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New, sick & twisted fiction from Cesare Weltschmerz

but please don't feed my television screen

please don't feed my television screen

please don't feed my television screen

-Misfits, TV Casualty

Scene from the 1983 film, Videodrome

Mr. Jersawitz said it was a promotional thing to attract new tenants. I figured replacing the disgusting carpets, or fixing the elevators, was a better idea. I guess this was cheaper. Whatever, at least we'd have something to watch and not have to pay for it.

Eddie was useless as always, ass planted in his recliner, bong bubbling away, as me and Mr. Jersawitz slid the TV out. It was an ancient, wood-paneled thing Eddie'd gotten from his grandma, and it was a bitch to move. It didn't take Mr. Jersawitz long to hook everything up.

Our landlord looked like Danny Devito in Batman Returns and wore ratty white shirts with suspenders. He told us how he ran with the hippie crowd back in the day, and knew Jim Morrison, Timothy Leary, and Allen Ginsberg. That was pretty rad if any of it was true. After we got the TV pushed back, he handed Eddie the remote.

“That oughta work with the box up there. Go ahead, give her a try.”

The TV clicked on, taking a few seconds for the picture to fade in.

“Holy shit,” Eddie said. “The picture looks amazing!”

He was right, it was crystal clear. You could even see the pores in the news lady's face. The sound quality was amazing, too. She was saying something about a plane going into a building, but it cut off as Eddie began surfing the channels. Each one looked as good as the last.

Finally, he settled on MTV. At least I think that's what it was. They were playing Beck's music video for “Loser”. I'd seen it before, but it was different from how I remembered. The stop-motion animated coffin released a swarm of bats that attacked a homeless guy outside a liquor store. The girls dancing in the graveyard were different, too. One was morbidly obese; the other was an anorexic toothpick. Instead of a guy in a skeleton mask dancing behind them, it was a Kurt Cobain lookalike with part of his skull missing. I thought that was in poor taste considering he'd only offed himself a few months back. Then I realized I was about to be late for work.

“Well, guys, I gotta be off. Thanks again for hooking up the cable, Mr. Jersawitz.”

“Please, call me Lenny.'

“Sure thing. Later.”

I was an assistant manager at a donut shop. I worked the overnight shift. Business was always good, with all the college kids and cops. It wasn't ideal, but I got plenty of overtime. Eddie's disability checks, selling shitty weed, and occasional cash from his grandma barely covered his half of expenses. So, I slaved away at the donut shop and saved what I could. It wasn't all bad, though. I did get to work with Amy.

She worked the second shift after class, and if things were slow, we'd sneak a joint and hang out. We dug a lot of the same bands and writers, and what can I say? She was hot—one of those small, skinny chicks, who for whatever reason have big, fat tits.

Eventually, I worked up the nerve to ask her out, and she was down. We went to see a few local bands and would meet up at house parties since she wasn't old enough for the bars. Things were going good, but we hadn't done the deed yet. We'd gotten close a few times in my car, but no luck. She didn't want to bring me around her nosy roommates and bringing her to my place was out of the question.

It wasn't just that thanks to Eddie our apartment was barely livable. I didn't want Amy anywhere near him. In addition to a total lack of hygiene, he was unstable. One night, he almost stabbed me in the leg with a carving knife while drunk and showing off “karate moves”.

I'd been broke and desperate when I moved in. I just couldn't bring myself to go crawling back to mom and dad after dropping out of college. The only problem is now I didn't know what to do. Every job out there seemed shitty—except maybe being a roadie for Pantera or White Zombie.

It was a bad night at work.

Some guys from the basketball team came in drunk around four a.m. After they left, I found the men's room destroyed. The name of the basketball team had been spray painted on the stall door, and the sink, floor, walls, and toilet seat were all pissed on. It could've been worse. By the time I cleaned that up and did inventory, it was ninety minutes past my usual quitting time.

When I got home, Eddie was still watching TV, his hand in furious motion under his blanket. He hadn't noticed me walk in.

“Uh, hey man.”

“How's it goin',” he mumbled, finally acknowledging me.

He didn't have porn or anything sexual on. It looked like a documentary.

“Most regard incest as a serious taboo,” said the host, a gray-haired man in a beige trench coat. “But not Christine Chapman. According to her, when it comes to true love, there are no boundaries.”

The camera cut to Christine, who was clearly a middle-aged man with a receding hairline. He wore a pink baby doll shirt with a badly drawn rodent of some kind on it, and a denim skirt. I felt nauseous watching him try to cross his flabby, hairy legs. His Southern drawl had a creepy, childlike quality.

“Nobody picks who they love. I spent years and years on my Love Quest just to find out what I was lookin' for was right here at home.”

The camera cut back to the host, sitting across from Christine and nodding profoundly.

“And you're referring to your mother, is that correct?”

Christine smiled and nodded.

“Seriously, man, what the fuck?” I said, but Eddie was too busy playing with himself to notice.

“HEY!”

He looked away from the screen to roll his eyes at me.

“Calm down, man. Here, I gotta fresh one packed,” he said, sliding the bong over with his foot.

“Yeah, no thanks. I'm going to bed. I really hope you get help. In the meantime, for the love of God, take a shower for once and wash that fucking bath robe!”

I slammed the door of our only bedroom, which Eddie graciously let me have while he slept in his recliner. After locking the door behind me, I collapsed on the bed.

I was exhausted but too freaked out to fall asleep. I tried reading some Naked Lunch, but the absurdity of Burroughs was too much just then. Instead, I put my headphones on and listened to an album Amy had lent me from a band called Marilyn Manson. It was a creepy one, but I passed out to it anyway.

I woke up to the TV blaring in the other room with the most horrifying voice I've ever heard. After getting over my initial fright, I was pissed. I'd barely slept and now I had to worry about our neighbors calling the cops. I threw open the door to yell at Eddie.

“Hey, man, you need to turn that shit down right n—ah—are those thigh highs you're wearing?”

Yes, they were. White ones with blue and pink stripes.

Horrible as that was, it wasn't nearly as bad as what was on the tv.

“Christine” had become a monster. It was mostly a gigantic head, with makeup caked over a five o' clock shadow. Under the head were a bunch of hairy, sagging tits. It crawled on chrome spider legs with fishnets and high heels. Where its mouth should have been, there was a speaker that vibrated when it spoke. It was on a stage, in the middle of some psychotic stand-up routine.

“Don't you just HATE when some carbon-based chud bigot tries telling you to stop sodomizing 'his' offspring? It's like, hey, do you know what year it is, you cromulent fuckcrustable? Kids belong to us all, not just the breeders who spanwed 'em!”

The audience laughed and cheered. They didn't sound any more human than that thing on the stage. All together, they started to scream something that sounded like: “X'PHYGHLL TH'TEEAUGH, XYZ, X'PHYGHLL TH'TEEAUGH!”

“Just the other day this happened to me,” Christine continued. “Fascist piece of shit tried to stop me, so I ripped his spine out through his ass!”

The audience responded with something along the lines of: “Y'HAAUGHZ KW'HEEAUGHN, X'LEEAUGH!”

Christine doubled over; its face contorted in pain.

The TV was so loud, I couldn't believe there weren't cops kicking our door in. I turned the knob to switch it off, but nothing happened. I wiped the fingers I'd touched it with on my pants. For some reason, they felt gross.

There was a thump from the TV.

A live baby had fallen out of Christine's...I don't wanna know. Christine reached down with an appendage like a scorpion’s tail and neatly snipped the umbilical cord. The chrome tail sprayed a greenish-purple fluid all over the baby. I had to cover my ears when the baby started shrieking. It didn't stop until it had half dissolved. The tail slithered down, with the barbed end planting itself in the baby's guts.

“U'URRGGH K'NTZLHD XW'EEAUGHTY!” the audience screamed.

The slurping sounds that followed were the last straw for me.

“Make it stooooop!” I screamed, collapsing to my knees, trying not to curl up into the fetal position.

“Hey, shut the fuck up in there!” bellowed Christine.

When I looked at the screen it was staring right at me. Its eyes were black camera lenses with two pinpricks of red light like hateful peepholes drilled into hell.

I struggled to slide the TV forward. The plug wouldn't budge, even after yanking with both hands. I hadn't noticed Eddie getting out of his recliner or grabbing the carving knife.

He stood in front of me with his bathrobe open, his hard-on pointing an accusation. His chest rose and fell, he ground his teeth and grunted like an ape. What little fight I had in me deflated. I took my hands off the plug and stood up as slowly as possible.

“Just making sure everything's plugged in,” I had to shout. My eyes darted from his face to the knife in his hand. “You mind grabbing me a beer? A cold one sure sounds good right about now.”

Eddie just stared vacantly, starting to drool. I thought it was over, that I was about to be murdered and violated, and the last thing I'd hear would be the TV's evil nonsense. I breathed a long sigh of relief when Eddie grunted, then lumbered off to the kitchen.

I couldn't get down the hall to the stairs fast enough. In the other apartments, the TVs were blasting demonic broadcasts of their own. Oh no, I thought before taking a spill halfway down the last flight of stairs. It's the whole goddamn building. Maybe the whole complex.

The adrenaline allowed me to power limp to the parking lot, where Mr. Jersawitz was waiting.

He looked up from spraying the sidewalk with weedkiller and waved.

“Good afternoon. How you boys digging the cable?”

I just had to believe it was all an accident, that this nice old man hadn't beamed all this evil shit into our apartment deliberately. But how the hell was I supposed to explain?

“Yeah, about that...Lenny. I think there might be a problem. Our TV is showing some sick, messed up stuff. I'm pretty sure it's not even cable. I don't know what it is.

Mr. Jersawitz adjusted his glasses.

“What's the matter, you don't like the programs?”

“No,” I told him, starting to lose my composure. “Fuck no. I don't see how anybody could be into shit like that.”

“What about Eddie, how's he liking the programs?”

“Well, in the last few hours, he's gotten into cross-dressing, and I'm pretty sure he was about to kill me when I tried unplugging the TV.

Mr. Jersawitz nodded slowly, looking disappointed.

“Not everyone takes to it,” he sighed. “After all these trials, there's still a few holdouts. Still a few bugs to fix.”

If I hadn't brought my hands up at that exact second, he would have gotten me in both eyes. One eye full of weedkiller was bad enough.

I started to scream, hobbling half-blind to my car. I was at the driver's side door fumbling for the keys when Mr. Jersawitz yelled out.

“Get him, Bob, he wants to take the TV away!”

Just as I had the key in the lock, I made the mistake of looking behind me.

Bob was a mechanic the next building over. He was drunk whenever he wasn't at work. Every other week, he'd get into a shouting match in his underwear with Mr. Jersawitz, who told us Bob hadn't been the same since 'Nam.

Now Bob was sprinting at me.

His hairy gut hung over a dripping, filthy diaper that spattered his legs with each stride. He panted and growled from under a leather dog mask. I had just slammed and locked the car door when he smashed into it, shaking the whole frame. He barked and growled and pounded at the window while I struggled to get the engine going.

He busted through the window just as I got it started.

He grabbed my shirt collar, and in my panic, I slammed into the car in front of me before throwing it in reverse. Now he had me by the throat, keeping up with the car as it sped up. I might have gotten choked out if the stench coming off him hadn't made me puke on his arm, causing him to loosen his grip. I backed into a tree, then threw it into drive and swung right, hitting Bob and running him over. I almost hit Mr. Jersawitz too when I peeled out of the parking lot, taking a blind run into the traffic on the road.

The truck behind me stopped just short of my bumper, and I got away with only a few pissed off honks.

Once the apartments were well out of sight, I took a moment to examine how badly fucked up I was. My left eye still burned, and in the mirror, I could see how red it was. My ribs and right knee throbbed from my trip down the stairs, and tomorrow I expected nasty bruises on my throat. There was puke on my shirt and pants.

I'd eventually have to call my folks, but despite everything I still couldn't bring myself to do it right away. Meanwhile, there was only one other person to go to. After pulling in front of a liquor store, I counted out the change in my cup holder and got on a payphone.

It was a Saturday, so Amy was at work earlier than usual. After telling her I wouldn't be able to make my shift, I told her that Eddie had gone crazy and attacked me. I then asked if I could stay the night at her place.

She told me she wasn't off till ten, so she'd call her roommates to let them know I was coming. I found a spare work shirt in the backseat, then stopped at a gas station to clean up in the bathroom.

Amy and her roommates had a bungalow a few blocks from campus. Her roommate Megan let me in and told me I could relax on the couch and watch TV, then went upstairs to study.

I definitely didn't feel like watching TV, so I started slamming the cheap whiskey I'd grabbed from the liquor store. The bottle was half empty by the time I passed out.

Christine towered over me; its vibrating speaker mouth emitted a deafening screech. I rolled onto my stomach—so painfully slow—and tried crawling away. In front of me was the edge of the stage and the audience beyond it: an ocean of mutants that defied meaningful description. The screeching gave way to the rumbling of their terrible chant.

Y'HAAUGHZ KW'HEEAUGHN, X'LEEAUGH!

Amy shook me awake. I pushed her away and fell off the couch, still hearing that godawful chant. It took a few seconds to be sure I was actually in her living room.

Once I'd calmed down, Amy hugged me and rubbed my back. My face took refuge between her fat jugs. I'm not proud of it, but I started crying.

“It's so bad,” I wheezed. “I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm so fucked, Amy.”

She kept rubbing my back and whispering that it would be okay. What happened next was unexpected. It almost made up for everything else that happened.

Almost.

After, she went upstairs to grab me a pillow and blanket. She'd have let me sleep with her, but she didn't want her roommates gossiping any more than they already would.

Just when it seemed like things might be okay after all, the front door went flying off the hinges.

“Get down on the ground! Now, goddamit!”

A SWAT team came piling in, the lasers on their rifles trained on me and Amy. I did exactly as they said. One of them planted a boot between my shoulder blades and zip-tied my wrists together.

There was a sharp pinch in my neck, and then there was nothing.

There were no dreams, only moments of bright lights and beeping, the occasional muffled voice. I woke up in a hospital bed with electrodes attached to my head and chest. My vision focused, and I saw that aside from my bed and the machines I was plugged to, there was nothing but bare gray walls and a heavy steel door. A security camera whirred in the upper left corner.

The right side of my head felt weird, and when I put my fingers to it, I shuddered. A line of stitches started at my temple and curved around my ear.

The door opened with a clank. A guy in a black suit with a gray crew-cut walked in. After muttering into his wrist, he greeted me.

“Good afternoon. I see the operation went well. It's a surprise to see you up so soon, a very pleasant surprise.”

I bolted up from the bed, even though I felt weak and tied down by all the wires. It was pure instinct. All I wanted was to rip this fed's throat out. Take out an eye. Shatter one of his balls. Anything was better than just lying there at his mercy. He was faster, though, and whipped out a black device that buzzed wickedly.

“Ah, that's close enough,” he said, zapping me in the ribs.

The jolt knocked me into one of the monitors, which then fell on top of me. The fed pulled the monitor off and dug three fingers into a pressure point between my neck and shoulder. The pain shot through my back and chest instantly. I thought he was about to rip out my collarbone.

“Listen, son,” he said, digging the fingers of his other hand under my jaw. “You're on the taxpayer's time, now. So do you wanna cut out the malarkey, or would you like learning how to eat with no mandible?”

He started talking into his wrist as I crawled back into bed.

“No need for that. The implant can give us all the data we need.”

The fed cleared his throat and straightened his tie.

“Anyways, I'm Agent Gloneck. Sorry you've had such a rough time, but I'm afraid that's what we in the biz call collateral damage, ho-ho. As you're probably aware by now, you've been part of an experiment, one that's moving on to its next phase. Lenny's done some great work for us over the years, but he's gotten a bit long in the tooth, and his delivery method has been hit or miss. Fortunately, we got this wiz kid from South Africa working on something new and very exciting. Granted, it won't be ready for another few decades, but that's why we gotta hit the ground running. I just want you to know that your country thanks you in advance for your sacrifice.”

“I don't get it, man,” I said, desperate to buy some time. “Is this for like, national security or something?”

Agent Gloneck raised an eyebrow,

“National security? Ho-ho, right. You just leave that to the experts, son. Well, it appears we're running behind schedule, so I must be off. I'll talk to you later...maybe. Best of luck.”

He smiled his stupid, phony smile, and slammed the door behind him.

It started a few minutes later.

No matter how hard I covered my ears, their thunderous and insane chanting washed over and through me.

Even after gouging out my eyes, I was still forced to watch.