Saturday, July 23, 2016

High-Def



 

 

As he grew older, Lysne watched more cable news. Because he liked to hear different perspectives, he channel-surfed, using his remote to switch from liberal to conservative stations and back again. Lysne’s wife rose early in the morning and so she went to bed at nine o’clock. His twin grand daughters lived in the basement of the house and used a separate side-door entry and, so, Lysne rarely saw them. Sometimes, he heard them playing music, raw-sounding stuff growled by men with deep bass voices. To Lysne, the music was a cry for help to which he didn’t know how to respond.

Each week, Lysne recorded sporting events broadcast on ESPN – mostly basketball games or, in season, football. He watched the games while sorting through invoices or accounts payable from his business, selling, installing and servicing garage doors. He sat on his couch with his silver money box next to him and his laptop computer and worked on his books watching TV out of the corner of his eye. When he was done with this work, Lysne made popcorn in the microwave and watched the game underway more attentively. At 10:00 pm, he switched to the local news and checked on the headlines, usually a police chase out in the country or arrests for heroin or methamphetamine, sometimes a fundraiser for a local library or the animal humane society, a corpse fished from a green river, trucks overturned on the freeway and bad weather hurrying in his direction. After perusing the local news, he switched to cable to see what was happening in Washington and with the political parties, watching panels of commentators insulting one another. In other parts of the world, the Tv showed him that children fought wars and refugees drowned in storms or died crossing deserts and, on the grey steppes of the Middle East, cities were on fire, corkscrew clouds of oily smoke rising into colorless skies. Sometimes, planes crashed and there were volcanoes and earthquakes, forest fires and landslides. A little after 11:00, the misery in the world and the political debate seemed less pressing and interesting to him and he rested his eyes, thinking that he would just listen a little with his ears since the images were superfluous to the spoken commentary, and, then, it would be midnight, the twins returned from where ever they had been and their half-heard music rousing him from his slumber on the couch so that, dizzy with sleepiness, Lysne would stand up and stretch and, then, make his way up the steps to his bedroom.

One night, Lysne watched a debate about tax policy in which each speaker called the other a liar. There was nothing to see but handsome and indignant faces glistening in the light as they shouted at one another and, so, Lysne decided to rest his eyes. When he closed his eyelids, he could hear everything clearly enough and, even, perhaps, follow the argument with greater focus and, then, the timbre of the voices changed and became more urgent. He shook himself awake and saw the quiet room and silver money box on the coffee table in front of him, his bare feet on the hardwood floor next to the white socks that he had earlier removed, the yellow light of the lamp reflected on a black windowpane, his laptop computer closed but a green LED on its side blinking mysteriously, deep darkness outside beyond the curtains and the window where the headlights of a car sometimes flashed past.

The TV set showed a street flanked by apartment buildings with corroding iron balconies. In a haze of orangish light, some men in blue and white uniforms were crouched behind vehicles aiming rifles in the direction of a sidewalk café and a niche in a building where there was an ATM machine. A body rested on the sidewalk in front of the ATM machine. Then, the TV showed a crowd of people, mostly young, running like a herd of wildebeests startled by predator. The young people’s faces looked blank and they ran toward the cameraman, parting to pass around him. A siren wailed and some ambulances erupted from a side-street, turned and hurled down the boulevard – a palm tree stood near an intersection and, in the distance, ruins lit by spotlights rose above the city on a mesa-top protected by fluted cliffs. Voices spoke in an untranslated undercurrent while an announcer said in English that it was an active shooter situation and that, at least, 10 people were known to be dead. The number of terrorists was thought to be three or, possibly, four. Although the word "LIVE" was emblazoned across the images, the pictures looped, repeating themselves: the apartment buildings with rusted balconies, the armed men taking aim, the herd of young people running, ambulances, and the spot-lit ruins. The announcer said that the shooters had escaped, possibly into a subway. A map of the city punctuated the footage loop, an amoeba-shaped network of streets and mass transportation routes. From time to time, the newscaster turned to commentators who said that it was "a fluid situation" and that early information is most wrong and that no one really knew what was happening in this foreign capitol across the sea.

Lysne watched with interest. He channel-surfed. The other stations had the same images, but filmed, it seemed, from a slightly different angle. A couple seconds of cell-phone video showed a man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt waving a small weapon with a skeletal stock in the air – the muzzle flashed and, then, video looped back to the beginning. It was pretty apparent that no one had any reliable information as to what was happening in the over-seas capitol. A blonde woman with an impassive beautiful face said that no one had yet taken credit for the shootings. She pouted and tried to look worried and nibbled at little bit at her full, brightly lipsticked lips. A strange-shaped armored car rolled into a defensive position, crushing a bed of savagely red tulips in the median of the boulevard. Lysne decided that he would go to bed. In the morning, he would turn on the TV and find out how many people had been killed and if Americans were among them and whether the terrorists had been captured or shot down in a hail of bullets and politicians in Washington would debate the significance of the incident with respect to citizens like Mr. Lysne.

The TV was high-def, big as a picture window. The large flat-screen television had been an expensive investment for Lysne, but he was glad that he had the TV and enjoyed watching it – sports, football in particular, was fantastically clear and beautiful on the big high-def screen: the huge players in their bulging white armor stood under coruscating lights on emerald green fields and, when they moved in concert, it was like a ballet. Lysne gazed in admiration at the screen and the foreign capitol with its distant acropolis, columns and pediments enbalsamed in amber light, a procession of ambulances sliding sideways across the foreground and the running ticker below the image, a crawling compendium of today’s headlines like the yellow-tape guarding a crime scene, and, then, just as he reached for the remote, two of the gunmen came through the screen, wiggling down from the flat-screen as if they were climbing through a window.

One of the gunmen was wounded and his swarthy face was drenched in sweat. Lysne saw that he had a saucer-sized wound in his side and, as he fell down on the hardwood floor, blood splashed out of him. The other gunman wore a black bandana over his curly dark hair. He seemed strangely calm, even serene, pointing the muzzle of his long gun at Lysne. The gunman was wearing black hooded sweatshirt with khaki pants bulging with ammunition. His military-style boots looked heavy but he moved in them quickly. Lysne was afraid that his remote-control would be mistaken for a weapon and so he tossed it onto the couch next to him. The gunman barked something at Lysne, then, stooped and seized the wounded man by the front of his shirt, hauling him across the floor to the corner of the room. The wounded man grunted with pain and, then, lifted his revolver and waved it in Lysne’s direction. The other man had set the injured fighter against the wall so that he had a clear vantage on the steps leading upstairs, the front door, and the opening into the kitchen and dining room. The revolver seemed too heavy for the wounded gunman and it kept drooping to point down at the floor where a pool of blood was accumulating.

"I am dreaming," Lysne said. "This is all happening half-a-world away."

The gunman with the rifle moved forward and shouted at Lysne.

"I don’t understand you," Lysne said. "English... can you speak English?"

The gunman shrugged. He was small and wiry, bantam-sized with a weightlifter’s body. He had remarkably large dark eyes and a pencil-thin moustache and Lysne thought that the gunman was a very handsome man.

"Who’s here?" the gunman asked.

"Just me. I’m alone," Lysne said.

"Do you have a car?" Lysne couldn’t place the man’s accent.

"No, I don’t," Lysne said.

"Everyone here has a car," the gunman said. "I went to school at UW, in Madison. I know you."

"I don’t have a car," Lysne said again.

The terrorist stepped forward and put the muzzle of his gun into the pit of Lysne’s belly, leaning forward to push hard against him. Lysne yelped – it felt as if the gun barrel was going to penetrate his abdomen.

"Okay, okay," Lysne said.

The gunman stepped back and Lysne reached into his pocket, handing the terrorist his car keys.

On the television, a journalist with an open shirt was interviewing a young woman. The young woman was chattering in an excited voice. Several onlookers with gleaming eyes stood in the shadowy background. Another cell-phone video showed a shooter running around a corner and, then, there was a popping sound like a string of fireworks.

Lysne’s wife came to the top of the steps.

"What’s happening?" she cried. The wounded man lifted his pistol and fired a shot that ripped through the rail of the stairway banister, splintering wood. The gunman with the rifle turned in her direction and his gun flashed and jerked like a snake against his torso. Lysne’s wife toppled backward onto the landing. As she fell, her body twisted against the wall where there were several high-school graduation pictures, Lysne’s son and his two granddaughters, and the framed photographs dropped onto the carpet. Lysne stood up.

"You can’t do this," he cried.

The terrorist with the rifle shot Lysne in the head.

Then, he shouted something to the wounded man, running to the front door, and pushing through it. Across the street, the lights in several houses flashed on. The gunman smelled the lilacs and the breath of rain in the wind. Lysne’s car was in his garage, behind the house in an inconspicuous alley, hidden behind his steel and vinyl garage door. The terrorist looked up and down the sidewalk, scanning the cars parked along the curb. He darted to the first car and tried to open it, but the key wouldn’t work. The car alarm began to wail rhythmically and more lights flashed on in nearby houses.

The gunman saw a car approaching and heard sirens. Across the street, an alleyway led between houses. He ran down the alleyway, bumping against a garbage can, that spun around and, then, dropped, rolling loudly over the concrete. There were puddles in the alley and, as the lights in the houses were turned on, the water caught the glint from the windows.

In Lysne’s living room, the air smelled of cordite and a thin fuse-like ribbon of smoke hung in the air. The wounded man had dropped his pistol and his head was slumped down on his chest. On the wide-screen high-definition TV, a worried announcer said that the gunmen who had killed people in the foreign capitol were still at large.

 

 

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