I could tell you were trying to be invisible.

As if checking into a two-star hotel in west Kansas did not already make such an assumption so egregiously obvious, you sat at the bar with your hat cocked low, your coat fully zipped, and your face hidden in the classifieds of last Sunday’s newspaper. You stirred your bourbon and Coke with your fraying paper straw while your eyes glided around the bar—perhaps looking to find someone, perhaps looking not to be found at all. 

I know a lot about men who frequent bars like these; men who park two blocks away in innocuous office lots and arrive with no suitcases at half past ten on a weekday night. You could have been any of the men sitting in my bar that night: all of you are average height, average appearance, average hair, and average clothes, with the only distinguishing feature being the peculiar way you choose to spend your weeknight. They book their rooms by the hour, pay with cash, never a card, and give an unremarkable alias that raises no further questions beyond which floor and how long. 

You were staying late at the office that night. Everyone was. The man sitting next to you was preparing Wednesday morning’s slides; the brokers in the corner booth were calling partners based in India. I don’t make small talk with any of the customers. No what brings you here tonight?, no how are you enjoying Kansas? I know people like you only come here for god-knows-what-debauchery occurs in hotels that rent by the hour; you know I am only here to make money. We have nothing to discuss beyond your drink of choice—which reminds me, you had asked me for a second glass.

“Angelica,” you tell me, looking at my faded nametag. “Thank you, Angelica.”

No one in my five years of working in this hell had called me by my name before. 

I smiled and turned to scrub lipstick off the wine glasses. The woman across from you—a regular, though we pretend the contrary—wore her most expensive lipstick, looking to impress a man like you (or anyone else willing to pay the room fee for the night). I wondered who you were here for. Who you would leave your family for.

“Could you point me toward a restroom?” you asked. I motioned to the right. You disappeared into the hallway; you disappeared for the night.

They found your body at four the next morning, fifteen feet west of the parking garage entrance. Your skull was shattered into sixty-six pieces. Your coat was still fully-zipped.

The police called it suicide, perhaps murder. Perhaps a drunken mistake. Perhaps a tragic misstep.

 I gave them the numbers on file and the names on our tabs. All invalid dials, all people that did not exist. No witnesses came forward; all had been busy at the office that night. While you fell, they were compiling files, making calls. Not a person claimed to drink here. Not a person recalled you at all.