The Ignored (29 page)

I had to whiz, and I did so in what had to be the quietest toilet I’d
ever used. I walked back out to the bedroom, plopped down on the bed. I felt
good. Happy. Each of the houses was unique, the furnishings and decorating
provided by different firms whose names were announced by small plaques next to
the ash cans outside the front doors, but they had obviously been intended to
please as many people as possible, and that cross section of the public that
they were aimed at was us.

I loved these houses.

And mine in particular.

Once again, I heard a knocking sound. I sat up, listened. It seemed to
be coming from the room next to mine. What the hell was it? Rats? Bad plumbing?
I got out of bed, smiled. Maybe I’d have to complain to the company. I walked
out into the hall, into the next room. It was obviously supposed to be a girl’s
bedroom. There were ballet prints on the wall, dolls on the white desk, stuffed
animals on the pink bedspread. I scanned the room, seeing nothing that could
possibly have caused the sound I heard. Maybe it was something in the wall
between the two rooms—

A woman jumped out of the closet.

I screamed, backed up, almost tripped over my feet. She stood there,
next to the bed, glaring at me. There was anger in her eyes, but there was also
fear, and neither of us made a move toward the other one.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Who are
you
?”

She could see me, I suddenly realized. She could hear me.

I looked at her more carefully. She was older than me, between
thirty-five and forty, probably, and despite the wild eyes and hair, there was
something demure about her, a perceptible shyness. Her forcefulness seemed fake,
her aggressiveness forced.

“Are you Ignored?” I asked.

She stared at me. “How… how did you know that word?”

“I’m Ignored, too. We’re all Ignored.”

“All?”

“There are thirteen of us. We’ve come to live here.”

She stared at me for a few more seconds, then sat down hard on the bed.
She looked at the wall, I looked at her. She was attractive. There was an
agreeable softness to her features, an intelligence evident in her eyes. Her
lips, dark red, neither too large nor too small, seemed somehow very sensuous.
Her hair was light brown, her medium-sized breasts perfect.

Was I attracted to her? Not really. She was pretty, but the sort of
spark that had flashed between Jane and me the first time we’d met was not there
between this woman and myself. Nevertheless, I felt a stirring in my groin. It
had been so long since I’d been alone in a room with a woman, talking to a
woman, that even this casual contact aroused me.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Mary.”

“Do you live here?”

“I used to. I guess I don’t anymore.”

I didn’t know what to say to her, and I wished Philipe was here with me.
I took a deep breath. “Where are you from?”

“Here. California. Costa Mesa.”

“Are you alone?”

She looked at me suspiciously. “Why?”

“I mean, are there any others like you?”

She shook her head slowly.

I thought that I should ask her to join us, but I wasn’t sure if I was
really in a position to do so. That was for Philipe to decide. I looked at her,
she looked at me. We stared dumbly at one another. She was the first female
Ignored I’d seen, and the fact that she even existed surprised me and threw me
off guard. I guess I’d assumed that being Ignored was strictly a masculine
condition, that whether by design or accident, everyone who was Ignored was
male.

I was glad I was wrong, though. Already I was thinking ahead, thinking
that we could find girlfriends, lovers, wives. All of us. We could live
relatively normal emotional and sexual lives, have healthy, happy relationships.

But what would the children be like? If being Ignored was genetic, was
the gene for it recessive or dominant? Could we have normal children? Or would
our offspring be even worse off than we were? Would they be completely
invisible?

All this I thought in the few brief seconds that we stood staring at
each other. Then she stood, broke the spell, and started toward the door. “I… I guess I’d better be going.”

“Wait!” I said.

She stopped in midstride. “What?”

“Don’t go.”

She stared at me, frightened. “Why?”

“Let me talk to the others.”

“What for?”

“Just let me talk to them.”

She backed up, sat down again on the bed. She nodded slowly.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I said. “Will you stay here?”

“Where else do I have to go?”

I moved out of the room, hurried downstairs, and ran over to Philipe’s
house to tell him about Mary.

“A woman?” he said, excited.

“A woman?” Paul repeated, frightened.

“I think we need to discuss it,” I said.

Philipe nodded. “You’re right.” He immediately had Tim run from house to
house and get the others, and a few minutes later, we met in Philipe’s living
room. John, James, and Tommy had still not returned, but the rest of us were
there, and we sat on chairs and couches and on the floor.

I quickly told about finding her in the closet, about our brief
conversation.

“She’d been living there?” Philipe asked.

“I guess so.”

He turned to Tim. “And you never saw her?”

Tim shook her head.

There was a quick discussion.

I cleared my throat. “I say we let her in.”

“No.” Paul.

“I say we rape her and leave her on the side of the road.” Steve.

“Let’s vote on it,” Buster said.

I stood. “What’s there to vote on? She’s one of us. God, what do you
think this is, a fraternity? A social organization? I don’t even know if she
wants to be a terrorist. I haven’t asked her. But she should be. Everyone who’s
Ignored should be.” I shook my head. “You know, we can tell her she can’t hang
around with us if we want to be that petty and elitist, but we don’t decide
who’s Ignored and who isn’t. You either are or you aren’t. And she is. I think
that qualifies her to be one of us.”

“Bob’s right,” Philipe said. “She’s in.”

“Besides,” James added, “it’s not as if women are breaking down our
doors to hang with us. We’d better take what chances we get.”

“Let’s go introduce ourselves,” Philipe said. “If she hasn’t run away
already.”

We walked, all ten of us, next door. I went first, and I hurried up the
stairs before the rest of them and peeked into the girl’s bedroom where I’d left
her. She was still sitting on the bed, unmoving.

“We’re all here,” I said. “Would you like to meet the others?”

Mary shrugged. Her fear seemed to have left, but in its place was a
strangely detached apathy.

Philipe, as always, did the talking. He explained about Terrorism for
the Common Man, about what we were, and he asked her if she would like to join
us.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Would you rather be alone?”

She shrugged.

Philipe looked at her thoughtfully. “I’ve seen you somewhere before. I
never forget a face. Where did you used to work?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “Why?”

“Harbor,” he said, pointing at her. “You used to work Harbor Boulevard.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I saw you there.”

“You did not.”

“You were a streetwalker. I saw you there.”

She seemed to deflate, as though air had been let out of her. She
slumped down on the bed and nodded, her lower lip trembling slightly. “I only
tried it for a while,” she said. “I… I thought it would… I thought
someone would notice me.” Tears welled in her reddening eyes. “But no one ever
did. No one saw me—”

“I saw you,” Philipe said quietly. He sat down next to her. “I thought
you might be one of us, and I started keeping tabs on you. Then you disappeared
and I forgot all about you. What happened?”

A tear spilled out, coursing down her right cheek. She wiped it away. “I
killed my first and only customer.” She began sobbing, great heaves racking her
body, tears streaming from beneath the hands covering her face.

Philipe put an arm around her, drew her to him. “It’s all right,” he
said soothingly. “It’s okay.”

The rest of us stood around uncomfortably.

“I stabbed him!”

“It’s okay,” he said. “We make no judgments here. We’ve all done
something similar.”

She looked up, wiped her eyes.

“I killed my boss and his boss,” he said. “Slit their throats.”

“You don’t care what I’ve done?”

“We’ve all done the same.”

She sniffled. “Then… then you’ll take me?”

“You’re one of us,” Philipe said. “How could we not?”

We lived happily in our model homes, leaving each morning before they
opened at ten, returning after they’d closed at five. It was like a commune, I
guess. One for all and all for one.

We shared everything, even sex, but the sex was unaccompanied by either
feeling or commitment. It was a purely physical act, like eating or defecating,
invested with no meaning. I joined in more out of obligation than desire, but
although it was physically pleasurable, it was not rewarding, and I always felt
empty inside afterward.

We started off simply taking turns with Mary. If it had been a long time
since we’d had sex, it had been just as long for her, and she was hungry for it.
She made it clear very quickly that she was not interested in having a
relationship with any of us, but that she would not object to nonbinding,
no-strings-attached sex.

So Philipe would have her one night, me the next, John the next, and on
down the line. Buster usually passed, saying he did not want to violate the
memory of his late wife, but Junior jumped into the swing of things
wholeheartedly, picking up sex manuals and toys and trying every act and
position that he could possibly perform.

Then there were the combinations. I didn’t like these much, they made me
uncomfortable, and I did not participate, but most of the others did. Even James
and John, in my house, shared a bed together one night with Mary, and I heard
the sounds of their sexual triad as I lay alone in the master bedroom trying to
fall asleep.

I met Mary at the breakfast table the next morning. James and John were
still slumbering, and I poured her a cup of the coffee I’d made and sat down at
the dining room table next to her. We were silent for a few moments.

“I know you don’t approve,” she said finally.

“It’s not my place to approve or disapprove.”

“But you don’t. Admit it.”

“I just don’t understand why you… why you do it.”

“Maybe I like it.”

“Do you?”

She sipped her coffee. “Not really,” she admitted. “But I don’t dislike
it either. It’s just kind of there. Everyone else seems to enjoy it, though.”

“Doesn’t it make you feel like, you know, like… a whore?”

She shrugged. “That’s what I am.”

“No, you’re not.” I put down my coffee. “You don’t need to have sex with
us to get us to notice you, you know. We’d notice you anyway.”

“But this way you notice me more.” She smiled. “Besides, I don’t see you
turning down any freebies.”

I said nothing. There was nothing to say. I suddenly felt depressed, and
I decided to go for a walk. I pushed back my chair, touched her shoulder, and
walked outside. Behind Bill and Don’s place, construction had started on the
third phase of the subdivision, and the workers had already arrived and were
starting up the cement mixer, climbing the frames of the houses.

I jogged around the circle, then let myself out through the gate and
went running along Chapman until I came to a recently built gas station. I went
in, picked up a Hostess fruit pie, and walked out. I stood there for a moment,
staring out at the work traffic on the street. I didn’t feel like hanging out
with the other terrorists today. I needed a break. We’d spent too much time
together lately, almost all day every day since the trip, and I found myself
wishing that things were back to the way they used to be, with us doing things
together but still having places of our own that we could retreat to.

I missed having time to myself.

I would have time to myself today, I decided. I was going to take a
vacation from being a Terrorist for the Common Man. I was going to be plain old
Ignored me.

I jogged back to the model homes, ran up Philipe’s walk, let myself in.
He and Paul were watching
Good Morning America
, eating Eggo waffles on
the couch.

“Hey,” Philipe said. “What’s up?”

“I’m going to take off by myself today,” I said. “I want to be alone. I
need some time to think.”

“Okay. We had nothing earth-shattering planned anyway. When’ll you be
back?”

“I don’t know.”

“See you then.”

I went back to my house, grabbed my wallet and keys, and took off in the
Buick.

I just drove. All day, I drove. When I needed gas I stopped and got
some. When I was hungry I stopped at Burger King for lunch. But otherwise I kept
moving. I went up Pacific Coast Highway all the way to Santa Monica, then cut
inland and followed the foothills and mountains clear to Pomona. It felt good to
be alone and on the road, and I cranked up the radio and rolled down the windows
and sped down the highway, the breeze in my face, pretending I was not Ignored
but normal and a part of the world through which I was driving and not just an
invisible shadow at its fringes.

It was late when I got home, and though there were still lights on in
two of the other homes, my house was dark. It was just as well. I didn’t feel
like chatting with James or John tonight. I just wanted to go to bed.

I slipped quietly through the front door and up the stairs to my
bedroom.

Where Mary and Philipe sat, naked, on my bed.

I started to leave the room.