Badass(ish)
Badass(ish)
It was June 18, last year.
I stood in front of my new locker at Strathearn, just as lunch was ending, surprised by the puffy goldenrod envelope taped to my locker's blue metal door. The envelope had my name on it, and my heart started pounding. I'd always dreamed about getting a love letter from a secret admirer. It was almost enough to make me temporarily forget Porkchop’s death and the terror of escaping the Fort Mac fire just weeks before.
“Did you see who put this here?” I asked the freckly, blue eyed kid at a locker near mine. Ben Crone, I would later learn. It's so weird that I didn't even know his name then. He just shrugged and shook his head.
I pulled the envelope off my locker, trying to remove the tape without tearing the package. I slid my finger inside the upper seal and gently pried it open.
I looked inside, expecting a book of poetry or a letter or a rose. Instead, I found a piece of meat and bone, charred almost beyond recognition. It was a badly burned pork chop. There was no note, but a note wasn't needed. I got the message loud and clear.
I dropped the package like it was on fire, my hands flying up to my mouth to stifle the scream. Images of my sweet, silly dog running and drooling and licking my face raced through my mind, only to be pushed out by imagined scenes of her choking on thick smoke and burning. And just as the thick envelope landed at my feet, I heard my name called over the intercom system.
“Davis Klein-Mah to the office, please.”
Davis and two of her friends, Jae Schmidt and Renzi Chan Cruz, are brought together by their passion to save the planet and, in particular, stop the Haus Oil pipeline, destined to carry oil from the Tar Sands (or Oil Sands depending on your point of view), from being built. This story takes place in Edmonton where Jae’s mother is the lawyer for Haus Oil, Davis and her parents, both engineers for Haus Oil, have moved after losing everything, including Davis’ beloved dog Porkchop, in the Fort MacMurray fires of 2016. Renzi’s extended family lives in Puerto Rico (where Renzi spends her summers) has been devastated by the hurricanes of 2017. All three girls are connected romantically to the same boy, Izzy Malone, who is a vocal activist and brother to a local physician who is anti-Oil. Jae attends a dance with Izzy at her mother’s insistence, in spite of Jae’s identifying as queer. Renzi is the object of Izzy’s affections. He is Davis’ ex-boyfriend. Part of Davis’ involvement in the girls’ environmental activities is a wish to look like a badass environmentalist in an attempt to win back her boyfriend Izzy.
The three main characters tell the story in alternating chapters. Davis’ chapters are delivered in the first person while Renzi’s and Jae’s are delivered in the omniscient third person. This approach is potentially confusing and leads one to wonder if Davis’ point of view is as comprehensive/complete as the other two. The varying style of narrative made the story challenging to connect with in the early pages. Once these variations were established, the plot gets rolling and is satisfying.
There is no shortage of issues in Badass(ish), including: LGBTQ+, racism, climate change, sperm donation, animal welfare, Indigenous rights, bullying (as illustrated in the excerpt), cyberbullying (crude language), romance, jealousy and feminism. These issues tend to trip over each other and overwhelm the central plot. The girls’ environmental message is the overwhelming point of view. The opposition are presented in a stereotypical manner:
Then from our left an angry shout. “What the fuck did you put on my truck?”
A hulking grade-twelve guy in a football jacket and baseball cap charges toward us a crumpled flyer in his hands. Rage radiates from him. And right then, right in that punch of fear I'm hurled ten months back in time into the eye of the HateStorm. (p. 106)
The business of oil is a highly contentious, controversial subject in Alberta. Heilman bravely has taken on this topic and, while clearly trying to get the environmental message across, does point out that oil keeps food on the table and roofs over many families in Alberta. Once readers are into the meat of Badass(ish), the plot will carry them on a thought-provoking journey.
Ruth McMahon is a professional librarian working in a high school in Lethbridge, Alberta.