Benny Jay: Weak Signal

I usually have at least two books going at once. But lately I've been in a reading funk, seems like I haven't read a good one in weeks.

Blame it on "The Wire." What a show. I might have gone my whole life without watching it -- never saw it when it was running on HBO, and it's been off the air for months. But Mike, the video store guy, told me about it -- said I absolutely had to see it, said it was the best show ever.

So I rented a DVD and after that I couldn't stop watching it. I'd be renting DVDs every other night. Mike must a made a fortune off of me. I was like a junkie, staying up to all hours, watching up to two or three episodes a night. Ran through five years worth of episodes in no time. Finished with a bang -- four shows in one night. Didn't get to bed `til five in the morning. Woke up in a daze, like I'd been on a drinking binge.

I say this all to let you know that when the night began I thought: Tonight's the night I read a book. But, you know how it goes -- once you're hooked on the tube it's hard to get unhooked. I remember Game Five's on ABC -- Lakers versus Orlando.

I turn the tube to Channel Seven. But Channel Seven doesn't work. Instead, a sign comes on: "Weak Signal."

"Weak Signal?" I mutter to myself. "What the fu...."

I surf around -- Channels Five, Nine and 32. They all work. All the funky little VHS stations work. I go back to Seven. "Weak Signal."

It must be that analog thing. I got the converter box 60 million years ago and Merlin -- our friend, the computer genius -- installed it. It had been working. But now it's not.

I turn off the TV and stare at the blank screen. I'm hoping that if I stare at it long enough, it will fix itself.

I turn it on. "Weak Signal."

I call up to the stairs to my wife. "Hey! The TV doesn't work...."

Silence. She's got the radio playing. So I yell louder: "THE TV DOESN'T WORK!"

"What?" she yells back.

"It's that analog thing," I yell.

"You have to reload it," yells my younger daughter.

I'm stunned that she of all people would have an opinion on this. "How do you know?" I yell.

"I heard it on TV...."

I look at the screen. "Did you say to unplug it?" I yell.

"No, reload...."

"Reload?"

"Yes...."

"Reload?" I mutter to myself. "What the hell does that mean?"

I look at the TV changer. I look at the screen. It's like I'm expecting one or the other to tell me what to do.

"How do you reload it?" I yell up the stairs.

"Call Merlin," yells my wife.

I find the phone. I call Merlin. He's not in. I leave a message, something like: "Merlin, you won't believe this, but the TV doesn't work. My daughter says to reload it. But I don't know what that means...."

I hang up. I try again. "Weak Signal." What a joke. It's bad enough I can't watch basketball most of the year cause I don't have cable. Now I can't even watch it when it's on Free TV. They made such a big deal about how getting rid of analog was gonna improve our lives, but they somehow managed to make things worse.

I throw the TV changer on the table, flop on the couch, and lie still for a moment. I hear my daughter and wife moving about upstairs. I casually look to my left and lying on the living room table -- beneath an old, unread copy of Time Magazine -- is a book: "City of Thieves" by David Benioff.

I remember buying it weeks ago on an impulse. Forgot all about it while I was hooked on "The Wire." I pick it up and start reading. It's about these two young men -- one's only 17 -- wandering through Leningrad in the winter of 1942 when the Nazis are shelling the hell out of their city. You figured it'd be ghastly depressing. But Benioff's got a dark sense of humor. The two boys haven't eaten a decent meal in weeks. They're both constipated. They have this one exchange:

"`When was the last time you had a shit?' Kolya asked me, abruptly.

"`I don't know. A week ago?'

"`It's been nine days for me. I've been counting. Nine days! When it finally happens, I'll have a big party and invite the best-looking girls from the university.'"

I laugh out loud when I read that bit. There are few things in life as pleasurable as reading a passage that makes you laugh out loud. I keep reading. I forget where I am. Time goes by. I'm a hundred pages or so into the story. It occurs to me -- the game must be over. I wonder who won. I click on the TV. "Weak Signal."

I know my wife can fix it -- she's freaking genius with this sort of thing (remind me to tell you about the time she fixed my ex-brother-in-law's vacuum cleaner). But it will probably be months before she gets around to taking the time to figure it out. Oh, well, we'll survive.

I return to my book. We're better off without this shit anyway....