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

without the ladies’—it was really funny, he said, ‘because without the ladies, we wouldn’t be able to have sex!’”
    (What a joke! Mingus tribute? No. I admit it is, in fact, my own creation.)
    â€œHilarious,” Chris will deadpan, unappreciative, disapproving of anyone else’s pleasure but his own. “Maybe I’ll use that as your toast.”
    Nico will laugh again loudly (sweet boy!), unaware how he has been mildly insulted and “one-upped” by Chris.
    â€œNice,” Nico will say, nestling into his wadded suit jacket and closing his eyes. “That’s funny, man. You’re funny.”
    Chris will of course smile his thin-lipped smile at the compliment, for he needs such flattery, he gobbles it insatiably like a dirty cannibal sucking human muscle from a femur bone in some tribal muck.
    â€œAre you still doing the website?” Nico will say with a yawn. “You should write up some wedding toasts and post them.”
    â€œPost them?”
    â€œYeah. To the website.”
    Chris will here feel a pang of conscience. He will want to explain to Nico that the website has gone horribly astray, that he has mismanaged it to such a degree that shutdown is imminent, that he has failed his friend, his compatriot, his brother, because he is not only secretly in love with the bride but also afraid of the truth and prejudiced against the type of men who speak such truth to power. But no, in the rearview, Chris will see Nico’s mouth drooping open and his face going slack. Asleep. Silence.
    Here, the moment will present itself that will alter the course not only of this little scene but of all of our lives. Community!!! Pay attention!!!! The blood will be on your hands!!!!!! For observe: A Dodge Neon will here sneak up on Chris and Nico in the right lane. (Chris will, of course, wallow in the left lane as if it were by rights his alone.) This Neon will lumber and swerve. It will be too close. It will trail a noxious gray cloud from its battered exhaust pipe as it nearly runs Chris’s Honda “Civic” off the road. The Neon’s driver, a robust-looking man with a trim goatee and ruddy complexion, will smile wryly to himself before leaning slightly to the left, and—yes!—clipping the “Civic.” It would just be a trifle, but because Chris’s instincts have surely been neutered by video game play and sugary cereal, he will feel the contact, swerve left, and then, fatally overcompensating (of course!), he will swerve again back to the right!! His rear right tire will touch the Neon’s scuffed bumper (the car will be borrowed); the Civic’s rear left tire will buckle under; Nico in the backseat, still half-asleep, will smile faintly as the surge of inertia grips his ******; the car will flip, crash, explode on the interstate with Chris and poor Nico dying in a flurry of snapping bones and sizzling gristle. Screams. Everyone will grieve, though Charli not as much as one might expect. The Neon will drive on into the sunset. THE END
    Oh, dear readers!
    It pained me to speak in these voices and to imagine the deaths of two vibrant young people, but I found I could do it so easily!
    I found that, for example, Nico’s voice erupted from my chest when I simply closed my eyes and imagined myself having been at an early age beaten severely about the head with a baseball bat.
    True, I have sat for hours with my two hands acting out scenes between these characters, with my Nico hand (left) drooping down, thumb-chin rolling and lumbering to make simple phrases while the Chris hand (right) poses stiffly with its haughty fingers in the air, waiting its turn to make some pseudointellectual comment in response.
    They have a rapport, it’s true, and some nights their conversations go on and on in my mind. Acting them out with my hands and then writing out the dialogue is one of the only ways I am able to cleanse my mind of these