The Unnoticeables Read Free Page B

There was an orchestra of reverberating chimes harmonizing over a dull, roaring static. It was like a thousand beautiful voices singing to drown out a million more screaming. I blinked and the sound stopped. I opened my eyes and it came raging back.
    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.
    â€œLike this?” the kid with the Elmer’s glue holding his hair into little spikes asked another.
    â€œNo, 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.
    â€œLike this?” Elmer Spikes asked again, shuffling from foot to foot like an angry ape.
    â€œNo,” Safety Pins answered, bouncing again, “watch me.”
    â€œLike 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.
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œWhat?” Safety Pins asked, her chest still heaving.
    A huge grin split Elmer Spikes’s face in half.
    â€œOh, 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.
    â€œShit.” I elbowed Wash and gestured at Elmer Spikes. “This one does tricks.”
    â€œSuch 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.
    â€œLast one,” I said, tossing another beer to Elmer Spikes. He downed it in a second.
    â€œInteresting,” Wash said, after a moment’s consideration;