The Ignored

by Bentley Little

  David shook his head. “That’s cold. She just hit the road and left a note?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, what happened when you went after her? What did she say when you confronted her?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “What happened when you tracked her down?” He looked at me, frowned. “You did go after her, didn’t you?”

  Should I have? Was that what she’d wanted? Proof that I cared, that I loved her, that I needed her? Should I have gone after her like some sort of hero and tried to win her back? I had this sinking feeling that I should have, that that was what she’d wanted, that that was what she’d expected. I looked at David, slowly shaking my head. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Oh, man. You blew it. Now you’ll never get her back. How long’s it been?”

  “Two months.”

  He shook his head. “She’s found someone else by now. Your window of opportunity’s closed, dude. Didn’t you even try to call her?”

  “I didn’t know where she’d gone.”

  “You should’ve called her parents. They’d know.”

  “She said she just wanted to cut off all contact cold, not see each other anymore. She said it’d be easier that way.”

  “They always say things like that. But what they say and what they mean are two different things.”

  There was movement in the doorway. Stewart. “Hey, girls,” he said, peeking his head into the office, “stop your talking. Get back to work.”

  I quickly picked up my pen, began going over the instructions.

  “I’m on break,” David said, eating a Frito. “I still have five minutes to go.”

  “Then you take your break in the break room where you won’t disturb — ” There was a pause as he blanked on my name. “ — Jones.”

  “Fine.” David got up slowly, grinned at me as he followed Stewart out the door.

  I smiled back, but I felt sick inside.

  What they say and what they mean are two different things.

  I had the horrible feeling that he was right.

  There was traffic on the freeway, a three-car accident in the fast lane, and it was nearly six-thirty by the time I got home. I parked in the garage and trudged up the stairway to my apartment. I opened my mailbox and rifled through the envelopes as I unlocked the door. There was a bill from the gas company, this week’s Pennysaver… and something that felt like a card.

  A card? Who would be sending me a card?

  Jane?

  My hopes soared. Maybe she’d gotten tired of waiting for me to make contact. Maybe she’d decided to contact me. Maybe she missed me as much as I missed her.

  I quickly ripped open the envelope and saw the words “Happy Birthday!” above a picture of hot-air balloons sailing into a blue sky. I opened the card.

  Preprinted on the white background in laser-jet perfection was the message “Happy Birthday From Your Friends at Automated Interface, Inc.”

  My heart sank.

  A form birthday card from work.

  I crumpled up the card, threw it over the stairway railing, and watched it hit the ground.

  In two days it would be my birthday.

  I’d almost forgotten.

  Thirteen

  I spent my birthday typing and filing, filing and typing. David was sick, and I was alone in the office all day.

  I spent that night watching television.

  No one at work did anything for my birthday. I hadn’t expected them to, but I had half expected a call from Jane — or at least a card. She knew how important birthdays were to me. But of course there was nothing. What was even more depressing was that my parents didn’t acknowledge my birthday either. No present, no card, not even a phone call.

  I tried to call them, several times, but the line was always busy and I eventually gave it up.

  In five years, I thought, I would be thirty. I remembered when my mom had turned thirty. Her friends had thrown her a surprise birthday party and everyone had gotten drunk and I’d been allowed to stay up way past my bedtime. I’d been eight then, and my mom had seemed so old.

  I was getting old, too, but the strange thing was that I didn’t feel it. According to the professor of a Cultural Anthropology class I’d taken, American culture has no rite of passage, no formal initiation into manhood, no clear demarcation between childhood and adulthood. Maybe that was why, in many ways, I still felt like a kid. I did not feel the way my parents had probably felt at my age, did not see myself the way my parents had probably seen themselves. I might be living an adult life, but my feelings were a child’s feelings, my attitudes and interests those of a teenager. I had not really grown up.

  And my twenties were half over.

  I thought about Jane all night, thought about what this birthday could have been, what it should have been, and what it wasn’t.

  I went to bed hoping against hope that the phone would ring.

  But it didn’t.

  And sometime after midnight I fell asleep.

  Fourteen

  Thanksgiving came and went and I spent the holiday in my apartment by myself, watching the Twilight Zone marathon on Channel 5 and wondering what Jane was doing.

  I’d tried ringing my parents the week before, calling them several times, planning to wrangle a Thanksgiving dinner invitation out of them, but no one was ever home when I called. Although they’d invited me and Jane over for the past three Thanksgivings, we had never gone, begging off because of school, work, whatever excuse we could think up. Now this year, when I finally wanted to go, when I needed to go, no invitation was offered. I wasn’t exactly surprised, but I couldn’t help feeling a little hurt. I knew my parents weren’t trying to be mean, weren’t going out of their way to purposely not invite me — they’d probably assumed that once again Jane and I had plans of our own — but I didn’t have any plans and I desperately wanted them to provide me with some.

  I still hadn’t told them I’d broken up with Jane. I hadn’t even called them since the split. My parents and I had never really been close, and talking about something like this with them would have made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I knew they’d ask a million questions — How did it happen? Why did it happen? Whose fault was it? Are you guys going to patch things up? — and I didn’t want to have to talk to them about things like that. I just didn’t want to deal with it. I’d rather they find out later, secondhand.

  I’d been planning to lie if I’d gone down to San Diego to spend Thanksgiving with them, to tell them that Jane got sick at the last minute and was spending the holiday with her family. It was a pretty flimsy and pathetic excuse, but I had no doubt that my parents would buy it. They were pretty gullible about things like that.

  But I never did get ahold of them. I could have invited myself, I knew. I could have just shown up on their doorstep Thursday morning. But somehow I didn’t feel comfortable doing that.

  So I stayed home, lounged on the couch, watched The Twilight Zone. I made macaroni and cheese for my Thanksgiving meal. It was pretty damn depressing, and I could not remember having ever felt so alone and so abandoned.

  I was almost grateful for Monday.

  On Monday morning, David was there before I was, feet up on the desk, eating some type of muffin. I was glad to see him after the four days I’d just spent in semi-isolation, but at the same time I felt an emotional weight, a feeling almost like dread, settle upon me as I sat down at my desk and surveyed the array of papers before me.

  I liked David, but, God, I hated my job.

  I looked over at him. “This is hell,” I said.

  He finished the last of his muffin, crumpling the cupcake paper and tossing it into the trash can between our desks. “I read this story once where hell was a hallway filled with all the bugs you’d killed in your life: all the flies you’d swatted, all the spiders you’d squished, all the snails you’d dissolved. And you had to keep walking back and forth down this hallway. Naked. Back and forth. Back and forth. Forever.” Dav
id grinned. “Now that would be hell.”

  I sighed. “This is close.”

  He shrugged. “Purgatory, maybe. But hell? I don’t think so.”

  I picked up a pen, looked at the latest batch of GeoComm instructions I’d written. I was sick of documenting that damn system. What had once seemed like a great step forward, a huge increase in responsibility, was now a burden around my neck. I was starting to long for the days when my job had been less defined and my tasks varied with the day. My work might have been more pointless and frivolous then, but it had not been so stultifyingly the same.

  “I think it might be,” I said.

  It was four o’clock and the employees who were on flexible work schedules were starting to leave, passing by our office and heading down the hall toward the elevators, when David leaned back in his chair and looked over at me. “Hey, what’re you doing after work?” he asked. “Anything?”

  I knew where this was leading, and my first instinct was to beg off, to invent an excuse why I couldn’t go with him, wherever he was going. But it had been so long since I had done anything or gone anywhere with another person that I found myself saying, “Nothing. Why?”

  “There’s this club I go to in Huntington Beach. Stocked with babes. I thought you might wanna come.”

  The second level. An invitation.

  Part of me wanted to say yes, and for a brief second I thought that this might turn the tide, this might save me. I’d go out clubbing with David; we’d become good buddies, close friends; he’d help me meet some women; my entire life would change in one smooth, easy stroke.

  But my true nature won out, and I shook my head and smiled regretfully. “I wish I could, but I have plans.” I said.

  “What plans?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  He looked at me, nodded slowly. “I understand.” he said.

  David and I were not as close after that. I don’t know if it was his fault or mine, but the bond that had existed between us seemed to have been broken, the closeness dissipated. It wasn’t like it had been with Derek, of course. I mean, David and I still talked to each other. We were still friendly. But we were not friends. It was as though we had approached friendship but had backed off, deciding we were better suited to acquaintanceship.

  The routine returned. It had never really gone away, but since David had started sharing my office I had been able, to some extent, to ignore it. Now that I was fading into the periphery of David’s life, however, and he into mine, the mind-numbing dullness of my workday once more took center stage.

  I was an uninteresting person with an uninteresting job and an uninteresting life.

  My apartment, too, I noticed, was bland and characterless. Most of the furniture was new, but it was generic: not ugly, not wonderful, but existing somewhere in the netherworld of plainness in between. In a way, gaudiness or ugliness would have been preferable. At least it would have stamped an imprint of life upon my home. As it was, a photograph of my living room would have fit neatly and perfectly into a furniture catalog. It had the same featureless, antiseptic quality as a showroom display.

  My bedroom looked like it had come straight out of a Holiday Inn.

  Obviously, whatever character the place had had was attributable to Jane. And obviously it had departed with her.

  That was it, I decided. I was going to change. I was going to make an effort to be different, be original, be unique. Even if civil-service chic became all the rage, I would never again fall into a rut of quiet unobtrusiveness. I would live loud, dress loud, make a statement. If it was my nature to be Ignored, I would go against my nature and do everything I could to make myself noticed.

  I went that weekend to furniture stores, charged a couch and bed and end tables and lamps — mismatched items from the wildest and most disparate styles I could find. I tied them in the trunk of the Buick, tied them to the roof, took them home and put them in places where they weren’t supposed to be: bed in the dining area, couch in the bedroom. This wasn’t ordinary; this wasn’t average or mundane. No one could ignore this. I walked around my apartment, admiring the extravagantly gauche decorations, satisfied.

  I went to Marshall’s, charged a new wardrobe. Loud shirts and outrageously designed pants.

  I went to Supercuts, got a modified mohawk.

  I had done it. I had changed. I had made myself over. I was a new me.

  And at work on Monday, nobody noticed.

  I walked through the parking lot and into the lobby feeling almost foolishly conspicuous, my band of centered hair standing tall and stiff on my otherwise bald head, my pants baggy and shiny red, my shirt lime-green, my tie fluorescent pink. But no one gave me a second glance. There was not even a pause in the conversation between two fifth-floor secretaries waiting for the elevator as I walked up and stood next to them. Neither of them glanced in my direction or paid me any attention at all.

  Even David did not notice the difference. He said hi to me when I walked into the office, finished his breakfast muffin, then settled down to work.

  I was Ignored no matter what I did.

  I sat down at my desk, discouraged and depressed, feeling like an asshole with my hair and my clothes. Why was this happening to me? Why was I Ignored? What was wrong with me? I touched my mohawk, as if to reassure myself that it was real, that I was real, that I had physical substance. My hand felt hard lacquered hair.

  What was I?

  That was the real question.

  And for that, of course, I had no answer.

  The week passed slowly, with seconds that seemed like hours, hours that seemed like days, days that were of interminable length. David was out for the second half of the week, and by the time Friday rolled around I had been so consistently disregarded and overlooked that I was about ready to attack one of the secretaries to prove to myself and everyone else that I existed, that I was there.

  On my way home, I tried to speed, to drive crazily and recklessly, but my heart wasn’t in it and I failed to make even a small dent in the consciousness of my fellow freeway travelers.

  Inside my apartment, the garishly clashing color scheme of the living room only made me feel tired and even more depressed. I stared at the Monster Roster poster hung at an inappropriate angle above my pink butterfly chair. I had somehow managed to make the gaudy look mundane, the garish unobtrusive.

  I loosened my tie and sat down on he couch. I felt drained. The weekend loomed before me: two days of freedom in which I would constantly be confronted with my anonymity. I tried to think of something I could do, some place I could go where I wouldn’t be continually faced with the meaningless obscurity that was my existence.

  My parents, I thought. I could visit my parents. I wasn’t ignored by them. I was not just a forgettable face to my mom, not just a nobody to my dad. I might not be able to talk to them about my situation, but just being with them, just being with people who noticed and paid attention to me, would help.

  I hadn’t tried calling them after Thanksgiving, feeling vaguely pissed off at their treatment of me and wanting to punish them for it, but Christmas was fast approaching and I needed both my mom and my dad to give me some idea of what they wanted this year.

  I figured that was as good an excuse as any to give them a ring.

  I walked over to the phone, picked it up and dialed. Busy. I hung up, dialed again. We weren’t close, my parents and I. We did not see eye to eye on most things; we did not even like each other a lot of the time. But we loved each other. We were family. And if you couldn’t turn to your family in time of need, who could you turn to?

  The line was still busy. I hung up the phone. I had a plan. I would be spontaneous. I would surprise them by driving down right now and showing up on their doorstep for dinner.

  Average people weren’t spontaneous.

  I packed a toothbrush and a change of clothes, and ten minutes later I was on the freeway, headed for San Diego.

  I considered pulling off at San Juan C
apistrano, then at Oceanside, then at Del Mar and trying to call again. Now that I thought about it, my parents probably wouldn’t like it if I just showed up on their doorstep without warning. But I had momentum, I didn’t want to get sidetracked, and I stayed on the highway, moving south.

  It was close to nine when I pulled up in front of my parents’ home. Our home. It hadn’t changed much since I was a child, and that was reassuring. I got out of the car and walked up the short cement path to the porch. Although I had been here less than a year ago, it seemed like it had been forever, and I felt as though I were returning after a long, long absence. I stepped onto the porch, knocked, rang the bell.

  A strange man answered the door.

  I jumped, startled.

  From behind the stranger came the voice of another stranger, a woman. “Who is it, dear?”

  “I don’t know!” the man called back. He was unshaven, overweight, wearing low-slung jeans and a tank top T-shirt. He looked at me through the screen. “Yes?”

  I cleared my throat. There was a funny feeling in my stomach. “Are my parents here?” I asked.

  The man frowned. “What?”

  “I came to visit my parents. They live here. I’m Bob Jones.”

  The man looked puzzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I live here.”

  “This is my parents’ house.”

  “Maybe you have the wrong street or something.”

  “Taz!” the woman called.

  “In a minute!” the man called back.

  “I don’t have the wrong street. This is my parents’ house. I was born here. My parents have lived here for the past thirty years!”

  “I live here now. What did you say your parents’ names were?”

  “Martin and Ella Jones.”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “They own this house!”

  “I rent from Mr. Sanchez. He’s the owner. Maybe you should talk to him.”

  My heart was pounding. I was sweating, though the weather was chilly. I tried to remain calm, tried to tell myself that there was a rational explanation for this, that it was all part of a simple misunderstanding, but I knew it was not true. I swallowed, tried not to show my fear. “Could you give me Mr. Sanchez’s address and phone number?”