The Ignored (28 page)

We added two members to our little group.

Paul we picked up in Yosemite, on our way back home. He was standing
buck-naked on a footbridge beneath Yosemite Falls, yelling obscenities at the
top of his lungs. A constant stream of tourists crossed the bridge, looking up
at the falls, taking pictures. People from other states, other countries.
English, German, Japanese.

Paul stood there, cock and balls bouncing with each bump and jostle.
“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!”

We stood for a moment at the foot of the bridge, watching him.

“That’s amazing,” Philipe said. “They’re running into him, and he’s
yelling in their ears, and they still don’t see him.”

Steve and Bill were laughing. They seemed to think it was the funniest
thing they’d ever seen.

To me, it was eerie, like something out of a David Lynch movie. The man
stood on the bridge, absurdly visible in his nakedness, while the crowd of
Bermuda-shorted tourists took no notice of him, passing him by, bumping into
him, even pushing him casually aside in order to take a clearer photograph. The
sound of the falls was deafening, masking all ordinary conversation, but
faintly, in tandem with the movements of this naked man’s mouth, came a barely
audible voice, quietly screaming: “PRICK! PRICK! PRICK!”

It was an obvious cry for help, a desperate plea to be noticed from a
dangerously disturbed man, and all I could think was that if the rest of us had
not found each other, if the terrorists had not come together, that could be one
of us.

“He’s insane,” James said. And he, too, seemed to sense the seriousness
in the situation. “He’s gone completely insane.”

I nodded.

“No,” Philipe said.

He followed the flow of foot traffic onto the bridge and walked up to
the man. He spoke to him, said something the rest of us could not make out. And
then the man stopped screaming and was crying, sobbing, and laughing at the same
time. He hugged Philipe, his entire body shaking.

Philipe led him off the bridge.

The man dried his eyes with his hands, wiped his nose on his arm as he
saw us. He looked from one of us to another, and an expression of understanding
crossed his features. “Are you… are you all Ignored?”

We nodded.

The man fell to his knees, began sobbing again. “Thank God!” he cried.
“Thank God!”

“You’re not alone,” Philipe told him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He
looked at us. “His name’s Paul.”

Paul was not insane, as James and I had originally feared. He did have a
few problems adjusting at first—he had definitely been alone for far too long—but by the time we returned to Southern California, he was pretty well
recovered.

Our second new recruit we found after we got back to Orange County.

We saw him for the first time in Brea Mall, a week or so after we got
back, sitting on the floor in front of the magazine rack at Waldenbooks, reading
a
Penthouse.
He was young, not more than nineteen or twenty, and he was
dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his long hair pulled into a ponytail. We were
walking toward the food court when Philipe spotted him and suddenly stopped.
Philipe stood outside the store, staring at the man, and after a few moments,
obviously seeing our presence, he looked up, returned the stare.

“Another one,” Philipe said. “Let’s see how far along he is.” He told
the others to move on, told me to stay with him. “We’ll meet at the food court
in a half hour,” he said.

As soon as the others left, Philipe walked straight up to the magazine
rack, smiled at the man on the floor, picked up a
People.
The man,
panicked, shoved his
Penthouse
in front of a
Redbook
and hurriedly
left the store.

“That’s what you were like at first,” Philipe told me. He put down his
magazine. “Come on. Let’s follow him.”

It was surprisingly easy to keep track of the man. His attempts to ditch
us were almost cartoonlike. He’d stride quickly through the crowd of shoppers,
looking constantly over his shoulder to see if we were following; he’d dart
behind couples and groups of teenagers, only to move out into the open again to
see if we were coming.

I must admit, the man’s obvious fear of us gave me a little thrill of
power, made me feel strong and forceful. I walked through the mall more
confidently, hyper-aware of my own authority, and in my mind I was like an
Arnold Schwarzenegger character, single-mindedly stalking an enemy.

“He hasn’t gone through the initiation yet,” Philipe said as we followed
the man through Sears. “He’s not yet one of us.”

“The initiation?”

“He hasn’t killed yet.”

The man exited Sears and started running down the first aisle of the
parking lot. I was about to run after him when Philipe put a hand in front of
me, holding me back. “Stay here. We’ll never catch him. Just try to see what
kind of car he drives.”

We stood on the sidewalk in front of the store. The man moved between
two cars about halfway up the aisle, and a moment later, a yellow VW Bug pulled
out.

“He’ll drive by us,” Philipe said. “He wants to see us. Try to get his
license plate number.”

Sure enough, instead of exiting down the aisle away from us, he came
speeding in our direction. In the second before he turned, I saw through the
windshield wild eyes staring out from beneath a large forehead.

Then he was gone.

“Did you get the number?”

“Part of it,” I said. “PTL something. I think the next number was a
five, but I’m not sure. It could’ve been a six.”

“Close enough. I saw a Fullerton College parking decal on his bumper. It
should be pretty easy to find a yellow Bug in the Fullerton College parking lot
with a license plate that starts with PTL.”

We walked back into the mall, through Sears, toward the food court.

“How do you know he hasn’t killed his boss?” I asked.

“You can tell. Something happens during the initiation. Something
physical or biological. Something changes within us the first time we kill
someone. There’s a definite difference in the way we act. I can’t really explain
it, but I know it. It’s real, concrete.” We saw the others, and he motioned for
them to join us. “We’ll follow this guy, keep tabs on him. In a few weeks or so,
he’ll be ready to join.”

“You don’t know anything about him,” I said. “You don’t know him, you
don’t know his family, you don’t know his work situation. What makes you think
he
will
kill his boss?”

“We all do,” Philipe said, and there was a hint of sadness in his voice.
“We all do.”

A week or so later, we staked out the Fullerton College parking lot. We
found the VW with no problem, and the rest of us waited in our cars while Tommy,
the youngest of us, stood near the Bug.

A few minutes after noon, the man came walking up from the direction of
the math building, a load of books beneath his arm. Several other students came
out as well, talking in groups or pairs, but our man walked alone.

He reached the VW, unlocked the door.

“Hey!” Tommy said. “Is that your car?”

The man stared at him for a moment. Contrasting emotions were visible on
his face: surprise, relief, fear. It was fear that won out, and before Tommy
could say anything else, the man had gotten into the Bug, locked his door, and
started the engine.

“Wait!” Tommy called.

The man took off.

The rest of us emerged from our hiding places. “He’s getting close,”
Philipe said knowingly. “Next time he’ll be ready.”

Through sheer luck, we picked the perfect day. It was about two weeks
later, and again we staked out the parking lot. This time the man was not in
class but sitting in his car.

He was wearing a Frankenstein mask.

I felt a chill pass through me. I knew exactly what he was going to do.
I’d been there. I understood how he felt, what he was going through, but it was
strange seeing it this way, watching it as a third party. I felt almost as
though I were viewing a film of my own stalking of Stewart. I remembered how
alone I’d thought I was, how invisible I’d perceived myself to be, and I knew
that this guy felt the same way. He had no clue that we were watching him, that
we knew what he was going to do and were waiting for him to do it.

I wanted to walk up to his car right now, let the man know he wasn’t
alone, let him know that I and all the others had gone through the same thing.
But I also understood, as Philipe had made clear, that this was something he had
to go through himself. This was his initiation.

He got out of the Bug clutching a sawed-off shotgun.

We watched him walk across the parking lot toward the quad.

A few minutes later, there came from one of the buildings the sound of a
thunderous shotgun blast, followed soon after by another. Faintly, from far off,
filtered as though through water, we heard screams.

“Okay,” Philipe said. “I’ll take it from here. You guys meet me at
Denny’s. I’m going to talk to this guy, then bring him around.”

We nodded. “All right,” Steve said.

In the rearview mirror of the Buick, I saw the man, dazed and confused,
stumbling out to the parking lot, still wearing the Frankenstein mask. He had
dropped the shotgun somewhere.

Philipe walked up to him, smiling, waving.

By the time the two of them arrived at Denny’s an hour later, he was one
of us.

The man’s name was Tim, and he fit in as well and as quickly as I had.
He understood us, was one of us, and he was tremendously excited by the idea
that we were Terrorists for the Common Man. He thought that was a brilliant
concept.

He also found us a place to live.

We had been staying, since our return, at a series of hotels and motels.
Philipe had not wanted us to go back to our old homes, believing that they were
not safe, and we’d been searching for a new place to live, someplace where we
could all live together.

Tim told us that he’d been living in a model home for the past two
months.

“They built a new subdivision off Chapman in Orange, where it goes over
the hill toward Irvine. It pretty much sucks in the daytime, since people are
tromping through all the time. But at night, it’s empty and it’s great. It’s
furnished with
Architectural Digest
-type furniture, and it has a really
neat bathroom with a sunken tub. It’s a terrific place to live. My house is on a
cul-de-sac with four other models. All of them are two stories and have from
three to six bedrooms. We could just take over the whole place.”

“That sounds great,” I said.

“It’s in a nice new area, and there’s a gate to keep vandals out. It’s
the perfect place to stay.”

“It does sound good,” Philipe admitted. “Let’s check it out.”

It was a weekday and there was no one house-shopping, but we still
passed through the sales office unnoticed, unaccosted by any of the salespeople.
We all grabbed brochures, and we walked into the gated cul-de-sac to check out
the first model.

All of the houses were wonderful, all very expensive and very
expensively furnished. There were five huge houses, and thirteen of us, so there
was plenty of living space. Philipe took the largest house, Tim’s house, and
said that he would be sharing the place with both Tim and Paul so that he’d be
there if they needed any help or had any questions. I took the mock-Tudor next
door with James and John.

We went back to our current place of residence—the Holiday Inn in
Tustin—and gathered up our belongings and personal effects. It was getting
late. It was already after five, and I wanted to go straight back to the house,
but James wanted to do some shopping, pick up some snacks, and John was going to
hitch a ride with Steve and pick up his van, which was still at our previous
motel, so I gave James the keys to the Buick and caught a ride back with Junior,
who was driving the new Jaguar he had obtained last week in our latest raid.

Junior and I drove to the new housing development, and we each took our
own suitcases from the tiny trunk.

“You still have anything back at the hotel?” he asked me.

“Another box.”

“Me, too. You want a ride back tomorrow?”

I nodded.

“I’ll stop by then and pick you up before I go.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“See you later.”

“Later.” I walked down the empty sidewalk to my new house. It was
starting to get dark, and whatever automatic timer turned on the outside lights
had already kicked in. The porch light was on, as was a light on the edge of the
garage that illuminated the driveway.

Tim had said that he’d steal keys for the houses from the sales office,
and the keys to my place were in the lock. I pulled out the keys, pressed down
on the oversized latch, and walked inside.

My house.

Our house, really. But for some reason, I thought of it as my house, and
thought of John and James as my guests.

I put the suitcase down in the foyer and turned on the lights. Recessed
fluorescents in the hall and entryway came on, as did the standing lamps in the
living room and den, and the chandelier in the dining room. I stood there for a
moment, took a deep breath. The house even smelled good.

I heard a noise from upstairs, what sounded like a knock.

“Hello!” I called. “Anybody home?”

I waited, listening.

Nothing.

I picked up my suitcase, carried it upstairs, and dumped it on the floor
of the master bedroom. There might be a fight later over who got this room, but
I figured it was first come, first served, and I wasn’t about to give up my
claim.

As Tim had said, and as we’d discovered earlier in the afternoon, the
bathroom was marvelous. The tub was sunken on a raised dais and was the size of
a Jacuzzi. At the head of the tub was a windowsill filled with plants. The
frosted glass window overlooked the front yard.