The Empty Ones (2 page)

Fuck it. I wasn't going to go.

Then somebody passed by a few inches in front of me, and their face was like a library on a Sunday. Quiet, unassuming, forgetful. Nothing of note. Nothing to pay attention to. Look away.
You're not missing anything,
that face said to me,
go ahead and look at better stuff
.
I hear there are bouncing titties nearby.

It had the opposite effect on me. It shook half the buzz right out of my head, replaced it with a surge of adrenaline. I stared hard at the person with the unnoticeable face, and felt the start of a focus headache build up behind my eyes. Their features blurred and shifted. Their face squirmed like wet soap under my stare and refused to resolve. There were too many people, too close together. You could never hope to pick out the features of an Unnoticeable in a crowd like this.

Shit.

I had to go.

I drained the rest of my beer, shaking the can to get at the last few drops. I ran my tongue into the narrow hole, cutting it a little on the sharp metal edges, and tossed the thoroughly empty can sideways into the crowd. It skipped off the skull of a kid with only the front half of a mohawk. He looked around to see who did it, didn't find anybody, and settled for punching the fat guy next to him instead.

I shoved my way toward the exit. I followed the red zigzag as it disappeared and reappeared. Ducking in and out of the crowd. It bounced merrily, like those little dots that highlight the lyrics in sing-alongs.

Behind me, the guitars died, and Joey's goofy, mooky voice rang out clear and alone against the silence:

“I saw her walking down the street

He jumped down and knocked her off her feet

And then I knew it was the end of her.”

The chubby girl ducked under a purple rope and slipped into a darkened alcove. The Unnoticeable followed after. Somebody shouted “
1-2-3-4
” and the guitars blared back into life like antiaircraft fire. Joey screamed:

“He's gonna kill that girl

He's gonna kill that girl

He's gonna kill that girl tonight.”

A bit on the fucking nose there, Joey.

 

THREE

2013. Tucson, Arizona. Kaitlyn.

The entire thing was filmed in such high definition that it looped back around to looking cheap again. A soap opera or a corporate training video. The carpet was a deep beige shag. The walls were beige, with some faded floral design worked into the wallpaper in slightly lighter beige. The fixtures were modern and minimalist: The lamps were a series of connected rods of burnished steel; the blinds were faux-Asian rice paper; the television was wafer-thin and huge, shining black like ice on a pond—and wherever possible, all of it was trimmed in beige. All except for a big, puffy, bright orange couch that sat obscenely in the center of the room.

The couch was absurd. The couch was out of character. The couch was a
situation
.

The couch seemed guilty and brazen all at once, like the 1970s had shat it out on the carpet while your back was turned, and it was now waiting in the corner, just daring you to comment.

Around a light beige table with ornate wrought iron legs, there were four tall chairs with beige corduroy cushions. On one sat a woman with a fanatic's eyes, bright blue and perpetually wet, as if on the verge of hysterical tears. Her hair was blond, her skin was tan, her blouse was unbuttoned just slightly, and her pencil skirt looked as though it had been officially assigned at the graduating ceremony of Sexy Journalist Academy. Her unwavering smile could have blinded a welder. In another sat a handsome Latino man. His muscles barely fit in his shirt, which was both a testament to his workout routine and his wardrobe consultant, who only bought him shirts that were two sizes too small, in order to better emphasize the man's impeccable workout routine. He, too, seemed physically incapable of not smiling. His immaculate teeth, their edges squared off by a ruler, were as orderly as a military parade. They stretched from one ear to the other and possibly beyond. You got the irrational impression that those teeth would continue right on into the back of his head, wrapping about the skull and out the other side in an unbroken ribbon of enamel. He wore a smile like an ordinary person wears underwear—just a fact of life, something you put on first thing in the morning and only take off at night—but his eyes did not smile with him. They were small, black, and just a touch too close together. They reflected no light. Two bottomless pits dug into his face.

The woman laughed. She stretched out a hand and laid it on the man's knee. You could be forgiven, at this point—given the setting, the cast, and the artless resolution of the camera—for thinking that you were watching the start of a porno. One look into the desperate yearning of the tanned blonde's face, and you might reasonably assume you were only two innuendos away from full penetration. But you are, instead, watching
Access Hollywood
. You have made better decisions in your life.

 …

Nelly:—and you've got some experience with …
sticky
situations, I hear?

Marco: Haha, you mean my little
hombrecito
? Enrique—Kiki—he's a gem, Nelly, truly he is. I tell this funny story about him. He's gonna hate me for it when I'm older. Sorry little dude! So we were at SeaWorld watching the
delfines
and
ballenas
—that's “dolphins” and “whales” in Spanish, Nelly.…

Nelly: Fantasti—

Marco: And Kiki, that little goof, he leans over too far, and plop! His ice cream drops right off the cone and into the water!
Ai yai yai!

Nelly: Oh no! What flavor was i—

Marco: So I don't know what I'm thinking. I'm not thinking, I guess, and I just reach right in there and go to scoop it out. But, uh oh, here comes the delfin—right for my little hombrecito's ice cream!

Nelly: Who even knew dolphins liked ice—

Marco: So I'm in one of those dad moments, you know. I want to do right by my Kiki, but at the same time, I don't know what this crazy delfin is thinking, man! He could be coming for my hand. I'm leaning in there, trying to reach the ice cream, the delfin is swimming right toward me, faster and faster, and I'm leaning farther and farther and—well, let's just say now we know little Enrique doesn't mind wet ice cream!

Nelly: You're one
cool
dad!

Marco: Haha, you got that right!

Nelly: Speaking of temperatures, I hear the next season of your show is going to be
sizzling
. You're headed down south of the borde—

Marco: To Tulancingo! We're headed down Mexico way, my hometown—
mi cuidad natal
—for my next project.

Nelly: Tell us a little abo—

Marco: Well, you remember the first season I tried to teach some inner-city Latino kids that there's a better way. This time, I'm returning to my roots—you know, small-town boy made good—to give a little something back to
mi pueblo
. It's going to be great. Really great.
Super great!

Nelly: I hear you had a little trouble with the kids on the first season—

Marco: The Rollerblading! That's right. Some of these kids, you know, they get themselves into bad situations. They steal, they do drugs, they get into gangs, so I thought—if you're gonna get them out of something bad, why not get them into something good, like Rollerblading? We had some spills along the way, but they got pretty good by the end. We're gonna have some fun on this next season, too! I'm thinking bungee jumping! Haha, scary!

Nelly: But you ran into a little trouble with at least one teen last year who—

Marco: The only trouble we had was finding a nice smooth spot for Rollerblading! I love LA—
amo mi cuidad
—but they gotta work on those roads, Nelly!

Nelly: I was referring to the incident with—

Marco: Haha!

Nelly: I … yes, it does sound like a …
rough situation.

Marco: You got that right!

Nelly: Haha, okay. Thanks for coming down to talk to us today, Marco.

Marco: Thanks for having me.
Muchas gracias!

Nelly: And be sure to check out the second season of Marco Luis's
From the Barrio to the Bellagio,
only on E! But first: Up next, how low can J. Lo go? It's a Lo down dirty shame, and we've got the pictures to prove it. Jennifer Lopez does the limbo—commando—and shows her no-no. Oh no! Back to you, Tad.

 …

You could feel the tension break as soon as the camera flicked off. Nelly let out a sigh that lasted for an entire minute. She wiped at her watery eyes, blinked her contacts back into place, and smiled at Marco. Genuinely, this time. It was a more subdued expression. No more cheeks stretched taut to show off the glimmering wall of teeth. It was a small, nervous smile. A little sad.

“So how did you stop that dolphin?” she asked Marco. Her voice was twenty decibels lower off camera. A slight southern accent chased about the edges.

“What.” Marco responded. There was no intonation at the end to mark it as a question. His voice was flat and still.

He had also lost his camera mask, but while Nelly's had been replaced with a version of herself ten years older and a hundred IQ points brighter, Marco's was replaced by nothing at all. A mannequin sat in his place, perfectly still, just waiting for somebody to come and put him away.

“The dolphin?” Nelly tried again. “The one that wanted your son's ice cream? How'd you get it away?”

“There was no dolphin,” Marco stated. When she looked confused, he continued: “It was a cute story. People like cute stories about famous people. It makes them feel like they are like us. Like we are just the same as them. I have people that write down cute stories for me to tell. That was one of them.”

“Oh…” Nelly tried to think of something else to say, just to keep the conversation going, but she came up blank. She pulled at a thread in her tight pencil skirt instead.

“If I had to stop a dolphin,” Marco continued, seeing that something more was expected of him, “I would hook my fingers into each of its eyes and push up and in until they popped.”

Nelly's mouth went dry.

“Everything has eyes,” Marco said. “Eyes are always a weakness.”

Marco stared at her, unblinking and unmoving. Nelly got the sense he was not awaiting a response from her, or even trying to discomfort her. It was just that his face was already pointed in her direction, and he saw no reason to look elsewhere. She felt sweat spring up on the back of her neck. She tried to think of a polite reason to walk away. Then an impolite one. Then she just tried to get her legs to work. They would not.

Steele, her wardrobe assistant, paused as he walked by them. He frowned deeply at Nelly and made an extravagant series of noises.

“Now why do you have to pick at your skirt like that, Miss Nelly? Nasty habit. Nasty! Here, come on, that was the last reel for today. Let's get you in your civvies and out of my damn expensive clothes before you do any more damage.”

Steele grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to her feet. She let him lead her across the set like a blind woman. He pointed out the various cables and rigs so she didn't trip on them, and only released her when they were safely around the corner and out of sight. She slumped into the beaten and stained break-room sofa while Steele filled a Styrofoam cup with stale coffee.

“Miss Nelly, I thought you were supposed to be a smart girl.”

“What's that?”

“Smart girls know better than to keep talking with the Empty Ones once the damn camera stops.”

“I didn't know…” Nelly said, “I didn't know he was one of them. I've never met him before. Just seen him on TV. He always seemed so…”

“Nice?” Steele laughed and handed her the tiny, wholly inadequate cup of coffee. “You sound like one of the rubes, Miss Nelly. You know they like to put on a show.”

Nelly made an affirming noise, and sipped at her terrible coffee. It burned her tongue, but she didn't really notice.

*   *   *

I flicked the television off, then decided I didn't like the silence. It would just give me time to think about what I saw. Digest it, swallow it, and let it slowly poison my thoughts until I'd lost another night to sweat and anxiety dreams. Instead, I flipped the channel a few times and dropped the remote onto the duvet cover that the '90s forgot. It was pale pink, shot through with pastel blue fractals and little squiggles of orange. It looked like the cover to my old Trapper Keeper. The Trapper Keeper I had in fifth grade. The same one that used to hold my embarrassing pictures of Marco Luis, in his role as hunky jock J.C. Sable on the teen sitcom
Home Room
. I had three pictures, I think, and all of them were as precious as fine art to my childhood self. I had lovingly cut them from those preteen girl softcore porno mags—
Tiger Beat, Seventeen, Teen Vogue
—with a pair of blunt scissors, and got them laminated in the library. The librarian laughed at me when I made the request, and my ears had turned red, but I braved the embarrassment, shoved the glossy papers across the desk and waited.

They were worth it.

There was Sable in the pool, shirtless and staring back at the camera with his self-satisfied “I know you want me” smirk. Sable dancing with Kristi at the prom, her head leaning on the shoulder of his sleeveless white tuxedo. Sable with Mack, the two of them posing against an old cherry-red Impala. God, I couldn't count how many times I'd stared at those pictures and imagined myself as Kristi, my great big puffy '90s bangs crushed up against the wide lapels of Sable's tuxedo/vest. Imagined myself in the backseat of that Impala, belting out all the wrong lyrics to classic rock songs while Sable drove and Mack played air guitar. How many times I pictured myself in that pool, Sable's strong hands lifting me up and swinging me around, entwining in my bathing suit and …