The Ignored

food is free because they want to find out what people eat. Our stores are stocked with the latest fashions because they want to know what clothes people will buy. The Gallup people have a permanent office here. The random polls you hear about? They’re all conducted here, in Thompson.”

“Everything’s free?” Don said.

“Everything. You can take whatever you need. We like to joke that we have the only communist system that actually works. Of course, it’s bankrolled by money-grubbing, multi-billion-dollar capitalist corporations.”

“Does the government know about this place?”

Ralph sucked on his pipe. He leaned back in his chair. “I don’t think they do. You know, I’ve thought about that long and hard, and I don’t believe they’re aware of our existence. Otherwise, we probably would’ve been studied to death. Some military use probably would’ve been found for us in the Cold War days. No, I think we’re one of those corporate secrets that private enterprise keeps under wraps.”

“The reason Don asked,” I said, “is because men have been after us. Official government-looking guys.”

The mayor’s face clouded over. “National Research Associates. They’re hired by a consortium of companies who’re in with Thompson.”

“Why?”

“They don’t want any of us outside the city, don’t want us infiltrating the general population. Figure it’ll throw off their outside polls. Right now, see, they run parallel polls, question us, question the general population. We’re a big expense. Other companies have to pay through the nose for our services. Some of them don’t like it. They keep trying to trip us up, prove we’re out of sync.”

“And they’d kill us for that?”

He shrugged. “What are we to them? Nothing. Who would notice if we were gone? Who would care?” He smiled slightly. “Thing is, we screw ’em up every time. Either they can’t find us or they forget about us. We’re almost impossible to catch. Even people specifically looking for us don’t notice us.”

“They caught one of our guys,” I said. “Killed him. In Familyland.”

Ralph looked grave. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know that.” He was silent for a moment, then he looked up at the clock above his office door. “Look, it’s getting late. It’s almost nine. Places are starting to open. Finish those forms, and I’ll take you around. We’ve got a lot to go over today.”

We finished filling out the questionnaires, handed them back to him. He placed them in a folder on his desk, and stood. “Let’s take a walk.”

I had not noticed it before, but Thompson was modeled after all those Hollywood movie small towns. The park and the city hall/police station/fire station complex were at the center, the hub of the wheel, and everything spread out from that. The surrounding blocks contained businesses — grocery stores, offices, gas stations, department stores, auto dealerships, banks, movie theaters — and beyond that were homes and schools.

We walked through the business district, Ralph acting as tour guide. Nearly all of the stores were chains — Sears, Target, Montgomery Ward, Von’s, Safeway, Radio Shack, Circuit City — and even those that weren’t had display windows filled with brand-name items. I felt comfortable walking here. I was aware, intellectually, of the city’s complete and utter mediocrity, but I could not help but enjoy a pleasurably gratifying feeling of familiarity as I walked with the others down the sidewalk. It was as though the city and everything in it had been designed specifically with me in mind.

No, I told myself. My wants and needs and desires were not that common. I was not that generic.

But I was.

“Is everyone here Ignored?” I asked Ralph. “Aren’t there normal wives or husbands of Ignored people?”

“There were. Still are, sometimes. But if those marriages don’t break up, the couples leave.” He smiled. “Love really is blind. Turns out we’re not Ignored to those who love us. Somehow, though, on a practical level, on a day-to-day basis, those kinds of mixed relationships seem to work better in the normal world than our world. And before you ask, yes, all of our children are Ignored. It is passed on. By those of us who can have children. A lot of us seem to be sterile.”

“Has anyone made any attempt to find out what we are? Why we’re like this?”

“Sort of. I mean, we’re always being asked to fill out questionnaires and take telephone polls. And once a year we’re all required to take a physical exam that’s totally unlike any physical I’ve ever had. But, no, probably not to the extent you mean. The corporations don’t care about us as people; they only care that we do what they want us to do. We do — and I think that’s good enough for them. They don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“How long has this place been here?” Mary asked.

“The town was founded in 1963, although it was called Gates then and was owned by Gates Manufacturing. Thompson Industries took it over in 1979, changed the name.”

“But has the city always corresponded with the mood of the country?”

“Of course. Why else would it exist? In the late sixties we even had riots here. You should’ve seen it. Young people said they were tired of being Ignored and wanted recognition. I don’t think, at that time, they fully realized what we were. They thought it was imposed on us or something, like we were a legitimate minority and were being oppressed by the system. There were protests at the Gates headquarters, and when that went nowhere there were riots here.” He stopped walking, looked around to make sure we were alone, lowered his voice. “Gates sent in troops to quell the unrest. Private troops. A hundred and ten people were shot and killed. No one ever saw it on the news — no one would’ve remembered it if they had seen it — but the troops came in and stood in formation and started taking out citizens. Didn’t matter who they were or what they were doing. The troops didn’t care. They just opened fire.” Again, he looked around to make sure we were alone. “Keep that under your hat, though. That’s not something that’s talked about around here.”

I nodded.

“We gained more autonomy after that, but that was because we’d been cowed into submission. We knew we were expendable. The company could exterminate us all and no one would notice. No one would care.” He shook his head. “Then times changed and we changed with them. We said no to Salty Surfers and yes to nacho- flavored Doritos.” He shrugged. “And here we are.”

We continued walking, no one saying anything for a while. We came to a Mrs. Fields cookie counter, sandwiched in a hole in the wall between Standard Brands Paints and Standard Shoes. Ralph stopped walking. “Oh, you have to try one of these cookies. They’re the best in the world.”

We stood in front of the window, looking in at tray after tray of fresh cookies. I could smell the scent of baking, a full, sugary, chocolaty delicious odor.

The counter was not yet open, but Ralph rapped loudly on the glass, and an elderly woman in a red-and- white uniform slid the window aside, peeking out. “Yes?”

“We have some new recruits here, Glenda. Think you could spare a few?”

The woman looked at us, smiled hello, then turned back to the mayor. “Sure,” she said. “For them. You have to wait until regular business hours.”

“Oh, Glenda — ”

“Don’t ‘Oh, Glenda’ me. You know very well that the only reason you wanted them to try my cookies is because you wanted one, too.”

“I can’t help it. I love your — ”

“Oh, here. Take one and shut up.”

She handed Ralph an oversized cookie, passed others out to us as we stepped up to the window.

I bit into the cookie. I wanted to hate it, to prove to myself, if no one else, that I was not typical, not ordinary, not average, not exactly the same as Ralph in my likes and dislikes. But I loved the cookie. The taste was wonderful, a blend of chocolate and peanut butter that was like a concoction out of my dreams. The taste was so perfect that it seemed as though it had been created especially for me.

That was frightening.

Especially since I knew everyone else in town felt exactly the same way.

We stood there eating, making stupid small talk about how good the cookies were, and I looked around me. I’d thought Thompson would be a real town, a real community, not a corporate testing ground, and part of me wished I were back in Desert Palms. Part of me wished I were back in my apartment in Brea.

Part of me loved it here.

We continued walking, ending up back at city hall around lunchtime. Other people were in the building now — secretaries, clerks — and Ralph grabbed the file folder from his desk and took it and us upstairs, handing the