The Vacant Space

By Jaime Perez

As he trudges through his wealthy yet introverted life, Thomas Silva has carefully managed to compensate through the years for his lack of human connection by monetarily helping struggling members of his community, but this impersonal and unorthodox method of getting by is beginning to lose its effectiveness and is no longer serving its purpose. A less-than-social childhood fused together with a fair share of uncertainty from his past has unfortunately carried on to Thomas' adult life, making him the reclusive person he is now. It's not until he experiences a series of life-changing events that Thomas begins to consider a serious and much-needed change in perspective towards his unfulfilling life. A Vacant Space is about one's lonely journey through existence as merely a passive spectator in the volatile game of life; a lonely journey that desperately needs to begin onto another path anew. It's never too late to start a new beginning, even if you feel you are already so close to the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491874738

Jaime Perez

Jaime Perez is the author of The Vacant Space and the award-winning book Through You. He graduated from the University of Texas–Pan American with a bachelor’s degree in English and from the University of North Texas–Denton with a master’s degree in library sciences. When he is not feeding his passion to write, he is busy serving students as a public school librarian in South Texas, where he currently resides.

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© 2014 Jaime Perez. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/07/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-7419-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-7418-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-7473-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014905209

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

About the Author

Acknowledgements

The following individuals were of invaluable assistance in helping to get this book in your hands; therefore, they must be acknowledged: Virginia Perez for general assistance, Iliana Perez for her modeling/patience, Richard Carranza for manuscript assistance and Ismael Quintanilla for all photography.

Chapter 1

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WOW!

Who would have done this? An addled woman asked herself loud enough for everybody within 10 feet to hear.

How could they just leave? Did anyone see anything? Another dumbfounded spectator asked everyone and anyone who could possibly provide an answer, yet nobody knew anything.

I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this! Have you? A disbelieving man asked the speechless woman whose hand he was firmly clenching as he removed his designer sunglasses to further examine the public disruption.

Are you serious? Questioned another baffled onlooker as she impulsively reached for her cellular phone to snap a picture of the crowd-forming spectacle.

What the hell? A short man in a business suit inappropriately blurted out before blushing and quickly palming his mouth in shame as if he had just realized that he was standing in the vicinity of holiness.

I honestly don’t know what to think, expressed a uniformed nun to the equally concerned, white-haired priest as they both exited the chapel, opening the oversized, beautifully ornate wooden doors that squeaked with a tone of antiquity.

Suddenly from within the clueless throng, a scraggly, bearded man provided a little enlightenment. He was wearing badly torn and faded Levi jeans, only one oversized sandal, and a now gray Don’t Mess with Texas tee shirt that was at one point in time a cleaner-looking white. Some men in a blue delivery truck came and just dumped it all here. They seemed like they was in a hurry, like they didn’t want to get seen. Didn’t take them more than two minutes. I know because I timed them with my watch while they was unloading everything. His scratchy voice was as abrasive as an unused sheet of sandpaper.

A half-empty, miniature bottle of Jack Daniels slipped from out of his jacket sleeve and onto the burning concrete floor as the derelict stretched out his arm to proudly show everyone his impressive timepiece of which was very familiar to me. I would venture to guess that his new watch was now his most valuable possession. I don’t really know if a homeless man has a need to keep abreast of the time, but it surely can’t hurt. Plus, I was already a little jaded with that watch and felt it was time for a change.

The vociferous crowd continued to gather quickly, surrounding the Catholic Church on the street corner like starved vultures hovering over their next meal. The gathering of civilians would have appeared to be normal on any given Sunday morning, but it was a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of a hot, windless summer day. The choral-like expressions of bewilderment and uncertainty were majestic music to my ears, and as a music lover, this was quite an agreeable reaction. This was even more fulfilling than listening to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons Violin Concerto in E major at full volume, and I definitely don’t mean any disrespect to the incomparable Vivaldi. Not everybody took part in the chorale of confusion though. Like many of the other instances before, there were also a few who seemed to be at a loss of words; their priceless silence was just as evident and pleasing to my ears.

As I inconspicuously stood amongst the dismayed and perplexed crowd in the middle of downtown San Antonio, Texas, I found myself almost carelessly smirking at the multitude of spectators’ obvious dumbfoundedness for which I was so proudly responsible. I don’t do this to be cruel or for any form of needless recognition. On the contrary, I do it to be kind yet anonymous. It helps me momentarily satisfy a deep void, even though it seems to never fill completely, forcing me to attempt to replenish the unreplenishable abyss. In addition, leaving people more clueless than they already are is an added incentive that brings me gratification and indulgence. If I had lingered around any longer amongst all the clueless pedestrians, I would have no doubt broken out in a frenzy of uncontrollable laughter that may have given me away, so I quietly and nonchalantly tramped on my way home to my sanctuary of solitude.

Being noticed was the last thing I needed because I don’t want anyone’s attention or need anyone’s approval, nor do I need these empty and unnecessary amenities. I get along more than fine in my clandestine ways. I do the things that I do because I feel they are appropriate, in some instances, undoubtedly necessary. I don’t want to be remembered for the things I do, and this is the main reason I do everything in my power to assist in complete anonymity. The opinions or acknowledgement of others does nothing for my satisfaction. I am pretty certain that my reclusive disposition is a side-effect of my upbringing, so it technically isn’t my fault that I am the way I am.

As I strolled by The Alamo for the three-hundredth time on my way home, the sounds of confusion behind me began to fade away along with the overly common and all-to-familiar shriek of an ambulance siren racing away to a nearby hospital in hopes of saving the life of whomever is in need of saving. It’s pretty disheartening to see the indifference that I witness everyday. The alarming siren of an ambulance or a fire engine used to mean something when I was a kid. It used to convey genuine compassion or latent commiseration for the unfortunate ones in need of such assistance. Now these unalarming sounds are just commonplace and often go unnoticed or ignored like the sounds of church bells signaling the commencement of another mass or a woman’s desperate scream for help in the middle of an otherwise peaceful night. I must admit that I am sometimes guilty of an almost inhuman and disturbing stoicism, but I do my best to return to a human place, a place that many have already abandoned.

As much as I dislike living in big cities, I am in need of the camouflage that it provides me so that I can remain as hidden and as unnoticeable as possible. I wouldn’t be able to anonymously continue what I do in a rural area or small town; I have therefore acquiesced to living in a metropolitan area such as this. On the squalid downside, the sour and frequent exposure to heartless apathy and inhumane indifference is much greater. With such a superfluous populace, there is always someone or something in need, even if it is just a Catholic Church in need of musical instruments for the church band to replace the instruments that were stolen just a few days before.

I am not a member of any religious sect, but it shouldn’t take a saintly philanthropist to sympathize with victims of larceny or any other misfortune, especially if the victim is an institution intended to bring people closer together and give them a sense of understanding, unity, and purpose. It is precisely this type of senseless and criminal behavior that regularly shoves me to the brink of hopelessness in humanity. All one has to do is stealthily eavesdrop on a conversation in line at an overcrowded coffee shop or take a brief skim through any unrecycled newspaper that one finds thrown on the floor by a park bench to get a clear perspective of the indecency and despondency that is bruising the tender flesh of humanity. Gone are the days of innocuous innocence and comforting compassion, or so it surely seems that way.

Whenever I ponder on the good old days, my mental reflections manifest in the warmness of black and white, as if modernity, in all its vibrant yet blinding high definition has become all too clear, all too colorful. Although newspapers have become daily bearers of bad news and it is precisely this bad news that leads me to malaise ad nauseam, this is one of my methods of staying informed with the excess of misfortunes surrounding me. It is the source that usually guides me to my next act of kindness or to my next victim in need, like the St. Paul’s Catholic Church on the corner of Esperanza Street and Amistad Avenue. Although being disheartened by bad news and yet searching for it page after page may seem masochistic, it really isn’t. I like to think of it as a cruel necessity. It is reminiscent of the times as a child when I felt compelled to look under my bed to make sure there wasn’t any horrific, blood-thirsty monster waiting for me to fall asleep; I was frightened to look underneath the bed that served as a minimal yet vital barrier from a gruesome confrontation, but I had to look anyway to give me peace of mind, at least for that one particular night.

I don’t have too many disturbing memories of my past, but I don’t have too many soothing and comforting personal memories either. Too much of my past is a mystery, and I guess this is a big part of my decision to remain as shadowlike and unnoticed as possible. I like to think of myself as an active yet invisible spectator in the unfair game of life.

In today’s digital and easy-access world, anonymity is practically impossible, but if you play your cards meticulously, it is a little easier than one would think, especially when you are wealthy enough to live comfortably without the need to work a day in your life and therefore not accumulate an inconvenient paper trail that could lead others to locate you. Some people are blessed with good looks; others are smooth and charming. Some are remarkably intelligent; others are gifted athletes. I am none of those things. I am seriously nothing to brag about or envy, with one small exception; I am rich. To be honest, I am ridiculously rich. I am the probably the only person in the free world who has nightmares of having too much money. My parents left me a shit load of cash before they died, and now I have decided to spend the rest of my mediocre life using the root of all evil (money) to do just and admirable things.

If Mom and Dad were alive today, I hope that what I am doing with my time and money would make them proud of me to the point of making them smile, at least just once. Although probably trivial and meaningless to most, I never really had the chance to see them smile, and therefore can’t imagine them doing so, especially Mom since I never had the chance to meet her. She was taken away from my Dad and me when I was an infant. Dad didn’t pass until later, but I guess you could say that my father was also erratically taken away from me during my childhood but in a different way; Dad’s absence was sporadically temporary, not permanent like Mom’s. Dad was always at work, so if he somehow managed to squeeze out anything resembling a smile, it was never in my presence. He must have felt that I was precocious and responsible because he never hesitated to leave me at home alone while he went off to do whatever it was that he did to pay our bills. I would assume that this type of absentee parenting would likely raise a disturbing flag to Child Protective Services, but back in the day, this was nothing to really display any concern over. As a child, I often tried to comfort myself with the thought that Dad would much rather spend his time with me than to spend it away from me at work. To this day, I still don’t know what my father did for a living. I just know that, judging by his pensiveness and distantness, he would mentally bring his demanding work back home with him, often causing him to go sleepless and in turn rendering me sleepless from worrying about him.

It is rather paradoxical but no less true. For as long as I can remember, I have felt a perpetuating, pervasive emptiness from the loss of both of my parents, but especially for my mother for obvious reasons, yet I never had the simple satisfaction of remembering her. I long to fill the anguishing void her absence has plagued me with, yet my infancy renders me unable to consciously and truly recall that void ever being filled. I am searching to regain the love that I don’t remember having, desperately and feverishly grabbing for an unreachable intangible. It is truly a hauntingly ineffable feeling to long for someone you can’t remember yet someone you love with all your heart. I have heard that one can eventually become numb from constant exposure to immense pain to the point that they no longer feel anything resembling discomfort. The agony associated with the pain takes one to a point beyond discernable anguish and to an eventual state of welcomed torpidity. Contrarily, my ruthless form of pain doesn’t bestow me with this luxury. It cruelly stops me at the threshold of pain before I can begin to appreciate the painless state of pain beyond pain. I am left shamelessly begging for the sweet taste of numbness. My torment has no solace. It hurts; it just simply continues to hurt.

Chapter 2

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The short, uninterrupted stroll home was once again therapeutic. I live in a humble, practical two-bedroom and one bath apartment. One of the bedrooms, the larger of the two, is for my modest living accommodations; the other bedroom has now become a storage room for all my things; computer, CDs, books, DVDs, photo albums and my black, leather beanbag that I am now convinced is a secret cure for insomnia. My abode is nothing fancy or elaborate, and I prefer it this way because it allows me to keep a low profile and maintain a frugal lifestyle. Nobody really bothers me unnecessarily, and I gladly return the kind favor. Like a schizophrenic’s imaginary best friend, I am practically invisible to others and prefer to live in my own little, uncomplicated world. In actuality, this apartment reminds me of the simple, luxuriless apartment where Dad and I used to live back in San Leandro, California before I decided to move to San Antonio, Texas in hopes of starting a new life, a life with minimal social interaction and no previous associations to vex me.

My semi-autonomous childhood in San Leandro was pretty normal, as normal as it could be considering my mother had died before I was even out of diapers. Much like today, I spent the majority of my time alone, cleaning, washing, reading, etc. Life in San Leandro was rather uneventful and lackluster, but I kind of preferred it this way; it was a meaningful and fulfilling simplicity that is hard to find in today’s different, convoluted world. You really can’t suffer from heartfelt disappointment in anything if the level of life’s expectations is precautiously kept below the knees. Nothing much ever happened there. Aside from being the supposed birthplace of actor Lloyd Bridges, there was nothing else to hype over, and I would likely have a difficult time trying to convince even the most zealous tourist of visiting my insipid yet oddly pleasant hometown.

I often look back at things and still wonder how my father was able to manage not losing his sanity from sleep deprivation, not to mention any other sapper of soundness that he secretly kept from me. It must have been a dull life, having to make me a priority and what not. Without a doubt, my father was a remarkable man; I don’t know how he successfully managed to provide for me and raise me alone while having to work at ungodly and volatile hours of the night and day. To this day, I still don’t know what my father did for a living. He made a valiant effort to separate the specifics of his hectic work life from his family life, even if I was all the family he supposedly had. I had a feeling that he didn’t want me know what he did or where he went whenever he hastily left our apartment with his black overcoat and black, lock-protected briefcase, so I eventually stopped my annoying inquiry during my early teen years. If Dad didn’t feel the need for me to know something, then who was I to argue with that?

What time are you going to work today, Daddy? I used to frequently ask so that I could have an idea as to whether the day would be happily spent with him or sadly wasted without him.

I am not sure, Son. I will go to work when they call me, if they need me. He would curtly answer without looking me directly in the face, probably to avoid witnessing my regular pout of disappointment with his sporadic, demanding working hours. For now, let’s just enjoy our time together, he would often say with an unconvincing smile as if he too wasn’t sure how long our time together would last.

It was always disappointing and disheartening to have to accept my father’s vague and answerless answers to my fair questions concerning his career, job or whatever it was, but what really irritated me at an early age was that he never called me by my first name; I was always just Son, never Thomas, or Tom, or even Tommy. As much as I currently hate the immature and dopey tone of Tommy, it would have at least appeased the childhood agitations that left me feeling detached and impersonal, as if I were unworthy of the sense of individuality that comes with a name. I later found out that my father named me after Thomas Tom Raymond Flores. As a suburb of Oakland, San Leandro is roughly 15 minutes away and is unsurprisingly saturated with Oakland Raiders fans; even when the Raiders momentarily moved to Los Angeles in the 80s, the die-hard, unflinching loyalty remained. My father used to sit me in front of the antennae-bearing, remote control-less television on Sunday afternoons and constantly remind me that Tom Flores was the first Hispanic professional football quarterback as well as the first Hispanic professional football coach who took his team to the Super Bowl and won the big game. Reflecting on those many times that my father would repeat the unofficial biography of Tom Flores to me were priceless moments that I would love to relive over and over again if given the chance. Maybe, in my father’s eyes, I hadn’t lived up to the worthiness of being named Thomas; maybe he took more pride in calling me Son because I was his only offspring. I have no doubt in my overly-curious mind that his improvised methods of upbringing were in my best interest, or perhaps my father was cunningly preparing me for an unorthodox and unattached adult life of mystery and aloofness. After all, I no longer associated with my school friends because I was being home schooled and therefore had no active friends; in addition, my father was rarely home to spend much time with me unless it was to feed me or teach me about the action-packed Civil War, the captivating differences between a simile and a metaphor, or the titillating process of photosynthesis. I am not ashamed to admit that I desperately lacked the much-needed and unparalleled affection of a mother. With such detachment to the outside world, it was confusing to truly know what the norm was, but I had a good idea that my unbalanced life was anything but conventional. One thing I knew for sure was that my father always did whatever was best for his only child. He loved me, and I knew he would die for me if he had to.

I attended public school at Thomas Jefferson Elementary until I reached the 6th grade. Although it was classified as a public school, this particular school was designated by the San Antonio School District as a privileged school for the select few that were somehow considered to be gifted and talented. It was never revealed to me what types of gifts or talents I was supposed to possess, and since it was never revealed to me, I never asked. My classmates, as well as a few of my more playful teachers, used to jokingly call me Thomas Jefferson because of my first name. During the 6th grade, my father unhesitatingly withdrew me out of the public school system for good. He and I never discussed the true reason for my withdrawal, but because it happened the day after a shooting took place on our school playground during our recess period, I always safely assumed that this was why, and more than a valid reason for his reaction. I had mentioned previously that nothing worthy of mention ever happened in San Leandro, if you exclude this shooting incident in which I had eventually heard through the evening news that nobody was injured, then one can truly say that San Leandro was an otherwise quiescent town; it was so quite that you could even hear the nightly police sirens fade away into nothingness as you laid in bed, waiting to bring an end to the current day. I don’t know the details of the ordeal, but I don’t believe that it was a student who discharged a firearm. I think our school playground unfortunately just happened to be the setting for somebody’s illicit business transactions, and somebody wasn’t too happy with the way business was being conducted. There were always older, mysterious-looking individuals perceptively roaming the peripheral parts of the unfenced school grounds. I guess my father wasn’t going to take any chances on having his only son unprotected and exposed to the quintessential unpleasantness of the unpredictable outside world.

After this eye-opening incident, he somehow managed to free up most of his mornings and afternoons from then on, and he began home schooling me. If for some reason he were unable to squirm out of working during the hours that he had set aside for my learning sessions, we would make it up over that very same weekend. With my father’s volatile work schedule, this was not uncommon; my summers were now continuations of my tutelary process, a process that never seemed to have holidays or time off. I never thought my father was dumb or uneducated, but I never knew my father was as intelligent as he actually was. Our lack of quality time together and his always being occupied with work fed my ignorance of his practical omniscience. My father seemed to know everything. As a matter of fact, I would often catch myself nodding in disbelief at just how much my father knew. Regardless of what I asked him, he always had an answer. It was as if he was a walking, breathing and talking set of up-to-date encyclopedias. Although I missed the few friends who I had made throughout my elementary school days, I have to say that I enjoyed being home schooled by my father because it allowed me to spend more time with him. The overly publicized shooting at Thomas Jefferson Elementary ended up being a disturbing blessing in disguise, at least for me it was. There weren’t many things that I needed as a child. I wasn’t a spoiled kid like many behavioral experts or psychologists would expect from an only child. I got by with the bare necessities needed to stay alive. I needed water to drink, food to eat, shelter for protection, air to breath and the most important yet least available component to my sustenance, my Daddy’s company.

When my father wasn’t home, which was the vast majority of the time, I spent most of my time of solitude thoroughly cleaning our apartment and eventually getting around to reading the local newspaper and completing its daily word puzzles. Every morning like clockwork, I would jump out of bed and open the apartment door to find the folded newspaper waiting for me at the doorstep. Actually, I didn’t just read the newspaper; I found myself having the ability to memorize it, verbatim. I don’t know why I felt the overly ambitious need to do this; maybe I did it because it helped time rush by when I was alone and bored. It certainly wasn’t for bragging rights because I had nobody to brag to, and I wouldn’t even think of telling my father of this prodigious gift because he might think I am crazy and eventually decide to send me to an asylum. It was strictly for entertainment purposes, not a mental disorder or compulsive dysfunction, just for personal fun. It was something I noticed that I could do with little or no effort, so I kept it up, in total secrecy of course.

To this day, I am a religiously avid reader of the local newspaper, or any newspaper that I can get my hands on. For me, there is no greater feeling than having a world of information ready to be read and eventually absorbed. I practically needed my newspaper more than I needed food. It was as if I fed off of the information I read. To avoid any suspicion on the part of my father, I would do my best to painstakingly fold the newspaper when I finished memorizing it in the exact manner in which it was when I opened it. I did not want him to be aware of my newspaper-reading fetish because I am absolutely certain he would have unofficially declared me weird. Really, how many prepubescent children find ecstatic pleasure on a daily basis from reading a 15-cent newspaper… none who I know of. Most childhood habits are embarrassing when you reflect back on them as an adult but are conveniently and consequently outgrown at some point in one’s life, like the unnerving habit of biting of one’s nails or sleeping with a nightlight on for added assurance that no monsters would attack you while asleep, as if a silly nightlight was enough of a deterrent for non-existent, malicious beasts. My obsessive habit with the newspaper was more of an overpowering addiction or a mandatory ritual, and I am still compelled to grab for it every morning before starting every day like many do with their coffee. Some people grew up with the routine of praying by their bed before ending a given day; my instilled routine was reading the newspaper before starting a given day.

The San Antonio Daily News was currently my preferred source of news because it allowed me to stay atop of things locally. Life in a big city is naturally imbued with hardship and depression, but a lot of this hardship and depression can be remedied with ample monetary assistance. I knew whose home had partially burned down due to faulty electrical wiring, who was in need of a little financial help to take their little league baseball team to the state championships in Austin, and which church needed to replace their stolen musical instruments so that the devout church group could continue to perform during Mass. This is how I decided who was in need and whom I could artfully assist with, as the universities call it, financial aid.

I don’t ever remember making my father proud since he was rarely home, and I never had the pleasure of hearing my mother proudly brag about me to her friends that I was so well behaved and respectful, due to the fact that she was not physically a part of my life anymore, only an emotional, painful yet much-needed part. In a way, you could say that I was attempting to fill the many unfair and abysmal voids that left me feeling empty by filling strangers’ monetary voids that were within my power to replenish. Just because I was hurtfully lacking a sense of completeness in my unconventionally frail life didn’t mean that everybody else had to continue in miserable incompleteness… not if I could manage to do something to help, preferably from afar.

Chapter 3

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The following morning appeared to be like any other, nothing surprising and nothing out of the ordinary. Then again, I had yet to leave the confines of my apartment. Part of my quotidian morning routine was to grab the local newspaper from my doorstep and glance for an opportunity to do something philanthropic. With the exception of my mornings, most of my days were impulsive and sporadic because they were completely dictated by the contents of the newspaper. For some reason, I decided to change things up a bit and start my day off with an aimless stroll without skimming through the newspaper; I was going to let the uncertainty and indifference of destiny guide me wherever it wanted to take me. I was pretty certain that I would come across some late-breaking news or interesting experience that was too fresh to be found in any newspaper. I don’t why, but I was excited and anxious to disconnectedly be amongst others, even if I had no idea who they were, what they did, or where they were going. Chances were that many were on their way to work because of the time of day it was; it only took me a few steps within the outside world to realize that my supposition was accurate.

I wish I were extremely rich and didn’t have to work. I need to win the freaking lottery. I unavoidably overheard an attractive young lady who, judging by her hasty pace, appeared to be late for work while complaining to somebody on the other end of her cell phone as she impressively used her right shoulder to support her phone against her ear as one hand firmly held on to what seemed to be a morning breakfast milkshake and the other hand struggled to clutch on to a black, laptop carrying case while jostling her way through the overcrowded walkways of downtown San Antonio.

I briefly felt like following her to wait for the end of her phone call and explaining to her that being rich and not having to work were not really as appealing as they seemed to be. I conveniently happened to be able to justify this by years of invaluable experience. It didn’t take long to convince myself that this would boldly evoke unwanted attention to me as well as appear to be a little creepy and stalkerish. So I prudently resisted my impulsive desire and continued to do what I naturally do everyday with refined mastery, keenly observe my surroundings from a safe, undetectable distance.

Discussions and conversations like this were all too common; I unavoidably heard them everyday without fail. It’s not like I would make an intrusive effort to listen in on people’s conversations, but it’s actually more difficult to try to block somebody out than to keep them in, especially in an increasingly annoying world where everybody is on a cell phone conversation in public without realizing that they are speaking louder than normal and simultaneously including everyone within 10 feet in their conversation as well. The only fortunate ones not included in this unintentional and overly revealing conference call are those who prefer to remain oblivious of everything around them with