This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “In Plain View” Down in the Dirt, v195 (the 5/22 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Final Frontier the Down in the Dirt May-August 2022 issues collection book		get the 420 page May-August 2022 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Running Out of Time the 2022 poetry, flash fiction, prose, & art collection anthology		get the one-of-a-kind poetry, flash fiction, prose, artwork & photography collection anthology as a 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

In Plain View

Chuck Teixeira

    By the mid-50s, the local affiliate of the National Broadcasting Corporation occupied the television in our living room. The NBC signal came from the roof of the Miners National Bank. That building was miles away, in Wilkes-Barre, but we could see it from the kitchen window in our house on Rose Hill. Other network affiliates transmitted from Scranton or towers even more remote.
    Although our television was an entry-level Admiral, too weak to pick up signals from Scranton, the Kinsevej family next door had a powerful Zenith with a motorized antenna on the roof. Their son, Jimmy, and I would switch channels with the hard, black plastic knob and take in whatever mischief was afoot in northeastern Pennsylvania. Ordinarily, there was not much in plain view although our Congressman, Dapper Dan Flood, later copped a plea for perjury and graft.
    Like our family, the Kinsevej’s had European relatives who had died in Nazi or Soviet camps. So, whenever the networks showed war documentaries, we felt obliged to watch. Jimmy was sober during the reels that showed naked, skin-and-bone corpses and survivors. I resisted interest in their private parts. I guess I was holding out for a time when Jimmy would accept interest in his. Footage from the Pacific Theater had a harder time holding Jimmy’s attention. I was afraid of combat and water, so I was glad he turned it off. We were too happy together to struggle with all the lessons that serious programming taught.
    We archived those teachings when the networks buried their documentaries about the war. Instead, Jimmy and I would enjoy projections of the contemporary urban East and the pioneer desert West, lives that were more remarkable and often more fragile than our own.
    Deep into fall and winter, the calendar controlled the programs. Thanksgiving and Christmas were obligatory, especially on variety shows with celebrity hosts. On Rose Hill, there were two important viewing religions, and both had their champions. There was Perry Como for us Catholics, and fungible Protestants for everyone else. Jimmy cautioned that, whatever the target denomination, the shows were produced by secular Jews. His warning and my silence may have indicated that some of the lessons of genocide had not been thoroughly learned or had already been forgotten.
    Television in November was usually less stressful than in December because Thanksgiving drew fewer distinctions in faith. Ordinarily, Perry Como’s Special concluded with a monumental but uncontroversial “Bless This House.” One Thanksgiving, however, he closed with “Our Father.” We were devout altar boys, so when the hymn veered into “For Thine is the Kingdom,” a bid for the ecumenical demographic, Jimmy turned off the show and, for a while longer, away from sin.
    The beauty parlor down the street was the real obstacle to Jimmy’s allowing interest in his privates. The owner was the only observably gay person we knew. I think Jimmy was afraid that if he let me touch his privates, we would turn immediately into flamboyant hairdressers and be obsessed forever with weight-loss, fashion and grooming. I had a hunch that, whatever curses came with love, there was room for more transient interests.
    Aside from television, other media would seize a theme until the public tired. I remember the seasons of circus life. There were several films about the Big Top — spectaculars with high wire acrobats and trapeze artists. These aerial feats often involved refusal to perform with a net, to stifle cowardice or to attract spectators from rival entertainments. To Jimmy’s delight, no-net performances often climaxed in splattered death.
    Movies were too expensive to enjoy more than once, so adult comic books became our favorite media for circus rivalry and other intrigue. I say our favorite because my mom bought the graphic novels and, despite Dad’s disapproval, let us read the ones in which her interest waned. They gilded summer afternoons with Jimmy, the Kinsevej’s sofa yielding to our front porch swing. Although I have forgotten why performers hated each other, I remember certain frames. In one, a Burt Lancaster look-alike somersaults on the high wire. In the next, overcome by jealousy, the Tony Curtis surrogate lets Burt slip and fall. In still another, bombshells Gina and Sophia, hang dead from listless trapeze, matching swords protruding from their breasts. I credit those murders with my first ejaculations — those and, when Jimmy finally dropped his trousers, the peach-white knob and melons that he finally let me kiss.
    Television and film were important for a week or so at a time. But treachery and lust in low-tech comics made a real difference in our lives. Not that Jimmy or I joined the circus or committed murder. But they pushed us, in plain view, across the threshold into flesh.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...