Maybe It Gets Better?
At the diner, I order the steak hoagie and soak it in barbeque sauce. I toss pepper all over my fries before I dredge them in midwestern gold—the ranchiest of ranches. I don’t even know where they get this shit. The waitress catches me staring out the window and sits down across from me.
“You’ve been in here a lot,” she says.
“Have I?” I ask. I’m genuinely curious.
How’d I know to put barbeque on this? It’s yummy. Is this my normal booth? Have I been in here in a dress? I once came to standing in a bad-girl pose beneath a cracked window in my basement wearing a sequin dress and way-too-big-heels smoking a lipstick-stained cigarette. It was brief. Brief enough to just have been a dream. When I saw my reflection in the window I blacked out again and was simply left wondering where I managed to secure size 15 heels and where the hell I hid them.
“What are you drawing?”
I don’t even remember having a pen out.
The placemat has been flipped over and scratched in ink is a floorplan to an Expeditionary Mortuary Collection Point, a doodle of a man pulling his own spine out, and the words “glitter,” “shit,” and “fuck” from time to time.
“Nothing really. Just loose thoughts from work.”
“Where do you work?”
“The hotel by the interstate and down at the base.”
“Really, what do you do there?”
“Cook. In both places.”
She looks at my placemat and sees everyone’s favorite word.
“Mortuary? The mortuary is in the kitchen?”
“No, but in the Air Force to save money on ice machines or some bullshit, they gave the mortuary duties to the cooks. It’s sort of an additional duty. You can get put in a slot, but usually, they’ll ask for volunteers first.”
“And you volunteered?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“It’s a volunteer Air Force. Everyone’s a volunteer.”
“So you all volunteer for it anyway?”
“No. It’s a volunteer Air Force but that volunteer spirit fades pretty quickly the second anything ucky comes up.”
“So you’ve seen a dead body?”
“Haven’t you?”
“Not really. Not for a long time. My Granny died when I was young. I was out of school for the week and we drove down to Ohio for the funeral. Ohio is almost empty except for all the people and cars. We passed the Pioneer Sugar Silos and stopped at a Cracker Barrel. She was laid out in a pink dress. Too formal. Her makeup was awful. She looked like a drag queen.”
“In some circles that’s a plus,” I say.
“Do you have to do their makeup?”
“I don’t have to but I like it.”
“Really?!”
“No. We don’t do that. We’re a bag and tag and ship kind of outfit. Ice ‘em down and get them home.”
I don’t tell her about the smaller bags filled with smaller bags. The Human Remains Pouch. The Igloo Cooler of Doom that is the Transfer Case. I don’t tell her about the chicken slime that sits like drool and stains your boots. I don’t tell her I like her makeup. Her eyeliner is terrific. Smokey eye shadow. She put the work in. She didn’t come to work tonight just to be ignored.
She tastes good. Better with booze on her tongue. Cherry vodka like a goddamned child. Her hot, coughdrop breath is acceptable as she bobs her face in the crook of my neck, smelling me in. They always do this. Maybe not always. Straddling my lap, leaning forward with that tilt of the hips to presage the entry. The dry hump lap dance, then the taking in of my smell. One gal buried her face in my armpits and shuddered. I am some kind of animal. I am some kind of force. I do love her hair.
I make her cum three or four times and then briefly struggle to deflate myself over top of her. It’s a distraction with me. Her knees shake as she puddles herself beneath me. Her silky hair is now sweat-matted to her little peapod dome. She looks at me with empty eyes like the ones I see in the mirror all the time. I don’t know if either of us was here for the whole thing. Do we just fuck to think to ourselves while holding other people?
She has a miscarriage, and I struggle with how to feel. Young warriors are sold and over sold the idea of having a family—someone’s gotta be talked into this shit when we die. I could have been a daddy. I think I’d be a better mommy, but that would be devastating to science and my penis.
Look at her. Smokey small talker. She’s got a smile like a knife to your throat and I’ve never seen her fuck up an order yet. I wonder if she knows I’m a monster? I wonder if that’s what she smelled for back there? My pills are in her purse. I’m not mad that she’s taking them. I don’t encourage it, but I weakly smile in half-approval. The Midwestern scream for help. Big eyes and a crooked smile. She’s beautiful all the time, but she is most beautiful to me when she’s doing what she wants—when she is free.
We’re at a club in Royal Oak I don’t want to be at and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t either. Tits forward, she marches up the DJ, flashes that knife of hers in scarlet red lipstick, and the song changes, and she’s holding my hand. It’s our anniversary. We have been in love for so long that it’s plain dumb to think there could be a period before or after that love. We were just born loving each other and had the luxury of bumping into one another. I do love her. I love the depth in her eyes. I’m lost in them always. When she blinks her eyes open in the morning and smiles at me I melt all the way down.
She’s leaving in the morning, and there’s nothing I can do about it because so am I. Both our bags are packed, and I try not to speak for fear of crying or yelling or something patently unmasculine or socially irresponsible. She jabs me with the “volunteer” line. She’s probably right. I picked this. Some of it. The part that made a difference. I chose to leave her before we met. I told her I was a monster.
