The Unnoticeables (3 page)

Waves of nausea and panic washed through me. I dropped the knife, and the angel sharply adjusted its focus. I couldn't pick out individual movements, but it seemed to be intent on the knife now, like it hadn't noticed the blade before. It suddenly appeared above the knife. I backed away reflexively and lost a flip-flop to a patch of mud beneath a leaking garden hose.

Before I could blink, it was there in front of me again, now focused on the sandal.

I turned and ran, and somewhere far behind me, I heard a crackling, sucking noise, as if some large, tacky mass was being scraped up from the ground.

I had a brief, scattershot flashback. Just still images. Polaroids taken of memories: torn little slippers with Corvettes on them. The taste of purple left on the wooden stick after the Popsicle was gone. My sister screaming. Flames on a set of paisley curtains. A noise like stepping on fleshy chewing gum.

I had heard that sound before.

 

FOUR

1977. New York City, New York. Carey.

The cops said Debbie tried to light a cigarette and her wig went up in flames. That's how she died. Officially speaking.

Were cops this fucking stupid everywhere, or was it just in New York City?

I was trying to drink away the anger, but the parasites had been out in force ever since Jezza hooked up with the blond girl in the scuffed flannel shirt. They were not helping ease my jangled nerves.

“Like this?” the kid with the Elmer's glue holding his hair into little spikes asked another.

“No, it's more bouncy,” the other parasite, a pretty young thing with safety pins in her ears, corrected him, hopping up and down.

She was trying to teach him some kind of dance. It was apparently the punk thing to do now, this hopping up and down. She bounced for a few seconds, her tits heaving every which way.

“Like this?” Elmer Spikes asked again, shuffling from foot to foot like an angry ape.

“No,” Safety Pins answered, bouncing again, “watch me.”

“Like this?” Elmer Spikes asked when she was done, rocking back and forth on his heels.

He said it with such earnestness that I almost didn't catch what he was doing.

“You just kind of hop, really quick; your feet leave the ground,” Safety Pins tried again, breasts jiggling frantically.

Elmer Spikes's eyes never left her chest. I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing.

“What?” Safety Pins asked, her chest still heaving.

A huge grin split Elmer Spikes's face in half.

“Oh, god damn it.” She finally caught on, stopped mid-hop, and shoved Elmer Spikes down onto the tracks. “Real cute, asshole.”

We both laughed. When he picked himself up, I tossed Elmer Spikes a beer from the pack I'd been zealously guarding like a mother bear. He took it, popped it open, and drained the entire thing in three large gulps. I raised my eyebrows at him and tossed him another. Crack, hiss, three gulps, gone.

“Shit.” I elbowed Wash and gestured at Elmer Spikes. “This one does tricks.”

“Such as?” Wash asked.

Wash wore these thick glasses, and something about his bone structure—high cheeks, broad forehead—reminded you of some grim scientist in a sci-fi flick. He had this detached, formal way of speaking that made you think his ideas were worth listening to. Which usually got you in trouble: Wash was, without a doubt, the dumbest motherfucker I have ever met. I once saw him get caught in a subway turnstile. For ten solid minutes.

“Last one,” I said, tossing another beer to Elmer Spikes. He downed it in a second.

“Interesting,” Wash said, after a moment's consideration; “you must be a hit with the ladies.”

The remark sounded like it might have been witty at first, but when you thought about it, it was completely moronic gibberish. That was Wash.

In response, Elmer Spikes emitted a belch so loud it echoed down the tunnel and rebounded, coming back to us as a guttural chorus. It was strangely beautiful.

“This place is cool,” he said, peering up and down the tracks. “What is it?”

“South Ferry Station.” Jezza instantly spoke up, eager to claim some sort of credit for the find by answering first. “Bobbies closed the inner-loop platform earlier this year. Blokes come round sometimes during the day, but she's abandoned come night.”

“Bobbies are cops,” I told Jezza matter-of-factly. “The cops don't close subway stations. For somebody that talks like a chimney sweep, you sure don't know fuck-all about the English.”

“Piss off,” Jezza said, flipping me a peace sign.

I take it the gesture meant something different in England. You could give him all the shit you wanted, but as long as Jezza got the excuse to say “piss off” and flip you that “V”—which, I admit, he did perfectly, just like Johnny Rotten—he still felt like a rock star.

“Wash found it,” Randall clarified, and you could see Jezza's lip curl at the stolen credit.

“Don't worry,” Wash said authoritatively, “there won't be any trains.”

“Well, yeah,” Elmer Spikes said, eyeballing Wash with confusion, “I figured.”

“The trains all filter through the outer loop now,” Wash continued, oblivious to Elmer Spikes's sarcasm. “I know this, because my father used to drive the one line through here. I would sit with him sometimes.”

“Yeah?” Elmer Spikes laughed. “I know this because the rails are dusty, man.”

Wash, Randall, and I had grabbed prime spots under the only lights, a series of dim yellow bulbs in a narrow tile archway that only comfortably fit three. Jezza had elbowed his way up onto the platform a split second later, seeing it as some kind of hierarchal move. He grandly invited the girl in scuffed flannel up after him, like a spot on the cracked, filthy tile was some kind of honor. She was wiggling around on top of Jezza by way of thanks, which he seemed to be enjoying immensely.

The rest of the parasites were milling about a few feet below, down on top of the tracks. Elmer Spikes was trying, and failing, to balance on one foot. He was a pile of twigs in a torn T-shirt, and I think he was terrified of me. I don't know why, but every time I asked him for something, he went sprinting off like an eager secretary. Safety Pins was kind of a poser. She was always telling us what was and wasn't punk, but she was good-looking and never wore a bra, so she got to stay. There were two other girls with bright blue hair. Mostly kept to themselves, but they always had money to throw in for beer. We called them Thing 1 and Thing 2. And then there was a black kid with a Mohawk. His name was Matt.

You don't need nicknames to remember a black punk. They're like unicorns.

“Did anybody tell Mike where we were hanging out?” Safety Pins asked Thing 1.

“Nobody's seen Mike in weeks,” Thing 2 chimed in; “he probably moved back home.”

“Man, everybody's calling it quits. Denny, Brat, and The Spitter all split, too,” Safety Pins added, then, after a moment's consideration: “Going home isn't punk rock.”

“The Spitter?” I asked. “His name is The Spitter?”

“Yeah, he spits,” Thing 1 answered laconically. She was slightly better looking than Thing 2, but she was also kind of a smartass. Two plusses for her.

“He spits
a lot,
” Thing 2 added.

I should hook her up with Wash. They could have history's stupidest babies.

“That's what's wrong with punks these days,” Jezza piped up: “got no manners.”

We all laughed, but Scuffed Flannel carried it just a bit too long. Made it awkward.

“How do you know they're all moving home?” Randall asked. He was staring down the tunnel after Elmer Spikes, who was singing “(I Live for) Cars and Girls” to himself as he disappeared into the darkness.

“Where else would they be going?” Matt asked. He'd been eye-fucking my beer all night. I tossed him one. Not every day you get to share a brew with a unicorn.

But that's four down to charity, Carey. Watch yourself.

“Could be on the nod,” Jezza guessed.

“Could be whoring out on the Loop,” I supplied.

“Could be dead,” Randall finished.

We all fell silent on that one, not because it was in bad taste, but because it had an awful measure of truth to it. Life was cheap in NYC lately. Everybody knew it. You could get blasted just trying to lift a measly six-pack from some Korean corner store. You could shoot dope and wander into traffic. You could say the wrong thing to the wrong bald guy with the wrong color laces on his boots and get yourself kicked to death by skinheads. You could go any number of ways, and it happened too often to bother reporting them all.

Or you could meet the tar men.

I knew Randall and Wash had seen them. I had a feeling Jezza had spotted them once or twice, too. But he wouldn't admit to it. Still, whenever we talked about the tar men, he protested too much and too quickly—just a bit too eager to call us assholes. I wondered if any of the parasites had seen one. I considered asking them, but I knew they'd think I was crazy if I mentioned it.

“You parasites know about the tar men?” I asked—because fuck what they think about literally anything.

“Yeah, they're great,” Safety Pins immediately said. “Their new stuff is bullshit, but their first album was really good.”

“God, you are so lucky you have rockin' tits,” I said, shaking my head.

She looked confused.

“They're not a band,” Randall clarified.

“Not this bollocks again!” Jezza cried, too loud. He had this crazy smile, like he was hearing the funniest thing in the world. “Every time we get a little pissed, you two knob-ends start telling bleedin' ghost stories!”

Jezza looked around to the parasites, hoping to share a conspiratorial laugh. Thing 2 obliged him, while Safety Pins went quiet and flushed bright red, pissed at being caught in a lie. But Matt and Thing 1 were staring at the ground like it was their favorite TV show.

“I saw 'em.” Matt finally spoke. “People keep saying I was just drunk, and … well, fuck it: of course I was. But I saw 'em. I saw 'em take a girl down an alley, and when I looked after, they were gone. Thin air.”

“I've seen them, too,” Thing 1 said, her voice flat and distant. “Not up close or anything. Just shapes moving out by the waterfront. But you could tell they weren't human, even from a distance. Too big, and they moved all wrong.”

“That ain't it, either.” Matt spoke again, eager to be done with it. The words spilled out of him all at once: “There's normal-looking people too. But they're all wrong inside, just like Jenny said.”

“The fuck's Jenny?” I asked.

“Her.” Matt pointed at the blue-haired girl. Thing 1. “Sorry. But it's like she said about the tar men: They're all wrong. These people look normal, but you can tell by the way they move and look and talk. They dress like us—kind of—but they're not doing it right.
They're so hard to notice.
It's like only when you're not looking for 'em do you notice how weird it is that you're not looking for 'em.”

“You're arseholed!” Jezza laughed. “Totally arseholed! You sound like a bloody fortune cookie!”

Randall very calmly reached over and flicked him right in the eyeball. Jezza howled.

“Shut up, Jeremy,” Randall said, and pushed himself up off the tile. “I'm tired now. I'm going home.”

“Yeah, fuck it,” I agreed, downing the last of my beer. “I'm out of liquor, too. No point sitting here slowly going sober, letting you parasites drill into my brain with your fucking banter. Let's go.”

Jezza looked pissed. I couldn't blame him. Scuffed Flannel had been giving him an extended lap dance since we got there. But he sure as hell didn't hesitate to scramble after us when we left him in the archway and started heading for the outer platform.

“Hey, wait,” Safety Pins said, jogging up beside me and Randall like we were the scout leaders on a goddamned field trip. “Elmer Spikes isn't back yet.”

“Boy's pissing out at least thirty-six ounces of swill right now,” Randall said, heaving himself up onto the outer platform and rolling to his feet. “I'm not waiting for that.”

“The truly great artists suffer for their art,” I told Safety Pins, grabbing her ass as she hefted herself onto the ledge in front of me.

She kicked me square in the throat.

*   *   *

We never saw Elmer Spikes again.

I don't know what that meant. Maybe he was pissed that we ditched him, and didn't want to hang around anymore. Maybe he overdosed in a Village dope house. Maybe he just suddenly realized that “drunken malcontent” wasn't a very promising career path and decided to pursue his lifelong dream of being an accountant.

I tell myself those things, and I don't fucking believe a word of them. They got him. The tar men. Whatever those black monsters are, they got Elmer Spikes. I won't say I missed the kid, but I had been forcing Matt to learn to shotgun beers ever since he disappeared.

“I gwfooo…,” Matt said, foam shooting out of his nostrils.

The lessons weren't going well.

“Oh, guh.” Matt coughed, one eye shut. “Guh in muh fuggin' eye!”

“If you drink it faster, it won't explode out of your head like that,” I told him helpfully.

He ralphed up a soft pile of foam, like a hungry dog.

“I can't drink it any faster!” Matt protested, unsticking his hands from our artfully disgusting kitchen floor.

“Try putting more of the liquid in you at a greater speed,” Randall suggested.

“That's not fuckin' helpful!” Matt yelled.

“Try swallowing larger amounts,” I added, one finger on my jaw in thoughtful consideration.

“Fuck you guys,” Matt said. He got to his feet, turned the faucet on, and stuck his face in the water.

“All right, all right—you don't have to shotgun anymore…,” I said.