Rosalind never thought she was pretty. She hated her freckles. She hated her hair, red and frizzy and always looking like a rat's nest. She hated her body. Sometimes she thought she was too skinny. Most of the time she thought she was too fat. She wore big sweaters and shirts all through high school, trying to hide her body and what puberty had done to it. Now her friends were gone to college or just gone, and she was here. She moved into her parents' basement and started to work the late shift at the Co-Op, running the register and selling gas, oil and pop until they close up at 2am.
She had seen a picture in Steph's Rolling Stone of Siouxie and the Banshees, looking like a black and white movie, even in color. So romantic. So beautiful. She could never hear the music, because they didn't have cable. She knew what she thought it sounded like, and some nights she would start the cassette she bought from a truck stop on a vacation trip to Rapid City once. Some nights, she would put it in her Walkman, mix some of Dad's whiskey with a can from her stash of Old Coke and replay it over and over.
Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red rose?
Would he offer me his mouth?
Yes.
Some of the songs sound more than a little like the Time-Life Songs of the '50s collection, and they were always part of the playlist when she went to parties, along with .38 Special and Lynyrd Skynyrd. She hated to go, she hated the guys she'd end up going home with, and she hated how they never called afterwards.
It was another night at the Co-Op when he came. It was supposed to be Alicia's night, but she and Billy were seeing a big show in Sioux Falls and so she was covering the shift. She had the racks filled up and the wiper racks filled up, so she had nothing to do but listen to the radio play "Jump" and "New Moon on Monday" and "Billy Jean" over and over and accept money and comments from the farmer boys filling up their pickups. She had died her jeans black and wore a black ribbon choker that had been her bedstemor's, but wore the faded pink pearl-button blouse rather than black because she didn't want to poke holes in it with her "Hi, I'm Roz" nametag.
He drove a black 60s Mustang with a few rusty scratches down the side. He filled up the tank, then came in, asked for hard-pack Marboros and dropped a $20 on the counter. He had spiked blonde hair and a black t-shirt and a great leather overcoat that flapped around him like a cape.
She worked up some courage. "Y'know, you look a lot like Billy Idol."
"Tosser nicked the look from me." He replied in a British accent, like Sting in that Brimstone movie Steph found on USA once. "The git was much better in Generation X." He tapped the pack against the counter and walked out, lighting up as he went.
Will he offer me his mouth?
Yes.
She saw him every night or two over the next few weeks. Normally it was "Fill up the tank. Pack or Marboros." Sometimes he'd throw down a map and frustratedly ask for directions to Pipestone or Glencoe and she'd trace the route with a red Bic pen. Then he'd light up, leave a fresh track of rubber outside, and be gone for another few days.
And she would close, go home, get something to drink (less her dwindling stack of Coke, more the blended whiskey her Dad must be noticing by now), lie down on her worn couch and think of him.
Will he offer me his hunger?
Yes.
She wore the black blouse this night because of her Great Uncle Karl. He had climbed up into the the hay loft for a rest and some shade after walking beans. Uncle Sigurd climbed up to wake him and couldn't. The funeral wasn't going to be for a few days, so that all the relatives could fly in. The Army would provide the stone, because he had fought against the Japanese in the Aleutians, and the American Legion was getting a trumpeter and honor guard in from Marshall. The coroner said it was just a stroke, that he was just old.
That night, the British blonde man -- she thought of him as "Billy" -- came in and paused before asking for his brand of smokes. "That's a new look on you, luv. Is there a meanin' to it, or just flyin' a look?"
"My ... my uncle. He died."
"Oh." He paused for a second. "Sorry. I'm sure he was a good bloke. I'll take Marboros."
Again, will he offer me his hunger?
Yes!
She began to keep a Marlboro hard pack next to the register, so when he came in, with his cold blue eyes and high cheekbones, she'd be ready. The three minutes he spends between filling up his car -- now an old Porsche he climbs through the window like Dukes of Hazzard -- are the highlight of her nights. He's down to t-shirt and black jeans most of the time, because the long coat doesn't work with the door.
"So, you're Roz, then?"
"Yeah." She felt uncomfortable, having him stare at he nametag on her chest, but she stuck it out all the more.
"That's sort for something, innit? No parent looks at their squigly thing and says 'This one's Roz', right?"
"Rosalind. It's short for Rosalind." She blushed, bringing out her freckles. "I'm named after an aunt."
"That's missin' a trick, though. A thorny little beauty such as yourself should have a proper name. Rose. You should be called Rose."
"What do they call you?"
He smiled. "They called me William when I first came out, but I prefer Spike." He again flipped open his Zippo and lit up as he walked away.
Thorny. She reminded herself that he called her thorny.
And will he starve without me?
Yes!
One night, he came in with a book. A book with a worn leather cover, like Tanta Anna's big black Bible with all the pictures and the birthdates of all her cousins written in it.
A cigarette dangles from his mouth as he started to talk. "I picked up this book. I was told it has what I need, but I don't know the lingo. Think you could help me, luv?"
She took a look. It looked Danish to her, but despite some prodding irom her bedstemor, she never got much farther than uff da. She thought of a few names who might be able to help. She wanted him to think well of her. She wanted him to think of her. She wanted him.
She found out the next day that someone had broken into the Lutheran Church in Lake Benton. She never heard what was taken.
And does he love me?
Yes.
This night is different. His car, now a black 60s T-Bird with suicide doors, was smoking and sputtering next to the pumps, and he cursed and pounded on the hood.
She walked out and waited for a pause in the pounding and cursing before speaking. "I think it's taken its last breath."
"Bugger." He stood still, barely breathing.
"Do you need to be somewhere?" She had worn her black denim skirt and black cowboy boots that night, with the black blouse and the choaker. She even wore the matching red silk bra and panties, the color of the shirt he usually wore over the black T-shirt. "I could give you a ride someplace."
"You'd do that?"
"It'd be my pleasure."
She closed up half an hour early, walking home quick to get her K-Car, then inviting him again for a ride. He didn't give directions, so she started driving south out of town, past the school. She grabbed her tape out of the glove compartment and put it in.
"Not this bollocks!" He reached into his shirt pocket and switched cassettes. Intense drumming, almost tribal, followed by buzzsaw guitar. "I bloody hate Meat Loaf."
The lyrics hit her heart like a key to a lock. Kind of strange. Like a stormy sea. That's it exactly. She pulled up on a bluff overlooking the lake and listened to the tape, which switched to other great songs she had never heard. She would ask for the title, and sip from his flask, and he would answer. Buzzcocks. Ramones. Television. Talking Heads. Southern Death Cult. One song started with feedback and noise and sped up to a dangerous velocity. When I get to the bottom, will I see you again?
"Song's the Beatles', luv, but the singer's Siouxie Sioux. Like your indians here, I gather." She turned up the song, rolled down the windows and stepped out to dance. She didn't know how they danced to this in London or New York, so she just swayed and shook her head. She felt him come up behind her. Do you don't you want me to make you? She leaned back into him. The night was hot and humid, and she knew dew was covering her boots as she moved her feet, making them wet. The wind was light, enough to make her feel comfortable and to keep the mosquitos away. He swept his arm across her and her buttons ripped off her good black blouse, which fell open and revealed her red brassiere. She turned toward him and she felt herself lifted onto the hood of her car. Siouxie stopped, but he kept going as a a new song started. She heard fabric tear and she wrapped her legs around him, hooking her left boot with her right. His tongue slipped into her mouth, then he kissed down, down, down her neck.
On a hot summer night would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
Her vision closed like a tunnel until all she saw was the full moon. She tasted an iron taste in her mouth, and everything went black.