Meant to Last
The night ends the way it always ends. A pickup truck’s headlights backlighting three men. They wield a baseball bat, fists, boots, a tire iron. It gets harder and harder for me to see through a haze of blood, splinters, and tears.
I know I am dying, even as I know soon, I will live again.
***
You’d think that if you had to repeat the same day over and over, at least it would be a day you didn’t sleep in. Nope. I don’t even get ten hours of consciousness in the loop. My alarm goes off on my shitty Cricket phone, and it’s half past two in a grimy room that reeks of ditch weed and cum.
This day used to be decades ago. I don’t know why this started. I woke up on a day I’d mostly forgotten. This time of my life was lost in a void.
An argument in the next room. The same one I’ve heard thousands of times. My boyfriend’s voice louder, petulant. “They loved me at the interview, I just failed the piss test.”
His father’s voice fills in every gap, lightly accented, and raspy from hand-rolled cigarettes. “I give you almost every dollar I have, I sleep on the couch so you can have a place to stay…for what? You said you could pass the test.”
Of course, he blames me. “He didn’t pick me up on time. I was sweating buckets. I drank a fucking drink, okay, that was going to get my piss clean. But this dipshit had to take a late lunch and the drink went nowhere except my fucking pit stains, okay?”
His dad doesn’t blame me, but doesn’t defend me either. He puts up with me. He hopes that I am going to realize I am a woman and make my boyfriend into a normal man, with a wife and kids and a real job on the horizon.
Sometimes I engage them, join the argument or try to break it up. Most times I don’t. Nothing I say seems to make a dent.
I shrug and put on clean clothes, although they’re contaminated by my unwashed skin. I slept in my binder—I knew I shouldn’t, but some days back then, it was the only thing that made me feel safe. Sometimes I even wore my steel-toed boots to bed. My wardrobe, stuffed in a backpack, is loose-fitting and drab. The kind of clothes that fade well into a corner while my boyfriend’s dealer (and sometimes roommate) works up to hitting his boyfriend. My hair is dramatic, though: layers of bruise colors, from fresh to faded. Enough piercings in my face to delay an MRI. The days I brave the bathroom, I love to stare at my fresh young face.
Grabbing my keys and wallet hidden in the closet makes me grimace as I raise my arm, thinking longingly of my deodorant trapped in the bathroom; might as well be in Siberia, I don’t want to walk past them to get there. And in Tucson, deodorant never lasts long anyway.
Hand on the doorknob, listening for the right lull. I manage to hustle out with a mumble, and without a glance behind me. I need to break through.
***
In this dilapidated landmark tower, now low-income senior housing, I might be the youngest person. In my future, the building becomes something different, luxury condos, office space, something with a lot of steel and windows. In the future, I won’t make it back to Tucson much, but I’ll look for it every time.
My boyfriend lives with his surprisingly-old father—or maybe not that surprising, now that I have processed how much older my boyfriend is than I was. Back in the 90s, “legal” was all that mattered, and he waited until my 18th birthday had passed so I was no longer “jailbait.” Remember, this was the time of websites that counted down until underage actresses would be legal to fuck. The ball dropping in the Times Square of Natalie Portman’s presumptive virginity being up for grabs by schlubs on Geocities.
A rotating crew of one or two other queer men stay with him on the twin mattresses lined up on the floor; no sheets, no pillowcases, just layers of stiff blankets we hide under when we want to fuck.
Yes, I am one of those squalidly-surviving men who don’t officially live anywhere. My boyfriend is not allowed to live in the building; by extension, I am so unwelcome in the building that I was never sure if it was the last time I’d be able to sign myself in.
I sign out, this time, every time, to an eye-roll.
I jiggle my car door and ease it up a breaking hinge to get in. It doesn’t lock anymore, but it’s never been stolen. It never will be stolen, if the future unrolls in the expected way. The tape deck will be stolen out of it in a few years, but, well…it is just a tape deck. Not even a CD player. This is a little while before iPods, but a long while after CDs. I work at a used record store; the CDs aren’t even shiny anymore, usually. When someone sells us a pristine CD, I feel like I can see into their future, and it involves escaping Tucson and at last, ironically, being able to afford air conditioning.
I stop and get a sandwich on the way to work. That’s about a third of my $14 for the day. Take it to eat in the midtown park’s recently-repaved parking lot. I could sit at a picnic table, but that’s even hotter than my car. I have a half-full water bottle from yesterday in my cup holder. Drinking plasticky water the temperature of tea really takes me back.
I chuck my sandwich wrapper on the floor of the passenger side, because why not, and go check my email at the library tucked in the corner of the park, a hidden oasis. Somewhere to cool off for approximately 45 minutes, although sometimes I let myself be late to work. (Why not?)
The first time I lived this day, I was still a reader, despite the haze of pot and abuse. Since the loop began, I usually borrow something ambitious that I’d never quite been ready to face over the years. I’m almost at the end of Empire of the Senseless, dipping in throughout my work shift and meal break. I feel a little guilty, borrowing books that I will never return. Will those books go missing in some kind of library of the multiverse? Or does my death transport them back onto this exact shelf, crisp and ready to get me through the next ever-darkening evening?
The ironic part of this errand is that I could check my email at “home,” but my boyfriend is always logged in to a slightly-less-expensive knockoff of World of Warcraft. I’m not allowed to touch his computer. He sits there as the hours redden his eyes, hunched over the keyboard, smoking, scowling, drinking two-liters of Dr. Pepper right out of the bottle. How he hasn’t died by the time I get to my future is amazing. I starved myself for years and will end up diabetic. He pumped his veins full of sludge and has a vibrant fucking life. He ended up, of course, with the lucrative job, lovely wife, and adorable baby. My deepest fears confirmed, that he did not think of me as a man at all, that he wanted to be what his father wanted him to be, that he really wanted a woman and everything easy and conventional, with hashtag “blessed” slathered all over.
Anyway, I check my email at the library most days, because I’ve noticed that sometimes, I get different messages. I always hope that this Nigerian prince or that limited-time offer will have a secret message from Bill Murray, or Natasha Lyonne at least. Never happens. And nothing from my friends or family. My boyfriend has driven everyone away, although I didn’t see it like that, the first time I lived this day. The first time, it was unremarkable that no one was writing me back, that my inbox was barren, full of automated messages and notifications. Every time I relive this day, though, it gets a little bleaker.
I get to work, and I could tell you about how the afternoon and evening goes. The 41 different customers and which CDs they buy (among other items, including hair dye, lascivious stickers, and DVDs, a format just coming into its prime, and never quite replaced by Blu-Ray as expected). What my coworkers chat about. The store manager stinking up the bathroom in the back of the store by the time clock where I punch in. The incense the assistant manager lights to drown out the smell. The endcap I create out of posters for an album (I’ve created everything from a crooked poster stapled bare onto the wood framing a tray of CDs, leaning into the punk, anti-capitalist aesthetic, to an assemblage of caution tape and layers of jagged, feathered posters threatening to take over the whole aisle. It’s oddly soothing work). The music my coworkers put on; eventually, I get a turn to put something on. This is another detail that shifts with each loop: it seems to vary based on subtle interactions throughout the day; if I play a bright, poppy CD, that might change the decision my goth coworker makes an hour later, to spite me. If I chat about a movie, someone might put on its soundtrack. The assistant manager puts on “Closing Time” at the end of the night, every night—not just this endlessly repeating night; it was his schtick.
I don’t think any of those things matter as far as why the day is repeating, or how to break the cycle. I’ve really tried every kind of interaction I could think of.
I’ve tried calling in sick, but my boyfriend has always kicked me out to end up somewhere on the streets of Tucson with a broken-down car, and of course, the truck finds me.
I’ve tried leaving work early, but my shitty car doesn’t start. I can call my boyfriend, on his landline, because during this entire four to midnight shift, he never seems to leave his dad’s apartment. He always says he’ll pick me up. But never shows, or at least, not before the day’s over and I die and live again. I’ve tried calling my dad, AAA, whatever. Only one tow company ever picks up, and they don’t have any availability until it’s too late, and my dad does usually answer, but always says he can’t talk right now, try back later after work; when I do that, it goes straight to voicemail.
There is no version of this that ends up with me able to get out of the parking lot before ten after midnight. Except on foot, and I know how that goes.
I’ve tried walking every direction, away from everywhere I went during that day. Just walking and sweating in the Arizona sun, cooling off a little after dark, but not much. Finding places to hide. Overheated and hunted. Most storefronts mysteriously closed. Nowhere that stays open late enough. Even the 24-hour Albertsons and Circle K are closed for floor cleaning that night. According to the hand-scrawled note on the door, at least; the disturbing fact that both appear to be written in the same handwriting has not escaped me.
Every day, I make it until a little after midnight, and then they find me.
I always have $14 when I wake up, cash; no credit card, and my debit card is overdrawn. Just like the financially abusive situation with my boyfriend’s dad, most of my income goes to him too. Not just today; throughout our whole relationship. When we will end up getting kicked out of his dad’s place, I will pay most of the rent. When I will luck into a free two-week vacation, I have to go with about $40 to my name because he needed money to buy a wolf pup, I shit you not.
$14 goes further in the past. It’s enough to buy me a couple meals, or take the city bus anywhere, or theoretically a short jaunt on the Greyhound or the Amtrak. But if I can make it downtown to the station, they have mysteriously closed up, even though the buses are supposed to run all hours and the first train would be at 4 a.m.
I’ve tried driving, just cruising past my work instead of pulling into the doomed parking lot, but my engine always gives out at some point before sunset, and I’ve never gotten far. At least, not far enough.
And then there’s hitchhiking. No one picks me up. I feel like a ghost. I think anyone I hadn’t really interacted with that day can’t even see me, and that I can’t go anywhere I didn’t go that day, either. I still don’t understand the rules, though. Maybe it’s nightmare rules.
I have called every number in my shitty Cricket phone, and it’s always a dead end, if they even pick up. Most of my “contacts” seem to barely remember me, or to pity me. I have even called a few numbers that I somehow remember from my future. No luck there, either; I’ve yet to find a thread that convinces them to save me, although certainly, my future friends and exes are a little intrigued by my promises of stock market fortunes and juicy gossip. Maybe eventually I’ll break through.
***
Today, I’ve decided to take a different tack. My remaining $9 after the sandwich is more than enough to buy a gas can and enough gasoline to do the trick. It would be enough to buy a lighter too, but there are plenty in the display case by the register that I can pocket. I choose a novelty one that says “fuck you, you fucking fuck.”
In my past life, I never stole shit. Now, what does it matter? (To answer the obvious question about my limited funds, I have, on previous days, tried stealing from the register, and even, lowest of the low, from the charity box by the register where people drop in loose change on the honors system. I am always caught, detained by the assistant manager, made to perform a disgusting sexual favor, and then let go, no richer than I began. I wish I hadn’t tried this as many times as I have; I think I must be losing days off my future every time.)
I know the route their truck takes into the parking lot. They always stop in the same place, although of course, if I take off running in the other direction, they just catch me. But there’s a spot they will go, all things being equal. I take my meal break at around nine thirty. It’s dark and there’s only tweakers around. No one cares what I’m doing.
I pour methodically, then stash the gas can back in the trunk.
I head back into the record store, wiping my fingers on my ripped jeans. The metalhead couple leaning on the trade counter, antsy from withdrawal as they try to eke out a little cash, talk shit about me. “Look at his hair. Or is it a he/she?” Sometimes, I get an “It’s Pat!”
Tonight, if instead of buying gas, I’d gone to grab fast food at the only place that’s open, or open to me (and it’s always tempting; this young body can turn anything into fuel and beauty), I would have met the men in the pickup for the first time. For the first time this day.
I did always keep a vague memory of this encounter; it had stuck with me, although whether the day had originally unfolded with a second encounter is lost to the mists of time. Obviously, I couldn’t have died from it, and I’m sure I’d remember even being threatened or injured. Queerbashing deaths were in the news all the time, back then. I was always very conscious of the risk of being seen.
The first time I met them, they were a looming threat. These guys have baseball bats, and have already started getting liquored up. There’s shouting, and swerving to follow me, but no beating happens, not then, not before midnight.
It’s not that the future is less homophobic and transphobic, exactly, but it’s been startling to relive how overt it used to be. Even a fellow clerk who I literally will know in the future to be bisexual rolls her eyes and deems all kinds of annoyances “so gay.”
The closing routine is odd. In the future, even in the near future, I’ll work at jobs that feel more like a family, and at night, we’ll make sure we get to each others’ cars safely, that everyone has a ride, that no one’s being followed.
As I leave the record store, though, we have to examine each other’s bags after locking the door, standing on the sidewalk in front of the facade. Peering into tampons, chewing gum, dental floss, whatever detritus. This pageantry of people who are poor as fuck policing each other’s possible theft of an item that, at best, might help them afford lunch or an ounce. I rub my fingers over the stolen lighter in my pocket nervously, but of course, it’s just a bag check, not a pat-down. It’s no wonder that after that affront to our common humanity, we go our separate ways in silence.
I’m parked towards the back of the lot. I liked it that way; if I wanted to eat or read on my break, I didn’t want the clerks who smoke outside to scrutinize my off-the-clock life. But that means everyone else is long gone before I try to start my car.
I’ve tried changing this outcome. I’ve tried parking right up front. Asking for a ride. I’ve tried delaying someone for almost half an hour with dumb chitchat, everything. It never works out. I will never be so alone as I was during this time.
Anyway, I pull my shitty Cricket phone out of my bag, and pretend to make a call, leaning into its glow like a depressed anglerfish. I head towards my car, by way of that spot in the parking lot. With my other hand, I grip the lighter.
A little sweat. I don’t know why. If I fumble this, I can always try again. I hope that’s true. Or maybe I don’t.
And here comes the truck, on cue.
Their voices, even their words, are identical to the moments before all the other deaths etched into my memory. The amount of accumulated trauma must be incalculably high. I don’t know how I will come back from this, even if I can get it to end.
But now, a flick, and the lighter doesn’t catch.
And then it does, a wavering flame, and I throw it, assuming that it’ll go out or I’ll miss the gas slick trap I’d laid.
A miraculous fireball envelops the truck. It’s their turn to scream.
I don’t take long to relish it. I need to book it, before the nightmare can continue with, fuck knows. Them somehow surviving unscathed? A different truckload of assholes?
On a whim, I dive into my car instead of fleeing on foot as planned.
The door swings smooth, like my car is young and vibrant and full of life. And this time, it starts. I make it past the intersection of Oracle Road and Miracle Mile. Yes, those are the real names, because in Tucson, a good omen is always waiting on the same corner as sex workers and drug dealers.
I get to the freeway, still occasionally glancing in my rearview, not quite believing it worked, and finally relax enough to focus on the gas gauge. Half a tank plus my last couple of dollars might get me out of this state. I regret getting lunch. If I have to turn a trick, at least it won’t be in Tucson, and it won’t be to placate the greasy assistant manager for a fistful of twenties I have to give back anyway.
I listen to Nine Inch Nails; Broken is in my tape deck, and I don’t change the cassette all the way down I-10. It’s only an EP, so it must end and begin a lot of times. Sometimes I go back and listen to a song over and over. I guess I got in the habit.
I pull over in Yuma for a quick nap.
I don’t know if I will wake up back in my comfortable bed, with my girlfriend’s good morning sunshine emoji dancing on my iPhone, or if I will be back in this time again for good, in my shitty car in Yuma scrounging for spare change melded to the cupholder with congealed soda droplets.
I don’t know how hard it will be to survive. But I know I’ll get through it. I know that I will return. I have broken through.
Horror Sleaze Trash 