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.“Day and night he’s got that TV going.He’s brain dead — what more evidence do you need? Pull either his plug or mine because I just can’t take it anymore.”All of my neighbors work during the day so little by little I found myself turning up the volume and living a normal television life.I start with what is left of the relentlessly cheerful mid-morning advice and interview shows, move through the soap operas, and arrive at the confessional talk shows, which are my favorite.It is their quest for issues that makes these shows irresistible.Recently I watched as a sweatshirt-wearing family appeared to discuss the mother’s hiring of a hit man.“Yes, I set your mattress on fire but only because you bit me on the head.”“I never bit you on your damned head.”“Don’t you lie to me.You bit me on the head and I’ve got the scars to prove it.”“I never bit anyone on the head unless maybe they deserved it because they came home all messed up on needle drugs.”Regardless of the truth I am captured by the story: How could you bite anyone on the head? How could you open your mouth that wide? More interesting are those shows where only one of the guests feels it necessary to state his or her case.I watched a program dedicated to medical mishaps where a denim-clad woman was interviewed alongside her helpless, elderly father.The father, an alcoholic, had received thirty-seven shock treatments following an episode of what his daughter referred to as “Barrel Fever,” the D.T.’s.The man sat stooped in a wheelchair, random tufts of dirty white hair clinging to his blistered scalp like lint.He spent a great deal of time clearing his throat and examining a stain on his trousers while his sixty-year-old daughter proudly faced the camera to recall the torment he had visited upon her life.Her father drank and drank until the fever set in, at which point he mistook his wife and children for insects.“He thought we were bees,” the daughter said.“He thought we lived in a hive and came to carry him off to our queen.Remember that?” she asked.“Remember that, Daddy?”The old man touched his sock and licked his lips.The shock treatments had left him weak and muddled but still his eyes were bright.Whatever his stories he was determined to carry them to his grave in a dignified manner.He remained silent, nodding with pleasure each time his drinking was mentioned.Given the rarity of truly bizarre acts, the daytime talk shows are forced to pretend that one story is as compelling as the next: the women who have made a lifetime commitment to wearing caftans appearing on Tuesday are equal to the posse of twelve-year-olds who murdered a neighbor’s infant son on the grounds that he was ugly.I’d rather hear about the twelve-year-olds and had, in fact, looked forward all day to watching that show when someone dropped by and ruined it for me.Since losing my job I have become acquainted with my building’s super, a pale, burly, red-headed guy by the name of Tommy Keen.He’s big all over — tall and wide — dressed in undersized T-shirts that reveal the pasty, sweating flesh of his arms and stomach.Every now and then I’d hear a rap and answer to find Tommy swabbing the tiles outside my apartment, pretending he had knocked accidentally with the mop handle.The guy obviously needed a drink, which was fine by me — I’m not cheap that way.Tommy’s problem was that he wasn’t content to drink alone.I’d hand the guy a beer and the next thing I knew he’d be hanging out for hours, ruining my afternoon lineup by talking through all my programs.Anything on TV reminded him of a long story revolving around what he referred to as “the women.”“Oh, Dolph,” he’d say, watching the paroled rapist face his victim.“The women are going to be the death of me, and you heard it here first.”With Tommy it was never any particular woman but, rather, the entire worldwide lot of them whom he seemed determined to conquer on an intimate basis, one by one, if it took him the rest of his life.I would listen, taking into consideration the fact that you really have to wonder about any male over the age of fifteen who still prefers to go by the name Tommy.I endured him a few afternoons a week until the day I had planned to watch the youth posse, when he actually pounded on my door, begging to be let in.He looked hungover, washed out, more pale than usual, a sweating mess.Tommy brushed past and took a seat on my kitchen table, his hands trembling so bad he could not light his own cigarette.“So, Tommy,” I said, thinking about the program I was certainly going to miss.“So, Tommy, what’s shakin’?” He put his doughy head in his hands and kneaded it with his fingers for a few minutes before telling me he’d been having trouble with blackouts.“Blackouts? What do you mean by that? Was there a power failure in the building that I don’t know about?”Tommy looked at me and shook his head.He released a sigh of hopeless disgust and rose briefly from the chair before settling back down and proceeding to tell me this story: The last thing he remembered it was Sunday evening at around 7:00 P.M.and he was in his living room, having a few drinks and feeding the fish [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]