“I would never want to appear on this program again,” he said. “What do you mean I lost my bond? You can’t just take–-”
“You signed the papers, Mr. Corely,” the woman snapped. “I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do about it. I trust you can find your way out of the building.” She disappeared back into the hall, leaving Dodd in the room by himself. Dodd kicked savagely at the podium, hurting his foot, then sullenly left.
The night was humid, making him feel sticky as soon as he was outside. The subway station, he found, was almost deserted – he hardly saw anyone out in public anymore. They were all at home in front of their televisions. The thought made him grit his teeth, as did the sign on the side of the train. As it hissed into the station Dodd saw it, a long panoramic view spread out along one of the cars; the cation read: “Travels. A Peaceful Break After A Long Day!” A long day of what? Dodd thought. Of Travels? He was still gritting his teeth as he boarded the train.
Inside were a few other passengers; mute, vacant-eyed people whom he had to endure during the long trip back home. He could not help but think of them as zombies. They seemed to be somewhere else. They seemed to be ghosts.
At home, he came bursting in to discover Sheila limp and glassy-eyed in front of the TV. Dodd heard the Travels music and did not have to bother looking at the screen. “Sheila!” he yelled in horror and rage. “Sheila!” When she didn’t react he grabbed her by the waist and hauled her bodily out of the room. She didn’t struggle until they were in the kitchen and he was putting her down into a chair at the kitchen table.
“You did it, didn’t you?” he said angrily.
“What?”
“You had it reconnected. You had Travels reconnected while I was gone!”
She stared at him silently.
“How could you do this!”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“Shit!” he yelled at her. “Goddamn you! I shouldn’t have expected anything else from you! I spent thousands of dollars tonight to attack Travels, and you sit here the whole time watching it!” Dodd wanted to hit her, he wanted to blacken her eyes and break her nose. He restrained himself, putting his full effort into calming down.
Sheila’s thin eyebrows were wrinkling; she was slowly forming a frown. “How can you attack Travels?” she said. Her voice was angry but vague, as if she were talking in her sleep. “What’s wrong with Travels?” she demanded.
“What … what’s wrong with Travels!” Dodd shouted, his voice cracking. “Are you really this far gone?”
“Travels makes me feel good,” she said.
“You don’t do anything else, Sheila! Do we have to go through all this again? You’re either watching Travels or masturbating!
That’s it! That’s all you do!”
“What else is there?” she asked, staring at him in a vague exasperation.
In the background the phone rang. Dodd stared at Sheila, not knowing what he was looking at. She stared back, uncomprehending, void of any recognizable sign of intelligence. The phone continued to ring. Dodd turned away from her, leaving her in the kitchen. He walked all the way down to the bedroom to answer the phone.
Bob Recent’s glaring face appeared on the screen. “Oh, so Dodd Corely the art critic is finally home.”
Dodd stared. “What?”
“I would like to know something,” Bob said. “I would like to know why you hacked my computer like a common criminal. I would like to know why you forced us to watch you stand there and insult me and my wife for an entire five minutes.”
“Bob, I wasn’t insulting you. I was–-”
“You insulted me and my wife!”
“Bob, listen–-”
“I’m not going to listen! I’ve heard enough! I would like to know who in the hell you think you are. What do you know about art, Dodd? Nothing! Let me tell you something, you bastard.
Travels is a masterpiece of art. It is a continuously flowing real-time piece of art, something I’m sure hundreds of people sink their hearts into to create something beautiful, and pleasant, and relaxing. And since you’re just too good to appreciate it, Mr.
Forklift Operator, you have to attack it as if something’s wrong with it. Why don’t you wake up, you asshole – you know what’s diseased about society? You! Your type is what’s diseased about society. Paranoid trigger-happy vet, you’re what’s the problem!
You and the anarchists!”
“Bob, you don’t understand–-”
“I understand perfectly!”
Dodd couldn’t control himself any longer. “You don’t understand!” he shouted. “You’re a moron, Bob! You’re a fucking moron and you’re married to a fucking vegetable! I was trying to help you, but for all I care now you can go to hell. Go to hell, you shitheaded son of a bitch! Fuck you! Fuck you and your mother for ever bringing you into this world!”
Dodd stopped yelling. He just realized that the man he was yelling at was not his friend, it was his foreman at work. In the silence that followed, Dodd experienced a very strange phenomenon.
He knew every word Bob Recent was going to say just before he said it.
“Don’t bother coming in for work anymore,” Bob said. “You’re unemployed as of now.”
Bob hung up.
Dodd stared at the screen. He wanted to sink his fist into it, he wanted to shove his fist right through the blankness and beyond, beyond to Recent’s house, grab Bob Recent by the throat and drag his head through. He wanted to kick Recent in the face, real hard, bash it in until all Recent’s facial bones were broken and his blood was running thick and sticky all over Dodd’s clothes.
I’ve got to calm down, Dodd told himself. Control, keep under control.
He wasn’t in control. He paced back and forth across the room with his fists clenched at his sides, his mind numb with fury.
After a few minutes of this he had a funny feeling in his gut, as if a little spring had begun to unwind. A coolness flowed through him, but his tension was still there. It was reason; he could think straight again. He took the opportunity to walk back down the hall to Sheila and settle his argument with her.
Sheila was not at the kitchen table, she was back in the living room, watching Travels. Dodd walked over to the video components, bent over, and switched off the power.
“Dodd, I was only–-”
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up! I’m giving you five minutes to get your stuff and get the hell out of my apartment.”
Sheila stared at him without comprehension.
“NOW!” he shouted.
Sheila jumped up off the couch, trembling, and went running out of the room. Dodd stared after her for a couple of seconds, then turned and looked back at the real enemy. This is what she loves, he thought, not me. Dodd picked up the stack of video components, rack and all, tearing wires from their connectors. He carried it to the middle of the room, in front of the wall-sized screen, and began spinning in the circle with the components. He held them in front of them, spinning faster, building up the momentum. Then with a yell he let them go. They flew straight into the center of the giant screen and smashed apart, cracking the glass. Thick, oily liquid seeped out and ran down to the carpet, forming a gooey puddle.
Hearing the loud crash, Sheila came running. She took one look at the destruction and wailed in anguish. “Oh God! Why? Why are you doing this?”
“I told you to leave.”
“Dodd?” Tears ran in streams down her face. “Dodd, please–-”
“Sheila, I told you to leave! I don’t ever want to see you again! If you’re not out of here in four minutes I’m calling apartment security and having you kicked out.”
“Dodd …” she moaned, giving him her wounded pout, reaching out for him. Dodd stepped back as if she were poison, slapping her hands away, pushing her, sending her stumbling down the hall in surprise and shock. Then Dodd kicked his way through the broken electronics and over to the couch, kicking the couch, kicking then pounding it with his fists.
Calm down, he told himself. Calm down.
His heart was racing and his blood ran hot in his face.
Turning, he glared at the ruined screen, the large dark crack oozing liquid, bleeding its phosphorescence away – the whole thing was turning grey from the crack out. Dodd glanced at the opposite wall where an antique deer rifle hung between two swords.
I still have the firing pin to that, he thought. There’s ammunition in the hall closet.
Dodd strode to the hall closet, opened it, and dropped to his knees to pull out a plastic storage box. The television was not dead enough for him; Dodd wanted to kill it even more. When he opened the storage box he was distracted; in the box, among dusty cartons of 30.06 cartridges, was a smaller box made out of wood.