Jami Brandli
word count: 3100
Prime Time Crusaders
I don’t trust a man over fifty, unless of course he’s a mailman, a teacher or a butcher. I’m twenty-five and relatively attractive so the only thing that kind of guy would want from me is a ride in the sack and a slap on the ass. But that’s not entirely true—I do trust one man over fifty. His name is Frank and we’re having an affair even though he lied when I first met him at the coffee shop three months ago. He saw me sitting with my journal and asked what I was writing. “Poetry,” I said softly. “It’s just a hobby.” Frank replied that it takes a special kind of person to rely on words to express their deepest feelings and when he touched the spine of my journal, I felt the fine hairs on the back of my neck come alive. Frank also told me he was a thirty-five year old shoe store manager and I believed him on account of his full head of black hair and soft looking hands. But when I looked at Frank’s license, I discovered that he was as old as my father would be if he were still alive. His wallet was on the nightstand in the Stargazer Motel and Frank was in the bathroom taking a shower. I figured a girl has a right to know what she’s getting into, especially when she has sex with a man after knowing him for only forty-eight hours.
When I asked why he lied, Frank slipped into the bed and began rubbing my slightly collapsed arches, then calves, then thighs. From behind, he whispered his reason in soft, rhythmic movements. He, the older man who sold high-end shoes, didn’t want to scare off me, the young, pretty poet girl. His sweet sentiment stirred me like a childhood dream. I turned to kiss him when suddenly he clicked on the television and got excited in a different way. The program was a reality TV show about seven salespeople in seven major American cities selling televisions. It’s called “Prime Time Crusaders” and it’s on five times a week. The basic principle is the salesperson who sells the most TVs wins a quarter million dollars and a trip to every major television studio across the world. But there are obstacles to challenge the salesperson’s ability and conviction: the bi-polar boss, ex-lovers posing as customers, random blackouts in the store just when the salesperson has a customer hooked, excessive static. With, of course, the biggest obstacle of all—price hikes. And just when I was about to say that this show is possibly the biggest piece of capitalist consumerist crap, Frank pointed to a plastic-bodied blond wearing a pair of lime go-go boots. He said, “I taught her everything I know about selling. She’s going to win it for Boston this year.”
“Who’s she?”
“Roxy,” he said. “My girlfriend.”
I watched Roxy evade a group of Jehovah Witnesses as she explained to a family of four that a digital TV is ideal for a busy schedule. The Witnesses left, the two children clapped and the TV was bought. I said, “You lied to me again.”
“No. I just didn’t tell you about her,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter though. We’re breaking up.” Then Frank kissed me and I felt the weight of the motel bedding push his body into mine.
*
By the third week of our affair, Frank and I had a routine. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we’d meet at the Stargazer Motel around 7 pm and make love. I’d whisper newly written sonnets and sestinas into his ear and he’d gently tug on the rope of my hair confessing to me I had a way with words that made him feel like no other. Later, we’d order Chinese take-out and watch “Prime Time Crusaders” at 8:30 pm. I’d make it a point to stay in the bed with the covers tucked under my chin, my body close enough to absorb the heat from his. With our bellies full of Kung Pao Chicken and fortune cookies, we’d comment on Roxy and her competitors’ tactics: Sparky from Chicago doesn’t know enough about speakers, Pat from New Orleans is not convincing when he proclaims, “Television will save the world!”, Lonnie from Seattle could’ve sold the 52” TV to that lonely widow if she weren’t so easily distracted by her own reflection, etc, etc… And as far as I was concerned, I could say anything I wanted about his girlfriend since he was leaving her. So during one episode where a herd of highly trained lab rats were released in the store and Roxy, wearing a pair of emerald four inch heels, sold only one TV instead of her usual three to five, I put my hand on Frank’s thigh and said, “Guess her parents didn’t love her enough.”
Frank turned to me and asked, “Well what about your parents?”
“What about them?”
“Did your mother love you?”
“In a motherly way.”
“And your father?”
I took my hand off his thigh and said, “He died of a broken heart ten years ago.”
“What do you mean?”
“It just stopped working.” I pulled the covers over my head and crossed my arms under my breasts. There are some things that a girl doesn’t want to talk about. Take, for example, this list of things:
1. Her boss treats her poorly because he suspects that she takes liberties with the office supplies. (In truth the girl only takes post-it notes and red pens because she likes to stick inspirational affirmations in random, happy places such as the bathroom stalls, the coffee pot and inside the elevator. The only person she tells this to is Murray, the office mailman, who keeps the building’s vermin population under control with Have-A-Heart traps. Murray tells the girl that she’s bringing a bright, blaring ray of sunshine into her co-workers lives with her affirmations, whether they like it or not.)
2. She desperately wants to be a poet. (Since the age of five, the girl has filled ten fat notebooks with her poems. Her kindergarten teacher, Mister Santorini, acknowledged her first haiku about beef soup and said she had raw talent. Mister Santorini declared that anyone who writes about the wonders of beef soup without having existed in a trench for thirteen weeks in WWII France must know a thing or two about life. These days, Frank is the only man to be sweet in his encouragement and she fears her poems will never amount to much. She feels that she has never written anything original. Every time she writes down a thought or an emotion, she thinks, This has been written before, but only better. Don’t all poets feel this way? Where do the good poems come from?)
3. All her ex-boyfriends never officially broke up with her, they just stopped calling. (When the girl ran into her most recent ex at an Irish Pub, he told her, “I couldn’t get through to you. Guess you have a bad connection.” It had been several months since their last date and she wanted to make sure that was true. She knows this sounds ridiculous, but people who live alone never phone themselves, so who knows what she could have been missing? Later that night, after a few pints of dark beer, she called her home from a payphone and got her answering machine. She couldn’t recognize her own voice and quickly hung up. No wonder! She sounded like a desperate game show host and who wants to date that? The girl, however, hasn’t gotten around to changing the message yet. She doesn’t know what to say.)
4. When she thinks of her father the only thing she can picture is a shadow. (The girl doesn’t want to admit that she mostly remembers him on the couch watching television with his foldout table set up with a remote control and his dinner. But her father wasn’t always a shadow. When she was a young girl, after she’d return from the butchers where good old Sam would save her a special cut of meat and her mother would then cook a Shepard’s Pie or a brisket, her father would talk about his reruns, explaining to her the misadventures of “Hogan’s Heroes” or the struggles of “Gun Smoke”. “That’s Colonel Klink” he’d say pointing to the TV, and she’d smile, happy just to sit next to him.
Once the girl learned how to write, though, she tried to get him off the couch and away from the TV. She’d write him poems about traveling to far-off lands or a simple family car ride and then place them on his foldout table next to his dinner. But her father was becoming distant and fading. For hours, he’d silently search the TV Guide for his old shows. He wanted nothing to do with cable and their flashy polished people and news anchors. Once, in an unexpected moment of rage, he shouted, “How many times do we have to see the Space Shuttle blow up? Where’s my ‘Dobby Gillis’?” At the end of each week, the girl would find her poems behind the couch and stuffed between the cushions. Her mother, in turn, would hang them on the refrigerator until the next batch of poems were found.
As a teenager, the girl adopted a different approach. She’d take drugs and sit on the couch next to her father who was now addicted to channel surfing until he found a show. Depending on the drug, she sometimes felt confident enough to ask her father questions like “Do you think Gomer Pyle will really be considered funny by future generations?” or “How many times can you watch a rerun until it becomes over run?” Most times he remained silent and her special trips to Sam the butcher, who was very old at this point, were appreciated less and less.
The late nights, however, were the hardest for her. This was when his favorite reruns would come on and there he’d be on the couch, staring, the glow of the television splashing shadows onto his face. Sometimes the girl would cry and sometimes the girl would do more drugs until sleep overpowered her. But her mother knew the situation and told the girl when she was old enough to understand the concepts of nostalgia and pathos that this was inevitably sad because it was only a matter of time before his reruns ran out and then he’d have nothing to look forward to.
Her mother said, “Your father is trying to relive the decade he was happiest in.”
“And when was that?” the girl asked and hoped this would be the answer to getting her father off the couch.
“The decade before the moment he realized how the rest of his life would play out.” Her mother patted the girl’s cheek and continued. “It happens to all of us, dear. Sooner or later.”
When the girl turned fifteen, the rest of her father’s body finally caught up with his broken heart. And then she heard it. Something inside her went snap and she took a bat to the TV, smashing its glass face into a fine pile of dust. Her father watched on, wordless. He then took to his bed and never left.
5. She finds it difficult to remember a shadow.
But I didn’t want to get too deep with Frank, or at least not until I knew a few things about him. So I pulled the covers off my head, stared at the Stargazer’s water stained ceiling and asked Frank some questions of my own. “When are you leaving Roxy?”
“When ‘Prime Time Crusaders’ is over,” he said.
“Right after?”
“If she wins, I’m going on the trip with her first.”
“And if she loses?”
“I have to console her and then I’m leaving,” Frank said. “Roxy’s been through a sewage flood, food poisoning, and not one, but two false pregnancies, in addition to public slander. Who knows what she’ll have to go through next to sell a television…It’s a war out there.”
On the TV, a close-up of Roxy’s disappointed face looked directly into the camera. As she nursed a rat bite on her ankle, Roxy mumbled to herself and to all America that she will sell more TV’s during the next episode, promise. She faded off screen and the credits began to roll. I asked, “When would you leave her sooner?”
“If she loses, of course. But I have to stay on an extra week or so. You understand,” he said and kissed my forehead. “It’s the right thing to do. Roxy’s worked real hard.”
“The right thing to do is to tell Roxy about me,” I said and quickly turned up the TV. I wasn’t sure what Frank was going to say and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
After a moment, he smiled. “You don’t trust me.”
“Why should I, Frank?”
He reached under the bed and pulled out a box of shoes. “Because you love me,” he said and then slid a ruby pump onto my foot.
*
This is what I did the Tuesday before last. I knew a poem wouldn’t take care of the dirty work so I decided to become one of Roxy’s obstacles—I had to make her lose and fast. I figured that Frank would be watching “Prime Time Crusaders” at home and when he’d see me confront his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, he’d know my heart was true. So I put on my ruby pumps, bought a water gun that looked like the real thing, and held the place up. Every customer cleared out and there was a bit of confusion by the TV crew, but the cameras kept rolling. I felt like a super hero. I winked at all of America and said to Roxy, “I’m going to be frank here,” figuring that saying “Frank” would shake her more than the gun. “You can’t sell me a TV.” She didn’t even flinch and quickly offered me a 24” TV at 25% off. “Ha! 25%!” I said and pointed the gun directly at her pretty plastic face. “My heart is worth more than a cheap sale, Roxy!” It was a showdown—me in my ruby pumps and her in silver cowboy boots. My arches were beginning to hurt, but I wasn’t about to give up. Then she pulled a dirty move and offered me a TV at wholesale. Running her finger along the top of a 36”, flat screen TV, she said, “I’ll give you my employee discount, too.” She smiled. Her blue contacts sparkled. But here was the rub. She added, “And I’ll throw in satellite cable.” Wholesale? With her employee discount? Endless channels with all of those lost, old reruns? I tried to resist but just couldn’t. I would’ve been foolish to pass this up and bought the thing.
The next night at the Stargazer, I asked Frank if he noticed anything different on the previous episode of “Prime Time Crusaders”. He said no and continued to dig into his pork fried rice, completely consumed by Roxy pitching a portable TV to a homeless person. I must admit, she was smooth but I wasn’t about to stand for being ignored. I was here in the flesh, and she was not. I grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.
“Why’d you do that,” Frank yelled, pointing his finger at the dark screen. “Roxy was just about to bag that guy!”
“You didn’t see me on ‘Prime Time Crusaders’ yesterday?”
“What are you talking about?”
“It was me who pointed that gun in Roxy’s face,” I said, trembling.
“That was you? I thought you just wrote poetry.”
“I’ve proved my love for you—first with my words and now with my actions. I even wore the shoes you gave me.” I dropped the remote onto the floor and said, “Does Roxy write poems about you?”
Frank sat still on the bed and looked into his bucket of Sweet and Sour Chicken. “Were you part of the obstacle schedule?”
“No,” I said. “I did it myself.”
“You jeopardized the integrity of that show… and the shoe.” Frank shook his head and balled each hand into a fist. “You, sweet girl, are un-American.”
Then Frank got up, put on his clothes and left me in the bed with cold take-out and a silent TV.
*
Outside, as I stand in front of the Stargazer Motel with my journal of poems, I think about all the waves and frequencies passing through my body and I think about Frank. It’s been seventeen days and no call. Maybe he lost my number or maybe it’s my bad connection or my phone message. Or maybe he’s just waiting until the end of “Prime Time Crusaders” to contact me. There’s a week left and Roxy is close to winning the grand prize. It’s really very exciting and she’s doing a stellar job, but deep down I want a TV to blow up in her face. If that happens, I want my body to absorb that episode so I can play it over and over in my mind.
So why does the girl continue to do what she does? Wait and hope? Hold onto words? Believe the man loves her enough to leave another woman? Because lying underneath the motel bedding feels like possibility, like she and the man are just resting the night before they hop in their car and take on the open road. But more than this is her wanting to find out what happens next. To her, this feels larger than possibility, greater than any good poem, even though she can not touch it. One night, when the girl was not quite a child and not quite a teenager, she sat next to her father who was watching a rerun of the last episode of MASH. In a sudden move, he took her hand and squeezed. He said, “Hawkeye isn’t going to leave BJ behind this time.” She knew her father had seen this many times, Hawkeye getting into the helicopter and as he rose over the Korean hills, he saw BJ’s message spelled out in stones—“Goodbye”. But that didn’t matter to her. She squeezed her father back and nodded, suspending her disbelief. Because at that moment, he had touched her. And in his way, he asked her to believe that anything was possible.
The girl holds onto this.
