Rose of No Man's Land

by Michelle Tea

  Get out of here! Bernice was shrieking now, she had her hands up, pointing and waving like a crazy person with a gun threatening to shoot up a crowd. Her bangs blew up and down on her forehead, borne on the intense breeze of her words. I am calling security! You are banned from here! You get out of here!

  I ran toward the counter, sliding a little in my flops, praying oh fuck don’t let me wipe out. It’s hard to run in flip-flops, they slide around under your feet and that toe-thong is a sneaky tangle, but I made it to the counter. I ducked and grabbed my purse with Kim’s phone inside, snagged a bag of candy too, just for the fuck of it, just ’cause I was crazed with starvation. It would have been nice to be able to walk out of the store with dignity but I’d already been screaming “Fuck” at the top of my lungs, so really, what the fuck. I stomped down the aisle, smacking at clothing, knocking shit off the racks onto the floor. There’s something great about being at the very bottom of your own well of personal loserness. When you’ve already made a jackass of yourself and sabotaged whatever skimpy thing you had going for yourself, all that’s left is the extreme style you see in action movies or street-fighting video games. The most atomic, apocalyptic fuck you that you can manage. I was shaking with it. Rage and starvation, the lights, the injustice of the very existence of whole groups of girls. The injustice of Bernice O’Leary. Behind it all a tinkling fear, pure scary sadness, growing wider.

  Trisha! Bernice hollered. She was behind me now, herding me out of her queendom. Trisha! You are not going to get a good recommendation! Do you hear me! I better not ever see you again! She stopped short at the pile of kicked-around clothes, her feet skidding into the cheap material. I swung out and into the mall, almost plowing into a trio of Eminen-wannabe boys slouching toward the food court.

  Whoa, bitch! One of them yelped and you’d think I’d have told them to fuck off too since I was on such a roll, but I couldn’t help it anymore, I burst into tears.

  Sixteen

  I went into the bathroom at the back of the mall, but it was so skanky and smogged up with old exhaled cigarettes I couldn’t have the nervous breakdown I’d imagined having. I set myself up in the roomy handicapped bathroom at the end of the row of stalls, but just knowing I was breathing in the out-breaths of strangers with bad habits made me stop crying and settle back into being generally pissed off. I began to see the value in smoking. You always have something to do. It seems like smokers like to smoke when they’re bored or stressed, and I happen to swing back and forth between those two states all day long. Probably I’d be a great smoker, but I can’t get past the stank yellow nastiness of it. Sitting in the bathroom in the secondhand fog I felt lonely and wished I had someone to share my humiliation with. I could see the charm of a cigarette in a moment like that, a little burning friend to be with you in your time of need. Really I just wished I had a beer or some other more powerful kind of alcohol. Something dark and mysterious in an imposing bottle. I could hole myself up back here in the handicapped stall, just me and my dignified bottle of exotic alcohol. People would knock on the door and I’d bark, Go Away. The smokers would come and light up. Who knows, maybe a druggie would join us in another stall. All of us in our web of chemical misery like some weird sort of anticlinic. I could have hung around the toilet for hours, not crying, not knowing where to go, philosophizing about the grossness of cigarettes and how badly I wanted to get drunk, but the longer I stayed in there the louder Bernice O’Leary’s insults ricocheted in my head. And I started feeling like everything she said, like I smelled bad and was a loser, just hanging around in a handicapped stall. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to going home and announcing to my family that I got fired on my first day. I knew Kristy especially would be so pissed when she heard I flipped out on Bernice. Somehow it was going to be hardest for her, trust me. Even though it’s really her fault this happened at all. Even though if the world were at all a fair place Kristy would be apologizing to me with tears in her eyes and then explaining everything to Bernice O’Leary — that I wasn’t a smelly, pregnant drug addict, that I’m a good kid at heart and was simply a victim of circumstance, of Kristy’s lies. I stood up from the toilet and felt all the blood run cold down my body and those goddamned black spots swarmed my eyes again and I decided that all my needs — my need for food and my need to not feel like a loser, to not feel alone and trapped in a smoke-suffocating public bathroom — they could all be met if I went to visit Rose at the Clown in a Box. I pushed open the stall door. You could see the old smoke like a thin gauze the bathroom was wrapped in. Whoever exhaled that smoke could be dead by now, but their breath lived on, looking for new lungs to poison and kill. I rushed back out into the mall.

  Seventeen

  The food court at the mall has all the regular stuff inside it. The famous and greasy hamburger. Fried Chinese foods soaking in syrupy sauces in deep steel trays. Quick Mexican junk food, a rubbery tortilla with a fast smear of beany paste and a few honks of sour cream from the big metal sour cream gun. Pizza sitting out all day long under hot lights. One place is nothing but cheesesteaks, another place is chewy pretzels with cheap little dipping packets, and another sells cinnamon muffins and that place smells fantastic. You see those muffins all lined up behind the counter, thick sugar loops oozing over the melty cinnamon surface and oh god. I just want to lie down in them like a big sticky bed. I want to live in one. I think they’ve got some sort of aromatherapy contraption hidden in the back and they’re pumping this addictive stink into the mall for us to follow like zombies, leaving drool trails for other brain-dead sugar fiends to follow. I figured I really deserved a sugar muffin. After all I’d been through today. I stumbled up to the counter and an older lady, like my mom’s age, a little older, heavy and tired with a lot of wrinkles on her face and blue eyeshadow that matched the blue of the muffin-shaped hat that was her uniform, she helped me. Her name tag said Wanda. Her ears were double-pierced with gold hoops and the hair that stuck out from the muffin-shaped hat was blond and dry as straw from all the chemicals it took to keep it that way. I’m glad I don’t give a crap about being blond. It seems like a lot of work that really damages you in the end. Look at this woman, she should be home stretched out on the couch like my own mom but here she was pushing sugar biscuits to make money for the hair dye that was destroying her hair. I know she bought other stuff with it too, like fish sticks and medicine for her dying children or something, but you can see people’s lives wasting away before your eyes at the mall and it freaked me out.

  I’ll Have A SugarMuffin, I said. I said it sort of hushed, like it was an illegal transaction we had going on.

  You want a MommaMuffin or a BabyMuffin? Or the BigDaddyMuffin special?

  Which Is What? I asked.

  It’s a MommaMuffin and two BabyMuffins and a coffee.

  Shouldn’t That Be, Like, The Stressed-Out Single MommaMuffin? I asked. She didn’t really laugh, but the wrinkles by her mouth got deeper for a second. I ordered just a BabyMuffin. I only had three dollars and I was hoping to get some alcohol, somehow, at some point. The lady passed me a little bag heavy with muffin.

  You work over at Ohmigod! She nodded at my name tag, which I had forgotten to take off my glittering BABY shirt. BABY shirt, BabyMuffin.

  I Got Fired, I confessed. Who cared? I Got Fired About Five Minutes Ago. It Was My First Job.

  Oh, she said. I was gonna give you the mall discount. She looked at me blankly, shrugged.

  Well I Sort Of Could Use The Discount More Now, I said. Now That I Don’t Have A Job Anymore. The lady looked at me. Think About It, I encouraged. She stood there, thinking. She took my dollar from my hand.

  I don’t know, she mused. I could get in trouble.

  Come On, I pushed her. Really. What If I Had Just Lied And Said I Worked At Ohmigod!? You Wouldn’t Have Known. But I Was Being Honest. I Was Honest With You And Now I’m Being Punished For It.

  It doesn’t work like that, she said, and finally smiled. It wasn’t a real smile, it was sort
of a bitter smile, a grimace, and I thought, I bet that’s the only kind of smile her face can do anymore. I thought, it’s sad when the bureaucratic limitations of a huge fast-food chain is what brings a smile to your face.

  Okay Whatever, I said. Thanks For Nothing. I took my BabyMuffin and turned my back on Wanda. Clown in the Box was at the edge of the food court, by the exit. I walked toward it, the stink of deep-fried everything getting stronger, the air growing oilier, as I approached. The place seemed to shiver in the distance the way a real hot highway trembles in August. It wasn’t Rose but another girl at the register. She looked about twelve years old, with braces and baby fat that pushed against her uniform. The Clown in the Box name tag was a jolly plastic clown head with the employee’s name stuck inside the giant mouth. This girl’s name was Gina and she looked bored. She stared off in the general direction of Bamboo or Bust, the Chinese place across the court. She held a superlong plastic straw, the kind that goes with the half-gallon soda cups, and was jamming it down the back of her shirt, itching her back with it.

  Welcome to Clown in the Box, what sort of summertime fun can I get for you today? The glare of Gina’s braces took me off guard. They glinted with all the neon of the food court. It looked like a pinball machine inside her mouth.

  Uh, Is Rose Around? I asked. I looked into the dim background of the Clown. I thought I saw a short person behind a rack of fryers but it was hard to see in the grease.

  Yeah, Rose is here. Are you Rose’s friend? Gina asked. She was staring at me with big eyes. She had some sort of silvery eyeshadow clumped in the corners like sleep. It went with her braces.

  Yeah, I’m Rose’s Friend, I said, even though it felt weird to say. Like, what defines a friend? Isn’t a real friend someone who sleeps over at your house and calls you on the phone saying things like “I’m having a really hard time and I need someone to talk to.” How much time would me and Rose have to spend together before we were officially friends? What sort of trials would we have to go through. I’m Actually More Of An Acquaintance, I clarified to this girl Gina.

  Oh, she nodded.

  I Just Met Her Earlier. So We’re Not Really Friends Yet.

  But you’re not, like, enemies, right? You’re not here to kick her ass or anything?

  No Way, I said. I wondered if Rose had lots of enemies, lots of people looking to kick her ass.

  Hey. It was Rose. Her striped uniform had gotten considerably fouler since we’d last spoken. Large dark patches of oil stained the fabric, creating a kind of blobby pattern overlay with the stripes below.

  Are you two friends? Gina asked.

  Rose shrugged. What’s up, you on your break? Want me to hook you up? She turned to Gina. Trisha works at Ohmigod! she informed her.

  I saw the pin, Gina said in an oooh-goody tone, her braces flashing.

  She will hook you up, Rose promised.

  I Just Got Fired, I said flatly.

  No! Rose gasped. Gina looked crestfallen.

  Yes, I said. Fired. Canned. Kicked To The Curb.

  Demoted, Gina offered.

  Oh, no. Rose shook her head. She turned to Gina. You should see the pin she let me steal today. So cool, it was like sixteen dollars or something. Wasn’t it?

  I Don’t Know, I said. I Wasn’t There Long Enough To Find Out.

  Why’d you get fired?

  I sighed a long sigh. I pulled my BabyMuffin from its sack and sunk my teeth into its gooey surface. I could feel the sugar go to work on my teeth immediately. A drizzle of caramel sweetness drooled out from the pastry and trailed down the front of my shirt. I held out the bun to Rose and Gina. Want A Bite?

  No way, Rose shook her head. I OD’d on those my first week working here. I ate so many I puked and now I can’t eat them anymore. She withdrew from the damp and spongy bun like it had very bad vibes. I can’t even smell that shit.

  I’m Like That With Peppermint Schnapps, I said.

  I know what you mean, Gina said, nodding her head. She had no idea what I was talking about.

  I’m Really Starving, I told them. Could I Get Something?

  Totally, Rose said. You totally hooked me up. I owe you.

  I waited in the back by the john while Rose went around plunging cages into giant metal sinks of oil. I sat on a dusty bucket of processed food glop and watched her move in her outfit. Clown in the Box sells the food you buy from trailers at traveling carnivals. They sell fried dough in both their slab and squiggle formations, served with cinnamon sugar or sugared strawberries or a pool of melted butter floating in its center. They deep fry candy bars, they deep fry hot dogs dipped in batter and impaled on tiny sticks. They deep fry cheese and there’s even a sort of healthy option, the “California Platter,” which is a lot of unrecognizable vegetable nuggets fried up good and crunchy. They have chicken-fried hamburgers, which I think are breaded hamburgers stuck in the fryer. It’s intense. Backstage at the Clown was full of thick, sizzling sounds. Bubbles boiling up out of the oil, noises that sounded pushed from the ocean floor, hot and swampy sounds. It was a weird laboratory. People loved it. It sucked to have to wait until summer for a corn dog. Sometimes the urge for a corn dog strikes at inopportune months, around Christmas or during a March blizzard. I’m looking out at the snow, dreaming of summertime, of jerking around in a bumper car at a beachfront carnival, that electrified smell in the air, and then I get a little hungry and I think, um, corn dog. And what do I do? I go to the mall and hit the Clown in the Box and I get to eat a little bit of summertime in the freezing dead icehole of winter. I’ve got to admire the genius of it, even if I don’t particularly love fried food.

  Rose dashed around waiting on people, a huge, polka-dotted clown hat pointing in a wobbly cone atop her head. It sunk down low on her forehead. The hat’s thin elastic chin band dangled inches beneath Rose’s jaw. A nub of hairnet bunched out of it in the back, a twirl of Rose’s hair, dark, snagged inside it like an exotic sea thing. Stripes ran down her shirt, yellow-green-orange, yellow-green-orange. As I shifted uncomfortably on the dusty plastic bucket, trying to sit in a way that did not reveal my underwear, it occurred to me that I didn’t know what Rose really looked like, and she didn’t know what I looked like either. We were both wearing costumes. At the counter she handed some deep-fried cheese sticks to a couple of dudes with military haircuts, and Gina rang them up. You couldn’t see it from the front, but the back of Gina’s clown hat had a big dent in it. Rose dashed back to a fryer and yanked it dripping from the oil. Tiny muscles percolated in her scrawny arms. She was born malnourished and grew up stunted but Rose looked like she swung from trees, both stringy and strong, like a monkey. I felt lumpy in comparison. I was lumpy in comparison. My body was soft, like it was stuffed with a thin layer of down. Ma’s body was like that, and so was Kristy’s. It’s what drove Ma to Weight Watchers before I was born, and what inspired Kristy to swear off carbohydrates. But it didn’t really bother me.

  You wanted the California Platter? she asked.

  I shrugged. If It’s Too Much Trouble I Can Just Have A Cheese Stick Or Something, I said. Don’t Put Yourself Out.

  No way, Rose said. She had a paper boat full of steaming brown globs. Oil still twitched in crevices of crust. Whatever you want, seriously.

  You Won’t Get In Trouble, Having Me Back Here?

  Nah, Rose dragged the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a smear of grease. Zack’s gone for the afternoon, nobody’s here except me and Gina and she doesn’t give a fuck.

  Yeah, I don’t give a fuck, shrugged Gina from the register.

  I picked at the vegetable nuggets. I lifted a blobular crusty one from the paper boat and blew and blew until the oil shining on the stiff batter didn’t look scalding. I popped it into my mouth and sucked in air to cool it off.

  Hot, huh? Rose nodded. She grabbed an empty basket and knocked crumbs of fried batter onto a countertop. She swept them up with her little hand and dumped them into her mouth. Mmmmm! she rolled her eyes back like it was the
best-tasting thing in the world. I crunched down on the grease ball cooling on my tongue. I like to try to guess what vegetable it is, she said, watching me chew. The choices are broccoli, zucchini, I think cauliflower…

  Yams! Gina shouted back from the register.

  Carrots, Rose corrected.

  Yams!

  They’re carrots, Rose said to me. Who even eats yams? Nobody eats yams.

  I Think I’m Eating A Carrot, I told them.

  Open your mouth, Rose said. She peered inside. Yeah, it looks orange. Marty, he usually cooks while I do the register, he said it’s all just the batter but they put different food coloring inside to trick you into thinking they’re vegetables.

  No, I shook my head. I probed the mass inside my mouth with my tongue thoughtfully, and swallowed. I Really Tasted Carrot.

  It could be artificial flavoring, Gina suggested.

  I popped another into my mouth. Rose watched expectantly. It Has No Flavor, I told her. None At All.

  She nodded. Weird, right? What are they?

  I shrugged, ate another. I Don’t Know. They’re Good, Though. I’m Starving.

  You fit better here at the Clown more than you did at Ohmigod! Rose said. No offense or anything. Everyone who works there is so stuck up. Even that girl Kim, I don’t care if she tried to kill herself or whatever. She was a bitch. She kicked Gina out of the store once.

  What Did You Do? I asked.

  Gina looked horrified. I didn’t do anything! she said. I never do anything!

  It’s true, Rose verified. Gina never does anything. Do you? You do things, right? Rose’s eyes upon me seemed too much. It was like supersonic rays came at you when she looked your way. It made me feel shaky. I turned my face down toward my fry boat and scraped some batter off a nugget. The vegetable-thing beneath was a pale green color.

  Sure, I lied. I Do Things. Things like sit in my room and stare at the ceiling. The ceiling, if it is stared at long enough and especially while drunk, can come to look like a weird terrain, another world, with rupturing volcano and mountain ranges and wide lakes where the paint had flaked off in chunks, revealing the pale blue beneath. There’s a lot more to staring at the ceiling than you might think.