IT IS DARK.
It is late.
It is 1984.
We are lying next to each other in one of our twin beds. But, predictably, we are not asleep. We are talking about life. And our dreams. And the great mystery of cable television.
“Jay?”
“Yes, Mark?”
(Silence. Mark has always loved the dramatic silence. I am older by four years and should find this annoying, but I love this about him.)
“When is it coming?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
(I take a moment to mitigate expectations and not get my seven-year-old baby brother too excited.)
“Dad said by next week it’ll be here.”
“What does it look like?”
(I actually do not know, but I have a few theories.)
“I’m not sure.”
“Is it, like…a big cable?”
“I think so?”
“Do they just drag it down the street and plug it into the house?”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“How does it work?”
“I don’t know.”
(Mark thinks on this. Wide-eyed. Young mind grappling with what it all means.)
“What is going to happen to us, Jay?”
“Nothing crazy. I don’t think. Or maybe everything.”
“I’m so excited.”
“Yeah, me too.”
(Pause.)
“Jay?”
“Yes, Mark.”
“I have something to confess.”
“What?”
(Again, the dramatic pause.)
“I don’t know what cable is.”
(I try extremely hard not to laugh. I am careful never to condescend, because he is smart and very sensitive. Still, I am an older brother and can’t help myself….)
“If you don’t know what it is, then why are you so excited about it?”
“I don’t know. I just…I heard you talking about it to your friends. And…I can tell how excited you are about it. So…I got excited about it.”
(Not an extremely eloquent response, but quite prophetic in many ways as to the nature of our unique brotherly bond and complex relationship to come.)
“It’s going to be bringing a lot of movies, and TV shows, and a bunch of new channels into the neighborhood.”
“Do you think it’s gonna change everything?”
“I don’t know.”
(Pause.)
“Jay?”
“Yes, Mark.”
“When we grow up do you want to get houses next to each other?”
“Definitely.”
(Mark considers this.)
“Do you think…we could share the same cable? Or do we have to get different cables for each house?”
“I could probably figure out how to share one.”
(Mark believes me. He believes that I am very good at this kind of thing. Good at everything, actually, if you asked Mark in 1984. This was a huge part of building my confidence.)
“What happens if we wanna watch different movies but we share the same cable?”
“I think we’d have to watch the same movie.”
“So what do we do if we ever want to watch a different movie at the same time?”
(We both consider this question. It’s a troublesome thought. Might there come a time when our interests, and therefore our lives, diverge? The question hangs over us like a fat black cloud for a moment. But then we smile. Because this is a ridiculous thought. We will always want to watch the same movie. We will always live right next to each other. We will always lie in bed at night and talk about our lives and our dreams.)
Two weeks later, cable arrives at our home.
And everything changes.