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.
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 thirt
een 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?”
EIGHT
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.
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.
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