Wolves Watching Television

So on the way home I think about stopping in Prunedale to get something to drink at Safeway or the liquor store, but glancing down at the dashboard, I see that its quarter after five. If I don’t stop, I can make it home in time to watch the network news broadcast. Besides, if I stop I might end up buying a beer at the liquor store or a cappuccino at Starbucks. I don’t need either. I decide not to stop, no beer, no coffee, and plenty of time to finish the drive home before the news comes on. When I reach the off-ramp for 156, I look down at the clock on the dashboard again. Not even twenty after. I’ll miss the headlines, but with the commercials and all, I should make it home in time for the first news story.

When I walk in the door its about 5:32, just as I expected, but as I cross the living room, I can hear voices coming from the television set in the family room. Who ever is watching the television will definitely not be watching the news. If it’s Morgan, he'll be watching reruns of Mash. If it’s Ella, she'll be watching reruns of That 70’s Show. Either way, it will have just started. I can ask them to let me watch the news. I watch the news almost everyday at 5:30. They know I watch the news. They’ll expect it.

I walk into the family room. Morgan and Ella are both watching television. They’re not watching Mash. They’re not watching That 70’s Show. They're watching Fahrenheit 911 on a DVD. They’re at the part where the black guy in Flint Michigan is comparing the town to the bombed and burned out cities of Iraq, just about the middle.

I put my laptop on the dining room table, walk past Ella sitting in her chair in the corner, and sit down in front of the television.

Hey Morgan, you think I can watch the news?

Morgan’s lying on the couch. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move. He just keeps watching the television.

I just saw Fahrenheit 911 for the second, if not the third, time just yesterday. He’s seen it before too. Is it going to kill him to stop it for half an hour? Besides there’s a DVD player and television set in his room.

Morgan, do you think I can watch the news? I say it just a bit more emphatically this time. Still, he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move. He just keeps watching the television.

Valerie comes into the family room and starts talking.

Morgan reaches down and picks up the remote for the TV. I think he's going to turn on the news. That’s more like it. Instead, he turns up the volume. He can’t hear because we’re talking.

I see myself picking up a ten pound hammer, wielding it over my shoulder, and with a long arching swing, driving its steel head into the glass face of the television set. The tube explodes. Glass and shards of black plastic fly everywhere.

If I can’t watch the freakin’ news for half a god damned hour, nobodies gonna watch anything. I tear the cables from the back of the television set, lift it over my head, and hurl it through the plate glass in the patio door. Hitting the ground it disintegrates into countless jagged pieces of plastic, glass, wire and circuit boards. Ella’s sitting bolt upright, her eyes bulging from her head behind her glasses, her mouth wide open as she screams silently. The last shard falls out the glass door and shatters on the floor. I see myself doing this but I don’t.

It’s my house, my television, the least I should do is grab the remote and turn on the news, but I don’t. I sit. Morgan lies on the couch. On the screen, the woman from the Human Resources Department is telling Michael Moore about the high levels of unemployment in Flint, about how she encouraged her son to join the Army so he could have a steady job and enjoy all the benefits when he got out, and now that he’s fighting a war, how she’s proud of him for doing his duty and defending his country. Towards the end of the movie, she has a change of heart when the army chaplain comes to her house and tells her that her son is dead.

I finally get up. He’s not going to put on the news. We’ve done this before. Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything. Then after fifteen minutes get up and leave.


Later that evening, after dinner, after Farenheit 911, after I've missed the news, he’s sitting at the kitchen table reading. I open a bottle of wine, pour a glass, and drink it quickly, standing in the kitchen. This is going to require more than one glass. I pour another glass and carry it to the table.

So did you check your garden beds?

Yeah.

And how would you describe the moisture content of the soil?

Good.

And how do you think it got that way.

Don’t know.
I watered them. I watered them even though you didn't ask me to. I watered them because I knew they were important to you and you'd want them watered while you were gone. What did you do when I asked if I could watch the news?

Nothing.

That’s not exactly true. You ignored me. You didn’t even acknowledge that I was in the room and was alive and breathing.

He says nothing. This is the part where we see who can sit silently the longest.

This is the third time in recent memory that I’ve sat down with you and told you that I’m not comfortable with our relationship and that we needed to talk about it.

The fact that you can’t or won’t talk about the problem is as much a problem as the problem itself. I can’t try to fix the problem if I don’t know what the problem is.

It can’t be fixed. We’re both just too head strong. We both have to be right. We can’t live in the same house together.

That must not be true because we are living in the same house.

See they’re you go. That’s it right there. Just what you did. We’re just like wolves. There can only be one alpha wolf. The other males challenge him until they beat him or until he runs them off.

We’re not wolves. We’re human beings.

It's all the same. We’re animals.

There’s a part of us that’s animal but there’s another part that thinks and feels and remembers. The part of me that feels, feels like I’m being subjected to a subtle but relentless form of abuse. And I want to find out how to make it stop.

Look, it can’t be fixed. OK? We’re going to keep butting heads as long as I’m living here. That’s just the way it is.

That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one being abused. Besides I don’t feel like I am butting heads with you. I feel like I’m being butted by you.

So what does Scott Yettman have to say about it.

That’s a lot to try and say. He said I need to hold you accountable and that if I don’t hold you accountable then I’m actually enabling the problem behaviors.

You see. That makes it sound like I’m a little kid.


I don’t think so. I think that's the relationship between a lot of adults. That’s co-dependence.

How’s that.

Well, the way I understand co-dependence, two adults are in a relationship. One of them is doing something considered destructive or at least not constructive by the other person, or by some group, or by society. The second person does things that unintentionally support the behavior of the first person. That's the way I understand it.

I just don’t like being told what to do. OK. It’s like when Gram was here. She wants a drink so she tells me to go to the refrigerator and get her some juice, and I’m thinking if you want a drink get up and get it yourself.

I didn’t tell you to turn on the news. I asked you if I would turn on the news. Twice.

Ok then. The entertainment center. What about the entertainment center. You told me how the wires had to go.

I don’t think that’s true.

You said that the wires had to go into the wall and then inside the mantle and that was it. There was no other way. It had to be your way.

I wasn't that directive. The conversation didn’t start with that. I started by asking how you planned on dealing with the wiring, and you said that you’d think of something.

And I will. I’ve been thinking a lot about that the last few days.

Now you’re thinking about it, but you when I asked you about it you weren't and you said you didn’t want to talk about it. You were about to make a mistake that couldn't be fixed. That's when I said this is the way it has to be. I go out of my way not to tell you what to do. I try to make sure I’m not being authoritarian with you. Do wolves do that? The fact is, I really don’t want to spend time and energy being an authority figure for you. We’re passed that. There was a time when you were a boy, and I was your dad, and I was an authority figure in your life. That's the way it is. but you’re a man now. I’m still your father, but I’m just not interested in being in charge of your life. That’s the other thing Scott said. He said I needed to keep reaching out to you, looking for opportunities to connect but when reaching out I needed to accept the fact that it just might not happen and to recognize the possibility of being rejected ……. I guess that was pretty sound advice.