Short Short Exercise

     The first time I see him he is in his garage, transformed into a slouching blue specter by the chilly radiance of his portable TV. I wave to him, but he doesn’t look up. 

I never see him out of that plastic lawn chair, and when he leaves his garage door open, I can hear laugh tracks and gun shots long into the night. 

He’s standing in his driveway. He had seemed so fatigued before, but in the daylight he is young. And angry. He is arguing with someone, a woman. I pass by on my bike, and they both fall silent, watching me as I pedal.

He shouts at me from his chair to come, come look at this. I dither, because this seems like the beginning of one of those Stranger Danger videos from middle school, but it isn’t dark yet, and there are people out on the street. His garage is dim and the floor jangles with cans and bottles. Martha Stewart is on, stuffing something into a turkey. They want you to think you can have this, he says. That if you work hard enough, you can have the nice house and the nice garden and the family of five. You never have it. He burps. Just thought you should know. Never, never, never.

The next day the television is on the street, its screen smashed, its cord limp. I guess he wasn’t interested in what it had to say.