Young Writers Society

Prose. Needs a lot of work. How the heck do you format? Some of the formatting is screwed up. *eyes cross in frustration* The poem part doesn't actually look like that.

Things To Do To Ourselves While Young and Uncertain

(All once upon a University Food Court, in a dirty old city)

01

[food court belles]

The three of us stood behind the coffee station when there were no customers, leaning on the wall. The queens of customer service: we wore our red uniforms tied tight and our black caps tilted to the side. We chewed gum.

I mopped the floors and made submarine sandwiches. The ingredients were my mantra:

Want mayo/bleu cheese?

What kind of cheese? Swiss/American/Provolone?

Lettuce/tomato/onion?

I, Cara, was a jam poet. I repeated my song for every customer.

Chanel worked the smoothie station. She had short hair that she styled in curls around her face, her wiry hair straightened every month. Handsome men with black skin that gleamed leaned over the counter and called her name.

“I don’t know.” she said to them, tapping her long fingernails on the glass between her and the customer.

The third royal food court member was Lucida, with her accent that curled around and sang as sweetly as samba. She made the tacos and the pizza, and her hair frizzed by the heat of the oven, a sheen of sweat on her mocha latte skin.

We shuffled behind the counters, carried buckets of ice for the frozen yogurt machine and sang reggaeton to the boxes of fruit the men delivered. Work was tiring, but we had a court to oversee. Before coming in, we put on red lipstick and smacked our lips. We slid on large rings so eyes followed our hands as we handed them their food.

A lovely smile for the customer:

How can we help you?

02

[I work

real hard

for my money]

“And don’t you forget it.” Tasha said to the grill man, who always stayed quiet at the food court hamburger station, except for when he crept out and told her she did nothing all ding-dong day.

She was the cashier and sat on her swivel chair at her counter. She touched the bright buttons on the screen and handed out plastic bags to people. Under silky wigs she wore atop her head was a silky soft brown skin; she was of the big and beautiful sort and just into her second decade, her body all curves and no angles.

She often said she was not that smart.

“You ah sit on yah big bo’m all day. Why don’ you refill them coffee machines? Why don’ you sweep th’ floor front mah station?” the grill man patronized, as Tasha sat on her swivel chair picking at her manicure.

“Get back to your grill!” she snapped at him, not in the mood, not that day. She could see the three food court queens watching from the other side of the glass.

She wanted to talk to them, the three younger girls who went to clubs with her. She bought them Red Sunsets and Rum-n-Cokes and they danced until three o’clock together before hailing the taxi.

She had taught them how to drink tequila the right way, her little worker bees: Lick the spot in between your thumb and forefinger, sprinkle some salt there; lick the salt, slide down the shot, then suck the sour juices of a lemon.

And let it burn.

The cashier and the food court girls, toil in the daytime, laugh away the night. She knew how to do it. She knew.

But now she needed to talk serious with them, as people sometimes need to do.

03

[girls talk a lot because we do all these things to ourselves]

Tasha left her counter and entered our domain.

Chanel, Lucida and I were leaning up against the wall behind the coffee station. There was no one around but the employees, and we had finished all the cleaning and food prep to be done on a Saturday.

Tasha played with the potato chip bags on the rack beside her as she spoke to us.

“We all going out tonight?” she asked. Every Saturday night, as tradition called for. All three of us nodded.

“Y’know, mmm, I don’t know if I can wear those jeans I like. I’ve been all bloated lately.” Tasha mumbled, and Chanel laughed right away.

“That’s cause you have me make a strawberry milkshake for you everyday, and sit out there at your counter sucking at it.”

“No!” Tasha smiled, the appealing gap in her teeth showing, and her moroseness was momentarily vanished. “Chanel, don’t be like that. I mean…”

Her tone rose and fell; we could tell something was up. Suddenly, the day didn’t seem so dull. We all leaned forward and pounced upon her drama.

“Well, I mean, ah,” Tasha flipped a Lays bag up and down, “I just needed to know from you guys, hear what you had to say about this one thing. What exactly are all the symptoms of being pregnant?”

And the switch was flipped; we all started talking in double speed.

“Tashie, you think you’re pregnant?” I asked, my mantra out of my mind, my arms folding over my chest.

“I thought you were trying to get something going with that girl you liked - we talked about this.” Chanel said, nodding her head fast as she spoke. “You broke up with that man of yours two months ago.”

“Has it been two months since your last period?” I asked.

“Are your boobs sensitive?” Lucida demanded.

Tasha laid her hands across her chest. “Yes, but-”

“That could mean she’s getting her period.” I pointed out. “Our bodies are always screwy, us females. Jumping to conclusions doesn’t help a girl.”

“Have you been stressing? Stress sometimes can make you not get it.” Lucida snatched the Lays bag out of Tasha’s hands and gave her a cross look. “You’ve been worrying about getting fired lately, Tashie.”

“Stress does that?” She stared at all of us with wide eyes, then settled somewhat. “I’m really not that worried. It’s just really… bothersome.”

“Oh, tell me about it.” I rolled my eyes and took her hand. “We can keep bringing up this and that, but if you really want to stop worrying, to breathe a sigh of relief-”

“Girl, you are not pregnant.” Chanel started up, still drifting in her own incredulous thoughts, but I held out my hand and demanded silence.

“…If you want to breath a sigh of relief, Tash, then the best way to get this out of your mind is to take a pregnancy test.”

“But I’m working and I can’t get out for awhile.” She didn’t have her license. She took buses everywhere. Her life was in-tune with the NFTA schedule.

“That’s okay, I can get you one on my break.” I assured.

Chanel and Lucinda hushed, looking at me with faces set on skepticism: how do three barely-in-college girls without cars go out and get one of those relics, without being seen, without a great hassle?

My answer in the past was the internet. The internet was the modern Ra, who dispensed us with light, knowledge and opportunities.

Six months before, I had found myself gnawing off my cuticles over my lateness. Instead of waiting with the anxiety in my back pocket for an indeterminate number of days, I had looked up pharmacy websites and ordered a pregnancy test. It had arrived the next day and I had opened up the packet, hiding under my dorm room desk as, to my surprise, I slipped out two sticks. Apparently two came in a box.

The remainder stick was shoved into the back of my pants drawer, still in its light pink wrapping. And there it was today, where I could easily walk to it from work to fetch for a friend in need.

I relayed the story to them. Chanel and Lucida raised their eyebrows at me, at such a bizarre thing I had done, at a situation they themselves had not experienced. But Tasha was intrigued and rapped her knuckles on the counter.

“When’s your break?”

04

[an ode to mistakes every human being makes]

When the clock crawled to three-thirty

I took to the campus walkways.

My dorm room was mottled with dirty clothes and I

shoved my hand in the pants drawer. There it is.

I sit on my desk chair for a moment

and think about the rules I follow.

We humankind have manuals

to be happy but not to suffer.

Drink this amount and have a

friend to watch your back and

work and drive and volunteer

and when you do things with

men you must wear and take

all the right sort of items that

you learned about back in the

nurse’s office in eighth grade.

But things still go wrong, yes,

still go wrong, even when you

follow the manual right down

to the last word and the last

recommendation and you’re

left to suffer like humans do.

05

[two pink lines mean decisions]

I walked over to the cash register. Tasha had a customer, but I slunk behind the counter and slipped the little wrapped packet underneath her arm.

When everyone was out of sight she slipped off into the crusty little employee bathroom in the stock room. I stood at my station and watched over the sneeze-guard as she came back five minutes later, falling back onto her swivel chair.

I saw her casting glances to me over her shoulder. I walked over and she turned her gaze down onto her lap, under the counter.

Cradled in her hand was the test. Selfishly, the first thoughts in my head were:

Egh, she peed on that.

“Cara, what does this mean?” she asked, holding it up into sight. I pushed her hands down again, before any customers saw.

I peered under the counter and glanced at the little white depression on the stick. Two pink lines, one bright, the other faded but still there.

Mine only had sported one line.

“That’s positive.” I told her.

She looked over at me and nothing was registered on her face. “What’s that mean?”

“It, eh, means you’re pregnant, Tash.”

She continued to stare at me, except now she looked wounded. A customer was coming, so I disappeared momentarily. After she cashed them out I came back.

“What are you going to do?” I asked her, putting my hand on her shoulder.

Turning to look down at her fingernails, she breathed in once, twice, and then the tears came. They spotted her eyelashes and trailed down her round cheeks, and even as customers came to check out with their wrapped up tacos and their smoothies she failed to collect herself and I stood there awkwardly, glancing off to the left.

When everything was clear again I wrapped my arms around her. “Oh, Tashie. Does this mean I’m a godmother?”

“No. I can’t.” She broke down entirely, putting her face in her hands, her body hunching over the cash register. “I can’t. I don’t have the money. I don’t have the place. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

“It’s okay. I understand.” I picked up a cleaning cloth from under the counter and wiped at her face. She fell to pieces, and the customers stayed away.

06

[friends4friends4lll]

Lucida and Chanel’s shift was over and had gone home. I remained to close up the place.

I snuck out into the back of the building, huddling myself behind the dumpster. My only fear was that my boss Linda would come out back to smoke too many cigarettes, like she routinely did.

Under the smell of old bread and dustpan filth I called Lucida.

Tashie’s got herself into a situation.

You’re all meeting her at the club before I do, tonight.

Don’t let her do anything stupid.

Watch out for her.

Then Linda came with the cigarettes and I fled back to my station.

07

[WE WANT TO DO WHAT WE WANT, BUT WE DON’T WANT THE CONSEQUENCES]

Tasha went out before Lucida and Chanel reached her.

When the three of us were all finally there, we found her in the back of the club, too drunk to walk, clinging onto a chair. It was only midnight, but she was far past coherency. Bright lights fell over her and the music was too loud for us to hear her wails.

Which was a blessing.

We picked her up, took off her high heels, and hailed a taxi.

08

[Baby, baby,

red red fire

is what you breathe]

She quit crossing into our domain, and we didn’t go out anymore on Saturdays, but she smiled at the customers and everything seemed alright. I think she was upset that we stopped her self-destruction, that we found the bus to take her to the clinic, that everyday at work we had advised over every decision she ever made.

You fall down, you pick yourself up.

You fall down, you pick yourself up.

You fall down, you pick yourself up.

People try to help people, but people don’t know what they’re doing.

We the queens smile at you in our uniforms:

How can anyone help you?

*last title are lyrics from "Baby Doll" by Cat Power