Factoring Humanity

Stone’s turn to look away. “That was years ago.

“How do you deal with it?” asked Kyle. “How do you make it go away?”

“You’re here,” said Stone. “You thought of me. Doesn’t that prove it? This shit never goes away.”

Kyle took a sip of his drink. The bar was smoke-free, of course, but still the atmosphere seemed oppressive, choking. He looked at Stone. “I am innocent,” he said, feeling the need to assert it again.

“Do you have any other children?” asked Stone.

“We did. My older daughter Mary killed herself a little over a year ago.

Stone frowned. “Oh.”

“I know what you’re thinking. We don’t know for sure why yet, but, well, we suspect a therapist might have given both girls false memories.”

Stone took a sip of his beer. “So what are you going to do now?” he said.

“I don’t know. I’ve lost one daughter; I don’t want to lose the other.”

The evening wore on. Stone and Kyle continued to drink, the conversation got less serious, and Kyle, at last, found himself relaxing.

“I hate what’s happened to television,” said Stone.

Kyle lifted his eyebrows.

“I’m teaching one summer course,” said Stone. “I mentioned Archie Bunker in class yesterday. All I got were blank stares.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Kids today, they don’t know the classics. I Love Lucy, All in the Family, Barney Miller, Seinfeld, The Pellatt Show. They don’t know any of them.”

“Even Pellatt is going back ten years,” said Kyle gently. “We’re just getting old.”

“No,” said Stone. “No, that’s not it at all.”

Kyle’s gaze lifted slightly to Stone’s bald pate, then shifted left and right, observing the snowy fringe around it.

Stone didn’t seem to notice. He raised a hand, palm out. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s just that kids today, they watch different shows, and I’m just some old fart who’s out of it.” He shook his head. “But that’s not it. Well, no, actually I guess that is it, in a way — the first part, I mean. They do watch different shows. They all watch different shows. A thousand channels to choose from, from all over the damned world, plus all the desktop-TV shit being produced out of people’s homes coming in over the net.”

He took a swig of beer. “You know how much Jerry Seinfeld got for the last season of Seinfeld, back in 1997-98? A million bucks an episode — U.S. bucks, too! That’s ’cause half the bloody world was watching him. But these days, everybody’s watching something different.” He looked down into his mug. “They don’t make shows like Seinfeld anymore.”

Kyle nodded. “It was a good program.”

“They were all good programs. And not just the sitcoms. Dramas, too. Hill Street Blues. Perry Mason. Colorado Springs. But nobody knows them anymore.”

“You do. I do.”

“Oh, sure. Guys from our generation, guys who grew up in the twentieth century. But kids today — they’ve got no culture. No shared background.” He took another sip of beer. “Marshall was wrong, you know.” Marshall McLuhan had been dead for thirty-seven years, but many members of the U of T community still referred to him as “Marshall,” the prof who put U of T on the worldwide map. “He said the new media were remaking the world into a global village. Well, the global village has been balkanized.” Stone looked at Kyle. “Your wife, she teaches Jung, right? So she’s into archetypes and all that shit? Well, nobody shares anything anymore. And without shared culture, civilization is doomed.”

“Maybe,” said Kyle.

“It’s true,” said Stone. He took another sip of beer. “You know what really bugs me, though?”

Kyle lifted his eyebrows again.

“Quincy’s first name. That’s what bugs me.”

“Quincy?”

“You know — from the TV series: Quincy, M.E. Remember it? Jack Klugman was in it, after The Odd Couple. Played a coroner in L.A.”

“Sure.…ad it on every bloody day when I was in university.”

“What was Quincy’s first name?”

“He didn’t have one.”

“ ’Course he did. Everybody has one. I’m Stone, you’re Kyle.”

“Actually, Kyle’s my middle name. My first name is Brian — Brian Kyle Graves.”

“No shit? Well, it doesn’t matter. Point is, you do have a first name — and so must Quincy.”

“I don’t recall them ever mentioning it in the TV series.”

“Oh, yes they did. Every time someone called him ‘Quince’ — that’s not a shortening of his last name. That’s a shortening of his first name.”

“You’re saying his name was Quincy Quincy? What kind of a name is that?”

“A perfectly good one.”

“You’re just guessing.”

“No. No, I can prove it. In the final episode, Quincy gets married. You know what the minister says who’s performing the service? ‘Do you, Quincy, take…’ Ain’t no way he’d say that if it wasn’t the guy’s first name.”

“Yeah, but who has the same first and last name?”

“You’re not thinking, Kyle. Biggest hit TV series of all time, one of the main characters had the same first and last name.”

“Spock Spock?” said Kyle, deadpan.

“No, no, no. I Love Lucy.”