The More You Ignore Me (14 page)

As a bright-eyed innocent I had no idea what cruelties this life had in store for me, and so I thought that I could join the crowd, that my sensitivities and perceptions were not so abnormal as to exclude me from the activities of the group.

But “the group” has brought us to this lowly point in our history.

Did Brecht dance with Hitler?

No.

Nor shall I.

This feeling I have tonight is not good.

It's as if my whole being, from my sinuses to my soul, has been stuffed with wet wool smelling of cat's breath.

But then, every so often—and who can predict when?—a bolt crackles through me, a painful lucidity during
which all my grievances synchronize to emit light and sound, animation, which I record, the life of the mind—captured!—and I convey it to you.

Remarkable, yes, but I fear what I'm capable of in these moments.

The group knows not what it is excluding.

Perhaps, though, Chris does indeed know what it's like to be excluded, for he looks upon the only slightly older generation and sees what he will never be able to live up to.

Rather than take the true measure of his inadequacy and accept his place, he derides and dismisses.

How I wish I could explain to Rachil and Charli that I have, in fact, learned from this formative experience!

I now know that to be a mere spectator, as I was in the dry-humping instance, is not the way to truly embody point X, that I must use what skills I have to go beyond mere observation into the realm of action.

Though don't mistake me: language deployed is an action!

Language deployed affects the world, performs alchemy, my dears, yes, and I believe my words, my private “spells” and visions, have had some effect on reality, though back then, at the window, I confess I didn't behave as I should have.

I kept silent.

While that vile reed of a boy stole my Rachil's innocence I should have yelled out, or burst in and split his head open with a tree branch—I did have one handy—but I did nothing.

I froze.

My condition overcame me.

The sounds—the gymnastic grunts and muffled tussles in that apartment—mesmerized me, and my world fell away.

Though I did learn a valuable lesson: I am not a regular man.

I cannot simply swing my fists to get what I want!

I must use my mind, my linguistic gift, my talent for revelation.

True, it did seem then as if my passivity enabled Corn to “win” the girl while Rico wilted, and so it seemed I had failed.

I certainly thought I had at that time.

But I persisted and lo, my actions enabled the girl at least a glimpse of life outside the confines of sexual slavery!

Was it a waste of time?

To let Corn push his fat tongue into my girl's mouth in some decrepit apartment complex that summer?

What did she get?

Not “closure” with Rico, which is what she had surely hoped for.

You see, Rachil was like me.

She liked to think systematically.

She had work to do, a list to get through, and she would've had a hard time with it if she'd had Rico on her mind all the time.

I realized then that what Corn wanted wasn't her, and that was why she had no problem giving “it” up to him.

He had developed a role for her in his story, but it wasn't, she knew, her true role in her own life—she would not give herself to him in any real way, but she was a charitable person, a kind person, and also, she thought, a person who solved problems.

And Corn had a problem.

Many, actually, but her place in his life, in Rico's life, made up a powerful knot of problems she could undo by giving up twenty minutes, by not thinking about Corn's wretched flossing habits, about how he said he liked to let it “all build up” before getting in there with the floss.

She would kiss him.

She, who flossed every day and sometimes every night too, would kiss his nasty mouth if it would solve his problems.

She kissed him again and again and let his dull weight push down on her.

In these moments, he reminded me of a little dog humping a leg, staring with those doggy eyes, thrusting. “Give it! Give it! Give it!”

Fine, she seemed to say, take what you think will help you.

After a few weeks, it was better than it had been at first, for I could no longer hear what I conceived to be crying.

The feeling that had seemed to overtake Rachil in the middle of the doggy moment, Corn's eyes surely imploring her to “give it,” his breath pouring down on her until she'd be forced to gulp down a sob, then another, until she found herself turning her head away and crying into her pillow.

That feeling seemed to have melted away, because, she must have realized, this was not her life.

Her life was elsewhere, in the realm of pure forms, as mine was.

Surely what she really wanted was for Corn not to simply stop (as she strangely still pleaded with him
NOT
to do), but to disappear completely, to disintegrate into the ether, and for morning to arrive—coffee, toast, what to wear, and no question of his blubbering neediness until later that night.

That had to be the reason he was never allowed to sleep over.

The sharp angles of the morning belonged to her alone.

She and I, for a time, running parallel in the morning light.

We ran parallel for a time, but after a few months I couldn't bear to watch or listen any longer.

I began spending more and more time wandering about the campus, conversing with my bereft self about various world events.

I found myself returning again and again to thoughts of Rico and the nervous system—had I made a mistake somewhere?

I'm sure you're wondering, dear readers: why did I take such a liking to Rico?

Why did I so prefer this bonehead to the other?

A feeling, friends. I went on a gut feeling.

Also, of course, I had studied T.E. Lawrence, and so I knew where I needed to attack if I had any hopes of winning.

Corn was clearly the head of the operation, Rachil the heart, and poor, sensitive Rico the nervous system.

I would have no luck with direct action against the head or heart, but I had just the resources and resolve to attack the nervous system.

Guerilla warfare, my dears!

I knew he was fragile, but I didn't quite know how fragile, how confused, how on the precipice of total collapse he was.

True, he had seemed ungainly and unstable, not only in matters of dress—he had at this point taken to making his own brand of bewildering
T
-shirts with nonsensical slogans and illustrations on them—but in temperament as well.

He may have simply still been suffering from the effects of his auditory hallucinations. I'm not sure.

He also could have been exhausted from overwork, for while Corn had landed a cherry projection-booth gig as some kind of nefarious quid pro quo with the university's technical services department, Rico had been forced to labor outside the confines of the academy, at the “Parkside Loco” Bar and Grill,
AND
for the city's recreation services department.

It was in this latter capacity that fate once again threw us together.

After a long night of rambles, I arrived at the North Campus sports complex to watch, as had become my new custom, the intramural girls' soccer game.

I loved seeing these vigorous young women exerting themselves confidently in their Umbro shorts, underwear at times visible via binoculars, stocky legs flexing in kneesocks . . . the perfect end to a long night of chaste reflection!

I had just been packing up my cooler when I caught sight of a familiar slouch at the southwest corner of the field.

I recognized that mix of rigid posture, hunched shoulders, and doughy gut making its way onto the field, the new game's “referee” in his regulation blue polo shirt half-tucked into his khaki shorts.

His disproportionately skinny ankles were stuck in a pair of scuffed boat shoes and his walk had that flapping quality, a jalopy rhythm that was unmistakably Rico's.

Perhaps, I thought to myself, this totally unexpected reunion was an indication from Beyond that I should not leave off my study of Corn and Rachil and Rico quite yet, that the fates were telling me that all was not lost, that the nervous system could use a jolt!

I unpacked my thermos once again as the girls cleared off, a few looking nervously over their shoulders at bumbling Rico as he did a few perfunctory and useless stretches.

As these taut and tight ladies cleared the field of play, a ragged crew of balding men appeared, stretching and slapping backs, affixing flag belts to their blown-out waists.

After an interval of greeting and lining up, Rico blew his whistle and the game—a flag football affair between older faculty men—began.

The men, divided by makeshift blue and gray uniforms, played with unsightly vigor, but amidst this terrible play, Rico dodged and waved, expertly facilitating the game, so that as these aged gents maneuvered, I found myself applauding!

I—a young man who couldn't care less about such “sports”—became, because of Rico's maestro-like management of the affair, particularly invested in the outcome of this game, in the victory of the blue shirts.

Why did I cheer for blue?

Again, readers: a feeling.

I began taking bets with the other spectators—a ragged few—there on the risers, and my voice grew hoarse with cheering for my Blues.

Dear readers, I should tell you here that I have a history with games of chance.

The upward narrative arc of my childhood took a precipitous dive when my mother became engulfed in gaming.

A casino is a theme park where the theme is money.

At first, I loved outings to both the casino and the track, even when I stayed in the parking lot with my Sony Watchman for most of the afternoon.

I loved them because I knew eventually my mother would come out for advice, and I would tell her what dogs and what horses to put money on, what combinations to leverage.

Until I hit puberty and my brain developed the wrinkle that processes disappointment and time, gambling with Mother was my favorite thing.

But, I saw after an interval, she had no system.

She'd bet a hundred dollars on the dog who peed before the race, the horse with the best coloring, the slot machine with Elvis on it—whatever spoke to her at the last second.

She had a muse similar to mine, a gut with similar feelings, except every time these bets and these long afternoons of gambling turned bust (which they inevitably did), it became further proof for her that she had been cosmically wronged.

She deserved an easy life, nice clothes, a fancy car, a paid-for house—she
deserved
these things, and yet they were not hers.

Looking back, I don't know why she believed in the good life, but every time the pee-dog floundered, the pretty horse threw its jockey, or Elvis stared out at her with the stone-cold face of the Buddha, she fell apart.

And when you see the stone-cold face of the Elvis Buddha making your mother cry, you yourself
naturally
fall apart a little too.

Not anymore.

I do not fall apart, because I see she throws good money after bad, that she concentrates too much on suckers' games, and because she does all of it without a system.

Since I've had a few wiry hairs “down there,” her lack of system has driven me bananas.

At fourteen, I could stride confidently past the entrance security to sit in the stands.

I'd ask her to place a quinella on a raft of carefully selected breeders' delights culled from the finest gambling periodicals available at the peanut stand, and then I would sit with my program rolled tight, hollering rapid-fire encouragement to my horses at the top of my still-awkward lungs.

Mother's little gambler won more than a few.

But it was never enough to outpace Mother's losses, so no one ever went home happy until I came “of age” and could play the ultimate game—blackjack.

Of course, Mother never figured out if she liked it when I really started winning—for, you see, my muse was a winner, and when I won, when I slid my chips into the circle and watched a woman named Mona with skin the color of an overcooked hot dog flip my cards, every cell in my body would synchronize and emit a cherry-red light, because this was how it was supposed to be—more money for us!

But I lost too, of course, and in losing my money I would also lose control of my mind.

My system would break down, or worse, I would not have been disciplined enough to stick with the system and so . . .