But though we left our cards everywhere we went, we received no credit.
We did get several more news articles for our scrap-book, though. And while we didn’t make the television news, Philipe assured us that we would get there eventually, and I had no doubt that he was right.
I started taking walks. After a busy day, after the other terrorists had left or had dropped me off at my place, I was often still not tired. And I usually did not feel like being cooped up alone in my apartment. So I began taking walks. I had never really walked much before. The frat-rat neighborhood in which my apartment was located was not the best in the world, for one thing, and I would have felt exposed and rather self-conscious walking by myself. But now that I knew that no one noticed me, that no one saw me, I felt safe and comfortable strolling about the streets of Brea.
Walking relaxed me.
One night, I walked all the way to Jane’s parents’ house, on the other side of town. I don’t know what I expected — Jane’s car in the driveway, perhaps; a glimpse of her through an open window — but when I reached the house it was dark, the driveway empty.
I stood across the street for what seemed like hours, thinking about the first time I’d picked up Jane for a date, about the time we’d spent afterward in my car, parked two doors down, out of sight of her parents’ windows. At one point in our relationship, before we’d moved in together, this house had been almost like a second home to me. I’d spent as much time here as I had at my own apartment.
Now it seemed like the house of a stranger.
I stood there, waiting, watching, trying to gather up enough courage to walk up to the front door and knock.
Was she living with her parents again? Or was she staying somewhere else? Even if she was living in another city, another state, her parents would know where she was.
It didn’t look like her parents were home, though.
And if they came home and I asked them about Jane, would they tell me? Would they recognize me? Would they even see me?
I stood there for a while longer. The night was chilly, and my arms began to get cold. I wished I’d brought a jacket.
Finally I decided to leave. Jane’s parents still had not come back, and I did not know when they would. Maybe they’d gone on a vacation. Maybe they’d gone to visit Jane.
I turned away from the house, began walking back the way I’d come. The streets were empty, there was no one outside, but the drapes of the houses I passed were backlit with the blue glow of television. What was it that Karl Marx had said? Religion was the opiate of the masses? Wrong. Television was the opiate of the masses. No religion had ever been able to command as large and loyal an audience as that electronic box. No pope had ever had the pulpit of Johnny Carson.
I realized that I had not watched TV since I’d become a terrorist.
Did that mean that no one was watching TV? Or did that mean I was no longer average?
There were so many things that I did not know and would probably never know. I thought, fleetingly, that perhaps our time would be better spent trying to find out the answers to these questions rather than trying to draw attention to ourselves. But then I thought, no, drawing attention to our cause, letting people know we existed would eventually attract the interest of other, greater minds. People who might be able to change us, rescue us from our plight.
Was that still how I thought? Despite Philipe’s assertion that we were special, chosen, luckier than everyone else, despite my adamant professions of belief, would I still trade it all instantly to be like everyone else, to fit in with the rest of the world?
Yes.
It was after midnight when I arrived back at my apartment. I’d done a lot of thinking on my way home, run through a lot of scenarios in my head, made a lot of plans. Before I could change my mind, before I could chicken out, I dialed the number of Jane’s parents. The phone rang. Once. Twice. Thrice.
On the thirtieth ring, I hung up.
I took off my clothes and got into bed. For the first time in a long time, I masturbated.
I fell asleep afterward and dreamed of Jane.
The night after we trashed the body shop where Junior had worked — pouring oil and transmission fluid onto the cement floor, smashing windows and equipment, sledge hammering cars — Philipe decided that we should take some time off, enjoy some R & R. We deserved it. John suggested that we go to a movie, and that idea was greeted with unanimous approval.
We met the next day at the theater complex.
There were a total of four movies playing on six screens, and though ordinarily we were in agreement on almost everything, we could not seem to decide what movie to see. Tommy, Junior, Buster, James, and Don wanted to watch a new comedy. The rest of us wanted to check out a horror flick.
My guess was that two movies would tie for first place in the box office rankings this weekend.
Philipe bought a movie ticket, and while the usher at the door tore his stub, the rest of us filed silently past, unnoticed, into the multiplex. The horror movie had started a few minutes ago, the comedy was not scheduled to be shown for another ten minutes, so we split up, going into our respective theaters.
The movie was okay, not great, although Bill seemed to like it quite a bit. I found myself wondering what the results of
I had a feeling that one out of four people would rate the movie “above average or outstanding.”
After we got out, the four of us hung around outside the theater, waiting. Bill said he was hungry, so we looked at the schedule mounted in the ticket booth to see how long it would be until the comedy got out. When we found out that it would be another twenty minutes we walked slowly down the block to a Baskin-Robbins. Two blond bimbos, giggling and talking in Valleyspeak, moved around us, past us.
“I’d like to feed that girl my ice-cream cone,” Steve said.
“Which girl?” John asked.
“Either. Both.”
We laughed.
Philipe stopped walking. “Rape,” he said, “is power.”
The rest of us stopped walking, looked at each other. We couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious.
“Rape is a weapon.”
He was serious. I stared at him in disgust.
“Don’t give me that Holy Joe look. That’s what this is all about. Power. It’s what we, as Ignored, don’t have. It’s what we have to learn to take.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. “Besides, when’s the last time you had some pussy?”
“Great idea,” I said sarcastically. “That’s how you can get women to notice you. Rape them.”
“We’ve done it before.” Philipe stared at me calmly.
That stopped me. I looked from Philipe to Steve to the rest of them, shocked. I had killed; I had assaulted; I had vandalized. But all of that had seemed perfectly justifiable to me, perfectly legitimate. This, however… This seemed wrong. And the fact that my friends, my brothers, my fellow terrorists had actually raped women made me see them in a different light. For the first time, I felt that I did not know these men. For the first time, I felt out of sync with them.
Philipe must have sensed my discomfort. Maybe it showed on my face. He smiled at me gently, put an arm around my shoulder. “We’re terrorists,” he said. “You know that. This is one of the things terrorists do.”
“But we’re Terrorists for the Common Man. How is this going to help the common man? How is this going to advance our cause?”
“It lets these bitches know who we are,” Steve said.
“It gives us power,” Philipe said.
“We don’t need that kind of power.”
“Yes, we do.” Philipe squeezed my shoulder. “I think it’s time for your initiation.”
I pulled away. “No.”
