People Who Are Not Here

It was June in Dallas, the month in which the heat and the humidity announce their presence and cause elderly women to faint at Six Flags. Cars started to line up outside Buck’s West Village loft, which sat on the third floor of the trendiest building in the trendiest neighborhood in the trendiest city in Texas.

Buck had started early, like he always did in those days, and his girlfriend, Sara, sat on the couch meticulously painting her toenails the color of Barney the Dinosaur. She finished one foot and started on the other as Buck talked to no one in particular and drank from a bottle of Old Crow. The doorbell rang and Sara’s friend Rebecca walked in with a new guy.

He was named Keith, a tall, skinny kid in tall skinny jeans and a shirt that ironically declared that he was a loser. His hair was spiked in the back, and swooped in the front so as to cover one of his eyes, and he wore a bandana, for no apparent reason, on his wrist. This was Dallas.

Buck looked over Keith as the girls began talking.

“Uh, you want some whiskey?”
“Yeah,” Keith said. “Do you have any mixers?”
“We might have some Coke,” Buck said, “But it’s pretty old.”

As Buck tried to relate to Keith’s life as a club promoter, a “dope” job, Sara and Rebecca stood against a wall, discussing someone who was not there.

When Karina walked in, Sara whispered something into Rebecca’s ear to a hearty guffaw. The new girl passed by in her rounds, and Rebecca said, “I love your outfit!”

“Oh, thanks,” said Karina. “You look so cute tonight!”

Karina turned and Sara rolled her eyes. “Jesus,” she said, “She’s so fake.”

In the natural evolution of the party, Karina found herself standing in a silent circle with the two girls. Every once in a while, the girls would sip their margaritas or check their phones, but no one spoke until Monica showed up.

Monica was a petite trust fund princess from outside of Waco, who came to Dallas to be nearer to Northpark Mall. She was a lofty, too skinny brunette, and, according to Karina, a card-carrying slut--or would be, anyway, if all sluts were issued identification cards to confirm their status as such.

“You know what else,” Karina whispered, “She always talks behind people’s backs. I can’t stand people like that. I’m real, you know?”

The two-woman garrison stood down then and asserted, indeed, that they were real as well.

A new world order, built on sand.

Keith was loudly vomiting up the whiskey supplied him by Buck, who took a sip to the spectacle and, for a moment, enjoyed a feeling of superiority. Rebecca ran off to tend to her guest, and, maybe, Buck thought, hold his hair back. Buck chuckled inaudibly at his joke.

“Hey bitches,” Monica cackled, a drink held aloft, a purse the size of a doormat hanging from the crook of her arm.
“Hey,” the girls said.
“That sucks about Keith,” she said. “He never could hold his liquor.”
“Do you know him?” Karina said.

“Oh yeah,” Monica said, “I introduced the two.” Monica’s voice turned quiet and she cast a stare at the ground. “I know you’re her friend,” Monica said, cutting her eyes back up at Sara, “But seriously, what’s up with Rebecca’s hair?”

Monica and Karina laughed, then Sara joined in. “I don’t know,” she said. “I tried to tell her, but...” She let her words dry up, her mouth still open.

“I mean, I love the girl,” Monica stipulated, “But she looks like Charles Manson.”

The girls laughed a stifled laugh, and Keith emerged with Rebecca from the bathroom, looking pale.

“Hey girl,” they said when Rebecca returned.


The music had turned from Kid Cudi to Miles Davis, and only four remained in the trendiest loft in the trendiest part of the trendiest city in Texas. Keith slept sitting up as Buck sipped his whiskey dead-eyed, and Sara and Rebecca sat on the couch speaking at a slightly less frenetic pace about people who were no longer there. “I mean, Karina’s nice,” Sara said, “But...” She looked at Rebecca to smash the ball from its perch on the tee.

“She’s such a slut,” Rebecca swung, her face hinting at incredulity. “And Monica, it’s like...”

“She’s so fucking fake,” Sara deduced. “I hate that."

Bathroom Break

Jason and Dave bristled in their chairs, Jason’s fingers tapping in succession down on the table. Their martinis had gone dry fifteen minutes before, but the girls from Burleson were engaged in that screeching, cackle-laden brand of conversation wont of some girls at that age, and they failed to notice.

Dave thought he heard one of them say she had a fever, but she was just talking about Justin Bieber. He cut a glance at Jason, his eyebrows raised and said, “Well, I’m going to powder my nose.”

Jason leaped from his seat and grabbed his European shoulder pouch. It was not a purse.

Jason made a beeline for the stall, while Dave checked on the thickness of his chinstrap. In the world of chinstraps, after all, vigilance is as necessary as, say, a precision trimmer, or the audacity to go into public with a chinstrap.

From his position in the stall, Jason groaned a horrible, guttural groan. “This is going terribly,” he said, speaking over the Thompson gun discharging beneath him. “A couple of dead fish out there.”

“Yeah,” Dave agreed, pulling a pair of trimmers from his European shoulder pouch, which was in no way a purse. “And did you see that girl’s eyeliner? I didn’t know we were going out with a couple of raccoons.”

“So 2004,” Jason grunted.

The Thompson gun started up again and then cut off abruptly. It was jammed, maybe. Then—it sounded like a dying bear. It smelled like a long-dead bear.

“Did you see my girl’s handbag?” Dave said, carefully disposing of rogue stubble. “It’s like, ‘the seventh grade called, it wants its taste in accessories back.’”

“You’re such a bitch,” Jason muttered, his teeth grinding audibly. “I love it, dude.”

“Are you almost done in there?” Dave said.

“Almost,” Jason said cryptically.

Dave unplugged the clippers and wrapped the cord around his hand. From inside the stall, the Thompson gun rattled fiercely for a moment or two before giving way to a Howitzer blast and, finally, silence.

Outside, the girls from Burleson were gone.

“Well,” Dave said, “I feel kind of bad. We were in there for a long time.”

Jason nodded.

“Let’s go get some ice cream!”