The Ignored

Sometimes they did not see us at all, and we stood watching as though we were invisible.

None of the power brokers were ever in, though. They did take the week off, no doubt spending it with their families, and it was lucky for them that they did, because we always arrived armed, ready to take out whomever we could.

New Year’s Day was on a Saturday this year, and Philipe had Joe call Harrington on the Thursday prior and set up a meeting on the first. Harrington didn’t want to have it on that day, he wanted to stay home, watch the games, but Joe said it was then or never, and the businessman finally agreed.

Joe hung up the phone. “He asked me if I’d finally come to my senses and decided to resign,” he said. “I told him that’s what we’re going to talk about.”

“Good,” Philipe said, nodding. “Good. That gives us a full day for target practice.”

We spent Friday in the desert, shooting at cans.

All of us.

Even Tim.

Saturday, we awoke early, too restless and anxious to sleep. Part of it was because the specifics of what we intended to do were still hazy in our minds — Philipe might know exactly how we were going to take out the power brokers, but he hadn’t yet shared it with the rest of us and we were vague on the details.

That ended at breakfast.

Over McMuffins picked up by Joe, with the sounds of the Rose Parade coming from the TV, Philipe outlined precisely what each of us was to do in what he called “the operation.” The plan was simple and — because of who we were, because of what we were — foolproof.

Joe was scheduled to meet with Harrington and the others at Harrington’s office at eleven, but we were in front of the building by nine, sitting in our cars, watching, waiting. The first man, the one with the cigar, arrived around ten. They were all there by ten-thirty.

“He’s not coming,” Joe said at ten-fifty.

“Who?” Philipe asked.

“Jim. The Ignored guy who’s supposed to be the new mayor.”

“What do you expect? He has no say in any of this. He’s just a puppet.” Philipe opened the door, got out of the car, motioned for the terrorists in the other cars to do the same. They emerged carrying revolvers and shotguns and automatic rifles.

“All right,” Philipe said. “You know the plan. Let’s get in and get it done.”

“Wait a minute.” Joe cleared his throat.

“What?”

“I want Harrington. He’s mine.”

Philipe grinned. “You got it.” He looked around the assembled group. “Are we all ready?”

“No.” Mary, holding on to the trunk of our car, shook her head. She had driven over with us, riding in the backseat next to Joe. She’d spent the night with him.

Philipe turned to face her, annoyed. “What is it now?”

She looked pale. “I… I can’t do it. I can’t go through with it.”

“Bullshit,” Philipe said.

“No. Really.” She seemed as if she were about to throw up.

“You were in on Familyland — ”

“I can’t do it, okay?”

Philipe looked at her, then nodded. “Okay.” He sighed. “Wait here with the cars.”

She smiled weakly. “You want me to drive the getaway vehicle?”

He looked at her, then grinned slightly. “If you can handle it.”

“Yes, boss.”

Once again, he looked over the group. “Anyone else want to bow out?” His gaze settled on me, moved to Tim, to James. We all shook our heads. “All right, then,” he said. “Let’s get these fuckers.”

We strode into the building. Don and Bill staked out the south stairway, Tommy and Tim the north. Paul and John stayed in the lobby, in front of the elevators. The rest of us went up.

I held tightly to my automatic rifle and stared at the ascending numbers lighting up sequentially above the elevator door. My hands were sweaty and felt slippery on the gunmetal.

How had I gotten into this? I thought. How had this happened? I felt in my gut that I was doing what needed to be done — it seemed like the right thing to me — but at the same time I could not help thinking that something here was way off base. This was not supposed to feel right to me; I should not want to kill these men.

But I did.

I started thinking about all the ways in which I and the others were average, ordinary. Did average, ordinary individuals want to go around killing people?

Maybe they did.

I thought again that something had slipped off track somewhere along the line.

Then the elevator doors opened and we were on the fifth floor. Most of the lights were off. Only a few soft recessed fluorescent bulbs illuminated the long hallway. We walked slowly toward the office, our weapons at the ready.

“Harrington’s mine,” Joe repeated.

Philipe nodded.

We moved into the darkened waiting room, and the door into the inner office opened slowly.

“You go in first,” Philipe whispered. “Tuck your gun in your belt. Hide it.”

Joe turned toward us, scared. “You’re not going to leave me alone?”

“No. I just want to hear what they have to say.”

Joe nodded.

“Mayor Horth!” called out someone inside the office.

“Go!” Philipe whispered.

The rest of us gathered around the door, hiding in the shadows. Harrington stood as Joe entered the room. He looked large and threatening, silhouetted against the panoramic desert view, and when he spoke his voice was tight, tense, filled with a barely contained rage. “You little shit,” he said.

“What?”

“Who the fuck do you think you are, ruining our New Year’s like this? You think you can pull this crap without us teaching you a lesson? I don’t know what got into your pea-brain, but you’ve obviously forgotten who you are and who we are and who calls the shots around here.”

“He calls the shots around here. He’s the mayor.” Philipe stepped out of the shadows into the room, revolver drawn. The rest of us fell into step behind him.

All of the men in the room looked from Joe to the rest of us. “Who are these guys?” the bald man asked.

Cigar squinted, looked closely at me, at Steve, at Junior, at Pete. “It’s more of them,” he said. “A whole gang of them.”

“‘Them’?” Philipe said mockingly.

“You’re certainly not one of us.”

“Then what are we?”

“You tell me.”

“We’re Terrorists for the Common Man.”

Cigar laughed. “And what the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means we’re going to blow you away, you egocentric asshole.”

Philipe raised his gun and fired.

Cigar went down screaming, blood gushing from the hole blown in his chest. For a brief fraction of a second, I saw what looked like a light-colored organ or piece of tissue through the ragged opening, then the blood was everywhere, pumping out in a sickening, amazing geyser. Cigar began thrashing crazily on the floor, blood spurting all over the carpet, all over the pants and shoes of his panicked, terrified buddies.