The Unnoticeables

 

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Table of Contents

About the Author

Copyright Page

 

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To everybody who told me I was wasting my teenage years by drinking, going to punk shows, and reading comic books: Thank you for being so hilariously wrong.

 

Acknowledgments

I want to thank my wife, Meagan Brockway, for her love and support. My dad and my grandpa, for never feeling the appropriate amount of shame over what I chose to do with their namesake. My agent, Sam Morgan, and all the folks at JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., for being frighteningly good at everything they do. Never cross them. My editor, Paul Stevens, for understanding and refining the manic ramblings you're about to read, and all the fine people at Tor, for knitting it together into this beautiful, lethal little package. I want to thank Will Staehle for that cover image that makes me go weak at the knees. Thank you to all the beta readers who read this book back when it was all doodles of Voltron doing keg stands and self-portraits of me as a Ninja Turtle. I want to thank my dogs, Detectives Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh, for their stupid faces. And finally, thank you to all of the people who are about to read this, love the hell out of it, and send me all of their money in a fit of lustful gratitude. It is completely expected, of course, but no less appreciated.

 

ONE

Unknown. Unnamed.

I met my guardian angel today. She shot me in the face.

I'm not much for metaphor. So when I say “guardian angel,” I don't mean some girl with big eyes and swiveling hips who I put on a ridiculous pedestal. I mean that she was an otherworldly being assigned by some higher power to watch over me. And when I say “shot me in the face,” I don't mean she “blew me away” or “took me by surprise.” I mean she manifested a hand of pure, brilliant white energy, pulled out an old weather-beaten Colt Navy revolver, and put a bullet through my left eyeball.

I am not dead. I am something far, far worse than dead. Or at least I'm turning into it.

Here's something I found out recently:

The universe is a problem. Again, I'm not much for metaphor. I meant what I said: The universe and everything that lies within it is a problem, in the very technical sense of the word. There are many parts to the universe—too many, in fact—which means that there is a simpler way to express the concept of “universe.” There are extraneous parts in every single object in existence, and to do away with them is to compact the essence of the universe into something leaner and more efficient. The universe and everything in it is a problem. And that means that the universe and everything in it has a solution.

Humans also have extraneous parts: Think of the appendix, the wisdom teeth, the occasional vestigial tail—there are parts of us that we simply don't need. They clutter us. We can be rid of them altogether. But that's just physical stuff. There are also fundamental elements of what we are inside—spiritual, psychic, psychological, what have you—that are being expressed inefficiently. Our parts are too complicated. They can be reduced. They can be solved.

Human beings have a solution.

And being solved is a terrible goddamned thing.

The exact methods vary from person to person. My solution? A .36 caliber lead ball through the pupil while sitting cross-legged on a bed in a Motel 6, watching a rerun of
Scooby-Doo.

I've always been a simple man.

I guess I'm about to get a whole lot simpler.

Before this thing takes me completely, I need to tell you a story. But I'm having trouble starting. This is how it goes, or how it went, or how it will go. I'm having a hard time with time: That's the first step to the change, Yusuf told me—losing your chronology. Where did it start? With her? With me?

I can't remember why the start should even matter. Quick, let me tell you about Carey.…

 

TWO

1977. New York City, New York. Carey.

“Hey, fuck you,” I said to Wash as I passed him. He was huddled in a little ball at the edge of the booth. I mussed his hair up, making extra sure to jiggle his head about while I did it. I could hear him throw up into his own shoes as I made the door.

Told him not to take those off in the club.

The New York City air was a goddamned bathtub. It was eighty degrees outside at one o'clock in the morning. Inside the club was worse, though. In there, you had to breathe the accumulated sweat of a hundred drunken punks. A thin puddle of beer evaporated beneath your feet, found nowhere to go in the already damp air, and eventually settled onto your eyelashes.

I've got the beerlashes. Shit. Who has cigarettes? Debbie has cigarettes.

“Debbie!” I hollered straight out into the street as loud as I could, in no particular direction. I waited for an answer.

“Shut the fuck up!” a female voice answered. Didn't sound like Debbie.

Two teen girls stood by a busted-open newspaper machine, drinking something distinctly beer-colored out of a Coke bottle. Too cute to be part of the scene.
Aw, look, they did their mascara up all thick. Punk fucking rock.

“If you gimme a cigarette, I might consider letting you suck my dick,” I told the blond one with the patches on her denim jacket.

They laughed and said a bunch of words that weren't “Here's a cigarette,” so I left. I crossed the Bowery and headed up Bleecker, to the old wrought-iron fire escape where we hid emergency drinks from the parasites.

And I found the parasites there.
With the drinks.

Parasites: the young kids who milled about outside the shows, too chicken or too broke to slip past the doorman. Occasionally they lucked into some weed or some smokes, and they were always eager to impress, so they were generally tolerated, like fleas or acne. But this was a step too far: They'd found the goddamned beer cache! They saw me coming and turned at once, like a bunch of prairie dogs spotting the shadow of a hawk.

“One of you has a cigarette for me,” I told them, not asked.

The little guy with the Elmer's-glue spikes fumbled in his pockets like I'd told him there was a loose grenade in there. He practically threw a Camel at my face.

I pulled my Zippo and did that Steve McQueen shit, where I snapped it open and scraped the flint across my jeans to light it in one smooth motion. Ladies love it; men fear it.

Too bad I was out of fluid. Somebody laughed.

“You fuckin' parasites!” I hollered, turning to round on them with all the righteous fury of a man cheated out of a beer stash. But Jezza was standing there instead, looking like an empty jacket draped over a chair.

“Easy, mate! Yer scarin' off all the lovelies!”

“Light, Jezza?”

“First he calls me a parasite, then he wants me lighter?” Jezza mimed outrage to a plain-looking girl in glasses and a scuffed-up flannel shirt.

God damn it: You sold our beer stash out for parasite ass?

“I will ruin your night right now unless you get me fire.”

“Well, he's all piss and vinegar, innit he?” Jezza said to Scuffed Flannel. She laughed. Utterly fucking charmed, I'm sure.

“Jezza, god damn it, you're not British. He's not British.” I looked Scuffed Flannel in the eye. “And the only English movie he's seen is
Mary Poppins,
which is why he talks like such a prick.”

“Oi!” Jezza protested.

“Jezza, God love you, man, but you sound like a fucking cartoon penguin. Knock it off. Your mom's from Illinois.” I turned back to Scuffed Flannel and said, “His name's Jeremy.”

“You asshole, Carey! Why do you always gotta blow it for me?” Jezza whined. “The girls love the accent!”

“Girls? Jesus, man. You're making things complicated.” I looked and saw Debbie's flashy, tinfoil-colored hair across the street, just coming out the door.

“Here,” I said, stealing the beer can from Jezza's hand, “this is how you do it: HEY DEBBIE!”

She turned, looking for the source of the voice, but it was too dark and there were too many people.

“DEBBIE, DO YOU WANT TO SCREW LATER?” I hollered.

“ARE YOU ANY GOOD?” she yelled back, still not spotting me.

“YOU'VE HAD WORSE.”

“ALL RIGHT, THEN,” she answered, laughing, and turned back to talk to her friends.

Jezza looked like somebody had pooped in his cornflakes.

“Told you I'd ruin your night. A man asks for a lighter, you give him a goddamned lighter,” I said, and jogged back across the Bowery, up behind Debbie. I grabbed her hips and she squeaked.

“Got a light for your friendly neighborhood sex god?” I whispered into her hair, which, like everything else coming out of the club, smelled like an old undershirt.

“Aw, hell. That was you, Carey? I thought you said I'd had worse.”

She had that sass in her voice that said she'd found something stronger than beer.

Debbie handed over the lighter, and I flicked it on. I wrapped my hand around it, shielding the precious flame, then put it in my pocket when she glanced away. All's fair in love and lighters.

Wood chips and truck-stop coffee filled my lungs.
I fucking love you, Carl P. Camel, inventor of the Camel.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I won't stick you unless you get me stoned,” I whispered to her.

I couldn't tell if I was being devastatingly clever or if the beer was finally starting to kick in. Either way, she bought it.

“Come out back in five,” she replied, and I let her drift back to the conversation.

For the moment, for just that one little moment, I didn't need her. I didn't need anybody. I wanted to worship at the musky pyramid temple of Camel cigarettes. I wanted to drop to my knees and inhale nothing but smoke until I burned up inside and flaked away like old paper. The cigarette asked about its old friend, beer, and I reintroduced the two. Jezza's can was warm and probably half spit, but it was ice-cold Yoo-hoo compared to the asphalt-flavored air of a New York heat wave.