The Ignored (38 page)

“My name’s not David!” he screamed. “It’s Philipe!” He swung the knife,
sliced into a shoulder. “My name is Philipe!”

I was pushed aside as a woman ran screaming into the room. Her screams
stopped abruptly as the horror of the scene imprinted itself onto her brain. She
fainted dead away, not collapsing gently and gracefully to the floor as women
did in movies but falling flat and heavy, her head hitting the wooden floor with
a hard thud, her outstretched right hand flopping into a puddle of her
daughters’ blood.

There was a pink dresser next to the door. On top of the dresser were
two piggy banks, and I picked one up and heaved it at Philipe’s head.

It hit, bounced off, and broke on the floor, pennies spilling into the
blood. Philipe shook his head, blinked, and at the same time seemed to see for
the first time the knife in his hand, the dead girls before him and me standing
by the door. It was as if he had awakened from a trance, and he looked at me
with weak, frightened eyes. “I didn’t… I had no… I had to—”

“Save it,” I said.

“Help me clean this up. Help me get rid of this.” He stared up at me
frantically, beseechingly, holding out his bloody hands, palms up.

Part of me felt sorry for him, but it was a small part of me. “No,” I
said disgustedly.

“Something would’ve happened to us if I didn’t—”

“What?” I demanded. “What would have happened to us?”

He started to cry. It was the first time I had ever seen Philipe cry and
the sight tore at me, but the other sights in the room tore at me more. I could
not forgive him for this. I could not justify what he had done. I would never
defend him simply because we were both of a kind. Our kinship could not excuse
this butchery.

“I’m out of the terrorists,” I said.

“Don’t tell the others—”

“Fuck you.”

I walked out of the bedroom, out of the house, through the sandstorm
back to Tim’s. I told everyone what had happened, what I had seen, and hushed
and silent, they went next door. Steve and Junior stayed to help Philipe clean
up the mess. The rest returned, shocked into silence.

“I’m out,” I said when they got back. “I resign.”

“You can’t resign,” Pete said.

“Why not?”

“You’re Ignored. You can’t just stop being Ignored by saying so.”

“Yeah, I’ll always be Ignored. But I’m no longer a Terrorist for the
Common Man. I’m resigning from the terrorists. I can’t follow Philipe. He’s
crazy.”

“But we’ve all killed,” Paul said. “Doesn’t that mean we’re all crazy?”

“If you can’t see the difference, I can’t explain it to you.” I looked
around at my friends, my brothers, my sister. “I’m leaving,” I said. “Does
anyone want to come with me?”

“Where are you going?” James asked quietly.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Joe said. “I’m mayor here. This is my town.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

“I don’t want to leave either,” Tim said. “I’m not with Philipe, but I’m
staying.”

Mary stepped forward. “We’ll come with you,” she said. “Jim and I will
come.” She looked toward Jim, and he nodded.

“I’m corning,” James said.

“Me, too.” Don.

In the end, Bill and John and Tommy and Pete and Paul voted to stay with
Philipe. I knew Steve and Junior would do the same, so I didn’t even bother
waiting until they came back to ask them.

“How quickly can you pack?” I asked.

James gave me a wan grin. “I never unpacked.”

We were gone before Philipe and the other two had returned. I promised
to call, to keep in touch, but at that moment I was not sure if I would. Too
many conflicting emotions were churning within me. More than anything else, I
wanted to be free of this burden of being Ignored. I wanted to be just a regular
person again, to not have to worry about the suits or think about killings or
plan ways to overthrow “the system.” I did not want the mantle of responsibility
that I had been forced to carry ever since I’d met Philipe. I just wanted to
live my life in peace and quiet.

We walked through the blowing sand to Jim’s van. Already, I was starting
to regret my decision to break away. The horror of what I’d seen had already
begun to fade, and I found myself starting to rationalize Philipe’s actions,
telling myself he was sick, he couldn’t help it, he didn’t know what he was
doing.

Already, I was starting to miss Philipe.

I thought of Sea World.

No, I told myself. I couldn’t let
these
memories fade.

I’d made a decision and I was going to stick by it.

We left the subdivision, headed through the city toward Interstate 10.
The winds had died down, and above us the stars were visible. A full moon,
partially risen, made the sand dunes look blue.

“So where are we going?” James asked again.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Got any ideas?”

“Back home?”

“Home where?”

“Our old homes, our real homes. Your apartment, my condo.”

“What if the suits are staking them out, waiting for us to come back?”

“After this long? Be serious.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sounds good to me. What about the rest of you?”

“I do kind of miss my house,” Don admitted.

We voted, and the vote was unanimous. “All right,” I said. “We’ll do
it.” We pulled into an Arco gas station near the highway to tank up for the long
drive back to Orange County. I walked into the AM/PM Mini-Mart to snag some
snacks while James pumped the gas.

The man behind the counter was Ignored.

We stared at each other. There was no one else in the small convenience
store but us, and I stood there, stunned, facing the man behind the counter. He
was young and clean-shaven, with long brown hair, and he looked a little like
Tim.

“You,” he said finally. “You’re Ignored.”

I nodded. For some reason, I thought of Philipe’s policy about not
taking on anyone who had not yet killed his boss. This guy was still working. He
had obviously not taken out his boss.

“My name is Dan,” he said.

“Hi,” I said warily. I had been planning to steal some Twinkies and
cookies and potato chips, but I thought now that I would pay for them. I didn’t
want to get this guy into trouble. He was one of us.

“Are you from Thompson?”

Thompson? I shook my head, not understanding.

“Are you going there?”

“Excuse me?”

“Thompson.”

I stared at him blankly.

His eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t know about Thompson?”

“No.” I looked out the window, saw James replacing the nozzle on the gas
pump. I had no idea what the hell this guy was talking about. The thought
occurred to me that he was out of it, like Paul when we’d found him.

“I’m from Thompson.”

That meant nothing to me.

“Thompson is
our
city.”

“Our city?”

He nodded. “Our city.”

I stared at him, suddenly realizing what he was talking about. I cleared
my throat. “You mean… a city of people like us?”

“Of course. It’s the city of the Ignored.”

The city of the Ignored.

I had sudden visions of a vast underground world, a honeycomb of caverns
and tunnels that housed a massive secret society. I thought of the buried city
under Seattle. I’d seen it as a child on an old
Night Stalker
TV movie,
and something about that entombed metropolis, coexisting with the urban world
above, appealed to me. For some reason, that was how I imagined the city of the
Ignored.

The city of the Ignored.

A city where everyone was exactly like us.

The very thought of it made my blood pump faster.

Dan nodded, grinning. “I was born there. I left a few years ago, figured
I’d bum around the country, get some life experience. I’m a writer. Writers need
lots of life experience.”

“But… but this city… Thompson?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s filled only with people who are Ignored?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Shocked the hell out of me when I saw you
walk through that door. You’re the first Ignored I’ve seen in the past three
years. I thought all of them lived in Thompson.”

“There’s more of us in the van. And there’s even more in Desert Palms.
The mayor’s Ignored.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Whoa.”

“Listen,” I said, “would you like to take us there, to Thompson? We’ll
give you a lift. All you have to do is give us directions.”

“No way, Jose. I’m staying right where I am. Do you know how many
weirdos come through those doors on the night shift?” He shook his head. “I’m
telling you, between midnight and dawn, it’s a freak show.” He pointed to a
ringed binder sitting next to the cash register. “And I’m getting it all down.”

I nodded, forced myself to smile. I felt sorry for the guy. Didn’t he
realize what it meant to be Ignored? No matter how great his book was—and it
wouldn’t be great, it would be average—no one was going to read it. No matter
what he did, no one was going to pay any attention to him.

“Well, could you tell me how to get there?” I asked.

“It’s a suburb of Phoenix. It’s near Glendale, just west of Phoenix.”

“Can you draw a map or something?”

“It’s not on a real map, and I couldn’t draw one to save my life.
Besides, I don’t think the road to it has a name. But don’t worry, you’ll find
it.”

James walked into the mini-mart, followed by Jim and Mary.

“Is there a ladies’ room here?” Mary asked.

Dan pointed toward the rear of the store. “Through that door by the
fountain.”

Mary stared. “You heard me!”

The clerk laughed. “We’re all Ignored on this bus.”

“There’s a city,” I said. “A city of the Ignored. He’s from there. It’s
called Thompson, and it’s just outside of Phoenix.”

The others were silent.

“Still want to go home, or do you want to try for it?”

“Let’s go back,” James said. “Tell the others.”

“Yeah,” Mary said. “Philipe should know about this.”

I considered it for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. “Okay,” I said.
“We’ll tell them. But I’m still going on my own. Once we tell them, I’m out of
there. I’m serious. I’m not a terrorist anymore.”

“We’re with you,” James said.

“This is going in my book,” Dan said. “This is good stuff.” He had
opened his binder and was busily scribbling notes.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Mary said, walking toward the rear of the
mini-mart.

“Get Don,” I told James. “He might as well hear this, too.”

“This is great,” Dan said, grinning. “This is great.”

Philipe was back to his normal self by the time we returned to the
house, as charming and charismatic and persuasive as ever, but I stuck to my
guns, and after we’d spelled everything out and given directions on how to get
to the Arco station, we were off.

I turned toward Joe before we left. “You still staying?” I asked.

He nodded. “Thompson might be your city, but Desert Palms is my city.
This is my home.”

“Are you going to carry on the work we started?”

He smiled, nodded. “Ego trip over. I’m working for The Cause.”

I clapped a hand on his back. “You’re a good man, Joe. I knew it the
first time I saw your photo in that newspaper. Whatever happens from here on
out, I’m glad we met you. I’m glad I knew you. And I’ll never forget you.”

“Shit. I’m not dying. I’m just staying.”

I smiled. “I know.”

It was after midnight by this time, and I was too tired to drive, so I
turned the wheel over to Jim. Mary promised to keep him awake, and I moved into
the back of the van with the others.

I had never gone to see my parents’ graves.

I had not thought about that before, and it occurred to me for the first
time as we were traveling on the highway past Indio, heading toward the Arizona
border. After all the trouble I’d gone through to find out where my mom and dad
were buried, I had not even made the effort to go the cemetery and see where
they were interred.

Now it was too late.

I felt bad about that, or part of me did, but I reasoned that even if
there was an afterlife, the spirits of my parents had probably forgotten all
about me and had not even noticed that I’d never gone to visit their graves.

We would probably be as ignored by the dead as we were by the living.

Would we be ignored by God?

That
was a question, and I almost brought it up, almost said it
aloud, but Philipe was not here, and he was the only one who would have given it
any serious thought, so I said nothing.

I glanced out the back window of the van. How would we find Thompson
once we got to Phoenix? If the city was not on any map, if it really was as
invisible to the world at large as we ourselves were, how could we hope to find
it? Sympathetic vibrations?

I half wished that we had waited for Philipe and the others.

I stared out at the dark desert. Thompson was a suburb of Phoenix, that
much we knew. But was it on one of the main roads, was it off one of the
highways on a small dirt road? If the same streets that cut through Phoenix
passed through this city, how could people not notice it? Surely ordinary
drivers stopped there for gas or cold drinks or cigarettes. Surely cars
sometimes broke down within the city limits. If there were streets in the city,
money had to be provided for their maintenance by the federal and state
governments. The real world could not completely bypass an entire city, no
matter who its residents were.

Now I was getting off on tangents, bringing in things that did not
really have anything to do with anything.

I closed my eyes, intending to rest them for a few moments.

I was awakened at dawn.

“We’re there,” James said.