Free The More You Ignore Me by Travis Nichols Page B

graffiti scrawled in marker.
    The maw of a slavering beast pressed down on one’s privates.
    In fact, Rico had begun to finally come into his own at this second-rate school, away from home and Corn’s constant presence—he even said a polite hello to the cafeteria help from time to time!
    His interests?
    Engineering, club sports, Bible study, sobriety, a style of dress in a vaguely “natural” fashion, hacky sack, the Violent Femmes.
    â€œHowdy!” Rico said to Corn in a most disrespectful manner. “Long time no see, bud. How’s the movie business?”
    Howdy? Corn thought, disgusted. Has he, in the short time since we arrived here, embraced this outlaw lifestyle like some filthy hillbilly? I judge.
    â€œYou guys!” Rachil said with a smile. “ Boy friends!”
    Rachil squeezed Rico’s arm with both hands then skipped off to the restroom, leaving Corn with this cowboy-hatted peer.
    A facing C with no B.
    There was an awkward silence.

CHAPTER 3
    â€œWanna play some sack?” the doughy face under the hat finally asked.
    Corn did not want to play some sack, but neither did he want to skulk away to the booth defeated in his attempts to impress Rachil, so, outside the bar, he soon found the dusty knit hacky sack bouncing off his chest.
    Corn looked as if he were struggling to dance along with bad balalaika music—squatting, kicking the sack up with his instep, then hitting it with his forehead so it lurched halfway back across the circle before landing dead center with a crusty plop.
    The faces in the circle did not smile for these strangers, knew what kind of degenerate had entered their midst.
    They radiated judgment.
    â€œSo I should tell you,” Rico said, kicking up the sack with a fluid motion, stalling it on top of his foot, then flicking it over to his left foot and stalling it again (bravo!). “I’m not going to go all the way until I’m married, so you don’t have to worry about me and Rachil.”
    He kicked the sack expertly over to a young man with an inexplicable Afro.
    â€œThat separates me from the rest of the pack here,” Rico said with a jerk of his thumb, “and some people can’t handle that. But you know it’s important to my faith—Southern Bap.”
    He leveled a serious look at Corn.
    Corn noticed, suddenly seeing his friend afresh, that Rico’s eyelashes were ridiculously long and that one of his eyes was still . . . off.
    ( RAAAACHHHHILLLLL!!! We can almost hear the desperate grinding of Corn’s molars.)
    The sack once again bounced off Corn’s chest and landed at his feet.
    â€œEarth to bro!”
    A skinny kid in a faded T -shirt stifled a laugh.
    Corn picked up the sack and threw it into the bushes like a petulant child.
    â€œNot cool!” the skinny one said, running after the bag.
    â€œWhoop,” Rico said, checking his watch. “Gotta go! Bible study at seven. Nice to see you, bub. Really nice. Say bye to Rachil for me. Later.”
    Rico took off his hat and bowed, curly black hair falling around his puffed face.
    Then, he turned and ran with rigid posture toward campus.
    Corn watched the flip-flops flap against Rico’s mud-smudged heels.
    He turned back to the circle, which had closed itself.
    He narrowed his eyes and rubbed his hands together.
    He would have her . . . somehow!
    *
    Before we delve into the next chapter of this expertly crafted narrative, dear readers (Are you jealous, Mailer?!?!), let’s linger for a moment on the issue of Rico’s faith.
    It is not simply a work of my imagination.
    Of course, it is not how I was raised, and at the time it was more than a bit strange, but I do not judge matters of faith and I advise you to also reserve judgment.
    Why?
    I’ll tell you.
    No one can doubt the end-times are near, and so any acquaintance with Scripture (no matter how egregiously presented) will surely help ground a person in the gravity of this