Bottle Rocket Hearts by Zoe Whittall

Author:Zoe Whittall [Whittall, Zoe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cormorant Books
Published: 2015-04-10T18:56:00+00:00

Before I went home for Christmas, Rachel handed me a sparkling purple gift bag. In it was a copy of S/he by Minnie Bruce Pratt, pink sparkling eyeshadow, a seven-inch record by Slant Six called Ladybug Superfly. On the card it said, “Here’s some femme essentials from your gender retarded roommate, xo Rachel.”

I bought her The Complete Hothead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist by Diane DiMassa. She squealed like a little girl when she unwrapped it.

On December 23 my father knocks on the door and I try to pretend things are okay. He stands awkwardly in our living room while I go into Seven’s room to kiss him on the forehead while he sleeps, leaving him silver and gold glitter nail polish wrapped in magazine paper beside his alarm clock that blinks the wrong time. My dad examines the bookshelves in the living room and suggests a way to make them more sturdy before I hand him a bag of laundry to take down to the car.

I pile into the back seat of the Toyota hatchback with garbage bags of laundry and some half-assed Christmas collages still drying in my lap. We listen to a seventies rock station in silence. The panes of the grey industrial landscape of the Turcotte Yards, the factories leading up to Lachine blend into one unpalatable painting of heartbroken misery.

My mother greets me with, “You look emaciated,” and, “What happened to your hair?” and I say, “Merry Christmas.”

I help my dad at the store on Christmas Eve, selling guitars to procrastinating fathers who hope their kid will be the next Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jean LeLoup. He says, “You’re even crankier with the customers than usual.” As always, some guy is playing the introduction to “One” by Metallica on the expensive Fender. My father smiles weakly, encouraging everyone to be creative, but I can tell he’s annoyed. “At least it’s not ‘Stairway to Heaven,’” I note and he laughs. It only takes a few minutes for someone to start humming about a lady who knows from an acoustic one aisle over.

My aunt and I get drunk on a bottle of wine and dye our hair in the basement living room while my parents and their friends sing Christmas carols in four-part harmony upstairs. I tell her I love that she’s drinking again, but then regret it. My aunt targets her grey hair, teaches me how to buff my nails and I try to get her to stop ashing into the black-dye-filled Tupperware container. It’s strange to see her living there, all of my things now in boxes under the bed. I feel like she’s an excellent buffer, an older sister I always wanted. Now that we’re both adults, she doesn’t treat me like I’m ten.

After a few drinks she says, “Why don’t you just tell them you’re a big homo?”

“Well, I’m not dating anyone now, so what does it matter?”

“You’re heartbroken, eh?”

“Yeah.”

The thing with my mother being an ex-Mennonite is that sometimes she’s still the hippie

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