Two Short Pieces

Satellite

Last night I was watching TV with my grandparents. They have a lot of channels. It was late. My grandmother had the remote. She only paused for a second or two on each one. Suddenly, there was an empty room with a naked man standing by a window, and a naked woman, well, kneeling in front of him. That was a long two seconds. "Oh, God!" my grandmother and I yelled, as we laughed and she changed the channel. "What?" said my grandfather, looking up from Newsweek or whatever. "Nothing," we said, and smiled. Soon after that, I went upstairs to bed. It was still warm out, and all the windows were open. I could hear the TV from my room, sounding like Liza Minnelli.

While spending summers at my grandparents', I would do things like make Fall Fashion Catalogues (complete with my newest designs and deeply pithy ad copy) and write plays that the neighbor kids and I would put on, charging the grown-ups a quarter apiece to get in. The last one I remember was called "The Kit-Kat Club." At one time or another I think I married every little girl on that street.