Read Online The More You Ignore Me by Travis Nichols - Free Book Online Page A

party’s edge to grip her by the hair (Brutal, but what can we do? The same nature that will allow HORACE to shoot CHRIS is the same that causes him to roughhouse). CHARLI ’ S scalp burns in pinpricked points at first, then all over her head. HORACE pulls her by her hair away from NICO and the rest of the party, and as she stumbles along with him she finds herself concentrating on the RC Cola machine flickering near the main entrance, wondering what will become of her life now that she is free of CHRIS and NICO . HORACE pulls her into the darkness.]
    [ FADE TO BLACK ]
    Grim, I admit. In fact, it’s a movie not unlike those I suffered through a decade ago when I spent so many nights at the cinematheque, standing sentinel for another young beauty beset by deluded aggressors.
    But let’s not digress.
    I know I sound tough, strident, at peace with my convictions, but it does wear on me, I admit it. It is the most tiresome cliché, but it is nonetheless true in this case: no one understands me.
    Even as an ungainly youth I was perplexed at how my teachers and “betters” made connections with so many of my peers, and yet all of these elders steadfastly refused to “get” me or acknowledge my exceptionality. But what is there to “get”? Who am I? Am I so special? Should I have, in the end, changed who “I” was just to be “got” by the knuckleheaded throng surrounding me?
    I’m sure your superficial answer is a resounding “no,” as it has been from the mouths of whomever I’ve asked. But of course you are a hypocrite!
    When pressed to the point, you all ask me to change, to conform, to give up my essential self to fit in with the lumpen bureaucratariot! Once again, I refuse!
    This must make me unhappy, yes?
    Of course this is the conclusion most people draw when they dimly perceive the outlines of my existence, but here is the strange thing: I am happy! Joyous, even!
    It is the conformist, the socialite, the wedding attendee, the one who goes along only to sacrifice everything worth going along for, who is unhappy!
    I have no burdens on my conscience.
    I enjoy my meager meals.
    I sleep soundly, when I choose to sleep.
    I read.
    I listen to Archie Shepp.
    It is, as a matter of fact, a quite lonely existence, except for these facts:
    1. I have been wronged.
    2. I am right.
    So, yes, I am frustrated.
    I am bewildered.
    I am angry.
    But I am not unhappy.
    I have my integrity, and I have my grievances.
    But I require no pity from you.
    I merely require justice!
    And it is this requirement that prods me to go deeper, faster, to push on into the untamed wilds of my gift, to breach the next layer of consciousness in this charade, and to do so without the inhibitions I have heretofore indulged—off with this constricting shirt!
    Let the sweat roll down my sides unimpeded!!!
    Isn’t it natural?
    Why, I’ll go barefoot!
    Yes!
    Let’s not be afraid of the truth, my dears!
    Let’s let our primal instincts take over!
    True, we have seen that Chris’s physical threat to Charli will be nullified by my proxy at the event itself, and so, you may ask, “Why continue writing when you have a plan of action?”
    Because, don’t you see, the existential danger still looms!
    For Nico.
    For Charli.
    For us.
    The mentality Chris engenders has already begun to corrupt us from inside, to hem us in, to cause us to censor ourselves .
    Oh, it burns!
    How could we have allowed him to affect us so?
    Make no mistake: he has affected us.
    We are not clean.
    We are cramped and filthy still.
    Off with the pants!
    We are, in some ways, behaving worse than Chris!
    And is that not his ultimate victory?
    Here I feel the guilt, and, yes, shame come creeping, and so I must keep typing in order to evacuate the demons from my soul!
    It is of the utmost importance that we battle the forces of oppression with our conjoined imaginations in whatever form the muse