Being a Witness

My job is to witness terrible things.  
 
So far, I've witnessed murders, rapes, car crashes, workplace accidents, suicides, police brutality, child abuse, mass shootings, and domestic violence.  
 
I don't have to do anything besides watch.
 
When I tell people about my job, they look horrified. "That must be so hard," they say, and I just shrug. What matters to me is that it pays well. Yes, I watched three teenagers beat a homeless man bloody then douse him in gasoline and set him on fire. Yes, I can pay my rent. No, I didn’t save anyone.
 
My boyfriend, Bruce, stopped asking about work long ago. He works at a diner.
 
He has stories to tell, about fistfights breaking out and old men jerking off in the booths and a gangster who threatened his life after he served him a burger with pickles. "I wish he had killed me," Bruce had remarked. As much as he moans about wanting to die, he never acts on it.
 
"This place is a hellhole," Bruce says to me at least once a week. Not just the diner, not just this neighborhood, not just this city, but the whole damn world. Each time he says it, I agree with him more.
 
I remember, vividly, my first day on the job: a husband shot his wife. Compared to other things I've seen, it wasn't that bad (better to be shot in the head than slowly tortured), and was over pretty quick, but what still stands out to me was how the husband went back to watching TV while his wife lay dying in the kitchen, blood gushing from a hole in her head. And I swear, she looked at me, standing outside the window, and she reached her hand out. Her lips moved as she struggled to speak. That was the only time anyone's ever noticed me.
  
All I said was, "I can't help you."

*** 
Bruce is going to a concert. Neither of us go out much, but one of his friends is in the band that's playing, and he'd feel like an asshole if he didn't go after being repeatedly invited.
 
"Do you wanna go?" he asks. "I have two tickets."
 
"I can't," I say. "I need to be available at all times."
 
Bruce frowns. There are times when I can tell he's reevaluating me and our relationship, trying to determine if it's worth staying with me. He complains about my job a lot, says I'm not the same person and I never laugh anymore. "What kind of sicko takes a job like that, anyway?" he's asked. I don't enjoy what I do, but I am desensitized, surprised only by how inventive humans can be when it comes to finding new ways to make others suffer.  
 
"You always use that excuse. Is that even true? Or do you just not want to be around me?"
 
I sigh. The last time we went somewhere together, it was to the movies, and I had to leave halfway to witness a gang rape happening in an alley. "If I didn't want to be around you, I'd just move out. Besides, I hate concerts."
 
Bruce goes on his own, but he leaves me a ticket, just in case I change my mind.
 *** 
While Bruce is at the concert, I stay home, flipping through channels. None of the shows really interest me, but I settle on a nature documentary. Animals kill and maim each other too, but to them it's a fact of life. Nothing worth crying or being traumatized over. A zebra is eaten alive by a lion. A seal is killed by a polar bear. My childhood cat was mauled by a dog. I found its mangled body and wanted to give it a proper burial, but my uncle threw it in the trash.
 
My older sister, Phoebe, texts me: omg tabitha look at this, followed by a photo of a chihuahua wearing a pumpkin costume.  
 
I give the expected response: awww, though I hate dogs.
 
The first terrible thing I witnessed was Phoebe being beaten. I was four years old and barely understood what was happening, just that my uncle was standing over my sister, kicking her in the ribs and screaming. Phoebe was crying, and so was I.   
 
A few years ago, Phoebe called me in the middle of the night to tell me that when she was in middle school, she was molested by her gym teacher. She said, "I feel like I'm going insane, wondering if it even really happened. I can't remember if I cried or said no. Sometimes I wish someone had been watching so they could confirm it."
  
The next text I get, an hour later, is from my boss: There's a murder happening soon, get there quickly, along with the address.
 
It's the address for the concert venue.

*** 
The venue is small and rundown. There are stains on the ceiling and the whole place smells like cigarette smoke, so thick it makes me cough.  
 
There's a bar to the side. The bartender is a fat middle-aged man who looks like he hasn't slept in ages. His eyes are bloodshot and sunken and he just stands there, polishing the same glass endlessly. He has a tattoo of a noose on his forearm.
 
No one notices me here. I stand against a wall, watching the band play. They're awful: the singer has a scratchy voice and just screams, his words incoherent except for when he's shouting fuck over and over. The crowd -- it's not much of a crowd, really, maybe twelve people besides Bruce, near the back -- tries to dance along to it.
  
I really do hate concerts.
 
The murder happens in the restroom.
 
Two beefy guys grab Bruce and drag him there. I follow after them, and the second I set foot in the restroom, the band starts playing another song. This one's different, slower.
 
Bruce is slammed against the wall. Bruce is punched. Bruce is kicked. Bruce screams for help, and his attackers call him a cunt and tell him to shut the fuck up, and I watch all of it. I don't lift a finger to help. I could, but that would get me fired.
 
The singer croons, "I wanna gouge out your eyeballs … I wanna cut you open and fuck you through the hole." He says hole like he's spitting.
 
Bruce is held down and stabbed. Bruce gets his throat slit.
 
I did, at some point, kind of like Bruce, but right now, I feel nothing as the knife goes into his body.
 
I don't know why they're doing this, what he did to piss them off. I don't know why any of these things happen. I don’t think anyone does.

"I'm gonna kill you, kill you, kill you…"
 
Bruce dies.
  
The concert ends.
  
***  
A few minutes into Bruce's funeral, I get a text: I have to witness a woman shooting up a daycare.
  
"Fuck this job," I say, but I still go.