How to Watch TV/ In the Twenty-First Century
So what did you think of Archie Bunker last night? He took a swallow of water and crumbled his
cone-shaped paper cup, hesitating and looking up, just before he cast it into
the used, cone-shaped paper cup bin. She
gave the TV show a moment’s thought and said, I laughed so hard I thought I’d
pee. They shared their favorite lines
from the night before that was when the boss came through the pantry
doorway. They both turned chuckling and
walked back to their desks.
The desks were both gray metal with rubbery tops full of
pencils and files. She had a phone on
hers but he did not. His had a bag lunch
in the bottom drawer. She went out at
noon to Chock Full of Nuts. They met at
five-thirty for a drink in the bar around the corner from the Woolworth
building then she took the subway to Riverdale and he drove his car. Over the GWB to Fort
Lee.
He kissed his wife hello and, it being Thursday, commented
on her hair. He ate the meatloaf
listening to WABC and looking out at the view from the eleventh floor. She had a Swanson’s chicken pot pie and
watched the New Jersey
sun drop out of the sky. At nine o’clock
they both tuned-in to a re-run of the Twilight Zone. The one where the little man in the future is
left all alone with broken glasses and now he can’t read. At the water cooler tomorrow they will dissect the
show and conclude it was not quite as good as the tiny people in the tiny town or the one with the ape on the wing
of the plane.
He left his wife twenty years ago. They just had differences they couldn’t
resolve. She never married. Her career came first. Now she lives in Long
Island in a house on the shore and she hardly watches TV
anymore. He tells her about Netflix and
his digital recorder at lunch over drinks in a midtown restaurant and she can’t
help it but her mind just wanders. She
walks her dog and takes a dip in the ocean and her TV just stays on the cooking
channel. She turns it on while she eats
her dinner and does the dishes and reads a fat novel.
