* * * * *
We both laughed. We both feel the same way about television, but he
has to have a set in his business for week-end football or baseball
games. A big set he has, too, with an extra speaker for the far end of
the bar for the short beer trade. I found the program I wanted and
showed Art the listing.
He looked at it. "Strauss ... that's that waltz music," and I nodded
and he went over to the radio and found the station. These small
stations can't sell every minute of their time for commercials,
although they try, and every once in a while they run through a solid
hour of Strauss or Bing Crosby or Benny Goodman. I like Strauss.
And there I sat drinking beer and eating stale popcorn when I should
have been home with Helen, listening to quiet violins and muted
brasses when I should have been doing something noisy and instructive.
In my glass I could see whatever I wanted, wherever I would. I made
circular patterns on the bar and drew them into a grotesque mass with
fingers wet with the silver condensation of bubbles drawn magically
through impervious crystal. Then Art turned off the radio.
He was apologetic, but he still turned off the radio. In answer to my
unspoken question he shrugged and indicated Freddie. Freddie likes
television. He likes dog acts and circus bands and bouncing clowns. He
watches the commercials with an innocent unjaundiced eye. Sometimes he
sings along with the animated bakers and cooks and gas stations at the
top of his boyish beery baritone. He sings loud, and he likes his
television the same way.
Art flipped up the lid of the television and stood there long enough
to make sure the picture, whatever it was, would be in focus. Then he
came back to me and poured another. Hesitating, he added another
smaller glass. I can't afford that stuff on what I make. Where I made
my mistake was taking it. We each had another. And another. The
headache got worse.
Ivan and Jack came in, and, when they heard the blast of sound, came
down to my end of the bar where, although the extra speaker is
overhead, you don't have to look at the source of the noise. Art
handed us a deck of cards and a piece of chalk to keep score and we
started to play euchre. You don't have to think to play euchre, which
is good. It's about the only game you can play with sign language, the
only game for a noisy bar. So we played euchre, and at ten-thirty Ivan
and Jack left me alone to face the music. The little cords at the nape
of my neck were tight as wires, the temple areas near my eyes were
soft and tender and sore to the touch, and my head was one big snare
drum.
That was when Freddie half-shouted to Art to get the Roller Derby on
Channel Seven and--so help me!--to turn it up a little louder. The
cards fell out of my hand and onto the table. I took out a cigarette
and my lighter slipped out of my tight fingers and fell on the floor
and I bent over to pick it up. My head swelled to twice its size, my
glasses slid down a little on my sweaty nose, and the tiny red veins
in my eyes grew from a thread to a rope to a flag to a tapestry of
crimson rage and the noise abruptly stopped. And Art began to bellow.
I stood up. The television set was smoking.
* * * * *
Well, it was fast while it lasted. Art didn't really need the fire
department. There wasn't any flame to speak of. Someone pulled the
plug from the wall and rolled the set out and used the hand
extinguisher on the burnt innards of the set and with the rear exhaust
fan going the last of the bitter smoke was drifting out before the
sirens pulled up in front. The firemen were relieved, not angry, as
they always are, and Art in his misery was thoughtful enough to slip a
square bottle in the pocket of the lieutenant in charge. It was cold
outside, at that. Freddie said so, when he left; there was no reason
to stay at Art's any more when most other bars would have the Roller
Derby. I watched him go, and mentally cursed the bearings in his new
car. Well, fairly new. I went home. Helen was in bed when I got there,
probably asleep. She was still probably asleep when I left for work in
the morning. She gets like that.
The next day at Art's there was a big space lighter in color than the
surrounding wall where the television set had stood. I asked Art
about it.
He didn't know. The serviceman had come out and collected it, clucking
in dismay at the mess the extinguisher had left. No, no idea what
caused it. Short circuit wouldn't make it that bad; fuses should have
blown first. They'd find it, though. Art hoped it wouldn't be the
picture tube; that wasn't covered in his service policy, and those
tubes in that size cost money. Anything else was covered. At that, he
was better off than Freddie.