Sidney Hamilton watched TV.
Channel 2 and another showing of a Police Academy movie.
Channel 3. Showtime, not much better than HBO, some spoof of a movie he didn't like anyway.
Channel surfing is an art form. It requires skill and dexterity. Commercials are land mines that must be avoided at all costs. The only thing worse is a soap or a game show rerun. He always wondered how some game shows disappeared for years then resurfaced on channels that only ran I Love Lucy and the Facts Of Life between Infomerical marathons.
At last, Channel 48, FLIX. Commando uncut. Seasoned combat veteran takes out over a hundred with a single magazine and an M-16.
Sidney reclined into the folding chair, the remote control ready to turn on the VCR in case the cable went out. His brain was connected by his tunnel vision to the TV set, a misty haze of gray blotting out the disorderly state of his room. Dust on the window sill undisturbed for years was the epitome of his life - potential untapped.
Beneton High School was not so far from his thoughts as Arnold blasted through a rock wall with a rocket thing he miracled from somewhere that reminded him of the pillars leading through the front doors. He thought of how mad he had been when someone had spray painted gang colors on one the winter of his senior year. It was almost as if the world had become unreal. Had it ever been real?
Jennifer Collins had been real. Breasts that defied gravity, a face that could launch a thousand missiles. Or ships. Or somethings. He had never worked up enough courage to ask her out, or call her on the phone. Or say hello to her. Potential gone untapped.
Downstairs, his mother called up through the closed door, "Sidney, the trash won't get any fresher. You get a job? Did the community college call you back? You talk to your father about what you will do next semester?"
Sidney concentrated on Arnold. Arnold didn't have any problems. He lived his own life, the world gave him what he needed because he was strong. He was strong and able. And then they would take his daughter, or beam him into the past, or give him some sort of quest. The strength would be there, it would come, the method to succeed in life, to finish the mission and defeat the opponent lay within the mission itself.
He had the goal, he wanted to succeed, he wanted to show them, his parents, everyone, that he could in fact do something with his life. But there was no mission, there was no way. By the graceful passion of God's love, his prayer for a mission, for a chance to succeed would not come. He had prayed.
Michael Landon on Highway to Heaven reruns. Channel seven, nine am. He was rarely up that early, but he saw it. Or even Landon on Little House on the Prairie. Something bad would happen, he would have a goal, the need to succeed. Landon would pray and God would give him the mission, the way to surpass the odds and rise above expectation.
Hadn't Kevin Costner done that in Dances With Wolves? He rose beyond expectation and did what was right. Sidney looked meekly at the Dances With Wolves video cassette and contemplated putting it in but lost the train of thought when Arnold exclaimed in his casual, candid way, "Let off a little steam, Bennett."
Channel 44, the Sci-Fi station. The Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin, leapt from the building top to land on the shoulders of the enemy. Lee Majors had a good life but when he came close to dying, they turned him into the bionic man. Would that be possible for an out of work, out of hope, high school graduate?
The room was small. A bed, a desk, and the television set each had their own respective place. Not enough room for his whole stereo to fit in comfortably, but he had managed. Sidney stood and mustered the courage to ask his mother for the money to buy a Nakamichi Laser Disc player. With a sigh, the courage was exhaled and he sat down. He had already gotten her to buy him a few more pay channels the week before. Deciding to ask her in a few days, he glanced at channel 45, the history channel, and cringed. Shogun again. Brrrr.
Channel, Christ, he swore, he couldn't see. His palms dug into his eyes and wiped water away. Channel 0, Cinemax. The Punisher had just started. Daggers were thrown this way and that. Fifteen were dead in the first ten minutes of the movie. Dolph made a decent Punisher, Sidney decided. The acting was worse, but what was important was that he looked the part.
He had a mission.
Sidney executed an imprecise karate-like chop against a foe made out of dusty, musky air. With the enemy vanquished, he sat back into his chair, his remote control sword poised in his hand ready to fight for any fair damsels that may decide to enlist his aid. In the window, the remote control tight in his hand, ready for danger, he caught his own reflection. When had he grown old enough for that much of a beard? He looked old. He shut his eyes and turned away. Something behind those eyes that looked back into his, the ones of the reflection made him sorry he had paid attention to it. There was a face, clean shaven and proud within him, one that did not, it could not!, exist within him. One that was outside of the crowd.
Angrily, he changed the channel. He had thought he had pressed four twice and then enter, the Sci Fi station was playing Twilight Zone. But the cable box said channel 4. Network news. He startled himself by the simple fact that he had missed the number and for a few seconds saw the graveled face of some reporter standing in the middle of some foreign country.
"Liet Sha ..." was all the reporter could say before Sidney executed a precise channel adjustment. Four, four, he pounded. Again, his fingers felt cold and no longer as nimble as they had been.
Channel 14. Another reporter, another foreign field. No, wait, it was the same one. The same people.
"Liet Sha Jazhing was hit by ..."
"Damn!" Sidney swore and finally managed to tune the set to forty four. The Twilight Zone. James T. Kirk stood in the middle of a street, dragging his girlfriend behind him into a nearby cafe. The camera panned and then showed Kirk, Shatner, whoever he was, at the cafe table, putting pennies into the machine that gave out his fortunes. The cycle, the endless, God damned, never ending cycle of uncertainty!
His fingers slumped and the channel changed back to the last, 14.
"... when the truck exploded, the soldiers open fired .."
Why was Lifetime showing the news? Love of God, can't I just watch the Twilight Zone without being so stupid. This dumb remote control, I hate cheap Jap electronics.
Sidney became gruff and wanted to lash out at something, at anything. Something deep within him was swollen and aching. A festering, puss-heavy boil. A raging, caged beast. A howl, a call. Something in him wanted to be free. Something in him hated where it was. And that made Sidney angry at anything and everything. He jammed down the four button again and switched back to channel four before he could enter it twice for the Sci Fi station.
"... her blood will be on all of our hands for now .."
Damn, damn, damn controller!
Channel 14 again.
"... when the U.N. police action took a violent turn for the worse ..."
Anything else, any other channel at all. Channel 10.
"... live coverage of the U.N. police action ..."
Sidney threw the remote control and placed his face in his palms. He felt old.
" ..Liet Sha Jazhing .... U.N. police action ... when terrorists open fired ... my god."
Something in him understood what lay beyond the deaths of Arnold and Sylvester, past Dolph and Steven Siegal and Van Dam.
The news finally became a single, coherent, cold sentence.
"Liet Sha Jazhing was killed after the U.N. police action took a turn for the worse when local terrorists open fired and shot the seventeen year old student who was only going out for fruit."
"She was only shopping. My God, they killed her!"
Sidney raised his head and turned off the TV.
He could only find it in himself to whisper, "She died?"