We Are Watching Eliza Bright

by A. E. Osworth

  “I’m waiting for the police! In the lobby, with the doorman!” Suzanne calls after them. Eliza laughs, bitter. And we wonder, we wonder—

  Where is the tail?

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  The vet’s office had been nice enough to give them their own room once Preston had arrived to take over with Dog. The large windows in the waiting room had been making her jumpy. His mood was strange—distant, perhaps adjacent to angry. Eliza can’t help but think of the person at the bank who asked how she could’ve let this happen. In his eyes, she’d seen panic. And he’d said—something. It was fuzzy. First, “Is he okay?” Second, “Are you okay?” There was a lot of “oh thank God” and “Jesus H. Christ” and there was, at one point, a wooden hug, stiff in its awkwardness. And somewhere in all that, Eliza thought she felt how could you let this happen. But perhaps, she thinks, she is making that up. A coping mechanism. A way to deal with feeling that way herself.

  Or Preston said it. Flat out said, “How could you let this happen?”

  And Eliza spat back, “How could you let this happen? You’re fucking famous, your location services are on, and everyone knows where you live. That one’s not on me, pal.”

  Or there was no overlap. They’d been sidelined while Dog was taken to the back, and then Preston came in and took over. A vet told them they’d been given another room, and that they could leave whenever they wanted. That if the police had questions, they’d be in touch. And that left Eliza to stew, to wonder—how did Preston feel about this? How did she feel about this? Things happen so quickly. She hasn’t had a lot of time to feel things.

  Now the two of them sit in the unused exam room, eyes as wide as dinner plates or full moons, trying to see a path forward, unable to picture anything but the bleeding animal. They stare into treat jars and syringes, stacks of baby food and an exam table scale.

  “You can’t go back there either,” JP says to a blood-coated Eliza. “He knows where Preston lives.”

  She only snorts in response. “I just got his dog’s tail chopped off. I don’t think I’ll be invited to return.”

  Eliza jumps as Suzanne bursts into the room, shouting, “Mother ass bitch, all cops are bastards, that’s for fucking sure.”

  “Suzanne, you just made my stomach drop out of my butt, can you maybe knock before you appear places?”

  “Sorry. It’s just. They took my phone.”

  “What?” JP jumps in.

  “They bagged my phone as evidence.”

  “But—why?”

  “Because they didn’t know how else they were going to be able to see tweets again.”

  No one speaks for a second. Because that is really, really fucking stupid.

  “So you’re just—down a phone now?” Eliza asks.

  “I guess. Did you know they have a whole unit for animal cruelty? There’s, like, special cops for it. It’s a thing I just learned. And this isn’t the first time they’ve seen a tail chopped off. They say it’s usually worse. Usually it’s with scissors. This one was more precise than that.”

  A moment of silence for the temporarily fallen Dog. JP chimes in again, uncomfortable in the silence. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

  It is Suzanne’s turn to snort derisively. “I can.”

  “Oh come on. You can’t tell me you would’ve predicted this.”

  “Let’s call the feeling Shocked-But-Not-Surprised, then.”

  Eliza dips her head into her hands, defeated. “Where do I even go? Who hasn’t he touched yet? Who hasn’t he proven he can get to?”

  JP wants to volunteer. But his thoughts snap immediately to Delphine and he thinks better of it. It would be one thing if he lived alone. But Delphine—he couldn’t put her in danger. Besides, she doesn’t usually get along with other women.

  “Well it sure can’t be Devonte. I think he’s about to crack.”

  Eliza raises her eyebrow.

  Suzanne continues: “Before the police bagged my literal entire phone—gosh, I can’t fucking get over that—I texted him. He said as soon as Preston got the call, Fancy Dog descended into chaos. You’d have thought The Inspectre assassinated Elon Musk. Everyone’s on the weirdest warpath about it.”

  “Weird how? We all love Dog,” JP interjects.

  Eliza sighs. “Because no one gives a shit about him harassing me, JP.”

  “Ah. Yes.”

  “They’ve got Devonte answering phones in my place. I’m excused, of course. He keeps texting ‘I have not been trained for this’ over and over. Besides. He’s got the world’s smallest one-bedroom anyhow, no one else can fit in there. It may as well be a studio.”

  Eliza squishes her face between her hands; she can see how Preston finds it comforting. “It’s New York City, Suzanne. Everyone has the world’s smallest one-bedroom, if they’re lucky.” And we think she has a point. It’s not like Windy City; space cannot expand at the request of the User Experience team.

  “Let me—make a call,” Suzanne replies, simply and mysteriously. She takes Eliza’s burner phone and steps from the room, leaving JP and Eliza sitting across from a picture of a cat sniffing a daisy.

  “I really am sorry, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Can you—do you—accept my apology?”

  “I’ll get there.”

  Suzanne bursts back in the room, startling Eliza a second time. “It’s settled, then. You’re coming to stay with me.”

  “Where do you—” JP begins to ask, but Suzanne is having none of that.

  “Absolutely not, you wimpy traitor. Please leave now.”

  After he departs, Eliza turns to Suzanne. “What the fuck was that about?”

  “I didn’t want him to know this place exists. All we know for sure is he took your folder and then it ended up online via his computer. I’m not giving him shit to work with here.”

  And that is how Eliza winds up invited to stay at the Sixsterhood of Healing, Arts and Literature.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  We have kicked the reddit people out—though We are a small group, We are mighty and the others have no concept of this place—they Cannot Imagine It—modeled after the warehouse art collectives in the Bay—it’s the best grab We can make for what We imagine New York City used to be—Communal, Creative, and not only for rich people—something akin to the Sweet, Glorious Freaks who lived in the Chelsea Hotel, paying in art and Doing It for the culture and trying not to die So Desperately Young

  but where in the city are there warehouses that We can still rent this way—where zoning law isn’t enforced and profit hasn’t led to forcible eviction? Queens! Brilliant Friends! Queens! is where, and in particular one warehouse in Queens where certainly no one sleeps no one stays overnight it is simply studio space and studio space only We swear, officer

  New York City is one of those places you can be Very Close Friends with someone and not know where they live—two people can witness the Birth of each other’s children and not once darken each other’s doorsteps, go through life without ever seeing the spot in the entryway where magazines pile up—it is just the way of things and it is not surprising to us that Our Splendid New Friend Eliza—even as she is a Giving and Perceptive Friend—has not one single clue that Our Suzanne—that Luminous Star of a Person—accidentally lives in the perfect solution, a place to get lost

  Eliza the Brave stands outside Our unassuming building—it is tagged with spray paint and accessible only by key fob—which our Gorgeous Suzanne hands her immediately—she walks up, not to the loading doors but to the regular, person-sized door, and says “Welcome to the Sixsterhood,” as she pushes it open—Eliza is expecting a grander entrance considering Our Loyal Suzanne has up until this point protected it—protected Us—but it isn’t so very grand at first glance—just a stairwell—“Let me give you the tour”

  Suzanne—Our Perfect Thoughtful Unicorn—opens the door to the left and a massive cavernous space—bathed in sunlight and covered in what looks
like bright streamers with big blue mats on the floor—spreads itself before Eliza the Resilient—“So here’s the aerial silks—it looks like Bunny finally rigged up the lyra—that hula-hoop-looking thing—but it’s more like a trapeze really and back there is the recording equipment—we’ve soundproofed it pretty good but sorry where you’re staying you’ll definitely be able to hear it—” Suzanne closes the door and when she opens the door on the right the scent of wood shavings wafts through and Eliza breathes deeply filling all the corners of her Lithe and Beautiful body with the sweetness of it appreciating the Home Depot smell—“Welding, carpentry, general building this way—unless you have a secret talent for metalwork, probably you won’t spend much time in there”—she closes the door and continues up the stairs—“up we go”

  Eliza has had a long day—her legs weigh so heavy when hung with all that stress, understandably so—and she asks “Isn’t there an elevator?”

  “Not exactly”

  They hoist themselves up step-by-step until they turn on a landing and Eliza gasps: A huge welded sculpture of a lion head looks out over the stairwell with rivets that shimmer like oil slicks and jagged teeth juxtaposed with friendly eyebrows and a majestic mane—a banner is painted above: “Resilience—Vulnerability—Strength”

  A good banner—a good mascot—We came up with it, all together—home! home! home!—everything here seems more real-brighter-bigger—the scale of it is as though We’re in Windy City and it’s Our superhero lair—and Our Intelligent Protector Suzanne has never told anyone about it

  Through the door on the left: a large, almost industrial kitchen with pots and pans hanging from the ceiling over a giant steel island—Our Gorgeous Friend Eliza is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of kitchen gadgetry: mixers, pasta makers, instant pots—it looks like a food blog in here except Decidedly Grungier—like a food blog where no one gives a Fuck about aesthetics just about food, some of which We lift from the restaurant dumpsters and some of which We collectively purchase from the organic grocery store—except We have a huge dining room table made of a barn door from the Hudson Valley placed lovingly in front of massive windows so We are not wholly unconcerned with Aesthetics—and sitting there We can look out over a view of dingy semi-ungentrified Queens—from the second floor of course so the view isn’t spectacular—but the sun shines in all the same as it sets early

  Eliza—We are watching her closely, experiencing her Taking-In—feels a pang of—is it nervousness? Yes and it’s too strong to be only nervousness—We can see it spasm through the tiny muscles in her face watch it settle in her limbs as it arrives on her body—it’s fear—a strong desire to get away from the windows through which someone might see her and she registers surprise at how reasonable it feels: both the action and the emotion behind it—the obsession and compulsion “Back there are bedrooms—Jack, Bunny, Lil and Lyle, Dee, they all live on this floor”

  “How many are you here?”

  “Eleven—Twelve soon—And I guess you so thirteen?”

  Our Gentle, Brilliant Sun Goddess Suzanne takes Eliza’s hand and leads her back through the stairwell to the door on the right and pushes it open: “I expect you’ll be a particular fan of—” and We can tell she is about to finish the sentence with “this room” but Eliza gasps once again—such Good Taste she has, in spaces, in Communities—and steps in running her hands over two shining Alienware towers, two drobos and—

  “A Vive, even? This place is—wow, this is the full ideal setup”—She looks around, absorbs the large room, again with the windows (pang in her stomach, We can see it)—most of the center is empty which is Perfect for wandering weird worlds with the headset on and the back of the room is occupied by long standing desks and power strips—a sectional runs into the corner and two of Us are cuddled there staring at a laptop and crunching on popcorn—We are Perfect Peacocks of People with piercings on our faces and tattoos on our necks, fingers and wrists—Eliza isn’t sure of our Genders, and We don’t tell her—aren’t always sure Ourselves and of the things to know about Us it is the Least Relevant and also the Most and in the absence of a meaningful space to share Our Deepest Selves, We ignore it like neutral weather—a fact of existence

  “Lil, Lyle, this is Eliza—” Our Suzanne introduces Us—or rather a facet of Us—Our representatives in this moment

  We stand, smiling—Hi, hello, welcome

  “Are you—is this all yours?” Eliza gestures to the Vive and the computer towers

  We shrug: It’s the Community’s though We’re the ones who are trying to use it the most—We want to make sure queerdos aren’t left behind in the VR revolution—neither one of Us studied shit like this though so We’re making it up as We go

  “How’s it coming so far?” Eliza asks

  We—pretty much just know how to play that archery game—

  —But We’re taking a lot of notes!—

  —On what makes a successful UX, what a compelling story is in this space, what sorts of Possibilities We see—

  Eliza smiles and her face hurts—she tries to quickly count how many hours she’s been awake and how many times she’s cried (crying is Courageous!) and fails—it seems like the day has extended the length of a few rotations at least—stretched beyond the horizon that way

  Our Exquisite Attentive Suzanne picks up on her friend’s exhaustion and ferries her out of the room before We can ask to show her Our Radical Feminist Unity Project—which We of course wouldn’t do—We can see she’s tired and sad—We can provide distraction later and a place to sleep now—later! later! We will Embrace her later!

  “Upstairs is all individual studios and bedrooms—I’ll show you mine” They huff up one more floor and Eliza’s quads are burning as she tops the rise and sees the rooms, which are less rooms and more stalls, partitioned with cubicle cork and flimsy doors; “Here, this one’s me” Suzanne opens one and—

  Eliza lets out a gasp for the third time—not because of computer equipment but because what’s beyond is so unexpected—and We agree because Our Composed Blossoming Sunflower Suzanne passes—for straight, and for wealthy and for someone logical and people don’t think of her as an Artist outside the Community—her tiny allotment of personal space is mostly made up of those huge glass windows and one bed with a crazy amount of blankets all piled in the center and an easel on which sits what looks like a Renoir if Renoir had ever lived in a warehouse in Queens and knew what a trans person was—It is a painting of the view outside her window which is garbage and a chain-link fence and all, but in her Hands and Eyes and Talent it is somehow brighter and lighter as if despite all its Desperate Grunge and its pigeons and its poop this corner of Queens is Suzanne’s happy place—is as treasured as a fancy boat ride or a Sunday in the park—she is today’s impressionist and We’re impressed—We always are—she is Us after all—Our Sweet and Exceptional Muse

  “Suzanne!” Eliza almost shrieks “You— I thought you were normal!”

  “Uh—thanks?”

  “How have you—fuck, this is beautiful—how have you not mentioned this?”

  Suzanne shrugs—“I like my private life private”

  “But—we’re friends! At least how did I not know you painted? Christ, why are you working in customer relations? You could be in NPC character design easily—never have to talk to another customer again—if you wanted to, I don’t know, render hundreds of heads—”

  But Suzanne—Insightful and Self-Aware and Well-Boundaried—is shaking her head as she says “I like my job and my art very very separate”

  Eliza whirls around and says “This place is—it’s magic”—her face falls—“Do they all know? Are they all okay with me being under this roof?”

  “Surrounding you in off-the-grid people—people We’re sure We trust—seemed like the best idea to Everyone—besides”—Our Cunning and Beautiful Dormouse Suzanne smiles—“my name’s not on the lease—everything here down to the security cameras and the key fobs connect only to Our own servers—I h
ave never had location services turned on—I’m nearly fucking impossible to find which means now you are too—” Eliza’s mind flickers to the windows and “what if” echoes in her ears and in her mouth and in the back of her throat: what if he followed and what if he can see in here? she crams it down as Our Suzanne says “you’re in the guest room—I’m afraid it’s not quite as nice”

  She leads Eliza to the very back of the warehouse past other cubicles and a bathroom where one of Us is showering and filling the air with Blessed Comforting steam—she turns into what Eliza thinks is a dead end except it’s not: there is an elevator—an open one—with a red lever stuck in the “locked” position just outside the door and inside there’s a bunk bed made up with thin sheets and a ratty pillow and fairy lights twist around the posts because We have done Our best to combat the dark which is to say We lean into it and make it feel like the fort We all wish We had as children—Hygge and Cozy—a Mother-Bear-Ready dark den

  “Suzanne?”

  “Yes?”

  “Am I sleeping in the elevator?”

  “Yes”

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Outside of Our door We see a man and he looks Very Confused—he carries a suitcase and he is tapping at the key fob and We do not know this man

  He hears an electronic whizzing—the articulated arm on one of Our Beautiful Creations—and he looks up and sees the camera wake and point its lone eye at him

  Then We speak—WHO ARE YOU?—and it’s loud and grainy and sounds like it was lifted out of a Dilapidated Burger King Drive-Thru because that is where We got the speaker from—We stole it! Be gay do crime!—as he looks closer at Our camera he realizes that too is Old—Repurposed and Re-Engineered—We love a good Reduce Reuse Recycle