Three Things That You Cannot Do On Television

by Benway

I suppose that none of this would have come about had I not found myself becoming bored while grading essays. As I did not wish to have this affect the grades of my students, I sought to take a short break and join my colleagues in the common room for a refreshing mug of coffee and some stimulating conversation. Unfortunately, when I arrived, the Most Boring Man In Michigan was expounding on the subject of the scandal and its relationship to the career of some recently retired basketball player to one of his graduate students, a poor man with insufficiently solid funding to be able to run away. Instead, I had to find an alternative diversion.

Had I been thinking, the bookstore would not have been my first choice of a destination, but I suppose that I am a creature of habit. Once, the entire main floor had held a dazzling collection of scholarly and academic books that had tempted me into unwise purchases on many occasions, but that was before its operation had been 'contracted out' to a national chain of giant bookstores. Since that organization had a megastore within ten miles of our campus and since our school attracts students on the basis of the connections they will make instead of anything so silly as the learning opportunities that it offers, the new managers had cleaned out most of the books and replaced them with items related to our football team, the focus of the recent scandal. They still sold texts, of course, but those had been relegated to the basement. Those of us who sought to read things that we were not told to read had to make do with a table of remainders hidden behind a display case of team- crested beer mugs if we were unwilling to drive to the big concrete box in the next suburb over. It was while I was looking over the items on the table of remainders that I caught sight of Grant and the men with the television cameras.

I suppose I should explain about Grant, as this may make the future course of events more clear. He was a handsome boy of 20, athletic and reasonably bright, but not on the football team. What made him stand out was his charm, charm that he was more than aware that he possessed. He always appeared as if he had just stepped out of one of those catalogs that people buy clothes from when they want to pretend that they went to a prep school. Even though this was at odds with the rather sloppy jeans and t-shirt look that most undergraduates followed that year, it failed not in the least to stop him from attracting seemingly every attractive girl on the campus. I suppose I was a little jealous, but after twenty years of this one gets used to it. That is, I might have gotten used to it if it were not for Rachel.

Rachel had attended my seminar on Poe in the same term that Grant took the class. She was a tiny little thing, making the most of her eating disorder to appear waif-like and enhance the general 'Goth' style that she sought to emulate. I would not have expected there to be any attraction between them at all, especially as Grant seemed to take rather great fun at abusing anyone in the seminar who said anything favorable about that terrible Rice woman. While I was aware that he was doing this primarily to suck up to me (didn't work, as I gave him a B- nonetheless), I was sure that it would put the poor girl off. If anything, it seemed to have the opposite effect. At the end of the fifth week, she arrived with him, hand in hand, and he said not a word about that terrible Rice woman. The next seminar began after they had a most terrible row in the hall, but all was well during the discussion, at which Rachel gave a most delightful presentation on Usher. Over the next few days, I saw the two of them on campus together, with her clinging to him as tightly as the ivy clings to the walls. At the seventh week seminar, Grant showed up with Celeste the New Age Dimwit on his arm, and Rachel was nowhere to be seen. She failed to attend the next two sessions and sent a lacklustre term paper to me by internal mail. I was forced to give her a C, and later found that she had dropped out at the end of term. Still, she was better off than that poor girl from Norma's American Lit class who slit her wrists after had Grant moved on.

After twenty years or so, I might have been able to overlook the entire Rachel-Grant incident as an example of one of the more depressing aspects of human nature, had I not seen Grant in front of the cameras and heard what he was going to say. It was quite the little piece of theatre, happening not more than ten feet from where I was standing behind the beer mug display. I heard Grant's well- spoken words echo off the wall behind, as he spoke into a camera held by a fat, balding producer, accompanied by the man from the TV news who thought that the Congo was in South America.

"It's terrible, it really is," intoned Grant in his best authoritative voice. "He had all the advantages of a scholarship to our great school, and he threw it all away on a bet. I think they should be kept off the football team, that's for sure."

I think I actually snarled in a quiet sort of way when I heard this, but I had good reason to.

In order to explain why this little statement should upset me, I must explain first the scandal, then something about myself. The scandal arose in the football team, and the student to whom Grant was referring was one of the many who the school recruited from the African-American community (A) because he could play football, (B) because he would put up with the education-killing 60-hour-a-week training program in order to get a shot at the NFL and escape a neighbourhood that offered him jail and/or an early death as likely fates, and (C) because we needed to some Black faces around here to keep our federal funding. This student, who I knew from the campus as one of the few Black students who didn't look very, very White, had thrown a key game in order to pay off some gambling debts, and was now facing a criminal charge from the state and demands for the repayment of $75,000 in tuition fees. Credits would not be available for transfer to his next school, if he were convicted. He was something of a cause celebre among some of us, those who are thoroughly sick of having all that money go to the team when it might be better spent by simply giving scholarships to students from those communities without requiring them to undertake gladiatorial combat on our behalf. Of course, the school could not do this, as it seems the undertaxed swine who finance this delightful private institution are quite happy to keep the school as lily-white as it was when they attended it and only donate the millions we always seem to need if they can get a free meal in the skyboxes in our stadium at Homecoming. Bastards.

At any rate, the problem with all this was the 'they' to which Grant was referring. The football player in question was a mutant, and had used some form of force-field power to trip his own quarterback at certain key times. The proposal that Grant was discussing was a rather unpleasant one, that would ban all mutants from participating in school athletics. I didn't like that proposal for many reasons. The quiet little freshman with the horn came to mind, who said nothing in the first few weeks of Freshman English until she found some friends and began showing up with said horn festooned with chains and rings and even a small glass globe at Xmas. Even so, the primary reason was selfish, namely that I myself am a mutant.

The power I possess is a humble one, one so minor that I don't even show up on the tests as a mutant. This has saved me from some grief, but not entirely. I had been very restrained in my use of my ability before this, especially after seeing the terrible humiliation that the emergence of my power had caused. My responsibility for that dreadful incident had never been uncovered, and several unfortunate women in my high school cafeteria had born the blame. Even so, it was a useful power, good for when I get the hiccups and even better in bed, but the less said of that, the better.

I suppose that I might never have been tempted, had that been the end of the interview. Instead, I heard this.

"That was great!" said the interviewer. "Can you do that again? We'll have the tape running this time."

I immediately saw what it would look like on the TV that evening. Grant, the very image of a respectable upper middle class young man, expounding in a voice made for television about the evils presented by the mutant scum on our football team. He would appear the very voice of calm and reason. I knew the editorial policy of this station and I knew that they would find a pro-mutant spokesperson not unlike that awful girl in my 19th Century American Lit discussion who would launch into a tirade at every non-gender-specific use of the male pronoun. I knew that I could never allow this to happen. It was my duty to put a stop to it.

The interviewer asked his leading question, and Grant began his poisonous little monologue. I concentrated hard, and at the end of his first sentence, Grant's face produced a malevolent, leering twitch of the sort not normally seen except among those in the streets who have not taken their medications.

"Cut," said the producer.

Grant was rubbing his face, looking a little stunned.

"What the hell was that?" said the interviewer.

"Nothing," said Grant. "Just a little neurological problem. I'm an epileptic."

"Oh, er, sorry," said the interviewer. "It didn't happen before."

"It's pretty rare," said Grant. "Maybe once a month when I'm on meds. It won't happen again."

"Look, Grant-" began the interviewer, clearly deciding to move on.

"Come on, Pete," said the producer. "The kid was great. We can't cut him just 'cause of that."

The interviewer looked thoughtful for a moment, as Grant gave a winning smile. I felt terrible. I had no idea if Grant was lying or not, but I did not want to risk anything serious happening to him through my actions. For this reason, I decided to shift my attentions away from his head. As the interviewer asked his question for a second time, I concentrated hard, and felt my power at work.

I was in for a disappointment. I had expected a loud trumpeting or at least some sort of sound, but Grant's functions were as suburban smooth as his delivery. He did not falter. I was horrified that he could manage this, in spite of what now must be filling up his shoes.

"Cut," said the producer.

"Shit," said the interviewer with unintended accuracy. "He almost had it. Why did you stop?"

"Because you looked like you were sucking on a lemon," said the producer. "Christ, kid, what have you been eating?"

"Chinese for dinner last night, sir," said Grant with a winning smile. "Sorry."

"Can you do it again?" the producer asked the interviewer.

"Fuck no," said the interviewer. "Let's get someone else."

"First, he's perfect," said the producer. "Second, my Mom had epilepsy. Pete, you hold the mike up to his face and I'll keep your face out of the shot. Kid, you run through what you did just now, and I'll shoot Pete asking the questions someplace else. I'll do a little editing and you'll be on the news tonight."

By now, I knew that Grant was a monster, fit only for a political career in the Republican Party. Measures were called for, and I applied what could be called the Australian Wine List strategy. As I concentrated, Grant quite suddenly lost his air of calm contentment.

"One more time, kid," said the producer, aiming his camera at Grant's face.

Grant's mouth worked in an interesting way that I could not hope to have produced.

"Well?" asked the producer, uncertainly.

My efforts paid off, and Grant's stomach proved to be much less discreet than his bowels. The poor boy managed a boot of Herculean proportions, spraying a residential breakfast across the camera, the interviewer, and rack of $85.00 sweatshirts emblazoned with the football team mascot.

"Oh God," said the interviewer, promptly turning aside and emptying the contents of his own stomach into a $50.00 plastic ice bucket that sported the school crest.

"Kid, your 15 minutes are up!" said the producer.

"Sorry," mumbled Grant as a full two dozen of fellow students looked on in horror.

It was only on my way back to the office that an even better idea occurred to me, and it was on the basis of that idea that I made my plans to travel to Washington in order to attend the Impeachment hearings.

FIN

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