The Ignored (9 page)

Afterward, I rolled off her, spent, breathing heavily, and stared up at
the ceiling, thinking about my performance. I would have liked to believe that
it was great, that I was a true stud, but I knew that was not the case. I was
average.

My penis was probably the average size.

I probably gave her the average number of orgasms.

I looked over at Jane. Even now, perhaps especially now, hot and sweaty
in the aftermath of sex, hair clumped in damp tangles, she looked beautiful. I
had always known that she could do a lot better than me, that she was pretty
enough, intelligent enough, interesting enough to attract someone superior to
myself, but it was suddenly brought home to me in a way that was almost painful.

I touched her shoulder, gently, tentatively. “How was it?” I asked.

She looked at me. “What?”

“Did you… come?”

“Of course.” She frowned. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting
weird all night.”

I wanted to explain to her how I felt, but I couldn’t.

I shook my head, said nothing.

“Bob?” she said.

I guess what I really wanted was to be reassured, to hear her say that I
was not average, that I was special, that I was great, but in my mind I could
hear her trying to assuage my fears by saying, “I love you even though you’re
average.” Which was not what I wanted to hear.

Her mother’s words echoed in my head: “…a nothing… a nobody…”

That was how I felt.

What would happen, I wondered, if she met someone with more skillful
hands, a faster tongue, a bigger penis?

I didn’t even want to think about that.

“I… love you,” I said.

She looked surprised, and her expression softened. “I love you, too.”
She kissed me on the mouth, on the nose, on the forehead, and we snuggled
together and pulled the blanket higher and watched TV until we fell asleep.

Acknowledgment of my mediocrity only seemed to hasten my fade into the
woodwork. Even Hope no longer spoke to me unless I addressed her first, and more
than once it seemed that she’d forgotten I worked at Automated Interface. It was
as if I were becoming a shade within the corporation, a ghost in the machine.

The weather changed, became warmer, became summer. I felt melancholy,
sad. Sunny days always made me feel that way. The sharp contrast between the
blue beauty of a summer sky and the drab grayness of my life made the difference
between my dreams and my reality seem that much more pronounced.

I was working full-time on GeoComm now, writing a real instruction
manual, not playing around with the piddly-ass projects to which I’d previously
been assigned. I was given access to computer screens by the programmers; I was
given demonstrations of the system; I was allowed to play around with the system
on one of the terminals in the test facility. I suppose the work could have been
considered challenging—
could
have, had I had any interest in it at
all. But I did not. Assistant Coordinator of Interoffice Procedures and Phase II
Documentation was a job I had taken not out of choice but out of necessity, and
its specifics held no allure for me.

The one person who did not ignore me was Stewart. He seemed more hostile
than ever. I was a constant source of irritation to him. The fact that Banks, or
someone above Banks, had decided to let me work on a legitimate project made him
furious, and at least once each day he would come into the office, nod to Derek,
then move in front of my desk and stand there, looking down at whatever I was
working on. He would not say anything, would not ask me what I was doing, would
simply stand there, staring. It annoyed me and he knew it annoyed me, but I
refused to give him the satisfaction of letting my feelings show. I would ignore
him, concentrate on the work in front of me, and wait him out. Eventually, he
would leave.

I’d watch him go, and I’d want to just punch him.

I’d never been a violent person. Even my revenge fantasies had usually
involved humiliation, not physical harm. But something about Stewart made me
want to just beat the living shit out of him.

Not that I could.

He was in a hell of a lot better shape than I was, and I had no doubt
that he could’ve easily kicked my ass.

I finished documenting the functions from the first GeoComm submenu. I
gave the instructions to Stewart, who supposedly gave them to Banks. I heard
nothing back from either of them and began work on the system’s second submenu.

It was Thursday, the day of Jane’s night class, and though we didn’t
usually have sex on Thursdays because she got home late and tired, I convinced
her to do it this time. Afterward, I rolled off her. We’d done it in the
missionary position, I realized. We always did it in the missionary position.

We were silent for a moment, lying next to each other. Jane reached for
the remote and turned on the TV. A cop show was on.

“Did you come?” I asked her finally.

“Yes.”

“More than once?”

She propped herself up on one elbow. “Not this again. Am I going to have
to reassure you each time we make love?”

“Sorry I asked.”

“What do you want from me? I came, you know I came, and you still have
to ask me about it.”

“I thought maybe you were faking it.”

“I’ve had enough of this.” Angrily, she pulled up the covers, bunching
them beneath her chin. “If I knew I was going to have to go through all this
crap again, we wouldn’t’ve done it at all.”

I looked at her, hurt and trying to show it. “You don’t like having sex
with me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!”

“How am I supposed to feel, huh? I mean, how do you feel about me? Do
you still love me? Would you still love me if we met today for the first time?”

“I’m only going to say this once, okay? Yes, I love you. Now that’s it.
End of discussion. Drop it and go to sleep.”

“Okay,” I said. “Fine.” I was angry with her, but there was really no
reason for me to be angry.

We turned away from each other and fell asleep to the sounds of the
television.

I began to see flyers for Automated Interface’s annual employee picnic
tacked up on the bulletin board in the break room, taped to the doors of our
department. I ignored the flyers, preferring not to think about the picnic,
though I overheard the programmers talking about it. The event seemed to be a
biggie, and apparently, from what I gathered, attendance was required.

Required attendance. That was what bothered me. I knew that I would have
no one to go with, no friend to sit next to, and the idea of sitting alone at a
picnic table while everyone else around me talked and laughed and visited and
had a great time worried me.

I worried more and more about the picnic as the flyers proliferated, as
conversational references became more common. It was turning into an
honest-to-God obsession. As the week, and then the day, grew closer, I found
myself hoping absurdly that some sort of natural disaster would occur and
prevent the event from taking place.

On Tuesday, the night before the picnic, I even considered calling in
sick.

I don’t know what prompted this almost pathological fear of the picnic,
but I suspect it was a combination of things: my inability to fit in at work,
the recent discovery of how hopelessly average I was, the increasing rockiness
of my relationship with Jane. My self-esteem and self-confidence were at an
all-time low, and I didn’t think my ego could stand the sort of bashing the
picnic would provide. Like Charlie Brown said, “I know no one likes me. Why do
we have to have holidays to remind me of it?”

This wasn’t exactly a holiday, but it followed the same principle. I was
nothing, I was invisible, and this would only serve to bring it home.

The picnic was scheduled to start at noon and finish at two and was
being held in the oversized greenbelt behind the Automated Interface building.
At eleven forty-five, the toadlike man from upstairs who ate lunch with Derek
stopped by the office, said “Ready?” and he and Derek went out to the picnic.
Neither of them spoke to me, neither of them invited me to accompany them, and
although I hadn’t expected them to invite me to come along, the fact that they
didn’t pissed me off.

In the hallway, I heard other voices, saw other people pass by, but I
remained at my desk. I wondered if I could close the door and stay here, hide
and not go. No one would notice if I was missing. No one would know if I didn’t
show up.

There was an interruption of the Muzak piped over the building’s
speakers, and a deep-voiced man announced: “The annual employee picnic has now
started. All employees must attend. Repeat. The annual employee picnic has now
started. All employees must attend.”

I
should’ve
called in sick, I thought.

I waited a moment, then stood slowly and walked out of the office and
down the hall to the elevator. The elevator stopped on the other two floors, and
by the time we reached the lobby, it was packed. There were even more people in
the lobby—employees from the first floor, others who had taken the stairs—and I followed the crowd across the floor of the lobby through the rear double
doors. We walked through a short corridor, then through a door that opened
outside onto the back of the building. I stood for a moment at the top of the
steps, letting everyone pass by me. Rows of picnic tables were now set up on the
previously virgin grass. A portable stage with a canvas roof had been wheeled in
from somewhere and sat at the head of the tables, facing the side parking lot.
Long banquet tables covered with white tablecloths and piled high with salads,
desserts, and main dishes were being added to and overseen by a group of busy
women. A series of garbage cans filled with soft drinks and ice cubes lined the
area of the lawn nearest the building.

I stood there for a moment, not sure what to do, not knowing if I should
go out and grab some chow, or find a place to sit and wait until other people
started eating first. From here, I had a clear view of the knolly landscaped
greenbelts of the adjacent companies, and it was almost like looking into their
backyards. I had a sudden vision of these buildings as giant houses, the
greenbelts their yards, the parking lots their driveways.

Most of the people were looking for friends, finding seats, but a few
had grabbed plates and gotten into line for the food and I followed their
example. I took a can of Coke from one of the garbage cans and piled my paper
plate high with hot dogs, chili beans, potato salad, and chips. The picnic table
at which Banks, Stewart, the programmers, Hope, Virginia, and Lois sat was full,
there was no room for me, so I looked around for an empty seat at one of the
other tables. There were several open spots at a table occupied by a group of
old women, and I walked over there, carrying my plate. No one was staring at me
as I walked across the grass, no one was pointing or giggling, no one was taking
any notice of me. I was totally inconspicuous; I blended perfectly into the
crowd. But I didn’t
feel
as though I blended perfectly into the crowd.
Even if no one else was aware of me, I was acutely aware of them.

I reached the table and sat down, smiling at the woman next to me, but
she stared past me, ignoring me completely, and I resigned myself to eating
alone and in silence.

“Beautiful music,” that bastard offspring of Muzak, was issuing from two
small speakers on either side of the stage. It wasn’t a radio station but a tape
and was far worse than even the stringed instrumental renditions of soft pop
hits that we usually listened to each day. A uniformed maintenance worker
climbed up on the stage and set up a folding table. On top of the table he
placed a small cardboard box. He plugged a few wires into the back of one of the
speakers, then strung the wires and the Mr. Microphone to which they were
connected across the stage floor to the table. I watched him work as I ate,
feigning interest, grateful to have something on which to focus my attention.

A few minutes later, a man I didn’t know but who seemed to be familiar
to most of the other employees hopped up on stage to a round of applause. He
waved at the crowd, picked up the Mr. Microphone, and began talking. “I know
this is the part of our picnic you’ve all been waiting for. Especially you,
Roy.” He pointed toward a balding overweight man at the table closest to him and
everyone laughed.

“Yeah, Roy!” someone called out.

The man on stage held up his hand. “Come on, now. What we’re going to do
this year is start with the smallest prizes first, then after that we’ll have
the drawing for our grand prize—dinner at Orange County’s finest and most
expensive restaurant, Elise!”

There were hoots and whistles and catcalls.

I ate my lunch as the man put his hand in the box on the table and drew
out names for free car washes, free video rentals, free hamburgers. Then came
the grand prize, the dinner at Elise.

I won.

I sat there, unmoving, as the man read my name, my brain not correctly
processing the information. When he read my name again, this time with a
questioning tone in his voice, as if trying to determine whether or not I was
present, I stood. My heart was pounding, my lips dry as I walked onto the stage.
I expected there to be silence—no one knew me, after all—but there was
polite applause, the type of applause given only out of obligation and reserved
for strangers. The earlier whistles and catcalls were gone. I looked over at my
department’s table as I accepted the gift certificate and said “Thank you” into
the proffered Mr. Microphone. The secretaries and programmers were clapping
politely, but Stewart and Banks were not clapping at all. Stewart was scowling.

I hurried off the stage and immediately sat back down at my seat.