A Captive Audience

ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, they sit there with cold eyes and pursed lips, washed faces nursed by distant images of brushfires and mobs heating up the streets, gunpops out of nowhere, tanks cranking through mountains, and the whole world shouting curses at...the camera.

A slug of beer. The two men sit by each other, the beer between them. They say nothing to each other, except during the most intolerable commercials: double entendres with lissome teenage girls, men who live their lives at the edge with open-chested shirts. Granite cocks. And then the serious stuff begins, and the music trumpets forth the coming of the commentator: "Day 78," he says, announcing the score. A bunch of angry Iranian militants beat themselves with chains, cutting to the Russians rumbling toward the free world, and ah...the graphic mushroom cloud covers the picture and the words zoom out from its heart, "America Held Hostage."

A slug of beer. Crush out the cigarette, blink, and lean forward, towards the screen. Frank Reynolds is blinking at them. He never quite looks them in the eye. The TV projects its blue gleam over waxen faces. A sip of beer. In an aggressive gesture President Carter may boycott the Olympic Games in Moscow if the Russians don't go home. This threat elicits a wry smile from one of the two men. The other sneers. The camera shows President Carter speaking with utter gravity, but the two men can't discern what he is saying because the correspondent talks over the sound, paraphrasing the President's words. More beer. A tank's Red Star decal grumbles past the screen in telephoto proportions, and yet another correspondent reports that an estimated 10,000 Soviet troops are gathering on the Iranian border, within striking range of potential petroleum products that fetch more than a dollar a gallon on the street.

The two men don't talk to each other. They don't even look at each other. He sneers to himself; he laughs to himself: each in his own seat, sharing only the beer...and a shy Frank Reynolds. But suddenly, they are abandoned; America will be held hostage for 15 minutes tonight instead of 30 because the crisis is old news. They didn't expect this. Frank is gone. He has left them with only the shreds, and now the music is blaring under a barrage of credits and the anticipation of Police Woman...stay tuned.

A slug of beer. The two men cross the old newspapers in the living room to enter the kitchen. They attack the cabinets, the ice box, the cake, the ham, and stuff home a midnight feast. Light another cigarette. Look at the old headlines. Flip through an old magazine. Yawn. Suck on a cigarette. And one of them sighs, "Jesus. I wonder what the Russians are going to do? I mean, what do they really want to do? Do they want oil? Do they want the Middle East? The world?"

These are educated men. They are college men, and someday they will be professionals. The Young Professionals...next, on ABC.

"I mean, is it the Communist world strategy or something? I'm sure Brezhnev's just shaking in his boots now that the Russians will win all the gold medals in Moscow. Jesus."

"I don't know," the other says, looking tired, scanning the front page of yesterday's Globe. Kevin White wants pay raise. Marian Christy writes the inside story of public relations. Governor offs Child Services. Heroin dealer offs four cops.

THE OTHER MAN is picking at the ice. "I kind of wonder what the Russians are thinking...what do the Russian people think? They probably don't know this is all happening, they probably believe they're trying to help Afghanistan. It's scary. They probably don't know anything at all. They didn't even know about Watergate until a year later."

"What they don't know won't hurt them, as my father would say," the other man says with his wryness. "I'd like to know myself. It's like...what's the next chapter, you know? They're probably edited, you know? That's what I mean. WHO KNOWS? I mean, here-we-sit-broken-hearted-and-for-all-we-know-the-war-is-started. It seems like we're kind of like...rabbits."

A sip of beer. Stuffs his mouth full of nuts. Behind the chomping of peanuts they can hear the muffled monologue of the TV in the apartment below. "Johnny Carson with his hands stuck in his pockets," the man says, spraying peanuts onto the floor.

"Jesus. Those people do nothing but watch the tube. Everytime I pass their door they're watching some game show, talk show, football game."

"Yeah...the pleasure machine. They're worse off than we are."

Pull the plug and you will blow their minds. They have devoured all the words and come to the final conclusion for the night. And they will hunt out more the next day, scouring the grainy photographs, the over-reactions, the ultimate threat, the burning of people who want to know the true reason, who want to see past the satellite. They plug in at night for final treatment, and Frank Reynolds will suckle them, and show them that everybody in the world hates the U.S.A.

"Why do they hate us? Why don't they hate the Soviets? What has India got against us?"

"Yes, children," the tele-teat says, "It is an irrational world. Full of injustice. Full of lust and war. And there's more bad news about the American economy: economic growth is now malignant. Because, as you can see, we are living in an irrational, terrible world. In some parts of this world 'American Product' is a swear word. And they will perform this terrible drama before our eyes, and our only defense is to be aware...a little smarter, and freer. We will not flagellate ourselves. We are trying to be strong and to protect our vital interests. Tune in tomorrow night for more."

"Hey--ERZ HAT STETS EIN REICH STARK GEMACHT, BUTTER UND SCHMALZ HABEN HOCHSTENS EIN VOLK FETT GEMACHT--who said that?"

"Speak English."

"IRON HAS MADE AN EMPIRE STRONG, BUTTER AND OIL HAVE ONLY MADE PEOPLE FAT--who said that? Quick."

"I don't know."

"Hermann Goering. Hermann Goering said that. He was the man behind Hitler. They say he pulled the strings. And you know, he was a junkie. And he was a fat pig, too. The man behind Hitler was a heroin junkie. He probably said things like that so many times, in all the papers, in all the movies, that people probably went crazy and started eating nuts and bolts." He looks coldly at the empty King of Beers, in which he has drowned his last cigarette. He looks around him. It is late, and the beer is all gone.