places of our own that we could retreat to.
I missed having time to myself.
I would have time to myself today, I decided. I was going to take a vacation from being a Terrorist for the Common Man. I was going to be plain old Ignored me.
I jogged back to the model homes, ran up Philipe’s walk, let myself in. He and Paul were watching
“Hey,” Philipe said. “What’s up?”
“I’m going to take off by myself today,” I said. “I want to be alone. I need some time to think.”
“Okay. We had nothing earth-shattering planned anyway. When’ll you be back?”
“I don’t know.”
“See you then.”
I went back to my house, grabbed my wallet and keys, and took off in the Buick.
I just drove. All day, I drove. When I needed gas I stopped and got some. When I was hungry I stopped at Burger King for lunch. But otherwise I kept moving. I went up Pacific Coast Highway all the way to Santa Monica, then cut inland and followed the foothills and mountains clear to Pomona. It felt good to be alone and on the road, and I cranked up the radio and rolled down the windows and sped down the highway, the breeze in my face, pretending I was not Ignored but normal and a part of the world through which I was driving and not just an invisible shadow at its fringes.
It was late when I got home, and though there were still lights on in two of the other homes, my house was dark. It was just as well. I didn’t feel like chatting with James or John tonight. I just wanted to go to bed.
I slipped quietly through the front door and up the stairs to my bedroom.
Where Mary and Philipe sat, naked, on my bed.
I started to leave the room.
“Where are you going?” Philipe said.
I turned reluctantly toward him. “To find someplace to sleep.”
“You’re going to sleep here with us.”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to.”
“This isn’t rape,” Philipe said. “You can’t have any objections to this. We’re all consenting adults here.”
“I’m not consenting.”
“I’m telling you to consent.”
“But — ”
“No buts. You’re still hung up on your old morality. You still don’t seem to realize that we’ve moved on, we’ve left all that behind. The normal rules don’t apply to us. We’re beyond all that.”
But I was not beyond all that.
I shook my head, backed out of the room.
I spent the night downstairs on the couch.
Nine
It was now November. We’d had some of our cars for nearly half a year by this time, and the newness of them had worn off. We were even starting to get a little tired of them. So Philipe decided that we would junk the ones we had and get some more.
And get some publicity in the process.
We held a demolition derby with the Jeep, the Mercedes, and three of the sports cars. Stealing roadblocks from the police, we closed off a stretch of the 405 Freeway near Long Beach one Wednesday night, illuminated the site with flares, and three at a time pretended to be on a bumper car course, speeding forward, throwing the vehicles into reverse, sideswiping whichever car we could. The Porsche was the first to crap out, pummeled from all sides by Philipe in the Mercedes and me in the Jeep, and Junior and his car were replaced by Steve in the 280Z. This time they both ganged up on me, and though I put up a brave fight, forcing Steve onto an off-ramp and ramming Philipe almost into a light pole, I was eventually slammed into the center divider, and the Jeep died.
Philipe was the winner of the derby, and though that qualified him under our quickly made-up rules to keep the Mercedes, he elected to leave it on the freeway with the others. He pointed it down the empty middle lane, put on the cruise control, and hopped out of the car.
The Mercedes drove straight for a few moments, then drifted sharply to the right and went over a small asphalt bump and then down an embankment. We heard it crash and die, and we waited for an explosion but there was none.
“That’s it,” he said. “Game over. Let’s go home.”
Behind the line of flares was a massive traffic jam, and we walked past the roadblocks, between the honking cars, and over the center divider to where we’d left our getaway vehicles.
We drove home in a good mood.
Our little exploit made the local news, and we gathered in Philipe’s house and cheered when film footage of the wrecked cars came on TV.
“The reason for the unauthorized roadblock and the origin of the automobiles is described as a mystery by police,” the reporter said.
Mary, sitting on the arm of Don’s chair tonight, was grinning. “This is great,” she said. “This is really great.”
I dutifully videotaped the newscast.
Afterward, the male anchor made a joke about our cars to his female co-anchor, and then the weather report came on.
The other terrorists were talking excitedly about both the demolition derby and the newscast, but I stood there with the video remote in my hand, watching the weather forecast. We were not Terrorists for the Common Man, I realized. We were nothing so noble or romantic. Nothing so important. We were a pathetic group of unknowns trying desperately, in any way we could think of, using any means at our disposal, to leave a mark on society, to let people know that we were here, to get publicity for ourselves.
We were clowns. Comic relief for the real news.
It was a rather stunning realization, and not one for which I was really prepared. I had not given this terrorist business much thought since those first few weeks. I had simply bought into Philipe’s concept and assumed that what we were doing was real, legitimate, worthwhile. I had never stopped to analyze what exactly we were accomplishing. But now I looked back on everything we’d done and saw for the first time how little that actually was, and how embarrassingly pitiful were our delusions of grandeur.
Philipe was angry at what he was, and it was this anger that drove him, that fueled his passion and his efforts to do something big, something important with his life. But the rest of us had no such driving force. We were sheep. All of us. Myself included. I might have been angry myself at first, but I no longer felt that way. I no longer felt anything, and whatever fleeting pleasure I had derived from our exploits had long since faded.
What was the point to it all?
I turned off the VCR, put the tape back in its box, and wandered back home alone. I took a long, hot shower, then put on a robe and walked into the bedroom. Mary, wearing only a pair of white silk panties, was lying on the bed waiting for me.
“Not tonight,” I said tiredly.
“I want you,” she said, in a husky voice filled with false lust.
I sighed, took off my robe. “Fine.”
I stretched out on the bed next to her, and she climbed on top of me, began kissing me.
A moment later I felt pressure at the foot of the bed. Rough hands suddenly reached up, held my penis.
Male hands.
I squirmed, trying to get away. I felt sickened. I knew I should be more open-minded, but I wasn’t.
