The Ignored (22 page)

Apparently Philipe felt the same way I did. “Obnoxious jerks,” he said,
surveying the crowd.

An announcer introduced the band, and an eclectic group of longhaired
men and short-haired women took the stage. The music started, a Latin-fusion
hybrid. I looked toward Philipe. He obviously had something planned for tonight,
but none of the rest of us knew what it was. I felt a rush of adrenaline as I
saw him straighten, walk forward.

He moved beside a smug-looking woman wearing designer-label tennis
clothes, a trendy chatterbox who had not stopped talking to the identically
dressed woman next to her since the concert began. He turned to face her. “Would
you please be quiet?” he said. “We’re trying to hear the concert.”

He slapped her hard across the face.

She was too stunned to react. By the time she realized what had
happened, Philipe had again stepped back to where the rest of us were standing.
The woman looked at us, through us, past us, searching for the person who had
hit her. There was fear on her face, and her right cheek was bright red where it
had been slapped.

She and her friend quickly moved away, toward a security guard standing
near the bleachers.

Philipe grinned at me. I heard Bill and Junior giggling behind me.

“What should we do?” James asked.

“Follow my lead,” Philipe said. He moved forward, into the crowd, in the
direction of the folding chairs. He stopped next to a young Turk in a power tie
who was discussing stock options with a friend.

Philipe reached out, grabbed a handful of the man’s hair, and yanked.
Hard.

The man screamed in pain and whirled around, fists clenched.

Steve punched him in the gut.

The man fell to his knees, gasping for air and clutching his stomach.
His friend looked at us with frightened eyes and began backing away.

Bill and John advanced on him.

I felt strange. Following the rush of our city hall escapade, I’d wanted
to do something else along those lines, I’d wanted to see some type of action,
but this sort of random violence made me feel extremely uncomfortable. It
shouldn’t have—I’d already killed a man, I’d already vandalized a public
building, I didn’t like these yuppies here to begin with—but I still felt as
though we were in the wrong. If there had been more provocation, if there was
some way I could justify our actions, I might feel better about it, but as it
was, I felt sorry for the woman Philipe had slapped, for the man he had
attacked. I’d been the victim too often myself not to sympathize with other
victims.

The first man was starting to get up, and Philipe pushed him back down
onto the cement. He turned to me. “Go with Bill and John. Get his friend.”

I stood there.

“Get him!”

Bill and John had tackled the other man. Someone else had come to his
rescue. This was turning into an honest-to-God brawl.

“Get in there!” Philipe ordered.

I didn’t want to “get in there”. I didn’t want to—

An Armani-suited jerk bumped into me. He was heading toward the fight,
ready to get into it. He obviously hadn’t seen me and had run into me
accidentally, but he didn’t even bother to apologize. “Get the fuck out of my
way,” he said instead, pushing a fisted hand toward my face.

That did it.

The crowd suddenly had a face to me. The man in the Armani suit
instantly came to symbolize everything that was wrong with these people,
everything that I hated about them. They were no longer innocent victims of
Philipe’s random attacks. They were deserving recipients of justice.

These were the people who had kept us down, kept us Ignored, and after
all this time, we were finally striking back.

I punched Armani hard in the back.

He stumbled, grunted, whirled around, but Don was already on him,
hitting him in the stomach. Armani doubled up, but took it, and was about to
retaliate when Buster, behind him, kicked the back of his left knee.

He went down.

“Retreat!” Philipe announced suddenly. “Move back!”

I didn’t know why he said that, what he had planned or decided, but like
the others, I instantly, instinctively obeyed. All ten of us gathered around
Philipe. He grinned hugely. “Look,” he said.

My gaze followed the nod of his head. The fight was still going on,
although between whom I did not know. Two security guards had rushed over and
were trying to break it up.

No one had noticed our absence.

I got the point.

Philipe caught my eye, grinned, nodded when he saw that I understood.
“We’ll spread out, start up conflicts throughout the crowd. Bill and John, you
go to the other side of Nieman Marcus. James, Steve, Pete, start something near
Silverwood’s. Buster and Junior, you do something by the far bleachers. Tommy
and Don? You two attack near the sign-up table for the drawing. Bob and I will
take this area.”

The plan worked perfectly. We would pick one man and then set upon him,
pummeling him. Others would join in, expanding the fight, and we would bow out.

Soon there were several pockets of turmoil in the crowd, a free-for-all
melee with us unseen at the center of the storm.

The band had stopped playing by this time, and an announcement was made
from the stage that unless order was restored immediately the concert would be
canceled.

The fighting continued, with an ever-increasing number of security
guards emerging from some reserve area in an attempt to bring the crowd under
control.

Philipe surveyed the scene, nodded with satisfaction, dropped a handful
of cards on the ground, placed some on the bottom bleacher seats. “Good enough,”
he said. “Let’s go. We’re outta here.”

The next day we made the front page of the
Register.

GANG VIOLENCE ERUPTS AT FREE CONCERT, the headline read.

Junior laughed. “Gang violence?”

There was no mention of our exploits in the
Times.

“The concert was sponsored by the
Register
,” John said. “That’s
why.”

“First lesson,” Philipe said. “Avoid partisan media events.”

We all laughed.

“We should start a scrapbook,” James suggested. “Cut out all the
articles about us.”

Philipe nodded. “Good idea. You’re in charge of that.” He turned toward
me. “And since you have the best VCR here, you’re in charge of taping local news
broadcasts, in case we ever make it onto TV.”

“Okay,” I said.

He continued looking at me. “By the way, you know what today is, don’t
you?”

I shook my head.

“It’s your one-month anniversary.”

He was right. How could I have forgotten? Exactly one month ago today, I
had killed Stewart. The morning’s lighthearted mood disappeared instantly for
me. My hands grew sweaty, the muscles in my neck tense as I thought of that
scene in the bathroom stall. In my mind, I again smelled the blood, felt the
knife push thickly through muscle, deflect off bone.

At this time of day, one month ago, I had been sitting at my desk in my
clown suit. Waiting.

The clown suit was still on the floor of my bedroom closet.

“Let’s go back there,” Philipe said. “See what’s happened since then.”

I was horrified. “No!”

“Why not? You can’t tell me you’re not even curious.”

“Yeah,” Don said. “Let’s go. It’ll be great.”

“What did he do a month ago?” Junior asked.

“He killed his boss,” Buster explained.

The old man’s eyes widened. “Killed his boss?”

“We all did,” Buster told him. “I thought you knew that.”

“No. I didn’t.” He was silent for a moment. “I did, too,” he admitted.
“I killed my boss, too. But I was afraid to tell you.”

Philipe continued to look at me. “I think we should go back to your
company,” he said. “I think we should go back to Automated Interface,
Incorporated.”

Even hearing that name sent a strange shiver through me. “Why?” I asked.
My hands were trembling. I tried not to let it show. “What good would it do?”

“Catharsis. I think you need to go. I don’t think you’ll get over it
until you confront it.”

“Is this because of last night? Because I didn’t want to just start
beating on people for no reason?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. You can’t have pussies in a terrorist
organization.”

I thought of a thousand retorts to that, a thousand things I could say,
a thousand things I should say, but for some reason I backed off. I looked away
from him, looked down at my shoes, shook my head. “I don’t want to go.”

“We’re going,” he said flatly. “Whether you want to or not. I’ll drive.”

James, on the couch, glanced up from the newspaper article. “Are we all
going?”

“No, just Bob and me.”

I wanted to object, wanted to refuse, but I found myself nodding.
“Okay,” I said.

Philipe talked on the drive over. This was the first time we’d been
alone, with none of the others anywhere around, since he’d first approached me
on the street after Stewart’s murder, and he seemed anxious to explain to me the
importance of what he termed “our work.”

“I know,” I said.

“Do you?” He shook his head. “I never know about you,” he said. “John,
Don, Bill, and the rest, I always know where they stand, I always know what
they’re thinking. But you’re a mystery to me. Maybe that’s why it’s so important
for me to make sure you understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

“I understand.”

“But you don’t approve.”

“Yes, I do. It’s just… I don’t know.”

“You know.”

“Sometimes… sometimes some things seem wrong to me.”

“You still have your old values, you still have your old system of
beliefs. You’ll get over that eventually.”

“Maybe.”

He looked sideways at me. “You don’t want to?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you’re with us? You’re one of us?”

“Always,” I said. “What else do I have?”

He nodded. “What else do any of us have?”

We drove the rest of the way in silence.

It felt strange to be driving back to Automated Interface again, and my
palms were sweaty as we pulled into the parking lot. I wiped them on my jeans.
“I don’t think we should do this.”

“You think they’re going to see you and immediately put two and two
together and arrest you for killing your supervisor? These people don’t even
remember you. They probably couldn’t describe you if their lives depended on
it.”

“Some of them could,” I said.

“Don’t count on it.”

The parking spaces were all filled, so Philipe pulled into a handicapped
visitor’s spot near the entrance. He switched off the ignition. “We’re here.”

“I don’t—”

“If you don’t face it, you won’t get past it. You can’t let the memory
of what happened here ruin your whole life. You did the right thing.”

“I know I did.”

“Then why do you feel guilty?”

“I don’t. I just… I’m afraid.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” He opened his door, got out of the
car. Reluctantly, I did the same. “It’s places like this that have made us what
we are,” Philipe said. “These are the places we need to strike against.”

“I was always Ignored,” I pointed out. “My job didn’t make me Ignored.”

“But it made you worse,” he said.

I could not really argue. I did not know if I believed him, but I could
not refute him.

“You had to waste that fucker. You couldn’t have done anything else.
That’s why you are who you are. That’s why you’re here with me now. That’s why
you’re a terrorist. It’s part of the plan.”

I smiled. “A Dan Fogelberg reference?”

“If it applies, use it.” He grinned. “Let’s go in.”

We walked up the sidewalk, through the entrance, into the lobby. The
guard was at his post. As always, he ignored me. I was about to walk past him to
the elevator when I suddenly stopped. I turned toward Philipe. “I hate that
guy,” I said.

“Then do something about it.”

“I will.” I walked up to the guard’s desk. He still didn’t see me.

I leaned forward, knocked the cap off his head. “Asshole,” I said.

Now he saw me.

He leaped out of his chair, reached over the desk to grab my arm. “Who
do you think you are, you—”

I backed up, moved next to Philipe, and suddenly the guard looked
confused.

He could no longer see me!

“It’s good to be back,” Philipe said. “Isn’t it?”

I nodded. It did feel good. And I was glad Philipe had forced me to
return. We continued on toward the elevator. I hazarded a glance back at the
guard. He seemed not only confused but frightened.

“We can do anything,” Philipe said. He looked at me meaningfully.
“Anything.”

The elevator doors opened, and we stepped inside. I pressed the button
for the fourth floor. Flush with my success, primed by encouragement from
Philipe, I considered killing Banks. I’d been invisible to him for quite some
time before I left, but when he had been able to see me, he hadn’t liked me.
He’d been Stewart’s ally. He’d even made fun of my haircut once.

I could give him a haircut.

I could scalp the fucker.

Then I thought of Stewart and the horrible way he’d died, the way he’d
tried to kick me and hit me as I stabbed him, the way the blood gushed out of
his body onto me, and I knew I would not be able to kill again.

The elation fled as quickly as it had come. Why was I here? What could I
possibly hope to accomplish at Automated Interface? Philipe had said in the car
that he wanted us to monkey-wrench, but I was not in a position to cause any
serious damage. I didn’t know enough to do any real harm.

We got out on the fourth floor. I walked over to the programming
section. The lights were off in Stewart’s old office. Obviously he had not been
replaced. Otherwise, everything was as I’d left it. I took Philipe past Stacy’s
desk, and Pam’s and Emery’s. None of the programmers even looked up at us.

It felt oppressive to me here, the atmosphere thick and heavy, the air
way too warm, and I told Philipe that I wanted to leave, but he said that first
he wanted to see where I’d killed Stewart.