Rose of No Man's Land

by Michelle Tea

  Cool, Rose said. She turned to Gina. I’m Gone.

  Technically not for another five minutes, Gina said, looking at the clock on her register. Can’t you please wait? I hate being here by myself. What if I get held up?

  Rose snorted. You’re not going to get held up. Look, everyone’s here. She gestured around at the food court. Wanda at SugarMuffin mistook her wiggling arms for a wave and waved back. See, Wanda’s right there.

  I Hate Wanda, I offered.

  What if I have to go to the bathroom? Gina continued scrolling down her list of concerns.

  Go now, Rose told her. Go, I’ll watch the register.

  Gina moved down the corridor of fryers and hit the switch on the bathroom wall, sending the ceiling fan alive with a whooshy whine. The seam on the ass of her striped shorts was distressed enough to give you an idea of what color drawers she had on. Something in the blue-green family. Aqua. She clicked the door shut.

  Why Don’t You And Gina Trade Uniforms? I suggested.

  Rose shook her head. No way. I like mine baggy. Then I can do more of this. She struck a key on her register and the cash slid out on its oiled tray. Rose slid her hand into the money and then down the front of her shorts. For a brief second it looked like she was playing with herself, then she swung her hip at the cash drawer and bounced it closed. Rose kept the coolest look on her face the whole time, like she was totally bored and not involved in something exciting such as stealing actual cash. She gave a quick glance about the mostly dead food court and squatted below the register. Look at this, she hissed, and gave her pants a quick yank down. There was a significant cash bulge in her underwear. Which was pink and shiny. The crotch jutted out and looked sort of uncomfortable.

  Does It Itch Or Anything? I asked. Surely it couldn’t be good to keep money all up on your hoo-ha. My mother has spoken much to me and to Kristy about the unfathomable filthiness of dollars and coins, starting when we were little kids and she caught us sucking on pennies. Money is filthy! she had shrieked. People pee on money, money falls on the ground, in the dirt! People touch it with their dirty hands, sick people touch it! She went on and on but really I couldn’t get past the part about the pee. Why would anyone pee on money? I’ve never been able to figure it out. Maybe it’s a sex thing. Rose stood up straight once more, her underwear and its stolen prizes tucked back inside her baggy Clown shorts.

  No, it’s not itchy, Rose laughed. Are you allergic to money? Her bony fingers scrambled down the front of her shorts and pressed into the balloony fabric. I love it! she squealed. That’s like, a hundred dollars or something.

  No Shit? I asked.

  At least, she whispered. At least. Hey. How come you got fired?

  It’s A Long Story, I said. I Lied A Lot. My Sister Lied, I Lied — I remembered the cell phone stuffed into that crappy little purse. And I Stole, Too. But I Didn’t Get Caught.

  Rose moved closer and held her hand out for me to slap it. Behind me the door opened and the whine of the ceiling fan hummed louder as Gina exited, vainly tugging at the ass of her shorts. Let’s hang out tonight, Rose hissed as our palms clapped together. Can you hang out? You got plans already?

  I shook my head. No, I Can Hang Out, I said.

  You can stay out late? You got a curfew?

  I kept shaking my head. No, No Curfew, I Can Do Whatever I Want, I told her. I Can Stay Out All Night, Who Cares, Whatever.

  Lucky duck! Gina pouted. You guys are such lucky ducks. I don’t get to do anything.

  I Stole A Cell Phone, I mumbled low, very low, almost not even moving my mouth, like Rose was a puppet I was trying to fling my voice through. Her eyes lit up at the word “stole” but her forehead crunched at the rest of my jumbled mumble. Gina lingered, leaning.

  Gina, the register, Rose said. She cocked her head toward the front counter, where an old man stood squinting up at the menu boards. She leaned back in to me, close. The smell of the place had nested in her so deeply she seemed to be its source, exuding the stink of hot oil more than the bubbling vats themselves. She was fry personified. I pushed the bottom of her clown hat up off her ear and spoke into the tiny whorl.

  I Stole A Cell Phone, I Need To Charge It, I hushed.

  Rose stood back and appraised me, the situation. She looked toward Gina, who looked back at us with strain in her face. Rose, one fish fry? Please? Before you go?

  Rose grabbed a frosted, bread-colored plank from a freezer and tossed it into a fry with an explosion of steam. Slick clouds billowed up and refilled the place with steamy haze. Where is it? she asked me. One of her penciled eyebrows was, at this point, totally gone, the hair there sparse. The other eyebrow wiggled crazily on her brow. I picked up the plastic pink pouch from where I’d tossed it into a dustball on the floor beside me. I picked the gray fluff from the strap and handed it to her. It’s Inside There, I said. I Don’t Know What To Do With It.

  I can charge it, she whispered. This is great, this is really great. She paused, thinking. We can call all over the place. We can call, like, Japan if we want. Do you have anyone to call?

  I thought about it. I Think My Dad Lives In Louisiana, I said. I imagined a phone ringing in a little shack, a shack balancing on stilts smack in the center of the swamp. My dad knocked out on a wooden boat, oblivious, an alligator making ripples in the water. But I Don’t Know For Sure, I said. My Mom Lies A Lot.

  Rose nodded. My mom’s girlfriend is in Iraq. Do you think we could call there on it?

  I shrugged. Why Not? I asked. If You Can Call Anywhere?

  Find out where your Dad is, get all the long-distance numbers you can and we’ll meet up tonight and make tons of phone calls! We’ll call fucking everywhere!

  Okay, I said. All Right. We made plans to meet and I left her there, dredging for that block of fish with a pair of long metal tongs, cursing as the oil spattered her arms.

  Nice to meet you! Gina hollered. I cut quick through the court and was out of there.

  Eighteen

  The walk back home from the mall sucked. It sucks even on a regular day, and this day was not regular because I was wearing a skirt that crawled up my rear and a shirt that sparkled, drawing the attention of every ape on the streets to my boobs. I don’t know if there are creeps everywhere or if Mogsfield is some kind of unfortunate creep central, but dudes were just blatantly staring at my chest and there were cars on the street piloted by guys who felt the need to holler at me out their windows as they sped by. At least they didn’t stop. At least I couldn’t actually hear whatever it was they felt compelled to tell me. The speed they zoomed at made their cries sound like Heeeeeeyyerabababafreaarrma! Hahahaha! At least none of the guys on the street showed me their dick or flashed me their ass. As a girl I had a lot to be grateful for, plonking home in my flops. Once I was walking in my neighborhood and this skinny white guy in a pair of nylon running shorts and no shirt, not even those useless tank tops that guys like to wear, the ones that scoop way down and are slit down the sides, he jogged past me, took the edges of his shorts beneath his cheeks and lifted them real quick, flashing me his moony white ass. I cut my walk short, went back to my room and stayed there. It had made me feel pretty depressed, to be honest. This walk home wasn’t having such a powerful effect on me thank god, and I think it was thanks to Rose. I was starting to see the benefit in having friends, or just one friend, really. Too many friends seemed to get troublesome. Rivalries occur, and then comes backstabbing and shit-talking and other dramatic events. I’ve seen it on TV and at school. If you’re going to indulge in friend-having, it seems best to keep it to a manageable single individual. But having Rose to think about took my mind clear off the lousy guys I had to shuffle past, and helped me to not spend too much time thinking about if the dude who drove by in the van had called me a douche bag or an old hag. Or maybe a fag. Seriously. There’s no logic to these people.

  When I got home I was greeted by Donnie, shirtless, drinking a beer on the porch. Thank god we don’t have an actual front yard. He�
��d be out there like a mechanical lawn ornament, drinking and waving to passersby and getting pink and peely with the sun. At least this way he is set back from the street.

  Hi Donnie, I said.

  Hey kiddo, he smiled and scratched at the snarl of hair on his chest. Donnie lived life nude to the waist whenever possible. He scratched at himself like something from Animal Planet, then rubbed his sweaty-wet beer can across the tangle, making it all damp and matted. You walk all the way home? He squinted at me.

  Yeah, I shrugged. I Just Worked Half A Day. To Start.

  So tell me all about it, he lifted the can to his wet mouth and slurped at the opening. I could smell the thin and tinny stink of the beer and I wanted one. I figured I’d simply swipe one from the fridge and then I noticed that Donnie had stashed the whole six-pack in the shade beneath his sagging lawn chair.

  Oh, It Was All Right, I said vaguely. I Made Friends With This Girl, We’re Going To Hang Out Tonight.

  How’s the work? he asked. Easy, hard? They treat you all right?

  I nodded. Can I Have One Of Those? I pointed down at the splintery wood of the porch, wiggled my fingertip in the direction of the beer.

  Kid, you work now, you gotta buy your own refreshments, he shook his head and grimaced, like he was cluing me in to some sort of difficult life lesson and it pained him to do it.

  Donnie I Can’t, I reminded him. I’m Fourteen, They Won’t Sell To Me.

  Well you can chip in a bit, howbout? Toss me a few dollars? You’re probably making more money than I am. He jammed the can into the crotch of his cutoffs and held his hand out like I was going to slap some cash down on his palm.

  I could not hide the sourness, it creeped across my face like a bad smell. Sure, Donnie, I said. I pulled a phony good-kid grin up over my sourpuss. Once I Get My First Paycheck I’ll Kick Down, Okay?

  Donnie emitted a sound like someone was letting the air out of him. Listen, I’m taking up some space in your room. Just a little corner. Just ’til the weekend. With a grunt he bent down and yanked a beer loose from the plastic rings. We’ll consider this a rental fee. He tossed it to me but I wasn’t ready, so it sort of hit me in the chest and rolled across the porch. Pieces of glitter from the Baby T-shirt stuck to the can.

  Great, Donnie quipped. Nice going. Good catch. That’s gonna blow up when you open it now. Don’t ask me for another one.

  A Rental Fee? I asked in a crabby voice. I hated the thought of Donnie in my room, getting his vibes on my things. I scrambled across the porch for my rollaway can of beer.

  Some batteries fell off the back of a truck. He shot me an awkward wink, like a mosquito buzzed into his eyeball.

  How’s Ma? I asked him.

  See for yourself, he invited, and gestured toward the door. Then he tipped his can way back, sucking the dregs, and with a flick of his wrist tossed the empty out into the street with a clatter. Score! he chortled. A wide smile ate his face. It’s always a happy day when stuff falls off a truck.

  Ma sat in the dim living room, her nightgown rumpled and her hair tangled and still pretty despite it all. Still plump and perfect, rolling with woman-ness, wrapped in peach. The couch was draped in a faded floral sheet ’cause in the summer the old woolliness of it makes you itch and feel gross. The living room was dim, the sun kept off the television screen and also out of Ma’s eyes. The sun gave her headaches. The shades were drawn, Donnie’s silhouette out there on the chair like an alcoholic puppet show, his can lifting and descending. The television was on, always on, always turned to talk shows or news, something real, no chipper family sitcoms or emergency room dramas, only the real dramas of real living, everything going wrong all the time, everywhere. And yet I see very little on TV about how creepy men are in the streets or about the basic daily obstacle course a female is forced to run through. About how you can be walking along absolutely not thinking about your pussy your ass your tits, but then, wham, thanks to the drooly curbside dude, now you are. Now your mind is consumed with the idea, the reality of your pussy, ass, tits; the possibility of blow jobs, of getting fucked. I wish more attention would be paid to this phenomenon. That there would be long-term psychological studies on the mental effects of this, the changes in brain waves it produces in girl-brains. I can go days without leaving my room and never think of my boobs once. Then I leave the house and it’s all anyone wants to talk about.

  From what I gather, all Ma watches on TV are reports of the new big scares, terrorism and ebola and gun-toting six-year-olds and how the Bible or Nostradamus or the ancient Aztecs predicted the world is going to end next year. The glow of the television flickered over Ma, who was sipping tea from a cup and watching a talk show. It was like a burning log in a stately fireplace, casting its warm light around the room. On the screen a lady in a tight lady-suit bustled all over the studio audience, clutching a microphone. She dipped into the rows of civilians, the opinionated people. Ma said, Opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one. A heavily made-up woman with a short, bleached hairdo asked a question, her voice shaky with the weight of the cameras upon them. The camera swung around to the stage, where a heavyset lady daubed the damp corners of her eyes with a wad of toilet paper. Then it happened. I looked for too long at the television and it stole my soul. It turned me to stone, like some terrible myth. That was why I avoided this room. It wasn’t only because Ma is depressing and Donnie annoying, it’s the frigging television. I glanced at it and suddenly I was interested in something you couldn’t give two shits about, say, the health of that crying woman on the talk show, and before I knew it hours have gone by and I’ve become an expert on, like, carpal tunnel syndrome. Who cares. It’s probably why Ma hasn’t been able to really get off the couch in so long. She’s frozen there, held in the malevolent shine of the TV. She craned her neck around to see me there, all decked out in Kristy’s skanky clothes. It’s strange how the same clothes that make Kristy look like a normal, well-adjusted teenaged female make me look like a hooker.

  I have autism, Ma informed me. She turned back to the screen and rested against the sheet draped like a toga over the back of the couch. It’s very interesting. I’m learning all about it. Want to watch some with me? She patted the cool, worn-away sheet bunched next to her.

  I Got To Get Out Of Kristy’s Clothes. I said this to Ma but my face was hitched to the television. Television is like a great gooey snare, the light shining off it clingy spiderweb vibrations. I didn’t even care about this emotional woman on the TV but then I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I guess she had autism too, just like my mom. The beer I had begged off Donnie was growing warm in my sweaty hand, in the dead, dense air of the house. I wondered if it was still too shook-up to open it, thought it could be refreshing perhaps to feel the tickly bubble-spray over my body, soaking the stupid Baby shirt in sticky beer.

  Trisha, Ma continued. She had a little offended catch in her voice. I would think you’d be happy to hear this. I thought it was maybe ADD but now, I really think I should be tested for this new kind of autism.

  I Don’t Know, Ma, I said skeptically. Usually I just nod and say something vacant, but every now and then her claims are so out-there, like when she got on a Tourette’s kick. She had seen some 20/20 episode about Tourette’s syndrome and decided that was her problem all this time. I was like, But Ma, You Don’t Walk Around Screaming Swear Words, and her answer to that was, But I always want to. Huh. Then I guess I had Tourette’s too, right? Who doesn’t feel on the verge of screaming fuck or shit or fucking shit half the time? That’s not a disease, that’s like the opposite of having a disease. Ma dropped the Tourette’s story line after a week of halfhearted mumbling, of swearing a bit more than usual. It was so forced. Now autism. I thought autism was little kids rocking back and forth in their playroom or hitting their toddler heads against the wall.

  Ma, You’re Not Autistic, I told her firmly. It was too hot out for this shit. You’re Too Functional To Be Autistic. Believe It Or Not.

  It’s very int
eresting, she repeated, ignoring me. There’s many different sorts of autism, actually. Some people are highly functional, highly intelligent really. They just had this woman on, she nodded her chin at the screen. She was brilliant. Some sort of scientist.

  Uh-huh, I grumbled. The woman on the television was giving a brave, tight smile, the camera pulled close to her face. I wondered what that was like, working a camera for a talk show. Crouched behind the tall black equipment, zooming here and there, spinning around, listening to crazy people all day. I bet I’d like it. I took a stab at my beer can. I cracked it gently and foam fizzed out of the split.

  And — you’re not gonna like this, Trish — they think lots of Alzheimer’s cases are really mad cow disease. How you like that?

  Not So Much, I said. I licked the froth from the top of the can.

  Don’t do that, Ma scolded. She doesn’t miss a trick. Those cans sit in warehouses. Mice shit on them. I tell Donnie, you should wash those first.

  Okay, I said. I started to leave the room. My First Day At Work Was Fabulous, I told her. In Case You Cared. I Was Promoted. I Got A Raise. I Got Employee Of The Day.

  I knew you could do it! Ma shouted at my back.

  In my room I found a small sculpture of car batteries. Hard bulks of machinery shrink-wrapped in heavy, puckered plastic. There were about fifteen of them. Donnie had done an okay job of backing them into the corner, they weren’t much in the way. Still, they were ugly and stolen. When I was younger I thought that trucks were the most shabby and unreliable vehicles of all, things always tumbling from their backsides. I imagined the rear doors of semis crushing open beneath a tide of food processors, hair dryers, computer printers. I fantasized about the epic traffic jam, the excited carloads of people scooping booty into their trunks. Then Kristy told me the goods were actually stolen. She was really upset about it. This was when she was about twelve and going through a Jesus phase. She was going to a church around the block and making friends with nuns and other old ladies. She told me the stuff Donnie stashed in our bedrooms was ripped-off and illegal, and at the very least he was going to hell for it. She wasn’t sure about the rest of us, but she was worried. She said it didn’t look good. Ma and Donnie started getting nervous that she was going to confess to a priest or something, so she got grounded and wasn’t allowed to go to church anymore. She had to stay in the living room with Ma watching talk shows where women recount all the horrible things that happened to them in foster homes. You want that? Ma would wave the remote at the screen. You want the state to take you away? Just because of some boxes in your room? Put them under your bed if you don’t like looking at them. Donnie brought her a truck-fallen curling iron, then a boom box. She chilled out. I never minded the piles of loot occasionally materializing in my bedroom. They had an outlaw sheen, and Donnie tended to be a bit more ass-kissy when he needed to use our rooms for stashing.