Zhanna Slor - At the End of the World, Turn Left

Does being an adult have a smell?

Being existentially lost has a smell; the room is drowning in it. Like grease and beer and sourness. I breathe out of my mouth, get closer. Hakol le’tova, I remind myself. Everything happens for a reason. There’s probably a reason for all this too. I just may not understand what that is for a while.

My glance falls on a young girl who’s wearing a relatively new t-shirt and is staring into space, bored. I head towards her first. “Hey, I like your shirt,” I tell her pointing at it.

The girl finally looks in my direction, aggressively confused, septum piercing hanging crookedly from her nostrils. “You like Reverend Glasseye?” she asks, studded brows arched upwards, suspicious.

“I do. What’s your favorite song? Mine is ‘Sleep Sweet Countrymen’.” She relaxes a little now that I’ve brought up a relatively unknown New Orleans band that is popular among train-hoppers but continues to eye me suspiciously while I take out my phone, its screen stuck on my sister’s face. “Have you seen this girl?”

“Are you a narc or something?”

“No.”

“A cop then?”

I shake my head again, for some reason embarrassed. I used to get confused for a train-hopper all the time, and now I look like a cop? Sure, my jeans are new, not bought for two dollars at Salvation Army, but it’s not exactly like I am wearing a goddamn suit. My boots I’ve had for five years, at least. I never dye my hair or paint my nails; I haven’t completely changed.

I stop this train of thought. Why am I trying to justify myself? I take in a deep breath, try to remember I am twenty-five years old, with a boyfriend who loves me. That I speak three languages and can wake up at eight a.m. without an alarm. This insecurity I once had, the one that allowed me to confuse being part of a subculture with being part of an actual family, belongs to another person I can hardly relate to, most days.

“I’m not a narc, ” I explain. “I’m her sister.”

The girl looks to her right, where there is a redhead in suspenders and a stained striped shirt, with five piercings at least that I can count at first glance. He reminds me of an aggressive Doberman who has spent all day playing in the dirt. For a moment I wish I’d left my septum piercing in, not taken it out years back after getting too many strange looks in Jerusalem, where I’d lived before the kibbutz. Kids would quite literally point and laugh at me on the bus. David hated it. And what is a piercing anyway, if not a message to outsiders, another human version of butt-sniffing? In one country, it could mean anger or confidence, in another, it looks incredibly silly.

Things that work in some places do not work in others.

“Is she bothering you, Mary?” Doberman boy asks, stepping forward. Unquestionably the alpha male of the group. His black boots echo against the linoleum floor, and his glance is hard, like a wall.

“Nah, she’s just looking for someone,” Mary tells him, to my relief.

“I’m…” I struggle to think of an explanation that wouldn’t silence them, then find myself babbling nervously. “Look, I don’t live here, I’m in town for a few days and want to say hi. Someone told me she might be hanging around here.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to be found,” Mary says.

“Maybe I don’t care,” I explain, getting annoyed. I know that train-hoppers don’t think much of outsiders, but it’s not like I’m asking for their friendship or something. I put my phone back into my coat and look from Mary to the Doberman, but they’re mute, wide-eyed. What am I doing still standing there, letting them push me around? I have three more bars to look through, and that’s not including the ones farther out from Center Street. I am about to give up and head to the next dive when I smell Rose again. Turning, I see her behind the bar pouring out a line of shots. Her eyes grow large at the sight of me. Large, but duller than before, like some spark has gone. “You came!” she says, looking behind her to a large clock above the beer cooler. “You’re really early.”

I don’t tell her I have no intention of watching her play. “Can you come outside with me for a sec?”

She looks around the bar, which is surrounded by several patrons holding out wallets. “You got another cigarette?” she asks. I nod. Rose whispers something to the other guy bartending, who seems annoyed but also resigned to this sort of behavior from Rose. His glasses shimmer from the bar lights, but for a moment it looks like he is watching me with some recognition. I wonder if I know him from somewhere. Then he waves Rose off, and she follows me outside without putting her coat on.

“Do you know a guy named Tristan? Probably a train-hopper, newish to town?” I ask Rose, once we get outside. We stand under the awning to avoid getting wet. Snow is now swirling in small little tornadoes around the orange glow of streetlamps up and down Bremen St., making me shiver in my shitty coat. Why didn’t anyone remind me to bring something warmer?

“Sure. Tall. Sticky fingers,” Rose says, waving her fingers around. She lights the cigarette and exhales happily. “Why? You looking for drugs or something?”

My stomach drops into my chest. I remember how sparkling her eyes had looked earlier in the day, and figure she must have had experience getting drugs from this guy. Which means he could be an addict, or that Anna could be. “No, no. I heard he might be with Anna.”

Rose’s large hazel eyes grow even more. But her face doesn’t quite match her expression. “No shit?”

“Do you know where he’s staying?” I ask.

“Nah. Could be anywhere. I’m sure she’s fine,” Rose says. She puts a hand over mine when she sees my face. “Anna isn’t stupid enough to get into that shit.”

I frown. I am no longer sure of that at all. “And you never saw them together?”

Rose directs her gaze away from me and towards the ground, which is littered with cigarette butts. “Okay, you got me. I did see them at Bremen once or twice. I didn’t think they were dating though.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to worry you.”

I can’t decide if she is telling me the truth or not. Maybe she has her own reasons for keeping it from me, but it isn’t like she is going to explain them if she hasn’t already. Is it jealousy? Maybe she liked Tristan and he wasn’t interested in her? “Then why did you tell me to go to Valhalla to look for her?” I ask, still perplexed.

“That’s where all the crusties go,” she says, nonchalantly. “She wasn’t there?”

“No.”

“What about Liam? Did he say anything?” she asks.

Then it hits me. I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. Her reticence has something to do with Liam. Of course. Did she send me there to spy on him?

“Nothing nice,” I grunt. “Or useful. Not that I would expect more from him.”

Rose watches me intently when I deliver this bit of news, then licks her lips. “Mash, you look beat,” she says. Heavy bass combinations start vibrating through the windows; a band has taken over the stage, tuning their instruments. “Maybe you should just go to sleep. Whatever the deal is, it can wait until tomorrow.” She then does something to surprise me: she takes out a giant loop of keys from the pocket of her jeans. “Here. Meet me at my house. Take a shower, sleep, whatever. I’ll be back around eleven.” Then she pauses, and looks to Bremen, then back at me with a smile. “Well, unless the night goes well. Did you see that banjo player? Mmm. ”

At the mere thought of a bed, I feel so tired my eyes begin to close. The long day is really getting to me. I have a hard time sleeping on planes, so I barely napped coming here. “You still on Center and Weil? In the upstairs unit?”