The Invisible Man
my time as a ghostly someone else
Charlie, the man that I’ve been assigned to find, isn’t supposed to be here. But I suppose you can say that of any of us.
It’s 5:55AM. I’m a little early. Charlie hasn’t left the house yet. His black 2016 Toyota 4Runner with the broken taillight is still parked in the driveway.
The sun is still asleep. I’m still not really awake. My soul is stuck somewhere between life and dream, tucked into the back of my rusty Honda, camera in hand.
My father texts me: Hey, Number One. I haven’t heard from you in a while. Drop me a line. Let me know how you’re doing OK?
It just occurred to me that we’ve gone weeks without contact. I’ve always been better at being a ghost than being a son.
I write back: Just busy with work. I’ll come by soon, Captain.
And he writes: OK. Be careful out there, kid. Love you.
My father’s one of the few people in my life who knows the truth. Who knows what I do. What I really do.
But I don’t respond. I don’t tell him I love him too. Even though I really, really do. So, I just go back to being a good ghost.
Since I was a boy, I have never felt safe or at home anywhere on this planet or in this time. My summer afternoons were often spent on the roof looking up at the sky, wondering if my real parents were out there somewhere, worrying about me, plotting a way to return to Earth and save me from this place. A place full of tall boys that found me so small, strange and ugly, they had to punch me in the belly, push me into bathroom stalls, and chase me down alleys every week to cope with the nuisance of my presence.
Then I miraculously became a man. An invincible, invisible man.
A young man who foolishly believed he could endure a kick down a flight of stairs without breaking any bones. Who believed he could not be penetrated with knives, and any bullets fired in his direction would harmlessly pass through him, gentle as a summer wind through a meadow.
The terrified boy who was once chased through halls and alleys grew to be the hunter, the chaser. I’ve chased down dirt-bags through Chinatown, fuckfaces through Tribeca, and assholes through Atlanta. But that was all so long ago; it might as well have been another life.
I’m not here for any of that. Not today.
Today, I’m just an observer. Just another regular guy in a black hoodie in New Jersey. Being paid to do what I’ve been doing since I was a child: become invisible and watch with wonder and awe the daily machinations of men.
I watch them itch, scratch, pick their noses, curse at the television, smoke, snort, drink, fight, fuck, sharpen knives, reload pistols, eat slices of cake and sandwiches both large and small. And much to my dismay, I have yet to catch anyone reading. If I were a criminal, I’d spend at least a quarter of my ill-gotten gains on books.
But hey, that’s just me.
I am perfect for this job. I have the most plain, unremarkable features anyone has ever seen. I always dress in neutral tones. Drab clothes purchased at stores that no longer exist. And I can be as boring, still and quiet as a pine tree on a windless day. This, combined with my ethnic ambiguity, gives me an uncanny ability to blend into any and every neighborhood and crowd I find myself in.
But invisibility isn’t enough. Blending into the dark, becoming a shadow, these are noble pursuits—but to get the job done, to prove what you see, to turn observations into evidence, you must document everything! You must create an irrefutable record! I’m talking notes, photos, videos—facts, facts, facts!
That’s the tricky part. The part that can turn your quaint Sunday morning into something nasty. Something…fatal—if you’re not careful. You have to remain calm. Quiet. Careful. Did I mention how goddamn important it is to be careful? Because if you “get made” if you’re caught—that could be it.
Lights fucking out forever, babycakes.
Now you must be wondering: Logan, are you insane? Do you want to die? Are you that much of a fatalist? Why the hell do you do this?
Let’s be clear: my work has nothing to do with heroism, righteousness, or nobility. I do this because I’m good at it and it pays well. Simple as that.
I was once kicked out of a cover band due to a lack of stage presence. I nodded enthusiastically in agreement as I re-read this part of the lead guitarist’s email notifying me of my termination as lead vocalist, repeating the phrase out loud to myself over and over (lack of stage presence, lack of stage presence, lack of stage presence) and saying to myself, “Yes, it’s true. You do indeed lack stage presence.”
In fact, I would go as far as to say that I lack any presence at all.
Sure, my father still remembers me (sometimes) but most people that have ever spoken to me have probably forgotten me by now. They can’t remember the unremarkable features of my sullen, vanilla face. Let alone what my favorite film is (it’s The Crow) or that I’m a poet, or that I’m lactose intolerant, or that I lost my virginity to a stripper in Tampa Bay, or that I take my coffee black, no sugar.
I’m over here doing my damnedest to keep track of all the faces and asses and films and music and novels and poems and landscapes and sunsets and flowers and cats and dumplings and noodles and paintings I come across every day, while everyone else is out there recklessly forgetting.
Well, you know what? I never forget. I can’t forget. I reee-gret.
Nostalgia is an inconceivable concept to me. I am incapable of reminiscing because you have to forget something first in order to remember it. I wish I could forget her and him and it and that and these and those, and them.
Dear God, there are so many things I want to forget. But my mind is still too sharp and too empty, despite all the drinking and the beatings.
I have many flaws and faults that make me unique and potentially memorable, but most people haven’t seen them. They haven’t witnessed this true man; they’ve only met the calm man, the quiet man, the careful man, the invisible man.
The ghost. The pine tree. The fraud.
One who speaks so very soft and does his best to avoid intrusion at parties and invasion of societies. Conversations and topics and emotions that may offend, sadden, or unintentionally coerce.
No man can be as dependable and prudent and simple as I have pretended to be all my life; a man this peaceful and generous and sinless cannot exist truly.
One of my greatest fears in life is that, even in death, when I am nothing again, I’ll still be something that I am not. That there will still be fragments of the former fraudster that lived inside me scattered beneath the earth, eaten by the worms, shat out to fertilize the flowers—and so on and so forth, until he finds a divine way to come back and grow from embryo to fetus to child to man and returns, yet another liar in this land of the living.
My greatest fault comes not from what I lack but from the absolute understanding of what I lack. The constant awareness of my own insignificance, of the shallow impressions I’ve left upon the dirt, the minds, the souls, and the animals of this world.
I am the alien, the distant citizen, the pretender, the specter, the space invader, the inkblot, the dark plot of blotched flesh, both wired and wireless, ugly and unshaven.
Out of this world.
Out of this time.
Visible only to gods and satellites.
Love this, Logan!! 🖤 The words, the artwork.