The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

into a hundred smaller horses that rain down in a flurry of pink-purple hooves and swishing green tails. Isidra Gonzalez, hot shit on the new Chicago art scene, traces lemniscates of liquid silver in front of her, weaving them through the lights to the beat of some other song playing in her head at double the beats per minute. Jonathan dances with Miquel, the two of them flirting with queerness in a way that makes Bryce throw Carrie a raised eyebrow, which cracks her up. She can’t remember what she’s taken, and Waylon’s comping her drinks, erasing the need to keep count. Jonathan’s Paisley silk shirt is unbuttoned to his navel, the glow from his torso cast out on the crowd like a searchlight, searing bright paths across Miquel’s chest. There is so much goodness pouring off Miquel, such raw positive emotion, Carrie worries that she might come if he so much as touches her.

Hayden snatches one of Carrie’s beers out of midair.

“I fucking love this song,” they say.

“Bowie had to be one of us. He had to be,” Carrie screams above the music, her voice coming out of nowhere.

“All of them were,” says Hayden. “All the magic ones. We’ll adopt them as saints. Saint Bowie of Change and Saint Prince of Fucking. Saint Siouxsie and Saint Janet. We’ll beatify them.”

The way they say the word, bee-AT-if-I, makes Carrie crack up. Not saints, she thinks. A silver font arcs over the room, a mercury snake. You can see time reflected in it. Futures and pasts, possibles and fails. Saints have to be dead, Carrie thinks. We don’t need saints. We need heroes.

Miquel comes over, kisses her invisible cheek, and dances back into the crowd.

“He’s fucking gorgeous,” says Hayden, sounding hungry.

“I thought you and Jonathan were together,” Carrie says.

“Not exclusively,” Hayden says. “You should invite us over. All four of us.” Carrie watches Hayden, not sure if they’re serious. “Is that weird?” Hayden asks, looking worried. They stop dancing for a beat, pulling back into themselves. It’s easy to forget how shy Hayden can be. Carrie thinks of them as huge, a star, but they’re also the person who stayed in their dorm room perfecting their Am9 chord while everyone else got drunk at Darren and Lynette’s house on Long Island.

“It’s not weird,” says Carrie.

Hayden sighs with relief and starts dancing again. “I’m rolling, and I just want to fuck everybody,” they say. “And I love you. And Miquel is beautiful. Think about it.”

Hayden kisses Carrie on the corner of her mouth, where it could be passed off as a missed stab at her cheek or read as a real kiss. The song fades, trailing a beat too long before it crashes into another. Hayden wraps their arms around Carrie’s invisible waist, and when their skin touches, it is like being loved and loved and loved. Their bodies fall into rhythm, leading and following at the same time.

—

In the morning, Hayden wakes first and shakes Jonathan until he mumbles groggily and gets dressed. Miquel, half asleep in a tangle of blankets, offers to make coffee, but Hayden waves him back to sleep like a fairy in a story. They kiss Carrie in that same spot, the corner of her mouth, then stand over her, smiling sadly. Carrie’s asleep again before the door closes, all of it a thing in her dream.

When she wakes, she’s alone. She wrangles matted curls out of her eyes. She extricates herself from the sheets and surveys the new map of their bed. It’s threatening. Too full of chance and risk. The echo of last night’s drugs hits her. Euphoria becomes its hollow opposite; desire curdles into aversion. She strips the sheets and crams them into the hamper.

Miquel is in the kitchen in boxers, nursing a steaming cup. Carrie puts her arms around his waist, pressing her face to his bare chest, reasserting her claim on him.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” says Carrie.

“Was last night okay with you?” he says. “It all moved fast.”

“It was good,” Carrie says, her eyes on the dish rack. “Did you like it?”

She feels him shrug. “I have trouble keeping track of what I want,” he says. Carrie understands him. Miquel can be like the moon, reflecting other people’s emotions so brightly that they seem like his own. Desire is an emotion. Wanting is no different from sadness or jealousy.

Maybe Hayden wanted him enough for both of them, she thinks. “I know we’re supposed to be hyperevolved and everything,” he continues. “But there’s that, and then also there’s us. So, are you okay?”

“It was good,” Carrie says again, a little more emphatic but no more sincere. “Maybe not here?” she adds. “Maybe in our space, in our room, it’s just us.”

Miquel kisses her on the top of her head and pulls her closer. He smells like sex that isn’t theirs, but she tries to put it away. She tries to send a message to him through her skin, although she spent enough years at Bishop pouring I love yous into the air between them to know it won’t be received.

I’m lying to you. Come find me out. Care enough to see me.

Avi wakes up alone in the house on Jarvis Avenue, surprised by the hollow silence of it. He can feel where the sounds of his wife and daughter belong in the rooms below him, the cold echo where Kay should be lying in their bed. After his last conversation with Bishop, he refused to renew the lease and moved back in without telling Kay or Emmeline. He wonders what Kay would say if she knew.

Once he gets himself put together, Avi drives down to North Avenue, parking a few blocks over on Greenfield and hoofing from there. It’s autumn, and the air is crisp and dry. Avi’s favorite weather is what comes between the sweaty end of August and the onset of winter, when sidewalks become slick and unnavigable. There’s a coffee