Rose of No Man's Land

by Michelle Tea

  Okay, I said. I kneeled backward on the bench.

  I need to decide if I’m for the war or against the war, because the news is coming to our house tomorrow to film us.

  They Are? That sounded exciting. That’s Lucky. Right? I asked. How Come?

  They’re doing a piece on people who have family in Iraq and they wanted to do a special bit on gay people so they picked my mom.

  Wow, I said. Well, Does Your Mom Like The War?

  She hates it. Rose struck match after match against the worn strip on the back of the book. The air smelled all tangy and disgusting with the sulfur smell. Finally she got it going. My mother hates all that kind of stuff. She got arrested when she was pregnant with me, she was trying to shut down the nuclear power plant in New Hampshire.

  Whoa, I said. She Brought You To A Nuclear Place When You Were Just A Fetus? I wondered if that was why Rose was so scrawny. That plus all the smoking.

  She thought the cops wouldn’t arrest her if she was pregnant, she said. Her face was all screwed up and her voice sounded salty. Can you believe that? I bet they had extra fun arresting her. I bet they couldn’t wait.

  Wow, So You Went To Jail In The Womb, I said. That’s Cool.

  Rose laughed. Then she got serious again, took a short, serious drag off her smoke. I just don’t want to be all antiwar just because my mother is. I mean…it’s like she doesn’t really think about things. She just goes with her heart all the time. Like, probably the war isn’t a good idea, right, but I don’t even think she really thought about it. She just assumed it’s bad ’cause it’s a war and all wars are bad. Like, how is she going to explain that to the news people? She’s going to sound like a frigging flower person. A gray cloud flew out from her mouth and floated up toward the tree leaves. Rose was smoking like she was mad at the cigarette. It didn’t look too relaxing.

  And I feel bad for Irene. She really might die. That’s really the truth. Rose looked at me like I would maybe argue with her. My mouth gaped like a little dying guppy and I felt sweaty. People didn’t normally look at me head-on so much. Especially challenging people like Rose. I never talked to anyone who knew a person that might die. I didn’t really get it. I felt like we were part of the war show now, sitting under a tree, getting intense.

  I nodded. Yeah, I said. I didn’t know what else to say. I always felt weird and confused when the news showed the families of soldiers who got killed on the TV. You know, crying moms with permed hairdos sitting in paneled living rooms, pictures of their sons in fancy white cop-hats hung on the walls. They would cry and cry and I thought it was sad of course that anyone ever dies but also, what did they think was going to happen? It was like even the parents had thought the war was just a television show.

  People Die A Lot, I said carefully. I Mean, It’s A War.

  Rose seemed relieved that I wasn’t going to try to tell her that Irene would be okay. They don’t even count it unless you get shot by one of the enemy dudes, or blown up or something. Like, if an American shoots you by mistake, it doesn’t count. They don’t say it on the news. Or, like, if you get your arm blown off but you live, and then it gets all infected and you die, they don’t count that. It doesn’t count if people kill themselves. If they’re like, I’m over this shit and then shoot themself in the head. None of it counts. Rose’s cigarette was almost over. She seemed tenser than ever.

  Why Don’t You Just Say All That On The News, I suggested. That’s A Pretty Good Speech. I Didn’t Know All That.

  Rose nodded. Maybe I will. I just know Irene is scared shitless. She doesn’t even want to be there. She signed up ’cause these army guys grabbed her outside the Stop & Shop and talked to her all about it and made it sound so cool. She was bartending at this gay bar and then it got sold and isn’t gay anymore and the new people didn’t like how gay she was and she didn’t know what else to do. Pretty fucking stupid. I could have gotten her a job at the Clown. I told her that too.

  A car cruised by with hip-hop tumbling out from its speakers. The bass was so deep I could feel it run from the tires into the ground. It rumbled up the bench and into my knees, making all my bones vibrate. I laughed and then Rose laughed. The heavy music shook the heaviness right out of our heads. I didn’t understand how the person in the car could even hear the song. I craned my head around and looked at him. He had a baseball hat low with hair spilling out the back, and his eyes were fixed on the street in front of him. His face looked like a rock. I bet he was wicked stoned.

  This is that girl Kim’s cell phone, huh? Rose asked, snatching it from my hand. The one who tried to kill herself? She smoked and studied its face. The cigarette was all but a butt and Rose kept getting another drag out of it.

  Do you Know How To Use It? I asked. Who Should We Call?

  Rose hit some buttons and a series of names flashed across the small face of the phone. She held it in one hand, and in the other the squat cigarette sent a vine of smoke treeward. She kept her face down when she said, How did you get this? What’s up with you, with your split personality and shit? Then she looked up and seized my eyes with hers. Her brown eyes were a different brown than mine. You wouldn’t think something like brown eyes could vary or be special, but Rose’s were so large, they seemed to have a pulse about them. They were these separately alive orbs on her face, swirling in the dark.

  It’s A Long, Fucked-Up Story, I said simply. I stretched out my hands and they bonked a low-hanging branch of the tree. I plucked a leaf and set to nervously shredding it, my fingers turning yellow and damp from its damp insides. I Got A Sister Who Is, Like, Really Normal? I paused to see if Rose would know what I meant by that. She nodded, took another drag from her smoke. The cell phone screen grew dark in her palm. She’s A Hairdresser And Shit. She Got Me That Job, At Ohmigod! ’Cause She Knows Bernice. She Lied, She Told Her I Was Kim Porciatti’s Best Friend And So I Had To Dress Up Like Those Girls And Pretend To Care About Kim Porciatti’s Suicide Attempt.

  You don’t?

  No, I said.

  I don’t either. I don’t really get it. She flung the phone around in her hands like a little gymnast, flipping it in circles. Maybe if I had actually seen her try to kill herself I’d feel bad about it. Do you know how she did it?

  I shook my head. I was sick of Kim Porciatti’s dramatic attempt to scoot out of life. Today Was A Horrible Day, I said. And Now I Don’t Have A Job And Kim’s Friends Want To Kick My Ass And I’m Not Allowed Back In Ohmigod! Ever Again.

  Rose laughed. You could kick those girls’ asses! she hooted. I bet you’d win in a fight. Don’t you normally? You look like a boy. You could take them. She nodded with authority, sizing me up.

  I’ve Never Been In A Fight Before, I confessed. I Don’t Know If I Could Do It. I was seriously flattered that Rose thought I was so tough.

  No way, Rose insisted. It’s nothing. Those little bitches, you just take them down by their hair. All that hair, you just wrap your fists in it and yank them onto the ground. She was getting excited, motioning with her hands. The cell phone tumbled into a crook of the roots and her smoldering cigarette danced, the smoke twirling. Then you kick them. She looked at my feet. You should maybe not wear flip-flops if you think someone’s after you, she said. They fall off and then you’re barefoot and they can stomp on your toes. Or you twist in them and fall. And you can’t kick.

  Is Kicking Fair?

  Kicking’s fair, she nodded. Anything’s fair, especially if they start. You gotta protect yourself. She paused for a minute. You got friends to back you up?

  The leaf was a wet pile of mulch in my fist. Totally smashed. No, I said.

  You just move to Mogsfield?

  No, I said again. I Just Don’t Go Out A Lot. I cleared my throat. I’m A Loner, I said. It sounded cool. It was cool, a cool thing to say. I’m A Loner.

  Rose nodded. Yeah, me too, she said. I have people here and there.

  You Hang Out With The People You Work With?

  She shook her head. Nah. Not muc
h. Once in a while. You know. Her cigarette was done, she ground it into the trunk of the tree. Poor tree, I thought. The crunched butt fell into one of the holes in the sidewalk. And then, the phone rang. It wasn’t a ring like a normal phone, it was a crazy, frenzied series of blips and bleeps, like the noise a video game makes when you clear all the levels. The ring sounded like a mistake, like a machine gone berserk.

  Ack! I shrieked. Ack, Stop That Thing! It was so loud. Rose lifted it. The letters XXX ran across the electronic face.

  What Do We Do? I whispered, like the phone itself could hear us. The phone, with its unpredictable trills and squeals, felt sinister. It was connected to Kim and all the girls who hated me by invisible cellular rays, rays that wrapped all around us, thinner than air.

  Rose tossed the phone at me. It was like that game hot potato that I’d had when I was a kid. A plastic potato that you passed from person to person and then suddenly it made a big alarming honk in someone’s unlucky hands, spazzing violently like a living thing having a freak-out. This was like that but the opposite, it came at you already angry and wailing and you had to shut it up. Answer it! Rose cried. I looked at the buttons. One had the image of a little green phone on it. Only it looked like an old-fashioned telephone, not like a cell phone. Weird. C’mon, man! Rose urged. What did I care? I pressed the button, held the phone to my ear. It was so tiny. The tip of it didn’t even go to my mouth, it lay flat and warm against my cheek.

  Kimmy, baby, the voice spoke through the tiny gadget. Rose’s raccoon eyes were wide and excited. She hopped up and swished over to me, tried to cram her ear into the phone with mine but it was just so small. Like you could accidentally inhale it and choke to death.

  Hellloooooo, the voice said again. It was like the voice of the devil. I know that sounds dramatic, but the voice on the other end of Kim Porciatti’s cell phone would have sounded totally great and appropriate coming out of some monstrous animal-man-thing from hell. It was deep and adult, a guy voice. It sounded crusty, like its throat was a long cave packed with stalagmites and mucusy drippings, and the words had to fight through all that muck to get free. The voice sounded drunk, slow and slurry, sort of crunchy. Its edges rasped. Rose poked me in my side.

  Hello, I choke-whispered. What did Kim Porciatti sound like? I couldn’t remember ever talking to her, only seeing her swishing by under the terrible lights of the mall.

  You got someone there? The monster asked. You got something going on? I haven’t seen you. You never pick up your phone. There was a pause. My heart was beating like crazy. Rose stretched her hand around my waist and pulled me closer to her, close as could be, so she could hear. Our heads were knocked together like the conjoined twins Ma was watching on Oprah last week. Stuck together forever by the top of their skulls. Our hair rubbed and mingled, tangling. I imagined being Siamese twins with Rose.

  Your motha there? You got family there? You at your home?

  Yeah. I pushed the word from my mouth like a little burp.

  You want to come by later? Do some stuff?

  Rose pulled away from me abruptly, jolting her head up and down. Yes, yes! she whispered furiously.

  Yeah, Sure, I mumbled. I looked at Rose for guidance. She was miming something furiously. What? I whispered. The voice on the other end chuckled.

  I didn’t say nothin’, sweetheart.

  No, I stuttered. Not You.

  Where does he live? Rose whispered.

  You got one of your girlfriends over there? asked Monster Man.

  Ah — No, I said. I kept my voice hushed. Like maybe all mumbly girl voices sound the same. Where, Where Should I Meet You? I asked.

  Same as always, he said smoothly. A smooth gargle. You forget about me already? Where you been?

  Tell Me Where To Go, I whispered. And he gave me an address. Mogsfield? I asked. He laughed. Revere, he said. On the beach, darlin. Like all the time. You hit your head or something?

  Okay, Okay, I said. I Gotta Go. When?

  Rose was nodding her head encouragingly. The voice spoke. I’ll be here all night, it said. Just watchin TV and, you know.

  Right. See You Soon, Then.

  Bye, Kimmy. It sounded like a taunt but I think he was flirting. Ick. I held the phone away from me like something radioactive. I tossed it to Rose. Make It Stop, I said, and she fumbled with some buttons. Fumbled with the buttons then collapsed back onto the cracked sidewalk.

  Fuck Fuck What The Fuck! I yelled. I yelled it right when an old lady was sort of heaving by us with the aid of an aluminum pole. She was putting all her weight onto her homemade cane and shuffling by slowly. She did not like my swearing. She scowled at me. Sorry, I told her. It somehow made it worse. I guess she hadn’t wanted me to talk to her.

  You’re terrible, she snapped at me. I could see the round egg of her naked scalp where her hair became thin. Her hair was a cotton-candy fluff melting away under the sky, exposing the shiny skin beneath. It was too much to look at. I turned away from her. She filled me with a bad concoction of feelings, like hatred and sadness and anger all at once. Fucking old people. They always pull this crazy emotional combo out of me. It’s too much. Rose was still collapsed against the old tree, huffing and puffing and generally cracking up. She looked like a marionette who had its string cut. Just a jumbled pile of girl against a tree. She took a wheezy breath.

  You Should Stop Smoking, I told her. You Can’t Even Laugh Normal.

  That was your only chance to say that, she pointed a bony finger at me. If you say it any more times we don’t ever hang out again. She gathered her bones together and hurled herself up, shaking the dirt and grime and cigarette ash off the ass of her weirdo dress. You want to go to his place or what?

  I laughed. I still had all the jangly nerves of the phone call running around inside my body, like a cage of tiny animals set free inside me, scurrying across my arms, freaking out in my belly. We’re Not Kim, I reminded her. We Can’t.

  Sure we can, Rose shrugged with a smile. We can do whatever we want. I thought, this is a girl I met because she stole something from me. Because I let her steal the stuff I was supposed to be protecting. I read in one of Kristy’s Cosmo magazines that girl-boy love relationships have deep patterns that form in like the first five minutes. That first encounter sort of dooms or blesses the whole rest of their life. I wondered if the same was for girl-girl friendships. If Rose would forever be the sassy thieving chain-smoker and me the inept and halfhearted official person. A person there under false pretenses, there because of a giant lie, pretending to be a girl I’m not.

  Rose, That Guy Was A Creep, I said. You Couldn’t Really Hear His Voice But There Was Something Wrong With It. He Sounded Like A Swamp Monster. Remembering his phlegmy tones made my skin go bumpy all over again. He was what Ma would call a bad actor. Maybe even a sick puppy.

  He can’t be that bad, she reasoned. He lives on Revere Beach. Right in those big condos I bet. Those are expensive.

  My head was shaking like it was its own battery-powered instrument. I wasn’t even aware of shaking it. My body was refusing to go.

  C’mon man, where’s your sense of adventure? Don’t you know how to lie? We’ll just lie. It’ll be cool. Maybe he has beer.

  I liked the idea of beer but there had to be another way to score some. I mean, I managed to drink beer all the time and I’ve never had to go over to this creep’s beachfront creepshack.

  No, I said wearily. I Can’t Lie. I Really Can’t. I’m Not Good At It. It’s Exhausting. That’s Why I Got Fired Today, ’Cause I’m Such A Bad Liar. I Can’t Keep It Together. You Don’t Want Me On Your Lie Team. I’ll Bring You Down.

  Rose crammed the phone back into the plastic purse. Every time she pushed something into the useless bag, something else toppled out. The Chapstick rolled down the sidewalk. The roll of cash spilled out, unfurling on the ground. I gasped a little at the wad of cash, the underwear money, the pantie-bulge. It uncurled from its tight bundle like something alive, a magical money-flower bl
ooming on the cement. That’s A Bunch Of Money, I said.

  And I’m going to lose it all in this stupid purse. What’s up with this? She stuffed it all back in and wrenched the zipper shut. Its metal teeth split in the middle, opening like a plasticky pink mouth. I hoped Kristy didn’t care too much about this particular broken purse. I thought she probably was too wise to my capacity for destruction to leave me with anything she truly cared about.

  Fuck, Rose mumbled.

  I’ll Put It In My Bag, I said. My backpack was limp and empty. There was nothing in it but my house key pinging around inside the cavernous darkness like a little satellite in outer space. Rose handed me the purse. It was sort of shaped like a hot dog and the cigarettes and cash poked out the top like the fixings on a truly bizarre mall food item. The ultimate food court meal. Dirty money and Marlboros in a hot pink plastic bun. I put Rose’s ratty cigarette pack in my pack’s inside zipper pocket, then tucked the roll of bills and the cherry Chapstick in there with it. Rose’s items were all nestled together. Her own house key was dangling around her neck on a piece of stringy rope, like a little kid. I threw the telephone and the busted purse inside the pack and zipped the whole thing up.

  Let’s hitch to the beach, Rose decided. I felt locked into something scary, like the minute after the lap bar comes down across your thighs. How it doesn’t ever come down low enough, how you can feel all the wiggle room you’ve got, how you can imagine that when the coaster does its famous loop you’ll just slide right out of the car. And you wave your hands wildly to tell the tweaker dude working the ride that maybe your lap bar isn’t down all the way, that it feels a little loose, and he just thinks you’re another slavering yahoo with your hands in the air. And he yanks his crank and the car begins to climb.

  Twenty

  Rose said about hitchhiking: it’s no big shit. She said she does it all the time, that once she hitchhiked all the way up to Nahant, wherever that is. In Massachusetts, she told me. Massachusetts is where we live, but I never think about it like that. I just live in Mogsfield. Sometimes I wind up over in Medford, or Malden, and I think I’ve been to Everett once. Revere is always there with the beach and the crappy carnivals, and Boston is of course a famous city, but I’ve only made it there on a couple of school field trips. I know from history that Massachusetts contains a lot of well-known areas. Salem, where all the witches were killed. Somewhere is Plymouth Rock where the Pilgrims climbed off their boat, somewhere else is where the later Pilgrims went nuts and dumped a bunch of tea into the ocean. I’ve heard of a village where everyone wears bonnets and churns butter and pretends like it’s the olden days all the time. They’re not Amish, they do it for show. You can pay an admission to enter their village and watch them milk cows. It’s sort of weird if you think about it. Imagine if Mogsfield became an old-timey village like that. Like in the future there were townies lining up in their radiation-proof spacesuits to watch people decked out in the sweats and flops of yesteryear doing crazy long-ago things like sitting on their asses on a busted couch watching the tube, or tossing frozen foods into giant vats of oil over at Ye Olde Shopping Malle. Anyway my point is, Rose was living in a larger world. I might live in Mogsfield but Rose, it seemed, lived in Massachusetts. She got around. It added greatly to her sophistication, this hitchhiked trip to Nahant.