The More You Ignore Me

by Travis Nichols

  It did not seem the time to disabuse him of this “your boy” notion.

  “Really?” I said.

  “I can hear ’em in there hunchin’ it up!”

  My heart began to race.

  Hunchin’?

  Perhaps it didn’t quite mean what it seemed to mean.

  I followed the child down the hall.

  Rico had put aluminum foil on the walls and ceiling of the bathroom, spray painted half of it black.

  Why? Lord knows!

  A flap of this foil poked out from under the door by the child’s knee, where he had bent down to get the best acoustics on the alleged “hunchin’.”

  I leaned down to where he was and put my ear to the door.

  Hunchin’!

  It was true and the noise, dear readers, was indescribable.

  It staggered me.

  I’m sure I went white as a ghost.

  The child saw the confirmation in my eyes and a grin slowly spread across his face until it reached psychotic proportions.

  “They in there hunchin’!” he yelled and began jerking the doorknob furiously.

  Corn—who had outside the Boiler Room heard Rico ardently profess he would not have sex with Rachil until he was married, who had been up until this point seemingly vanquished in his quest for love—was in there hunchin’ with Rachil!

  My first love.

  MFL!!!!!

  How did this happen?

  Where was Rico?

  How had the triangle been violated so effortlessly, and without a scintilla of awareness on my part?

  The child wanted to see.

  I did not.

  I felt faint.

  I left the child pulling on the doorknob and walked out the big double doors at the front of the church into the yard, where I collapsed in a fever.

  CHAPTER 7

  I awoke in the shrubbery, mercifully undiscovered.

  I saw the window of the church lit up and the three of them inside, laughing, as if reality were still intact.

  Had I dreamed the hunchin’?

  Was it simply one of my visions, which, already twenty-five years ago, had begun?

  I had to know, and so here, at this time, I vowed to renew my observations in earnest as soon as I made it back to the dormitory to clean myself of the blood and vomit on my shirt.

  I prayed my roommate would not be home, and, for once, my prayers were answered.

  Thoroughly scrubbed with peppermint soap and a stiff washcloth, I breathed as best I could, and I plotted my course.

  After a further week of observation, I reached a conclusion: that night I had indeed simply let my imagination run too free, for whatever “relationship” Corn and Rachil seemed to have secretly embarked upon, it was awkward and bumbling and, at first it seemed, free of penetration.

  I noted many “inside” jokes and episodes of shrill, repressed laughter, but nothing more.

  I admit, there was still cause for concern: Rico was noticeably more and more absent from the church, leaving Corn and Rachil alone.

  Where was he?

  At class?

  At work?

  No longer the sober Christian, he only appeared to sulk and drink at the church, then shuffle off to who knows where with his hippy friends, who were always stooped over some baggie of powder.

  One night, Rachil cried to Corn about this distance and depression of Rico’s, and there at the church, in the gluey yellow light, they kissed—I saw it, outraged—but then, rather than sprinting off to the bedroom to hunch, their amour disintegrated.

  “We shouldn’t,” Rachil said.

  “You’re right,” Corn said.

  “What about Rico?” she said.

  “Oh, yes. Rico,” he said. “I worry about him so much.”

  (Liar!)

  She embraced him, snuffling and leaking everywhere. I thought I could detect a sly grin on his face as he patted her shoulder a bit too much.

  Regardless, it was clear that Rachil felt sorry for Rico and Corn, and Corn clearly thought this pity would be enough to allow him to work his dark magic on her.

  I longed for him to try to play her one of his ballads, for surely that would allow her to see the sad bastard in his true light, but he had evidently accepted her pity as enough of a kind of love, one that earned him a victory over Rico, and so, a few nights later, he tried to kiss her ears, to put his hands on her little thighs.

  She squirmed, sighed, equivocated, made fun of his prim clothes.

  Drank.

  Corn was thwarted!

  But then, weeks later still, I came to the window late after an altercation at the bus station (not worth going into). I saw her pale thighs exposed in the living room, barely a shy mouthful for the lunging Corn mouth.

  My mind made a fist.

  “Wait,” she said.

  Withdrawn, his mouth dispossessed.

  “Don’t,” she said, then giggled, pushing down her skirt. “Let’s skip it and go to the Boiler Room.”

  I found I could breath again.

  It was nothing.

  Days passed.

  The skirt stayed down.

  But then I saw her again squirming away from his mouth, her hand covering her wet ear this time, and I wondered why these types of scenes kept happening—why didn’t she simply call the police?

  “Stop,” she hissed.

  He once more pushed his open mouth onto her taut lips anyway.

  “Have you flossed?” she asked him.

  Drooping back to the corner of the couch, he began to sulk.

  “What?” she said. “It’s disgusting! I don’t want you slobbering all over my ears if you haven’t flossed!”

  (Good girl!)

  “Fine,” he said.

  I know he hadn’t flossed.

  I know his belly was heavy with desire, his head leaden.

  He tried to stroke her leg with a feigned casual finger from across the sofa, but she withdrew.

  “I think you should go.”

  He rose to leave and I scrambled back to my spot in the scrub, delighted.

  “I’ll see you at the Boiler Room. Later,” she said from the doorway.

  “Fine,” he said, moping across the driveway.

  He had no power. They both knew it. We all knew it!

  That night, rejected Corn went ahead to the bar (I followed), and there he started drinking with Rico, who no longer seemed concerned about winning Rachil’s affection.

  He spent quite a bit of time there at the bar, alone, his floral shirt gathering filth.

  True, he had been in the hospital after complaining of auditory hallucinations to the student health center, and they sent him home to the church, where he cut his wrists with a kitchen knife.

  Mesmerized, I watched the blood run over the white dinner plates he had set out on the table, but then I walked to a payphone and called the police so the plates wouldn’t get too bloody before the firemen showed up.

  I knew they would get sticky, so I let myself in to wash the plates as the ambulance pulled away from the church. I left no note, not needing acknowledgment of my good deed.

  Rico had been prescribed a full menu of medications, including clonazepam, which he now handed over to Corn.

  I sat there in the bar, in the booth behind the two “friends,” taking mental notes and surreptitiously sipping gin from my thermos.

  “As long as you don’t plan on getting lucky tonight,” Rico told Corn, his voice sluggish and detached, “you can take these and level out with no worries.”

  “No chance of getting lucky,” Corn replied glumly, holding out his hand, “so, yes please.”

  “I thought you two . . . ?” Rico said, shaking the pills into Corn’s palm.

  “Nope. There’s no chance,” Corn said, though I noticed he had clearly flossed earlier. I saw the blood smeared on his incisors as he popped the pills into the back of his throat and washed them down with beer.

  (Screenplay adaptation note: ROWDY MUSIC—BA
R MONTAGE—THE CLASH—THE RAMONES—THE BAR PHONE RINGS—IT IS FOR CORN—A SMILE SPREADS ACROSS HIS FACE—FADE OUT)

  CHAPTER 8

  Corn sprinted out of the bar, nine blocks to Rachil’s apartment.

  I arrived later and saw from my tippy-toe perch—ghastly!—her hand gripping his forearm, pulling him into her room.

  “You want this?” she whispered, or something to that effect. I couldn’t quite hear as I settled atop the trash bins in the rear of the complex.

  Why this sudden change? She didn’t appear drunk. Mysterious.

  Perhaps it was that they were now, instead of at the church, in her room, where the windows were more discreet. Perhaps she felt somehow “safe,” away from a neighborly intrusion.

  I noted that Corn was quite inebriated, the beer and the clonazepam working together to impede his fine motor skills while at the same time speeding up his speech.

  He slushed his way through the conversation like some deranged snowshoer while his appendages twitched and dragged along independent of his mind.

  It was true, of course, that Corn had been waiting a long time for this, so he had an absurd grin on his face that went beyond mere inebriation, but still managed to not quite be able to grasp the situation fully.

  “How long is time?” he said, one arm shooting out spasmodically into the air. “Dunno, long enough that the duration isn’t, like, a line, it’s an arc, bent, pulling space in with it, long time, that’s what I’m saying, a long time, I’ve wanted this a long time.”

  Things became quite stark for me then.

  My breathing slowed and I felt a profound chill at the back of my skull.

  Could she really be about to sleep with this silly, striving child?

  Overcome by melancholy, I let my head droop; I could not watch.

  But I knew my case required evidence, so I held my recorder up to the window and, despite the burning muscles in my shoulder, the tingling numbness in my forearms, I recorded the entire event.

  Rather than relive it in the telling, I will simply here provide you with the transcript I’ve kept with me ever since.

  1:28AM

  (sounds of movement—furniture nudged, walls bumped)

  Corn: “Wait, wait, wait! Why are we, you know, why are we doing it, like, now?”

  Rachil: “Don’t you want to?”

  Corn: “Want to? Want to?”

  (muffled sound of a body sliding headfirst across a bedspread, dull thud)

  Corn: (voice obscured by pillows) “I want to!”

  (a zipper sounds, heels clatter, the wispy thumps of falling clothing)

  Corn: “Special.”

  Rachil: “What?”

  Corn: “Special . . . you’re wearing . . . the special . . . the special . . .”

  Rachil: “Oh my god, Corn. You are so blitzed.”

  Corn: “Undies!”

  Rachil: (giggles) “You like?”

  (sound of the bed creaking)

  Corn: “I love. Looooooooooove looooooooooove the undies!”

  (wet noises)

  Rachil: “Wait. Wait. You’ll be . . oh God this sounds so dumb, but you’ll be gentle?”

  Corn: “Oh yeah. Totally. Gentle Ben. Gentle Giant. Green Giant. Green Bean. Can a corn. You got it.”

  Rachil: “I’m nervous to try again. Last time was . . . weird.”

  Corn: “I flossed!”

  (more wet noises, zippers, thumps)

  Rachil: “What’s wrong?”

  Corn: “Huh?”

  Rachil: “Don’t you want to?”

  Corn: “Rachil. C’mon. I’ve wanted to since, like, the brontosaurus wanted to with the lady brontosaurus, since the protozoa wanted to with the paramecium, since the big wanted to bang, since . . .”

  Rachil: “Yeah but it just doesn’t look like you’re, you know, ready.”

  Corn: “What? I look totally ready! Got my shirt off, got my shoes off, or, one shoe off, anyway, got my pants off, got my . . . oh. Right.”

  (silence)

  Corn: “True. I do not appear to be quite ready.”

  Rachil: (lower register) “Maybe I can help?”

  Corn: “I don’t know, I mean, unless you can give me a blood transfusion or have some Dippity-do or spackle or . . . oh, I see. The mouth. The job we call blow. Yes, by all means.”

  (horrible, horrible wet noises)

  Rachil: “What the hell?”

  (silence)

  (bed creaks)

  (sound of forehead being slapped)

  Corn: “Oh . . . dear.”

  Rachil: “What?”

  Corn: “Well, you see, I think . . . well, here’s the thing. Thingy. Rico gave me some, uh, drugs.”

  Rachil: “Some what?”

  Corn: “Drugs. Clonazepam. I think it’s called clonazepam. It’s a painkiller. I think. Or relaxer. Something. It’s not good for the . . . the sex. But it’s great for the mood. Mooooood.”

  Rachil: (laughs)

  (silence)

  Rachil: (cries)

  Corn: (unintelligible whispers)

  Rachil: (sobs)

  (zippers)

  Corn: “Where are you going?”

  Rachil: “The couch. I hope you can continue to enjoy yourself, but this is . . . it’s just not . . . it’s not good, Corn.”

  (sobs)

  (door closes)

  Corn: “Rachil!”

  (silence)

  Corn: “Rachil?”

  Corn: “This bed is . . . soft.”

  (snoring)

  (crickets)

  CHAPTER 9

  The night was hot, but vigilance requires sacrifice.

  Corn woke up, ready, but Rachil had gone to sleep on the couch, alone.

  I remember the piney thickness of the air hung on me.

  I had watched the sun mush across the horizon where loose formations of heat-drunk birds sliced the air.

  She had feigned sleep when he returned to her. She kept her eyes and jaw closed, said, “You should go.”

  He didn’t.

  She opened her eyes.

  “Go,” she said through gritted teeth.

  I thought it was finally over for him, that I could finally swoop in and sweep Rachil off her feet with true chivalry.

  I spent the day scrounging at the dining hall, eating discarded oranges and sardines in the kitchen until that evening, when I settled into my station outside Rachil’s apartment with renewed gusto, awaiting Corn’s final humiliation.

  Surely she would see after the previous night’s fiasco that neither Corn nor Rico were the one she wanted—right?

  I would be there to see it all fall apart . . . or so I thought!

  I found, to my dismay, that Rachil had, in a kind of fit, rearranged the furniture in her room so I could now barely see around a bookshelf positioned directly in front of the window.

  My spirits became damp.

  Worse, Corn returned apparently sober, contrite, mewling apologies and encomiums.

  I threw my packet of salt peanuts to the ground in disgust and once again set up my recording device. It would turn out to be one of the more horrifying experiences of my young life.

  From what I could later decipher from the recording—in the moment it was an indecipherable hell—Corn managed to consummate his attack thusly: after a final tearful apology, she went to him, bleary with tears, to kiss him hard on the mouth.

  There was blood.

  Then: him, silent; her, a throaty coaxing; then, tears; then, a fat slapping of broad back skin; then, her, pleading with him, in her confusion, NOT to stop; then, yes; then, yes; then, yes . . . again, again, again they had wild, passionate, joyous intercourse on the floor of her apartment.

  After half an hour, I found I could not watch, merely held my recorder at the window.

  I find that I return to the recording to listen more often than I would have first thought, and I have recently had it digitized through a service so I can listen on my portable mp3 player.

  “Wha
t do you want, baby?” she coos, probably wiping tears away, at the 15:23 mark.

  He dutifully keeps at it, saying nothing as the floor creaks mightily for a full two minutes.

  “Talk to me, baby, tell me what you want,” she moans through her teeth at 17:54.

  He must have thought that if he spoke she would start crying again, so he let her lie there with her head most likely turned toward the side, asking no one her questions while he pumped in a fever.

  The entire recording lasts twenty-seven minutes, twelve seconds.

  The last minute is a sickly silence punctuated only by labored breathing.

  The last thing said: “Maybe we should get a drink.”

  They quickly dressed and set off for the bar while I sat in silent hell.

  What saddens me most, dear readers, is that Corn didn’t seem to even want to have sex with her throughout the entire experience!

  He was not like the rest of us.