Bottle Rocket Hearts Read online

  All that day I had spun around like a tornado, re-applying my eyeliner, smoothing down my mini-dress over and over. And then there she stood in front of me, in the middle of the crowded gallery, and put her hands on my waist and held them there. I felt like I was a chess piece in a giant game and she was about to make her move. I was sure she could see my heart coming out of my chest in thrusts like you see in cartoons. I wanted to bury my head in the thick leather collar of her jacket. I was thinking that I might actually die if she didn’t kiss me on the mouth right then. The agony of fourteen seconds while she held her lips so close to mine and whispered, How are you? I couldn’t say anything. I just felt my face go red and hot and my feet dissolving. Finally I couldn’t stand it, I grabbed her face with both of my hands and nibbled her bottom lip tentatively before kissing her. The kiss was the best twenty-five seconds I’d had in my life up to that point. When we pulled apart she laughed and said, “I had a feeling that would be ... good.”

  I was so lost in the memory, feeling that breathless rapture, I didn’t hear that Melanie had cut off the Sinead O’Connor cd before letting out a chorus of coughs. The silence seemed appropriate until I saw Marie-Claude’s accusatory face peering at me from the storage room door. “Do you have cramps, Eve?”

  “Oh, yes, I do.” I held my stomach to demonstrate my false pain.

  “Well ...?”

  “Sorry!”

  “C’est correcte.” And she smiled. I hate it when bosses act considerate all of a sudden, they should be consistently evil so we don’t get sucked into their humanity. I stand up and straighten my clothes, feel panic that I will soon be fired. I stay twenty minutes late out of guilt and alphabetize the bulk spices.

  After work Melanie and I go to a bar on St-Denis for drinks so she can stalk the bartender. The bartender is this little skateboard girl with sandy blond hair and a ball cap and a perpetual old-school Vision Streetwear shirt. She scowls a lot. “She’s very arrogant.”

  Melanie shrugs. “She’s also very hot.”

  She sits there trying to telepathically convince the bartender that she’s in love with her. I have three pints and feel warmth spread across my chest. It will do for now, this fake warm happy can keep me going. No one looks attractive to me.

  The bartender brings us shots and sits down next to Melanie, letting her know her shift’s over. She looks at her like she is definitely her next conquest.

  She looks at me across the table briefly, extends her hand. “I’m Nicky.”

  “I know.”

  Nicky snorts. Everyone knows who Nicky is. She’s the punk rock icon of the lesbian community. I start to wonder if she only owns that one shirt or says much more than a slow heh heh heh pothead laugh.

  “You used to go out with Della,” Nicky states.

  “Yup.”

  “We used to have a nickname for you.”

  “Oh yeah, what?”

  “Della’s Baby Hottie, or D.B.H. Like, ‘Hey, there’s D.B.H.’”

  “Really?” I feel flattered and disturbed at the same time.

  “Yeah.”

  I don’t tell Nicky that she once tried to make out with me in the bathroom at sky when she was very visibly fucked out of her tree. I could have been anybody. Della had laughed about it, said, “Yeah, why don’t you go after Nicky?”

  “’Cause she’s too predictable.” Better than admitting how gross it was that Della was trying to pawn me off on her buddy.

  It is soon very clear that I am becoming the third wheel. Thankfully, Dave arrives in his red scarf, courier bag overflowing with books. “I saw you through the window,” he says. He joins us for a drink. We talk about East Timor and the whitewash campaign. We watch Nicky and Melanie engage in a pre-hook-up ritual, finish two pitchers and head outside.

  “Dave, I’m heartbroken.”

  “Oh. Eve, that sucks. If it’s any consolation, so am I.” Dave tells me about the girl he’d been seeing who just left him for another girl.

  “Dave, we need to find you a heterosexual girl.”

  “I know. But I always end up having crushes on dykes.”

  “We’re good people,” I joke.

  He smiles at me, and I stop feeling bad for him, he’s just like anyone else with unattainable desires. “You probably fall for dykes ’cause you’re afraid of intimacy.”

  “No, you’re just all hot.” Dave must be drunk to say something so un-P.C.

  With that I lean in and kiss him, grab him roughly by the back of the head. We make out against the glass windows of the bar for a while. A group of guys walk by and start whistling and hollering. I stop mid-grope, feeling empty. I say, “Sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. That was fun. We should hang out again some time.”

  “Yeah, call me. We can be broken-hearted together,” I say. I begin walking west along Duluth alone, questioning my motives.

  I’m heading west along Rachel towards my bike where I’d locked it up outside of work. I feel warm and satiated and independent. Shooting through my veins is the lifeblood of being single and young in this city that shines like vintage jewellery all around me. I think about dating Dave, how easy it would be. He’s smart, handsome, looking for love, would never cheat if we were monogamous. Except inevitably I’d become bored. I knew that, even if the idea was appealing. I look up at the cross on the mountain and walk towards it without looking at my feet, playing games with the lights in my head. Completely and entirely content. This city is flawless, this body is so strong right now. I wonder if this is going to be one of those moments I think of when I’m older and my body is frailer and I conjure up moments of strength and adventure, drunken walks home at 2:00 a.m., strutting and smiling.

  This is, of course, the perfect moment for a wake-up, I guess. A guy with no belief in gravity or composure crosses the street towards me. You know when you’re walking alone and you see someone else, and though they have all the space in the world, you know they are coming right for you anyway? I can see it. The way he crosses the street and looks right at me, nothing could’ve broken that gaze. I hurry my pace, but don’t want to seem scared. I fix a scowl on my lips and grip my keys. I hear Della’s voice advising me to look him right in the eye, they are afraid of that. I hear her telling me to always kick them in the knees and they’ll go down. If you go for the crotch, you might miss, they might grab your leg. They’ll be bigger and faster, just cut them at the knees. God, am I ever paranoid. He probably just wants a light or a cigarette.

  “Hey, pretty, hey baby ... where are you going? Can I have your number, where are you going? You want to come with me? You’re so pretty, why are you alone tonight? You look like you need a friend, baby, how old are you? You old enough to be out this late?” He is walking beside me now, even though he’d been walking towards me at first.

  “First of all, I’m twenty-eight, and I’m married.” Plan A. Normally successful.

  “No way, you’re lying. You’re not even eighteen, I bet. You’re a baby. You know I’d make a good boyfriend. Why don’t you give me a chance?”

  He has spit in the corners of his moustache and reeks of whiskey.

  “I’m not interested.” I look around. Up ahead a man is walking his dog. I speed-walk towards his back. I suddenly feel sober. Every bone is alive and on my side.

  “Oh, you’re an uptight bitch, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Yeah, you’re a fucking dyke, I bet. You’re a fucking lezzie with your big black lezzie boots.” He laughs at his own “joke.” His breath is becoming laboured walking fast to keep up with me. “What’s the matter, you scared of me? I’m not scary. Don’t be scared. I just really like you. You’re pretty. You could use a boyfriend, I bet.”

  Plan B. “Fuck off.”

  I have a pint glass in my coat pocket I stole from the bar. I cup it in my hand. He lunges for my tits and grabs hold of one. I gasp. For a half second it seems like someone has pressed pause.

  I pull the pint out and smash it on the sidewalk between us. It crashe
s. “Get your hands off me asshole!”

  Startled, he pauses and takes his hand off my breast and I jog away, towards the man with the dog.

  “Hey! Hey! I know I don’t know you but that man just grabbed me and I need to pretend we are friends, can I walk beside you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  There is an awkward silence.

  He looks at me. He could be your regular kind of guy, wearing boring kinds of clothes, like one of the guys I met in school. I look back and the tit-grabber guy is stumbling across the street, still yelling shit at me. I glance back again every few steps and start to feel foolish for getting so scared.

  “I don’t understand why men are such assholes, you know? I mean, you look like a nice girl. Someone should treat you right. You’re so pretty. I mean, I’m a nice guy. Why do girls never go for nice guys? They always leave me for the assholes, you know? I don’t know why.”

  He goes on and on until I picture kicking him in the knees and then in the teeth once he’s down. So annoying. He asks for my phone number and I say that I’m married, hiding my left hand in my coat pocket.

  “I’d never let my wife out this late at night by herself. Take my number, take my card, c’mon, just take it. You won’t regret it. I think we were meant to meet tonight. I’m sure of it. I’m so sure. It’s fate.”

  He talks about this myth he’s created in the last five minutes as though it were the gospel. But by then I am on the Main and I grab the grey paper cardboard rectangle, defeated, say, “Hey thanks, gotta go.” I leave him in mid-sentence. I hear him yell, “Fine! Fuck! I have the worst luck! Fucking women!” I get to where my bike is locked outside of work, unlock it and push each foot down frantically, passing the drunks outside the CopaCabana, the hippies outside the veggie co-op café, ending up at home in less than three minutes. Locking up my bike I notice the fullness of the moon, the reason everyone seemed extra-unhinged tonight. Shaking, mood ruined and totally sober.

  Rachel isn’t home. The apartment is really quiet, empty. The kitchen is in the back of the apartment with windows overlooking the courtyard below and a balcony messy with bottles and abandoned plants. I check every seam between inside and out. I turn on all the lights, I open and close each kitchen cupboard. I turn on the stereo, turn up the soothing sounds of Tiger Trap. I pull on a nightgown and relax into its ugly comfort. I check all the locks on both doors and look closely at each window in my bedroom that overlooks the street, wondering if they could be pushed open. I walk from room to room monitoring each strange sound.

  The phone rings four times. There is no one on the other end. Just static. I unplug the phones. I can’t deal.

  I watch the X-Files and read an article in a magazine about how to get out of a trunk if you’re being kidnapped. Apparently, you just kick out the tail lights and wriggle your fingers, try to catch the attention of cars behind you. A woman in Baltimore saved herself this way, because a passing car called the police when they saw her hands popping out of the trunk. I fall asleep and dream about aliens and confined spaces. I wake up feeling very uneasy when Seven stumbles in at 3:00 a.m. yelling that he’s going to make the best raspberry crepes I have ever tasted in my life and drags my limp body into the kitchen, brightly lit by every available light.

  “Rachel’s not home. Isn’t that weird?” I can’t shake this creeped-out feeling.

  Seven says, “Yes! Oh, that’s awesome!” He measures out flour in the Pyrex measuring cup.

  He explains, “She was going on a date tonight. Finally! I set her up with Amanda from the hospice. She’s butch ...” Seven holds one finger out, “she’s working-class,” he taps a second finger, “and ...” he makes a fake drum roll on his knees, “she reads! Jackpot!” Seven volunteers as a peer counsellor at an AIDS hospice, a place he told Rachel and me was a hotbed of politically conscious lesbian activity.

  “Oh, yeah, she was trying on outfits this afternoon. I forgot.”

  After insisting that indeed Seven’s raspberry crepes were the best ever, good enough to open a restaurant that only serves said crepes, and only to the most worthy customers, we fall into the couch starch-heavy and warm. We spoon together and he runs his fingers through my hair. “Eve, I really like you. I think you’re solid.”

  My heart bursts. I say, “Thanks, Seven, you rock my world.”

  When Seven gets up to put our well-worn VHS copy of Hairspray into the vcr, he turns to me and pauses. I worry that something is stuck to my face or that I’m suddenly bleeding from my eyes and I don’t realize it.

  “What?”

  “I’m kind of glad you had this break from Della. I mean, she’s cool and everything and I love her guts but ... she’s not the most honest person in the world.”

  “Well, obviously.”

  “No, I mean, beyond the cheating. I think there’s a lot we don’t know about her. It’s just a hunch.”

  “Rachel says that too, that she thinks she’s full of shit.”

  “I hope she’s not a narc,” he smirks, lighting his little glass bong.

  “Definitely not disciplined enough to be a cop.”

  We go to bed after watching Hairspray for what must be the eleventh time.

  We wake up to a persistent doorbell and banging on the door.

  Della!

  I stumble down, half-hoping, half-cringing. I practise looking cold and annoyed.

  But standing on the front steps are two cops. I’m so surprised I actually gasp. They look like actors. I don’t think I’ve ever gasped that audibly before. I yell up the stairs to “Seven, um, it’s the pi — the, uh, cops!” I hear Seven running into his room, presumably to hide some things. I wonder quickly if I could actually lie convincingly to the police that Seven is my boyfriend. I practise looking completely innocent, doe-eyed, eight years old under the weight of their stares. They take off their hats. They say they’ve been trying to call, I remember how I unplugged the phones.

  After they speak a few words, I run up to get him, they follow me, heavy boots landing on the downbeat of a song in my head.

  “Seven, you should hear this, you won’t fucking believe this.”

  I open his door. “Seven! They’re not here for you.” I whisper harshly. “Something happened to Rachel.”

  Seven comes out from under the bed, walks out of his bedroom pretending he was just sleeping. “What’s going on?”

  The police said the kinds of things police say when fucked-up shit happens to pretty young women. Their billy clubs shone in the light of our door.

  When someone tells you something that is completely unbelievable, too horrible to not be a fiction, too much like tv or like a nightmare you’ve had, it makes you feel so bizarre. When the cops said, “Sorry, madame, your roommate, she had your address in her wallet. Stephen was her emergency contact number, we tried to call. There is no easy way to say this.”

  12

  •••

  MONTREAL GAZETTE

  MARCH 1996

  HATE SLAYING OF LESBIAN WOMAN STUNS MONTREAL: TWO NEO-NAZI SKINHEADS CHARGED.

  Rachel Brown, a twenty-six-year-old graduate student at McGill University was attacked by two men on St-Dominique Street south of Ontario on Tuesday just after midnight. She was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Luc’s Hospital.

  John Webster, twenty-four, of Kirkland, and Gaetan Faucher, nineteen, of Lachine, both neo-nazi skinheads known to police, were arrested attempting to flee the scene. A neighbour called 911 when she heard shouting and commotion on the street below. There are believed to be more suspects at large.

  Witnesses say Brown had been kissing another woman outside the Metropolis nightclub. The other woman, who asked not to be identified, went back into the club. Brown began to walk home where it is believed she was followed and targeted for being gay.

  “This is a clear case of gay bashing,” says Charlene Mayor, spokesperson for the Lesbian and Gay Student group at McGill, where Brown was an active member.

  There
will be a candlelight vigil on the corner of St-Dominique and Ontario at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 20.

  13

  •••

  EVERYBODY IS HIV+

  On the day of the funeral, I don’t know what comes over me. I pick up the cordless and press seven digits. Della’s number is memorized like dance steps in my fingers, though I could no longer recite them properly if asked. It rings twice. I hang up. The apartment is so cold, the kind that makes you want to take seven baths even though your skin is rubbed raw. I’ve been living in the claw-foot tub, surrounded by candles and staring at the framed print of a painting by Toulouse-Lautrec on the ivory wall. By the time I get out of the scorching water it has turned tepid, skin slick with lavender oil; I stand in the kitchen dripping careless rivers onto the black and white tile, reading Seven’s note with directions to the church. He’s gone to meet Rachel’s family.

  Slipping my legs into the hollow of my borrowed dress and pulling the straps over red-dry shoulders I realize I can’t zip it up properly. I can’t reach around. Melanie had shown up with it last night, placed lightly on top of a bag filled with Tupperware bowls of veggie stews, chilies and cupcakes. “I’m rural. When you’re sad, I have to feed you,” she explains. Everything I own is ripped, splattered in paint, low-cut, light distances above the knee — so she lent me her respectable job-interview dress for the funeral. We sat in my living room, drinking wine, and I felt the weight of the empty apartment. Rachel’s parents had left after hours of sorting through her things.

  “Can I do anything for you, Eve? Anything at all.”