Twigg has come into possession of a campaign sign for the local election – there’s a pile of them ditched into the marsh, another story – and spread it over his crotch for defence.I pinch one eye shut and sight down the barrel at the salesman grin of Don Chabót, Conservative Party.Me and Ash dated for a couple weeks before Twigg ruined it.I’d ferreted her from this goody-goody named Will who thought himself tough because his old man was a cop.I pegged him as a pushover.Ash had freckles and a small upturned nose and muscled arms, the kind of grey, appropriately spaced eyes that always seemed a tad disappointed in everything I had to say.Progress with her was slow but gradual, the occasional palm on her flat stomach but no further, maybe a glance down her shirt while we made out.Most evenings we’d do things like skirt the lake and examine odd-looking driftwood or loiter at the gelati café to sip coffees with long-winded names.That particular and devastating day she’d come to hang out with me and Twigg and Duncan to drink beers and shoot shit.Now I’ve known Twiggy for the better part of a long time and his luck with girls is ill-fated at best.You might say there’s a disconnect between him and the knowledge of what girls like.We’re up on the roof with a flat of Kokanee and the potato cannon.Duncan blares one at the vast nothingness of the marsh and it shrinks to a dot against the Rocky Mountains.We pass the cannon around.Even Ash takes a go.On my turn I crack the chamber and tear a hunk of pool noodle and cram it in behind the potato.I lift the beast beside my ear.Across the street there’s a gas station and the dumbasses who work the till have misspelled “3 cents of at pump.” I take aim at the missing f and smell the tarry ABS and feel the horizon on my cheek and it is then that Twigg drops my pants.I don’t mean only my pants – the whole mechanism.Jeans, belt, boxers.I’m awhirl in the breeze and Twigg’s got this shit-eating grin and Ash makes a noise like a cat about to hawk.I chased her down the street like a married man.When she stopped we were on a bridge over a railroad and beneath us a train trundled along the track.I think: alright, damage control, like my dad used to preach.But Ash won’t hear it.—Sorry Matt, she says, this look like she’s about to turn down a loan.—You’re just too much of a boy.So Ash is ten-thirty-five and I’ve got Twigg on the ground and the cannon on my shoulder.Don Chabót’s double chin fills my crosshairs and I wonder how Twigg figured the campaign sign would help his cause.The potato blows that dopey smile to hell and Twigg shrieks, and he shrieks again, this savage, desperate sound I’ve only heard mimicked one time since: a woman who screamed He’s choking! to a full restaurant in Miami.Duncan scrambled down from the roof.Twigg had gone fetal on us.Testicular torsion is not a pretty thing to even say.It is a twisting of the spermatic cord identified by moderate to high discomfort and the restriction of blood flow to the nut-sac, a medical emergency.Neither Duncan nor I were in any shape to drive.We made a few phone calls.Twigg got to the hospital in time.The doctors opened him up and did what they had to do and later he’d tell us he felt the knife go in.Not much remains of those summers.Duncan’s gone, dumb bastard, and our old binge grounds have been wrecking-balled.That limitless marsh has parched up and nowadays the hardware stores won’t sell boys a length of ABS pipe.Maybe the town has moved on [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]