The Unnoticeables

by Robert Brockway

  I slipped around the couch and went straight for the kitchen. Thing 2 was feigning innocent disinterest, but her shirt was on backward and the apartment was thick with the salty citrus stink of sex. Jezza hurled himself into a busted beanbag chair—little white pellets shooting out of the tears like thrown confetti—and pouted.

  “Grab me a beer, Carey?” Thing 2 asked.

  “I’ll take one as well,” Wash said, squatting to grab his pants from the floor.

  “What?” Jezza gestured angrily at me, still holding the girl. “D’you not bloody notice the bird he’s just kidnapped?”

  “What’s that?” Wash asked, peering into the kitchen after me. “I did not notice. How strange.”

  “Holy shit.” Thing 2 poked her head over the couch like a timid gopher. “Did you really kidnap somebody?”

  I was contemplating my next move.

  The counters were still full of last night’s empties. I could bend down to gently place the beer onto the floor, but if I did that, the girl might throw me off balance and bolt for the still-open door. I could just drop the beer, but then … shaken beer. Fuck that.

  “Wash, get the door. Bolt it.”

  “Carey, if you’ve begun kidnapping people, I think I should inform you that I am pretty sure it is illegal or at least frowned upon by—”

  “Wash, if you don’t get the door, I’m going to have to drop the beer.”

  “Oh! Fair enough then,” Wash said, and strode over to flip the deadbolt. His uncertain erection bobbed with every step.

  Once I heard the latch click, I eased the beer down onto the sticky tile like a newborn babe. Then I hurled the woman into the plastic chair Thing 1 kept by the fridge. She used it to climb on top.

  Girl likes high places when she’s drunk. I don’t know.

  “You move and I’ll knock your teeth out,” I told the woman, fighting the urge to head into the living room and check out what was on TV.

  How the fuck does she do that?

  She smiled at me pleasantly, like she was listening to an only slightly funny anecdote from a stranger at a bar.

  “Where’s Randall?” I tried again.

  Hey, you never know, you might get lucky.

  “I don’t know any Randall, baby. You’re man enough for me,” she cooed, turning on that crazy sex ray of hers.

  “Knock it off,” I said.

  She blinked in wide-eyed innocence and wriggled around in her seat. I pulled my traitorous, already-hardening dick up into the waistband of my boxers. Cinched that little fucker right up.

  The woman laughed, and it was like birds on a spring morning.

  God damn it, you stay on lockdown, you one-eyed bastard.

  “Wash, put on something loud in case she screams.”

  I’ve fucked up a dude or two in a fistfight over the years, but I’ve never tortured anybody. I didn’t know if I even had it in me, but she didn’t need to know that.

  “Carey, I don’t believe this is—”

  “This is the girl that took Randall, and I just caught her outside trying to lure Jezza away, too. We need some answers, and I’m sick of pretending there’s not some weird shit going on around here.”

  “You’re not gonna hurt her, are you?” Thing 2 had gotten up and was leaning into the kitchen.

  She locked eyes with the kidnapped woman and gave her a little wave.

  “I’m going to do whatever I have to,” I said.

  I tore open the case of Schlitz, cracked one, and drained half of it.

  Maybe liquid courage would help. Maybe it would make her think I was recklessly drunk. Or maybe I should just get good and recklessly drunk and see what happens. They all sounded like good plans.

  “Wash. Music. Trust me.”

  Wash fumbled with something in the other room. An echo, a scratch, a hiss. The opening chords to MC5’s “Sister Anne” banged around our living room like a drunken hippo trying to find his way to bed.

  “I’m gonna ask nice one more time, and then I’m gonna start making you ugly: Where the fuck is Randall?”

  The woman didn’t answer, just tilted her head at me like a curious puppy.

  I tightened my fist, tried to settle the nerves jumping around in my chest, and—

  The door burst open.

  Thing 2 yelped, Wash flailed into a halfhearted karate stance (still pantsless, I saw; they were tucked neatly under one arm; must have forgotten about them in all the excitement).

  Cops. Of course. Well, about time to start working on the old gag reflex.

  They weren’t police. Safety Pins shuffled into our apartment, her eyes all hazy and stoned, threw Wash’s keys at him, then flopped directly on top of Jezza on his beanbag. I don’t think she even saw him there, and he wasn’t about to protest the girl-ass on his lap. Thing 1 and Matt the Black Unicorn followed after her. Matt was carrying an open can of Pabst. Thing 1 had an armful of records. Scuffed Flannel stood meekly just outside the door, waiting for a polite invitation.

  She’d be waiting a long fucking time.

  “Motherfuckers, are you ready to rock?!” Matt yelled, and bounced up and down on our couch.

  Thing 1 dropped her records all over the section of floor vaguely near the record player and made her way into the kitchen. She’d gotten all the way to the fridge and actually put a foot up on her climbing chair before realizing it was occupied.

  “Oh, shit!” She backed away. Stumbled a little. Been drinking. “Hi, you’re … wow, you’re like a fucking model or something. What are you doing here with these freaks?”

  “She’s my prisoner,” I answered honestly.

  Thing 1 laughed. Matt bounded into the kitchen and stood staring at the gorgeous new girl with all the subtlety and grace of a Central Park pervert. The others followed soon after, huddling around the kitchen to watch the spectacle.

  “No really,” Thing 1 said, “who’s your friend?”

  “I abducted her. Just by being here, you are all accessories to kidnapping.”

  Everybody laughed except for Thing 2, Wash, and probably Jezza, who was still sulking on his beanbag.

  “I’m being dead serious,” I continued. “This is the girl I saw Randall take off with at Fetta. She’s pretending not to know him now. Trying to get Jezza to come with her, too.”

  “Oh, woe is me! The beautiful bird wanted to twirl about on me Johnson. Good thing you were there to rescue me, Carey!” Jezza hollered from the next room.

  I killed the rest of my beer and took a breath.

  “I’m only going to do this once, so listen up. Everybody look at her. Look at her closely. This is the woman I’ve just kidnapped. This is the woman they’ll be showing on the ten o’clock news if I’m wrong. This is the woman that will ruin your lives and land you all in jail. Take a good look at her, knowing how fucking important she is.”

  I gave them a minute.

  “Now close your eyes.”

  They did. Matt tried to keep one partially open, and I slapped his round cheeks.

  “Somebody tell me anything about her,” I ordered.

  There was no answer.

  “She’s really pretty,” Thing 2 tried.

  “Oh, shit.” Safety Pins finally recognized the same strange forgetful aura that I’d felt out on the street with Jezza. “That’s totally her!”

  “Anything. Any detail. Short hair? Long? Wearing glasses? Anything?”

  After another minute of unproductive silence, I let them open their eyes. The mood was decidedly less merry.

  “What the fuck do we do?” Thing 1 said.

  “We have to call the cops or something,” Safety Pins said.

  “You’re all bloody mental,” Jezza said.

  “Can I have one of those beers?” Matt said.

  I nodded. The others followed his lead and pilfered half my stash.

  Fucking parasites.

  “Is this everybody?” the unnoticeable woman asked.

  She half-stood out of her chair and peered around the apar
tment, locking eyes with us one at a time: Thing 1, Thing 2, Matt, Wash, Safety Pins, Jezza, and finally, with me. I put one of my Chucks on her belly and pushed her back down into her seat.

  “This is everybody,” I answered, “and none of them are going to help you.”

  “That’s fine.” She flashed her disinterested fuck-me smirk and said, “Let’s talk about your friend. He’s dead, you know.”

  That voice was like pornography. She laughed through full, red lips. I slapped her across the face.

  “Your friend is alive,” she said, still laughing.

  I hesitated.

  “Nope, now he’s dead again.” She was almost crying now, it was so funny.

  “Where the fuck is Randall?!” I screamed. It shot out of me so fast and unexpected that my voice cracked a little.

  “Ask nice, baby, and you’ll find me all sorts of willing.” She leaned forward and shook her shoulders, her tits bouncing around in that tight T-shirt.

  I did my best to shut major parts of my brain down.

  “Please.” Thing 1 tried being nice, after seeing that I was unwilling to. “Just tell us where our friend is.”

  “How long would you say you’ve been here?” the woman asked Thing 1. She still had that lilting edge of mocking laughter in her voice.

  “I don’t know, ten minutes?”

  The unnoticeable woman contemplated something. She was easy on the eyes if you weren’t trying to look at her. If you were trying, though, it was like staring through somebody else’s prescription glasses. Gave you a focus headache. It helped that I spoke her features out loud to everybody at the start: pale skin like powder, lips like licorice, shampoo commercial hair. Brown. Green eyes.

  Remember.

  “Listen, love,” Jezza said, leaning casually across the counter. “These blokes is mad, of course. But something ain’t right, is it? We ain’t gonna hurt ya. We’re just scared, yeah? Confused like. We just need to know what’s going on—a couple little answers won’t hurt you none—and then we’ll let you go, free as you like.”

  The woman quivered her lip expertly, and I saw Jezza go weak. Then her face turned cold again and she spat at him. She laughed when he recoiled.

  “Ten minutes,” she recited. “Sure. Sure, you can have answers now: I took your friend. He’s still alive. Probably.”

  “Can you give him back?” Wash asked with all sincerity.

  God bless his little, stupid heart.

  “Nooo,” the woman answered, thrown. She considered Wash carefully, then slowly said: “I … don’t think we’ll just give him back.”

  “We?” I was on beer number three. I was hoping that regular, consistent drinking would somehow solve this problem. It wasn’t working, but then—I’d only been trying it for three beers now. I was willing to see how this played out.

  “There are so many of us,” the woman said again, and now her voice was absent of sarcastic glee. It wasn’t even the sexy croon she’d been deploying on me and the boys like a chemical weapon. Her tone was soft and even, something like awe. Reverence. “More than you’d believe. We’re right here, in your lives, in your houses, and you don’t see us. I’ve met you before. Every one of you. I go to all the same shows. Carey, you told me you’d build a shrine to my tits last month. Wash, is it? We met earlier this year, at the Dead Boys show in Brooklyn. You asked me if I wanted to ride Go-karts with you sometime.”

  I saw recognition flash across Wash’s face.

  “You, the dumb one with the blue hair.”

  “Hey, don’t call my friend dumb,” Thing 2 protested.

  Thing 1 gave her a sideways look.

  “No, I’m talking to you,” the woman clarified. “I took your lipstick last week. In the bathroom at Max’s.”

  “Oh, shit.” Thing 2 put a hand to her mouth. “I loved that lipstick.”

  “It’s not hard to slip by you. Your perceptions are so small. You’re ants, crawling around at the edge of a picnic table and calling it the edge of the world.”

  “Why can’t we see you?” Thing 2 asked. “Is it something you got? Like a Hypno Ray, or Wonder Woman’s plane?”

  Wash nodded his head like Yes, yes—good question. Everybody else rolled their eyes.

  “No, sweetie, it’s not something we’ve got. It’s something we don’t got. You look for humanity in human-shaped things, and when you don’t find it, your broken, clouded minds just glaze right over it. We are like you, but missing your inefficiencies. We lack your disgusting internal waste. I don’t know why I try. There is no way to parse it that you can process. But don’t worry: You won’t be fed to the gears. You’ll see soon enough. Gus likes you, you know. He wants to meet you. He wants you to see.”

  “Fed to the what? And who the fuck is Gus? The leader of your creepy cult?” I demanded, sloshing beer in her general direction.

  “Cult! Ha-ha, yes, I guess that is how you’d understand it. That’s close, in a way. But Gus isn’t a leader; he is the pin that holds our mechanism in place. He is the wheel that turns our belt. He is the piston that pounds inside our cylinders.”

  “Is it weird that I get hard when she talks about machines?” Matt asked.

  “No, it is not,” I answered instantly, shifting in my own jeans.

  “I like you, baby, to tell it true.” She turned those eyes on me, and I ran out of breath. “I’m so happy Gus is coming for you. I’m so happy you get to understand. All of you.”

  She looked around at each of us, smiling expectantly. When she saw only fear and revulsion, she tried again.

  “You think your lives are important. The lives of others. Life in general. That’s not what it’s about. It’s all about something else. It’s about existence and movement, about maintaining the engine. Your microscopic little lives could be something grand. You could be used to turn the planets. To fuel the sun. You could be the lubricant upon which the gears of the universe churn, and instead you watch TV and get jobs. But that’s at an end now. You don’t have much time left here, in the dark. You’ll learn.” She nodded at Jezza. “You won’t need to pretend anymore. Or lie to your friends. Or convince yourself that your decisions are important. You’ll know what you are, truly. And what you can be. That’s the gift Gus has given me.…”

  “So this Gus guy, he did this to you?” Safety Pins asked. “He fucked up your head like this? I’ve seen chicks like you before. I’ve been chicks like you before. He’s got you all turned around, is all. You think you owe him something, but you don’t. You can get away. Tell us where he is. We’ll fuck him up for it. He won’t hurt you. Promise.”

  “I was so small,” the woman continued. “I wanted to worship such little things: musicians, celebrities. I wanted them to use me, and in so doing, give me worth. I wanted to suck the dicks of rock stars and have them inject me with meaning. And then I met Gus. When I took him in me I could feel my old life draining out, like pus from a wound. When he put himself inside of me—”

  “Gross,” Thing 2 said.

  “Go on,” Matt said.

  “When I swallowed him, his energy went to work. Made me like him—no, I shouldn’t say that. I can never be like him. He’s been touched by the Mechanic! He has seen the machine! That’s not something I can ever comprehend. That’s not for me. But I was cleaned up enough to uncover my eyes. I can see that there is a problem and that a solution does exist. I see it, and you’ll see it, too. Just as soon as Gus gets here.”

  “What? He’s coming here?” Wash asked.

  “Bullshit,” I called. “Nobody’s coming for you.”

  “Not for me! Oh, no,” she whispered rapturously. “They’re coming for you. They’re coming for you right at this moment, because this is your time, and I am so happy for you all!”

  “Oh, shit, Carey. Do you think her friends would really come after us?” Thing 2 said.

  “No way,” I said. “Nobody even knows you’re here but us, standing in this room, lady. Nobody can tell your friends where you are.”


  “I guess that’s appropriate.” The woman laughed again. “That’s what you think of her. The words you use to describe an absence. Nothing. Nobody.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Safety Pins slapped the counter.

  “Look around you. Carefully. Think. Who is not here that should be? Who is never here, even when she is?”

  Now I was looking around, too. I don’t know why, this girl was clearly—

  Motherfucker.

  “Scuffed Flannel,” I said.

  Jezza’s eyes went wide.

  The woman laughed again. A tinkling, broken sound. Like wind chimes.

  “You don’t even know her name!” The woman exulted.

  “Yeah, we do,” Jezza protested. “We had a thing, she and I. Her name is … is … Shit. I knew it once!”

  I grabbed Safety Pins by the arms and shook her.

  “Was she with you tonight? Was Scuffed Flannel here?”

  “No…” I could see her brain churning, the information slipping around behind her red eyes. “Yes, I think so. I don’t know!”

  “She was,” Thing 1 said. “She was. She was here. She was with us at the park, remember? She turned down the weed, and you said something about her loosening up. We laughed. She came up with us. She was at the door.”

  “How long has it been now, since you got here?” the woman asked Thing 1 again.

  “Twenty minutes,” Thing 1 said.

  The unnoticeable woman nodded.

  “That’s enough time,” she said. “Gus should be outside.”

  THIRTEEN

  2013. Los Angeles, California. Kaitlyn.

  I had my phone out in my lap. I was using the reflective screen to stare at my own bloody eyeball. It was transfixing. It didn’t hurt or anything, but it was just so bizarre-looking. At first the red had only spilled across the inner half of the eye, but soon it pooled across the entirety of the white. I looked like a demon. Like a David Bowie demon: one eye normal, one eye bright and terrible and red.

  Luckily, nobody in the police station lobby seemed to notice or care. If they were staring at me for anything, it was because I was the only young white girl in here. I felt vaguely racist, just for existing.