Rest Stop

by Nat Cassidy

THE BIG BANG; LET THERE BE YACHT ROCK; BROKEN HEARTS; MOTHERFUCKING SNOBALLS

“Nothing. Just a huge fucking dragonfly or something. Christ. Thing was big enough to have a social security number.”

He considers turning on the radio, or maybe listening to a podcast. He doesn’t do that, though—because it’s August, deep in the cursed year of 2016, and all anyone can talk about now is the upcoming election. The blonde, bloviating businessman versus the blonde, cackling e-mail lady. Abe takes a little comfort that E-mail Lady’s all but guaranteed to win, but still. What a shitshow. As if this year hasn’t been traumatic enough. Bowie dead. Prince dead. George Martin dead. Alan Rickman dead. Chyna dead. Abe fuckin’ Vigoda dead.

But alone in his car? Barreling down the open throat of midnight on a barely peopled highway in the middle of the country for a trip he desperately does not want to be taking? There’s only one proper response any mortal being can have to the smooth vocal stylings of Mr. Michael McDonald.

I guess things didn’t actually get bad for her until right after the war. I dunno. Trauma’s trauma, but I think some people are still just born assholes.”

Being Jewish is cool and all, but who in their right mind ever volunteers for extra homework? Who doesn’t love the occasional pork chop or cheeseburger?

We’re all in this mess together. Things like religion, like nationalities, are just trivia. We’re all just bugs against the windshield of time, right?

“Trump 2016 MAGA,” under which someone else had scrawled “I just shit out a better president.”

The snake swirls into an enormous coil where it landed, close to the toilet. No cute name for it, like Boris. It’s too massive, too elemental for names.

Now, I’ve been Schrödinger-ized, Abe thinks. I’m living and dead. Just waiting for someone to open this box and find me in my true state. He tries to chuckle at the thought. Fails.

“Your monsters are ridiculous. They are circus clowns. When evil comes, Abraham, it does not wear a mask. It looks as plain as day. I was a little girl when I learned that. The Hairlip Man. . .”

Fear will do that. Fear makes you stupid.

“Sometimes I would look at you and wonder, is this it? Is this what we fled destruction for? I didn’t like thinking this, believe it or not. You think me such a monster, but I don’t enjoy this disappointment. It tastes horrible, Abraham. I simply wanted my grandchildren to remember where they came from. I wanted them to plant roots that couldn’t be torn from the soil like mine were. Like my parents’ were. My cousins’. Everyone we lost in the fire. I wanted my grandchildren to continue our traditions, because evil tried to take them from us, and what do we do in the face of evil? We do not say, ‘Oh maybe you have a point, I’ll keep it down, I’ll put my faith and traditions away.’ We spit in evil’s eye and say, back to Hell with you, I come from a long line of survivors! That’s what it really is, boychik. I simply wanted you to survive. Every part of you.”

A Buddhist teacher, with his students gathered around him—almost like a minyan, nu?—and he drinks out of a glass and says, ‘I love this glass. It is so beautiful. It carries the water to my lips and keeps me alive. It catches the light. But if, one day, I accidentally drop it and it shatters, my heart breaks with it. I am so sad. So I must remember: being broken is the glass’s truest nature. It will be broken far longer than it is whole. It is meant to be broken. It is already broken. How can I be sad then, for this brief illusion of wholeness?’

This is God. The God. The one countless generations of terrified humans once worshipped. The one countless more generations try to pretend they aren’t worshipping now. The God of lightning in the desert. The God of twisted shadows on cave walls. The God of wrath. Of persecution. Of corruption. The God that demands proper nouns and capitalization. The God whose first commandment isn’t kindness or empathy, but THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GOD BEFORE ME. The God of sick jokes. The God of babies born without heads. The God of turtles born having to race to the sea with their first lungful of air. The God of ancient land disputes that turn into genocidal rugby matches. The God of the great cosmic punchline that is mortality foreknown. Of suns destined to implode. Of nerve endings that refuse to stop reporting pain. Of fathers who die of bowel cancer. Of hearts that won’t stop breaking. Of promising futures and the unbearably slow deflation from pinprick disappointments.

He’ll be having a good enough time, but suddenly he’ll wonder, Who are these people? Who am I around them? What are we doing here? What are we all becoming? What have we become? Then he’ll think: We’re all just biding our time before we break, aren’t we? This is just the rest stop. He’s happy they’re happy. He’s happy happiness exists. Even if it’s only for now.

He often wonders. . . could I ever be like my grandmother’s boogeyman? Do I have that kind of evil—that kind of h8—in me?

Is this the feeling of being broken? He wonders. Or is it the process of breaking? Is this how it feels to refuse to break? Or is every moment simply its own act of creation? Its own god, too holy for a name? He doesn’t know. He always keeps the wheels on the road and pointed forward, though. Steady as can be.

I hope you’ll consider donating to Doctors Without Borders or World Central Kitchen or any other organizations dedicated to protecting lives during humanitarian crises. This story is, in part, about the emotional scars inflicted by historical trauma, and, as of this writing, there are currently some very, very contemporary traumas being wrought upon innocent people. To go into a deeper discussion here (as I attempted in previous drafts) kinda hijacks the book in its very final pages, which isn’t fair to anyone—but given that this is the Acknowledgments page, I wanted to at least acknowledge that.

please, please, please, make sure you vote. It really does matter who’s behind the wheel—and cynicism and disengagement only help the darkest forces into the driver’s seat.