The Unnoticeables

by Robert Brockway

  Carey blinked in confusion, then helped me up.

  “Sorry,” he said, nodding at the beer. “Instincts.”

  “Marco,” I said, and my voice cracked. “Bathroom.”

  Carey gently set the twelve-pack down and bolted for the hallway.

  It was a full two seconds before the adrenaline turned on me. Before I kicked over from survivalist flight mode to suicidal fight mode. A huge part of my brain screamed at my stupidity. It offered a thousand other, better alternatives, but I was too far gone by that point to listen to reason. I ran back inside, grabbed my Cobra from the table, and arrived at the bathroom just in time to see Marco scramble up the wall sideways, like a crab, his shattered neck and wobbling face still smirking at nothing in particular. He disappeared through the window and was gone.

  A half second later, his hand poked back into view and gave us a jaunty wave, then vanished again.

  Carey and I were stunned silent for a long moment.

  “Well, that was pretty fucked up,” Carey finally said.

  It broke the spell. I swiveled about in the cramped hallway, facing my bedroom. I grabbed at the pile of unsorted clothes that always seems to collect at the foot of my bed, and skipped and hopped myself into a pair of black slacks as I ran toward the front door. I emerged onto the street just in time to see Marco’s Mercedes fishtail out of the alley and onto Pico Boulevard.

  “Fuck!” I screamed, and slapped the wall. “How are we going to catch him now?!”

  “Catch…?” Carey turned to me, astonished. Then he smiled so wide I think he split his lip open. “You want to catch him?”

  “He knows where Jackie is!” I shocked my Cobra against the sidewalk and collapsed it down into its handle, then tucked it into my waistband.

  “I love you,” Carey said. Then, more usefully, he added: “I have a motorcycle.”

  FOURTEEN

  Unnamed. Unknown.

  I see a man on television, a politician on some local access channel, and I know just by looking at him that he is secretly homosexual and ashamed of it. This is the root cause for much of his behavior: his enjoyment of anal sex and the subsequent shame. It has been the inspiration for a few one-night stands, more than a handful of crying fits, various acts of contrition, several attempts to cover up the indiscretions; all told, he has spent 36,902 hours of his life pursuing various activities and modes of thought that were a direct reaction to his unwillingness to acknowledge his enjoyment of anal sex.

  The politician is a living being. He requires energy to function. Those hours he spent actively denying a part of himself were all fueled by calories: enough calories to feed the nation of Namibia for a day; enough caloric energy to augment the magnetic field of Mars for sixteen crucial seconds, thus diverting an asteroid that would otherwise turn a small mountain into a crater. That small mountain endured for 64.3 million years. For the next 23 years, 7 months, 6 days, 4 hours, and 35 seconds, this politician can continue chastising himself for finding pleasure where he does—or I can reach in there and simplify all the decisions influenced by this one petty sexual need, and use that same energy to save part of cosmic history.

  Wouldn’t he want that, if he knew? Wouldn’t he rather his life be used in that fashion?

  It makes sense.

  It terrifies me that it makes sense.

  It terrifies me that I can’t conceive of a reason not to apply the politician’s solution right now and save the Martian mountain E. Mareotis Tholus. The smell of wood chips; a man’s embrace from behind, pressing him into a soft pillow; the tangy sting of poison ivy being burned; his father reading two passages from Waterless Mountain.

  That is the politician’s solution. The catalyst that would reduce him to pure energy.

  Incorrect.

  I see now that the politician’s solution cannot be complete. It will not be perfect. It will reduce his inefficient humanity, but certain base parts of his being are too cluttered. The code is clumsy. I can remove the redundancy, but I cannot rewrite the shoddy programming. There will be a remainder to the politician’s problem. It is not like this with most: Most can be reduced completely, shunted away in neat pulses of transmitted energy.

  The politician’s remainders will not be unique or special. The remainders of all imperfect problems—all human beings too messed up inside to be perfectly solved—are always identical. They are physical manifestations of the core motivations of every living creature in history.

  Consumption and creation.

  Creation is accomplished through birth or cell division. Progenation.

  Consumption is accomplished through digestion. The act of consuming energy and using it to fuel the vital needs of the host.

  The by-products of an imperfect problem, what will be left over if I solve the politician, consists of two split entities: a creator and a consumer. What I used to call an “Empty One” and a “tar man.” A consumer is a creature that is mindless hunger without purpose or even the biological systems necessary to digest and process the energy it consumes.

  It looks like somebody sculpted a giant out of an old smoker’s lung, and smells like a road being repaved. Burns like a son of a bitch when it touches you.

  God damn it! Snap out of this. Use the nonsense barriers. Free association, song lyrics, blank verse—

  A creator is a creature somewhat resembling its old host form (in this case, a pudgy middle-aged man in a brown pin-striped suit) that exists only to procreate: to spread its seed, instinctively attempting to further its faulty code. The remainders are tragic figures. Neither can accomplish their task. The consumer cannot eat. The creator cannot create. Only the angels can fully solve a living being. A creator is not an angel. It is a mistake. It can only hollow out other beings. Birthing what I used to refer to as “Unnoticeables.” It can empty them of their inefficiencies, but it cannot solve them.

  The creator cannot make more creators. It can only spawn weak, faceless mockeries of itself.

  The existence of the remainders plagues the angels. If we could be moved by their plight, we would be—but of course, we cannot.

  They cannot.

  It is almost within my power to solve the politician. I am still human enough to feel saddened by the plodding damnation of his continued existence, but I see that solving him, even partially, would be for the greater good. All I have to do is let go. Release this last stubborn, stupid part of my humanity, and I will become an angel.

  No, “angel” is the wrong word. That’s their word. The naive human term for us.

  Them.

  You’re not them yet. Not yet. Hold on.

  The angels don’t use words, but my human mind goes digging through drawers to come up with a translation.

  They call themselves … tools. No, the tools. The Tools of the Mechanic.

  Angels are mere devices, employed by the Mechanic to maintain the ever-pumping engine of the universe. They believe they are the reason that the planets turn in their orbit, that stars burn and galaxies expand.

  The Mechanic.

  I shuffle through distant files, dig through archives. The words are coming harder now. Concepts are so diluted when they’re tied down by these dumb ape sounds.

  God. That’s the word.

  “God” is the closest concept I have for the angels’ Mechanic. It is not very close at all. I know this is my own failing: In my human life, my only frame of reference for understanding and defining higher powers was the Bible. I was taught there was information worth processing within that manual and told to apply it to all external stimuli. My mind calls them “angels” because I am using the Bible to interface with and understand these beings. My mind calls the Mechanic “God” because that is the syntax that invokes the existence of a higher power in me.

  But their Mechanic is not much like God as I understood him. If the Tools of the Mechanic are on the side of God, then God is an uncaring technician who exists to replace broken parts, not repair them. His focus is on the larger machine, on
the universe at a macro scale, and he cares not for the well-being of the rivets and the screws—our solar system, our planet—beyond their ability to hold the machine together.

  Why would he care for humanity? Why would the Mechanic care for life at all? We are containers for fuel. To be ignited, consumed, and disposed of.

  No, this is not God’s will. Our God doesn’t behave like this. Our God loves.

  Because God is a faulty analogy for the Mechanic. This failure is a result of the lingering human thought patterns within me. They are interfering with my ability to understand and should be abandoned. My old operating system cannot process the kinds of commands that I can now give and receive.

  I know the truth. I have struggled so long with the ultimate meaning of life, and now I have concrete answers.

  My human mind screams. It misses the warmth of the messy, emotional questions that used to plague it. Only when his presence is yanked away from me do I actually understand the purpose that God served for humanity: He was the knife in our soul. We think the blade hurts us, but remove it and there is only emptiness left. We bleed from the holes in our understanding and we shrivel and we die. I did not know that God was with me until he left. Now the wound has opened, and I have never known a colder place than here, in the shadow of his absence.

  This analogy is faulty. The interface must be abandoned.

  FIFTEEN

  1977. New York City, New York. Carey.

  “Oh, God,” the woman moaned. She writhed against her chair like an angry snake. “He’s close. Gus, baby, I can feel you.”

  “This is some fucked-up shit right here,” Matt said. “I don’t know whether to stuff a dollar in her panties or run.”

  “Let’s just go, okay?” Thing 1 was blinking hard. Trying to fight off the buzz she’d been nursing all day.

  “Yes. I also say we should go. We should not stay, but go,” Wash said.

  “This is bollocks, though, isn’t it?” Jezza was leaning into the kitchen and jabbing his scabby fingers at us. “You all know Scuffed Flannel. We been together for bloody weeks now! That’s practically married!”

  “Oh, yeah? If you know her so well, where is she? Why didn’t she come in with us?” Thing 2 asked.

  “Well, I don’t—” Jezza started, but I cut him off.

  “What’s her goddamned name!?” I hollered. “How many fucking times do we need to do this?!”

  He opened and closed his mouth a few times. A landed fish, looking around and wondering where all the water went.

  “Wash, you grab one of her arms,” I said, gesturing to the faceless, giggling woman practically dry-humping our fridge. “I’ll grab the other. We’ll walk her out of here nice and calm. It’s dark enough now, nobody will see us. And if they do, we just tell anybody who asks she’s drunk. But I don’t think anyone is gonna ask. It’s like they don’t see her. We’ll head up to Jezza’s mom’s place and—”

  “Like hell!” Jezza protested, but I could see even he was relieved at the prospect of leaving.

  “You run ahead and find a pay phone,” I said to Jezza. “Tell your mom we’re having a slumber party or something.”

  “A slumber p—? What the hell are you on about?”

  “I love you, man. So don’t take this wrong, but your mom’s an idiot. You’re an idiot. Your whole family is idiots. When Randall OD’d last year and we had to crash at your place, we told her he had the flu. She made him fucking Rice Krispies squares. I don’t give a shit what you tell her, just let her know we’re coming.”

  Jezza threw his hands up dramatically, but he didn’t argue.

  “Matt.” I snapped my fingers in front of Matt’s hypnotized gaze. “Matt! Stop watching that girl pleasure our appliances and focus! You and Safety Pins have the most important jobs, so I need you to pay attention. Are you here with me?”

  “Yeah,” Safety Pins said, biting her lip in concentration. “What do you need us to do?”

  “I need you to carry the beer.”

  Safety Pins looked a little offended, but Matt recognized the seriousness of his task.

  “Thing 2, you run interference in front. Let us know if there are cops or something.”

  She nodded at me and started heading for the door.

  “All right, let’s go. Up.” Wash grabbed one of the gyrating woman’s arms, and I took the other. She licked me from wrist to elbow, then snapped at my ear with her teeth.

  Between the two of us, we managed to get her up and into the living room. Thing 2 yanked the door open for us. She was still focused on the girl. She didn’t understand why we froze. She tilted her head a little when Wash’s eyes went wide. She started to protest when we lost our grip on the girl, who jogged happily toward the open door. It took Thing 2 a few seconds to get the message.

  To turn and look into the hallway.

  A skinny guy with track-marked arms and cultivated stubble slouched out there. He had long blond hair, high cheekbones, and sunken eyes. He looked like Iggy Pop, and he looked like he knew he looked like Iggy Pop. Like he’d been practicing for years just so he could look as much like Iggy as humanly possible while standing in this particular hallway at this specific time. He smiled at the woman when she leapt into his arms, grinding and pulsing against him. He laughed and motioned her aside, and she dutifully stepped behind one of the massive, oozing black piles that flanked him on either side.

  Thing 2 tried to scream, but the tar man was already reaching for her. It was forcing its hand into her open mouth and right down her throat. She started thrashing. Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head. Smoke curled up from between her bubbling lips.

  Wash leapt for her, but I grabbed his arm and shoved him backward over the couch. The other tar man was already stooping down to step through the open doorway. Wash would’ve barreled right into it. You don’t get to fight those things. You can’t will your way through the pain when they get a hold of you. My neck still screamed at the slightest breeze, If that had happened inside my throat…? No. Thing 2 was gone.

  “Window!” I yelled, and Matt and Safety Pins went scrambling for it. Jezza was already on the other side, rattling down the stairs of the fire escape.

  He may be a drunk, a poser, and a coward, but you cannot fault that boy’s survival instincts.

  Thing 1 wasn’t moving. She just stood and stared from the kitchen, trying to process. I moved to grab for her, but Wash had gotten to his feet and looked like he might go for Thing 2 again. I lowered a shoulder and charged. I caught him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and pushing us both toward the open window.

  “Grab him!” I said.

  Matt reached an arm in, looped it around Wash’s waist, and dragged him through the open window. I turned back to find Thing 1. She was frozen, making a broken little humming sound. She was watching Thing 2’s face split open and run down the tar man’s forearm. She was so transfixed, she didn’t even see the other one. The one that was almost on her. I looked around for something to throw, and found nothing.

  Stupid. Panic makes you stupid.

  I reached into my pocket, snapped my Zippo to life, and whipped it underhand across the room. It went end over end. I could see it, magnified, like it was right in front of me. That tiny flame, flickering in and out of life: It took up my whole world. With each flip it would gutter out, then flare back to life. It was six inches from the tar man’s chest and burning strong, when a set of long bony fingers plucked it out of the air.

  The Iggy Pop–looking motherfucker caught the lighter, snapped it shut, and pocketed it in one fluid motion. He smiled at me and snaked one skinny arm around Thing 1’s shoulders. She was a statue. Still keening and staring at the rapidly widening crimson puddle where her best friend used to be.

  “You’re Carey, right?” the skinny guy said to me in a voice like broken bottles. “Been hearing a lot about you.”

  “You Gus?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer, just gestured at his own body like Take it all in.


  “I’m going to fucking kill you,” I told him.

  I wished I had something more clever, or at least more convincing, but hell—you try being six beers deep while you watch your friend get melted. Doesn’t do any favors for your wit.

  Gus laughed, low and braying, with a touch of a wheeze at the end. Iggy laughed just like that. I talked to him at Max’s once after a show. I mean, he laughed exactly like that: It was a pitch-perfect reproduction. Could have been a recording. Gus snapped the laugh off clean. He straightened up, losing the junkie slouch, and instantly lost every ounce of sleazy charm. His eyes went wide and unblinking. His neck jerked painfully at an inhuman angle.

  “I do not think you can do that,” Gus said, and his voice was still water. Deep and flat and unfathomable. “It will be interesting to watch you try.”

  He gestured and one of the tar men stepped forward. The brass gears in its face clicked together and whirred. That nauseating, balance-shattering whine started building. I dove backward through the open window. I hit my head on the iron railing of the fire escape and went somersaulting painfully down the steep, sharp stairs. I crashed into the landing and my vision swam. I fought it back. I could hear the noise growing, even from here. I didn’t have time to take the ladder the rest of the way down to the ground, but we were only on the second floor and I’d fallen half that already. I vaulted over the railing without looking.

  I landed sideways across Jezza’s shoulders. He started to call me an asshole, paused, began correcting it to “arsehole,” and then just gave up entirely. He was looking at me with searching desperation. So was Safety Pins. So was everybody.

  They stood quietly for a moment. The only sound was the distant but building metallic whir.

  “Well, fucking run!” I told them.

  They scattered like kids who’d just hit a baseball through a window. Safety Pins and Matt hauled ass up the street, toward the corner store. Toward people.