Free A Changed Man by Francine Prose Page B

cleared out everything but the thirty-six-inch TV and a couple of beat-up couches. He couldn’t have found a better way to yank Mom’s chain. She despises the humongous TV. She never comes down to Dad’s room. But then, she never did. At the time, it had seemed normal. But later Danny wondered: Wouldn’t you think something was wrong if your husband came home from the office and spent every minute downstairs couch-potatoed in front of the tube? Once again, his mom worries about everything except the things she should worry about. Which is what Dad said once about Danny. So it gets confusing.
    Everyone fights with their parents about how long they’re allowed to watch TV. But only Danny and Max get to fight about watching it in their dad’s old room, on a television so expensive that Mom can’t make herself throw it out.
    Brain-dead Max imagines he’s getting the remote. “What’s on Chandler ?” he says.
    Danny grabs the changer. “The usual bogus shit.”
    “Let’s just see,” pleads Max.
    “Forget it, creep,” says Danny.
    It’s strange how everyone watches Chandler. It’s really just a talk show, and Chandler is an annoying rich black dude who quit a million-dollar corporate law job to get real, get down with the street. Last year the network picked up his contract for fifty million dollars. So Chandler came out okay. His show is such a big hit that it runs during the dinner hour to compete with the news. They advertise it that way: The good news is on Chandler. It’s what all the mothers—except Danny’s—watch on those miniature TVs they set up in the kitchen for when they’re cooking. What’s doubly strange is how the kids in school talk about what they saw on Chandler. And it’s not just the teachers bringing it up. Maybe it’s because Chandler has shows that are actually interesting, especially if you happen to be so stoned that his guests seem smart.
    Every so often, Chandler gets it right, like that program with the high-school kids talking about global warming. Not the usual geeks you see on those shows. All the girls were hot and intelligent. The guys were guys you’d be friends with. But Danny’s not in the mood for Chandler right now. It’s creepy that when the skinhead was on Chandler, Danny predicted that Meyer and Mom would get a Nazi of their own.
    Danny changes from the Cartoon Channel to MTV. Then he hits the mute button.
    “Listen” he says. “Do you know who that guy upstairs is? ”
    “Duh,” Max says. “You and I watched that Chandler together.”
    “Max, man, this is not some talk-show guest. Did you see the guy’s arm?”
    “I’m not stupid,” Max says. “We read Night last semester, asshole. I hated it, remember. I had to write that cut-and-paste poem with phrases from the book.”
    “I still can’t believe they made you read that. They should have made you do Anne Frank.”
    Max says, “Plus, do you think I’m so retarded I don’t know where Mom works?”
    “Sorry,” says Danny. “I’m not saying you’re retarded. It’s just weird, is all.”
    “It is weird. Mom’s out of her fucking mind.”
    “Language!” Danny imitates Mom.
    As he turns toward the big screen, Max idly gives Danny the finger. The two boys fall silent, attempting to lip-read what the moderately hot Asian girl is saying through her tears.
    “Put the sound on,” Max says.
    “Bite me,” Danny replies.
    The camera pulls back to show the Asian girl sitting by a pool, at night. It’s Key West. Danny’s seen this one before. Subhita has a drinking problem and has been arguing with the other girls in the house.
    Max says, “Do you think we should call Dad? Should we tell him about this guy?”
    This is what Danny means about the gaps in his brother’s information—for example, about who Dad is. Their father’s a jerk who went to live in Manhattan in a boring high-rise apartment with Lorraine, the widow of his dead partner, Jeffrey. Before she hooked up with Jeffrey,