Oh no, I didn't ask for it. I was just sweeping up a little in front of my fish store. It gets pretty trashed most days. Some of the punkers like to hang out in front of my window. There's a little ledge there they sit on, or else they just bag out on the sidewalk. I don't mind: they remind me of the fish. Some of their haircuts look like fins. And the wild colors -- I bet they wish they could get their hair to shine like the bettas. It's like they're in a tank of their own out there. They never seem to go anywhere. Like I said, I don't mind, except I always have to sweep up the cigarette butts at the end of the day.
When I'm done I usually go back inside and flip the "closed" sign over. Then what I like to do is turn off all the lights except the fluorescents behind the tanks. I never get a chance to watch the fish during the day. Too busy. Anyway, I pick a tank and just sit and watch it for a while. It's relaxing, I suppose. Those fish, they're pretty lively as long as the lights are on. Still, they're graceful, even when they're darting around. Some people might think I'm weird. but I don't think it's any weirder than watching TV. And maybe that's why the guy picked me out.
They figure there's over five billion people in the world now, and he picked me. He said he wanted to look at the fish. I flipped the sign over anyway, so he'd be the last customer. He seemed kind of frantic, like he'd been drinking coffee all day. But he was friendly enough. He was talking about the fish and what an easy life they had. He called it "an honest existence". I thought at first he was an insurance salesman. Then he asked me if he could tell me a story, and I figured what the hell. He seemed like he really needed to talk and he looked harmless enough, even if he was a bit wigged out. Around this neighborhood you get used to making that kind of judgment the minute you see someone. So we pulled a couple of chairs up to a scalare tank and he started telling his story:
"It is a horrible thing to admit, but my wife and I have become creatures of habit. Every night we go to bed at nine, read until ten, and fall asleep by ten thirty. Every night, regardless of rain or snow, we open the window a crack. If we don't open the window we tend to toss and turn and dream of smoke filled rooms, hot humid days and chemical warfare.
"Our bedroom window looks out on a blank brick wall. We have no idea what those bricks house. Perhaps that is where they make the chemicals. In any case, it is a brick wall, and very good at reflecting sound. If you have ever played pool you will know that a ball leaves the bumper at the same angle with which it hit. If you know anything about sound waves, you will know that they can emanate at many different angles from a single source. Knowing these things, you can see how easy it would be for the sound from the neighbor's television upstairs to bounce off the brick wall and into our sleeping ears.
"Evidently we are not the only ones with habits. Many is the night at precisely eleven o'clock that I have sat up in bed like a mouse trap going off. Since I refuse to close the window and dream about chemical warfare, I dream instead that I wake in the middle of a large extended family not my own. There is a mother-in-law, a husband and wife (both twice divorced, once from each other), one son, many aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and friends of friends. The source of people is inexhaustible. I know none of these people. They are nothing like the people with whom I was raised. They argue all the time, almost inevitably because they misunderstand each other so routinely. They argue about the most inconsequential things; they argue about who left the faucet dripping, who carved the turkey last Thanksgiving, whether Fred Freidrich is a second cousin, a cousin twice removed, or both. They argue at top speed and with tantamount sound. There is never anything I can do to stop them. Sometimes I try, sometimes I don't. Both tacks are equally frustrating. Then, as I sit there in bed I wake, slowly, and realize that the TV is on upstairs.
"It is the latest thing in evening soaps, I guess. And they use the latest marketing tool -- they run it every single night of the week. I say `I guess' because I don't own a television and I don't know what goes on these days. But even if I did have a TV it would be the last thing on my agenda to turn it on at eleven o' clock in the evening just to find out what the upstairs neighbors were watching. One does not hide in the closet to escape solitary confinement. One does not beat one's own head to cure a headache. One does not dive into the water to avoid a shark.
"I have tried ear plugs and discovered that the problem is not the noise level, even though the creatures upstairs must be deaf as rocks to turn the volume so high. No, it is not the decibels themselves but the nature of the sounds. It is the quarreling, the alternately whiney and angry tones. Their accusations sound like a chain saw cutting through a Quonset hut. Their denials are like glass carboys being catapulted into mountains of cinder blocks. The soft sound of argument, the apology, never comes from their television. There is never a mumbling sound that could be taken to mean `I'm sorry'. There is only argurnent and the tortuous reprieves where the commercials are silenced -- tortuous because they are always temporary.
"When you are first asleep, any string of words no matter how softly it is whispered in your ear can wake you and keep you awake. The other night they were recalling this chain of events: The wife had cheated on the husband with a fifteen-year-old circus worker. The husband had discovered them behind the tattooed man's tent. He had pulled his handgun out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket and shot each of them in the left knee. Instantly regretting that action (or not, that being the argument) he had called an ambulance, which was good fortune for the wife since she broke her water at the instant he hung up the phone. It was years later when their boy took ill that they discovered the wife to be a carrier of that new virus (the television's euphemism, not mine). Amazingly the husband showed no signs of the virus, although perhaps not so amazingly after all, because since that day at the circus he had not touched his wife. The boy. being seven by this point and surly for his age tried to rake revenge for his one-kneed mother. He snuck up to his father as he lay sleeping in his recliner and bit him on the ankle. This did not accomplish much, however, since he hadn't sharp enough teeth to break through his father's argyle sock, and the two became fast friends.
"After this argument was dropped they went on to discuss whose turn it was to be the family kleptomaniac, whose the hypochondriac, whose the bulimic and whose the amnesiac. I tolerated months of this kind of arguing before I gathered together enough stray courage to go upstairs. Some might find my hesitation spineless or at least lame, but I am normally a quiet man and not used to nonchalantly strolling into the enemy encampment.
"One of their arguments was having a rerun. The mother was asserting that it made no difference if the boy did have the virus, it was his turn to be the hypochondriac and there was no excuse for his slacking in his duties. I found as much of a pause as I could and knocked on the door. There was immediate silence. Well, I reasoned, at least they know enough to turn off the TV when unexpected guests arrive. But the door opened as quickly as the set had gone off, and the handsomely flushed face in front of me was not at all what I had expected. I had thought perhaps a potbelly and a can of cheap beer would open the door -- as dispassionate a man as there could be, having seen it all on TV. Instead the face snapped at me, `What! ' He hadn't even the time to elaborate on which `what' he wanted.
" `I thought perhaps you could turn down your television a bit.'
"`Don't be a smart ass,' he said, punctuating his comment with the slam of the door.
"When I thought about it later I decided that I should have expected as much. It was obvious that with people who loved television as much as they did one could not take such an ordinary approach. Interpreting this maxim to its fullest, I went down to the marina and bought a sturdy and barbless flying gaff hook and a length of nylon rope. I felt fairly confident that with the aid of a series of strategically placed knots I could climb my way to their window.
"To what purpose? Well, I suppose I was desperate. I told myself that somehow I could rig the set so that it couldn't run at night. Maybe a piece of bubble gum in just the right place. Or foil, perhaps. But in the back of my mind I knew that I had nowhere near the knowledge to effect such a repair and that I would probably just poke some holes in the speaker or sever the cable connection. As I say. this was in the back of my head. I considered myself not at all that destructive of a person, and to avoid coming face to face with this part of myself I busied my mind with the logistics of getting through the window.
"It was really much simpler than even I had thought. The window was open all day, being on the second floor and the season being the height of summer. The faceless brick wall shielded me from all views except up and down the alley. The streets were vacant in the middle of the day for the same reason that the apartment would be empty; everybody was at work. This was the surest thing of all. In those days it was more likely that my brand new rope would break than it was that somebody would play hooky from work, walk down the street, look down the alley, notice a man climbing on a rope up the side of the building, care enough to take a second look and get excited enough to do anything at all to stop him.
"A flying gaffhook, as you might know, was so perfect for my purposes that one might have suspected it was designed for me. Its handle was long enough so that by stretching most of my arm out my window I could just hook the neighbor's sill. With a simple tug I could disengage the hook from the handle, leaving only the rope trailing down the wall. With a little finesse I could repeat the process in reverse and retrieve my hook when I was done. I needed only to dull the point a bit with a file -- to reduce damage to the sill and make the hook easier to recover -- and I was in business.
"I have never been much of an athlete. That is why I enjoy fishing. A base hit, a goal, la touche, they never seemed enough reward for the exertion, not when you could have a nice ocean perch instead.
"You know, sometimes I wonder if you can't offend a fish, sitting here talking about gaff hooks and nice ocean perch. I'm not one of these crude sportsmen who has no respect for his opponent. Some men will kill an animal for the pleasure of killing and call it sport, much in the same way that they might hire a whore and call it making love. But look at these fish here. Look at how they dart around and chase each other. Some of that motion, I realize, is jockeying for territory, but some of it is downright fun and games. Some of that motion is what we would call hide and seek or follow the leader. No matter how subconsciously it is done, I think you have to wonder about an animal that has the capacity to play. I think you have to wonder what else they feel inside those tiny brains.
"In any case, I made the climb, and there was no question that my heart raced when I looked down from two floors up. But I must admit that I enjoyed it just a bit. Just a bit. The apartment was done completely m rlItles deco as nearly as I could tell, which was not very near. There could have been some twenties pieces thrown in. The effect was complete, to the dishes in the cupboard and the shaving mug in the medicine cabinet. You may think me overly snoopy, and I am, but imagine my chagrin when I could find a television nowhere in the place. I got a bit frantic, I suppose, and searched in places that weren't likely to hold one.
"I suppose I was a bit frantic about the decor, too. Was it in homage to the period of history in which the television came into it's own? Was it in homage to the mindless way of life that period represents? Finally I consoled myself with these speculations: the deco stuff was pure eighties and merely a sound investment, the television was out being repaired. Well and good enough. I would have at least one night's good sleep, and probably a couple weeks'.
"We went to bed that night as usual, I promising my mate peace without admitting how I could predict such a thing. Ten thirty came and went and I was drifting into other lands when the voices came on in my head. At first I thought I was dreaming that I was watching a boxing match (a thing I never do), but then I awoke in full and realized the horror of my situation. The television that did not exist was on again, and running at top volume. There was an argument in progress about the boy, who had come to love his father (or had he?) and how in the progress of a friendly wrestling match the boy had accidentally poked his father's eye out.
"I did not sleep a bit that night. I was busy at my desk with pencil and paper, drawing up some special plans. I took a small nap in the early hours but was anxious to get to the hardware store as soon as it opened so as to buy some lengths of PVC pipe, one of them two inches in diameter and one of them two and a quarter, with elbows for each. Next I hit the drugstore and had some difficulty locating the little oval pocket mirrors that women always carry in their purses. It seems oval had gone out of style in favor of square with beveled comers. In any case I eventually found them and wasted no time at all in assembling my periscope. I glued a mirror into the crook of each elbow and threaded the elbows into their respective pipes. The smaller piece of pipe fit into the other quite nicely, with plenty of room to swivel them about. And of course the whole thing was designed to reach from a comfortable resting position on my window sill to the very bottom of the sill above, so that by simply grasping the lower elbow with one hand and the outer sleeve with the other I could telescope the midsection and have a full and leisurely view of the happenings upstairs.
"As tired as I was, I was not tempted to sleep. The closer the digits of my clock counted toward ten-thirty the more active I became; pacing, chewing gum, rubbing the glue off my fingers, looking into the refrigerator. I thought perhaps my wife would shoot me on the spot -- or, not having a gun, something worse. As much as she disagreed with my spying on the neighbors it was nothing to the way she disagreed with my nervous activity. Each time I opened the refrigerator door I could feel the prick other eyes as she steadied their aim over the top of her book. You can't know how deeply I regret that I cannot create the precise effect for you. It is one of her best tricks. I am certain there is no one who can do it as well as she.
"Finally the hour came, and caution was advised. The last thing I wanted was to wave the head of my periscope about and attract their attention. Slowly I extended my contraption up the wall, pausing at the sill, waiting, waiting for the TV to go on and for their dull stares to be fixed to it.
"What I saw, when the sound came on, was a thing I had hoped I would never see again. Years ago when my son was first starting college and young and foolish as all freshmen are (he has remained so) he invited me to visit him and attend classes with him for a day. To my horror our very first class of the day was an acting class. In the dim basement below the main stage I watched as the instructor had the students raise their arms like the branches of a tree and wave them in the wind, then crawl about on all fours and lift a leg to an imaginary hydrant, then wrestle around with each other like orangutans gone mad. And for the closing act they all gathered their dignity and departed with all aloofness, doing their very best `sophomores'. As frightening as that was, what I saw through my periscope was worse.
"The man and the woman would stand still until they imagined that a cue was given and then they would both begin to argue as vehemently as they knew how. They would shake fingers, spit, point, scowl, feign surprise, feign shock, feign disgust, feign rage, feign ennui, threaten to throw things, threaten to leave the room, threaten to tell so and so and threaten to die on the spot. They would bang doors, bang on tables, slam the telephone, kick, pinch, poke, gouge and bawl with all their might. It was a horrible spectacle, a thing from which I could not turn my eye though it was the thing I most wanted to do. And then, as lid silent voice from nowhere had called `cut' they would halt the action, wipe the sweat from their brows, smile at each other and congratulate in whispers, gather themselves into new positions in the living room now instead of the kitchen and wait for the new cue. These last were the silent spots I had always assumed were commercials hushed by the swift hand of remote control.
"My wife and I have started to take midnight walks. We know it is not always safe, but it is better than the torture of being dead tired and unable to sleep. The sound of television is everywhere, but nowhere do we see the blue glows in the windows like we used to. I was already dreadfully close to driving my wife over [he brink, but I insisted on spending a whole Saturday afternoon going around to various electronics and department stores. S are enough, there was not a television to be bought in the whole of the city. Then at the end of the day, just when my wife was in the height of one of the most beautifully withheld rages I think I have ever seen I demanded that we drive all the way out to the land fill. And just as I had thought, there was a separate pit devoted entirely to televisions.
"Of course we took the matter straight to the police, but we found them playing. One of them was acting the corrupt cop, one the worried police chief, one the greasy undercover, and the rest were slicked up members of the vice squad. They promised to take the matter on at once and went right out and arrested fifteen whores. The whores were having a wonderful time, playing at kicking and screaming and spitting. It looked a good setup for them, because of course there are things you simply cannot show on TV.
"We took the matter on up the line to the mayor and city council, but all of the politicians were still watching television. In fact, it was all they were doing. They had no idea what was going on. They were busy trying to adjust their video images to meet with what their pollsters had told them the public wanted. It was absurd. It was impossible to keep their attention for any longer than thirty seconds.
"The neighbors don't even go to work now. They just lay about the house all day, sleeping mostly, and then as evening wears on they apply makeup and do their little warm-up routines in preparation for their business. My wife and I don't work either. There is really no need to -- we are pretending to play a retired couple. We don't go out much any more, but we do have to go to the bank once in a while. It's nice that they don't keep the accounts any more. Still, we don't pull out too much money. It would be a shame to get caught up in the role of a millionaire or a drug dealer. And we get out of the bank as quickly as possible, because you never know when the bank robbers will come. We get off the streets quickly too. The streets are simply not safe at all, what with all the car chases. Still and all, it is an easy life.
"But you can understand my excitement when I saw you there with your broom and realized what you were doing. Surely you must know that nobody is an extra anymore. It could be dangerous, you know, drawing attention to yourself in this way. But I suppose that is your business.
"I hope that you can forgive me. It is hard these days. There is no one to talk to, no one who will listen to a story. As easy as life is, I am not sure I can stand it much more. Perhaps today I would have lost my composure had I not found you. I hope that goes a little way to make up for my inconveniencing you, to know that you have helped a man through a tough moment."
And then he left, just like that. He went walking off down the street with his head
down, like all he wanted to see was the sidewalk. I heard a siren, and then the cops
pulled up and put him in the car. He didn't seem the least bit surprised. He didn't try to
run or anything. Thinking back on it, I'm sure he was convinced it was just part of the
program. I'm sure he thought he'd go through some pretty tough questioning, the hot lights
and the cigarette smoke and all, and then just take off when the scene was shot. And maybe
he was right.
The bio from Red Onion: I read THE GUARDIAN, but I don't believe everything I read. I have never owned a television, although I don't persecute those who do. I enjoy eating. I believe that Ronald Reagan has been the worst thing in hiI the shelves since pre-filled disposable diapers. I think that is about all you need to know about me."
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