He would, ahead of time, send letters to the police and the media, taking credit for the attack in the name of the Terrorists for the Common Man.
“Wow!” Steve said, grinning. “Killer idea!”
There was no discussion of the plan. Philipe announced that that was all, the meeting was over, and like a general, he nodded brusquely to us and, hands clasped stiffly behind his back, walked off alone into the night.
The rest of us looked at each other, looked at the map on the table, but said nothing.
We split up.
And we, too, walked alone into the night.
Eleven
It was almost as if I were in a trance, as if I had no will of my own.
For the next two weeks, the other terrorists and I prepared for the attack on Familyland. I didn’t want to, I thought it was wrong, but I was a sheep and said nothing, and I followed Philipe’s directions and did as I was told. At night, alone in my bed, I told myself that I wanted to leave, that I wanted to get away from the terrorists, that I just wanted to go back to the way things were before and live out my anonymous life in peace.
I told myself that.
But it wasn’t true.
I was opposed to Philipe’s plan; I really thought that what we intended to do was wrong, but I also enjoyed being part of a group effort, having a role in such a project.
I still enjoyed being a terrorist.
I made my opposition known, tried to convert the other Ignored to my point of view, but I had no sway with Philipe anymore and the others were not brave enough to buck him.
We set the date for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Familyland would be crowded that day. It would be big news. We would get lots of publicity.
On Thursday, Mary made Thanksgiving dinner, and we ate it at Philipe’s house, wasting most of the day watching TV, alternating between football games and the
Friday evening, the night before the attack, we met again in the sales office — or as Philipe referred to it, the War Room. This time he had spread out a map of Familyland, and he had marked specific points in the amusement park with red pins.
He wasted no time with pleasantries or formalities. “Here are the assignments,” he said. “Steve and Mary, Bill and Paul, Junior and Tim, ‘Tommy and Buster, Don and James, Pete and John, Bob and me. Here are the cars we’re going to take, and the routes, and the rides we’re going to go on….”
He described in detail the plan, then made each of us repeat our part aloud. I was to accompany Philipe in the Mercedes. We were to arrive at noon, then walk in through the reentry gate, me carrying the explosive pack, Philipe the detonator. We were to hang around for two hours, going on rides, going in shops, pretending to be normal tourists, then at precisely two-fifteen we were to get on Mr. Badger’s Crazy Journey. Near the end of the ride, while the car was maneuvering through hell, I was to jump quickly out of the car, place the explosives behind one of the little devil figures, then hop back in. We would finish the ride, walk to the train station near the roller coaster, and get on the train. We would stay on the train, circling the park, until all of the terrorists were on board. Then Philipe would detonate our explosives, the others assigned detonators would set off theirs, and we would get off the train at Old Town and leave the park.
I watched Philipe as he talked, as he made the others repeat the time sequences of their portions of the plan, and I wondered why he had chosen me to be his partner. Not because I was his right-hand man, that was for sure.
Probably to keep an eye on me because he didn’t trust me anymore.
After the meeting, as we were getting up and leaving, he called my name, asked me to stay. I waited around while the others walked across the cul-de-sac to their respective homes.
Philipe pulled the red pins from his map, picked up the map from the table, folded it. “I know your opinion of this,” he said. “But I want you with us.”
He spoke as he was folding the map, not looking up at me, and I realized that, in his own way, he was trying to make up with me. He was trying to apologize. I leaned against the wall near the door, not knowing what to say.
He stared down at the pins in his hand, jiggled them. “It’s not easy being who we are,” he said. “What we are. There are no rules, no traditions. We’re making them up as we go along. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we can’t tell they’re mistakes until after the fact.” He looked up at me. “That’s all I had to say.”
I nodded. I was not sure what he wanted from me. I was not even sure what he’d said.
We stared at each other for a moment.
Then I walked out of the office, back to my house.
We drove to Familyland in silence, and the silence was tense. Philipe turned on the radio. A station I didn’t like. But I left it on because it was better than the quiet.
We parked near a light post with an “H” hanging from the pole and walked across the lot to the entrance.
The second we walked into the amusement park, I was struck by the enormity of what we planned to do, and I had to stop for a moment and close my eyes and catch my breath. I felt a little dizzy. I opened my eyes again, and saw hordes of people walking down Old Town, past the magic shop, past the Hall of History. A trolley passed by, pulled by a horse, its bell dinging. In front of me, at the end of the street, I could see the graceful fairy-tale spires of the Castle.
A family passed by us, the boy asking his father if he could have some ice cream.
This was serious. This was the real thing. I had not bargained for anything like this. I don’t think any of us had. Except maybe Philipe.
I had killed before, but that was different. It was personal. This would be the cold-blooded murder of innocent strangers. Mothers. Families. Kids.
I did not want to be a Terrorist for the Common Man, I realized. Maybe Prankster for the Common Man. Monkey-wrencher for the Common Man. But that was as far as I was willing to go.
“I can’t do it,” I told Philipe.
“You can and you will.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll kill you. I’ll set off this detonator, and the explosives you’re carrying will blow your ass to hell.”
“You’d do that?”
“Try me.”
I shook my head. “I can’t kill innocent people.”
“No one’s innocent.”
“Can’t we just set these off somewhere where they won’t really hurt anyone? We’d still be making a statement, we’d still get the attention we want, but we wouldn’t have to kill anybody.”
“They’ll take us a lot more seriously if we do kill someone.”
“You sent letters off, didn’t you?”
“And our cards. Yesterday. To the park’s headquarters, to the Anaheim police, and to all the local newspapers, and TV stations.”
“That should be good enough. They’ll get the letters; we’ll plant the explosives; they’ll search for them and find them; we won’t have to blow up anything. We’ll still get the attention for our cause — ”
“Why are you like this?” Philipe asked.
“Like what?”
“Why do you care so much about these people? Have they ever cared about you? Have they ever noticed
