Rose of No Man's Land (28 page)

I Don’t Know, Rose, I said. I caught a peeling bit of skin on my lip with my tooth and started chewing. A bit of skin came off in a long, dry strip. Lip jerky. It was oddly satisfying. Rose watched me.

We need gum
, she said.
You’re starting to chew on your face. That’s not good.

You Think We Should Go In There? I asked. I nodded toward Seamus O’Maniac’s. Some females had exited for a smoke, and now the
Wooo
-ing guy had a target for his noises.
Woo! Woooo!
he hooted at the girls. They were wearing short everything and huddling closely as if for warmth. Their bouncy blond hairdos bounced against each other.
Wooo! Wooo!
they hooted back, then giggled.

It’s Like A Mating Dance, I said. Like You See On TV, On Nature Programs. With Animals. Rose’s face was stuck on the scene.

No, no, we can’t go in there
, she said.
We won’t make it past the bouncer anyway, but even if we did we’d never make it out alive. I want to go there.
She pointed at a storefront some doors down from Seamus O’Maniac’s. It was overshadowed by the hoopla from the bar, but a blue neon sign in the window burned
tattoo.
By its pale light I could make out the sign above the door, 777. Rose strut toward it and I hobbled pathetically after her. She pushed the glass door open, tinkling a bell.
Hey!
she hollered. I came in as the
woman behind the counter looked up. She looked tired. She had a tense, wooden face with blue eyes that seemed extra alive compared to her skin. Maybe it was her makeup that made her skin look hard and dull. She looked dusted with fake color. Her lemony hair was shaggy and angular and poking out in different bed-heady directions. It had that fried look Kristy said came from too much bleach. She had a raspberry-colored T-shirt on, with a collar that V’d down into her cleavage. Her dark jeans had a faint sparkle and were cuffed high. She had a few tattoos on her arms but not as many as you’d expect for a person working in a tattoo shop.

Can I help you?
she asked. Her mouth warbled the question in a half-yawn.

My friend
, Rose pointed to the ratty bow on my bound-up foot.
She hurt her foot. Do you have first aid here?

What, did you cut it?
the lady asked. She seemed deeply bored. Maybe she had been sleeping.

Yeah, I nodded. I walked across the linoleum to the counter. The counter was piled with black-covered books. The walls around us were hung with billions of tattoo designs. Roses and dragons and geisha ladies, fairies and unicorns and clusters of objects all bunched together, like guns twined with thorny vines and then a woman’s spread legs rising up behind them. There were flags and cartoon characters, panthers and mermaids and even hula girls. Hearts with empty banners.

Wow.
Rose was sort of twirling around, trying to take it all in at the same time.
Whoa.
She revolved like a fucked-up ballerina in a cranked-up jewelry box. The woman
smirked.

You’re going to make yourself dizzy
, she said.
Come back here and I’ll get the first aid kit.
She pulled open a waist-high swinging door and we herded through. The back had more of the colorful tattoo drawings tacked everywhere, plus a giant leathery chair like from a barber shop or a dentist’s office.
Sit
, she said to me, and pointed to the chair. It had its bottom up, recliner-style, and I let myself collapse into it. My heart rattled inside my chest like a washing machine with a heavy load.

Rose dropped our backpack to the floor and studied the walls. The place had a sharp, clean smell. I could sniff out a faint medicine stink beneath it. I thought it was great lucky fortune that we had found a tattoo parlor of all places. A place where people went to willingly get their skin all punched up with millions of tiny holes would of course be able to help my foot. The woman came out with a small lunchbox. It had a red cross on it and looked like a toy doctor’s kit. She bent down and lifted my foot. She held it in her hand and inspected it like it was a hideous gift, all wrapped up and topped with a dingy bow.
Nice job
, she tugged the fucked-up bandage. Her stumpy, square fingers began undoing the knotted gauze. With every rough tug the cut pulsed. It was like it was hollering out inside my head, the terrible scream of a wounded foot.
You do this?
She gave Rose a smile. It was a tight crack across her face, it seemed to hurt her to do it. Rose was totally engrossed with the walls. She shook her head yes.
You’re a regular Nurse Mercy
, she said. It hurt when she pulled the fabric from my cut. The tiny web of gauze had begun to weave
itself into the skin. She tugged it away gently. I winced. The woman ignored me.

Who’s Nurse Mercy?
Rose asked. The woman stood, unraveled, bloody gauze dangling from her hand. She walked over to dump it into a safety-orange bin marked
Biohazard.
She glanced around the covered walls and finally stuck her hand out at a design.

Her. Rose of No Man’s Land.
Rose moved closer to get a better look and her mouth dropped open.

I’m Rose
, she said.
That’s me, that’s my name.
She reached out and pulled the plastic-covered sheet. The tacks that held it to the wall popped off and rolled across the floor.

Hey!
the lady snapped.
What are you doing! Don’t be a bitch! Why be a bitch?
But she sounded more tired than mad.

No, look
, Rose said. She held the sheet to her face.
I’m sorry, but look. Look. That’s me, I’m Rose. Look.
She bounded over to where I lay sprawled and wounded on the leatherette chair.
Look, Trisha, it’s me.

On the sheet chaotic with skulls and anchors and even a red little donkey with the words
kiss my ass
etched around its prominent butthole, I saw what Rose was talking about. It was a girl wearing some hat that was half nurse’s cap and half the veily thing nuns wore on their heads. It had a big red cross like the first aid lunchbox. But it was the face that was creepy. The girl’s hair fell in waves to right where Rose’s hair fell on her own face. The face was gaunt and spooky but also pretty. Her cheeks were pink and her big eyes looked like they could see the future and the future was both interesting and sad. It looked just like Rose. It had
her tiny mouth. She turned to the lady.

Her name is Rose?
The plasticky sheet sounded like a rainstorm when she shook it.

They call her Rose of No Man’s Land
, the tattoo lady said. Her hand was jammed onto her hip like she was holding the skeleton of her body together.
It’s from World War One. That’s what the nurses looked like, they wore those long habits and helped the men wounded on the battlefield. If they lived they would get these nurses tattooed on them. The nurses saved their life.

I know someone in the war now
, Rose said.
She’s a nurse. Or she helps the nurses.

The lady got back down to wounded-foot-level and cracked open the first aid lunchbox. I could smell the powdery makeup smell of her face.
I don’t think it’s the same thing anymore
, she said.
It’s a different time. It’s not that kind of war.

There’s no more Rose of No Man’s Lands?

The woman smiled.
Just you, I think.

It really does look like me, right? I’m not crazy?

It looks like you. But yes, you’re also crazy. What are you girls on?
She didn’t look at us. She had torn open a little foil packet with an alcoholc wipe squared inside it. She dabbed and pressed the thing onto my cut and a new, watery sting sharpened up and into my foot.

Ow, I said.

Sorry, babe. Gotta do it. You can take it.
She tipped my foot out and tried to wring alcohol from the wipe into the cut. She was clearing away blood and grime.
You’ve got glass in there
, she told me.

Let me see
, Rose crouched down, still clutching the tattoo
poster.

Right there.

Oooooh
, Rose made a puckered face, like she was sucking on a sour.
Poor Trisha
, she looked at me and I felt a charge that crowded out the stinging foot pain. My heart continued to slam. The lady clattered her hand around inside the lunchbox.

You’re Rose and you’re Trisha
, she stated. We nodded.
I’m Amber.

Amber
, we said in unison. She was holding a pair of tweezers, they glinted in the overhead light.

Rose of No Man’s Land?
She held the tweezers out to Rose.
Do you want to do the honors?

Yeah
, she said, clutching at the silver.
I’m wicked good at shit like this.
She looked up at me.
Okay? It’s okay?
I nodded. It seemed seriously right that Rose remove the glass from my foot. It felt like becoming blood sisters or something, something momentous and bonding. I flashed on the Chinese bathroom. It was another part of my body for Rose to visit.
Here
, she said, and thrust the poster at me.
Hold this.
I gazed at the drawing, tried to distract myself from the terrible feeling of the tweezers nudging into the cut. There were flowers with curling leaves. A giant man-eating rose with a pair of dice stuck in the center blossom. The words
sworn to fun, loyal to none
twined around a giant martini glass. Another design showed a banner curled around a sword. It read
fortune honors bravery.
That was deep. That was Rose.

Rose, You Should Get This One, I told her, pointing at the weapon. Only Tweezers Instead Of A Sword. Think
About It. The tattoo lady smiled.

No, I should get Rose
, she said. Her breath rolled off my toes. My heel stuck to her bare knee.

No Way, I said. I Should Get Rose. I rolled up the sleeve of my T-shirt and looked at my bare arm reflected in the mirror on the wall. Right There. A sharp, splitting feeling ran hot through my whole foot. I sunk my chewed-up nails so deep into the plump of my arm that I dented little curves into the skin. Rose brandished the tweezers, waving them in the air like a wand. A sliver of glass shone beneath smears of blood.

Buried treasure
, she said. I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I couldn’t believe I had walked around on that.

You’re My Nurse, I said. I Get Rose.

Really?
Rose asked. She looked so happy.
You would get me?
I nodded.

Like hell
, said Amber.
I don’t tattoo cracked-out shoeless teenage girls.

We don’t smoke crack!
Rose said, offended.
It’s crystal. It’s really good quality. I bet you’d like some.

Hmph
, Amber grunted. She retrieved a tube of something gloopy and glopped it onto the hole in my foot. It felt cool and soothing.
I bet I would too
, she said.
But also I don’t take drugs from cracked-out shoeless teenage girls.

Because You Like Them To Have All Their Drugs For Themselves? I asked. Rose laughed. She dropped the bit of glass into the biohazard bin with a plink you could hear. That fucker was big.

I am helping you kids
, Amber said.
Don’t fuck with me.
She took the tweezers back.

How are we fucking with you?
Rose demanded. She unzipped the backpack and pulled out the roll of money. The quarters had made it wet. Rose shook it off, started peeling individual bills from the murky green bundle.
Look, we got money. We’re paying customers.

Where’d you steal that from?
Amber said, glancing at the dough. She was gently placing squares of real gauze on top of my gloopy wound, sticking them into place with strips of white tape.

God, maybe I earned it. I’m a working person. I work at the mall.
She waggled the damp money.
It’s like two hundred dollars almost. How much for Trisha to get the Rose of Nowhereland tattoo?

No Man’s Land.

That’s Even Better, I said. No Man’s Land Is Better Than Nowhereland.

It would be a full two hundred dollars
, Amber said. She snapped the lunchbox shut.
At least. If I tattooed teenagers, which I don’t.
She looked down at my padded foot.
Where the fuck are your shoes?

A Waitress At The Chinese Restaurant Took Them, I said.

At Weyloon’s?
she asked. I nodded.
I bet she had no reason
, she said.
I bet she stole them right off your feet.

I shrugged. I Left Them In The Bathroom.

Amber shook her head.
You girls are trouble.
She looked down at Rose counting out piles of wet quarters onto the floor. The front door tinkled open.

Wooo yeah!
a guy crowed into the shop. His long legs took him up to the counter in two giant steps. He slapped
his meaty hands down onto a stack of black books.
Hey sweetheart.
He was talking to Amber.
The tattoo artist in? I want to get a four-leaf clover. A shamrock?

His friend was in the door behind him, chiming in.
Sweet! Sham-rock!
The smell of yeasty beer gushed out on hot breath and made me remember we had one Yikes left. I thought about going into the tattoo parlor bathroom with Rose and pounding it. That thought made me want a cigarette. Maybe there was a window we could smoke out of. Then we could do more crystal. We could leave Amber to tattoo shamrocks on the losers from Seamus O’Maniac’s and she could come fetch us from the bathroom when she was done. Was it even legal for us to be in the tattoo shop? Were they like bars where you had to be an adult? Some of the art on the walls was wicked pornographic. Bunches of big, rosy boobs and cranked-open legs. Some weird ones with ladies getting their head chopped off, and even a flag with a Nazi sign on it. The place felt a little creepy. The two dudes from the bar didn’t cheer it up.

No, the artist is gone for the day
, Amber said.
We were just closing up.