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“I told him he could use the TV when we weren't using it.”
    “Weird,” Vaughn said.
    “You said if you weren't here I could use the television,” Eddie said. He was gathering his stuff around him, not picking it up, but moving it closer to himself.
    “He's right. That's true. I said that,” Greta said.
    “Well, we're here now,” Vaughn said. “There's a ring on the floor there where your beer is.” He sniffed the air. “It smells like smoke in here. You been smoking?”
    “I haven't smoked a single thing,” Eddie said. “Loosen up, will you?”
    “It's the boyfriend,” Greta said, stage-whispering. She was standing in the doorway between the den and the hall that led to her bedroom, unbuttoning her blouse.
    “What are you doing?” Vaughn said. “With the shirt? Would you mind?”
    She sighed. “What? It's going to upset him? He's … you know?”
    “Yeah,” Eddie said. “I'm—”
    “Oh, please,” Vaughn said.
    “Well, pardon me, Mr. Rockefeller,” she said. She waved at Eddie, then went down the hall, her footsteps ringing.
    Vaughn sat in the chair alongside the couch and stared at the screen. The captioning was on, and the picture-in-picture was on. The sound was off. By now Eddie had changed channels a couple of times. There was an ad for some kind of mini-tractor on the screen—a guy picking up leaves, hauling them around his yard, vacuuming them into some kind of cloth bin that was pulled behind the tractor. This image was duplicated in the inset window on the screen.
    “Why are you watching the same thing twice?” Vaughn said.
    “I like it,” Eddie said.
    “You like what?” Vaughn said.
    “The two pictures,” Eddie said. “I like two pictures together.”
    “It's the same picture,” Vaughn said. “The two pictures are the same.”
    “I know that,” Eddie said. “I can see them better when there're two of them.”
    “You like that they're the same. I get it. It's fine. It's very attractive,” Vaughn said.
    “It's what I like,” Eddie said.
    A fire blazed in duplicate on the giant screen. “What're we watching here?” Vaughn said.
    “Fire,” Eddie said.
    “I see that, but what?” Vaughn said.
    “Ad. Fireplaces, maybe. Colorful fire logs. Insurance. I don't know what. I was watching a rerun of
CSI
before. That's the most popular show on television. That guy on there is really bowlegged.”
    “He's the most bowlegged guy on television,” Vaughn said.
    “I guess,” Eddie said. “I like that blond woman—she's kind of sexy. And then there's that other woman on there—that black-haired woman? She's kind of sexy. And I like the special effects. I like it when they get that blue light out and start looking at things,” Eddie said. “They always find sperm, you know? Every week they pull out the blue light and find some sperm. It's a hoot.”
    “That's so last year,” Vaughn said. “Finding sperm.”
    Eddie started flipping through the channels. He stopped on a “Healthier You” ad, some movie with a bunch of British people in it, an HBO channel with a cowboy movie. He flipped backward to get to The Weather Channel and then went through
Robot Wars
, public affairs, the shopping network, and a
Matlock
rerun.
    “It doesn't look too good now,” Eddie said.
    “Keep moving,” Vaughn said. “You'll find something.”
    Eddie kept clicking, the channel changing simultaneously in both windows. He passed
Animal Planet
with the world's biggest and baddest bugs, some other stuff, and then he paused and said, “You worried about your wife?”
    Vaughn stared at him for a minute or more. “Well,” he finally said. “Sure. I haven't seen her in a year and … I don't know. You always worry about the ex-wife, don't you? It's built in, goes with the territory.”
    “I ain't worried about mine,” Eddie said.
    “I didn't know you had a wife,” Vaughn said.
    “What, you think I can't handle a wife? I'm not just a faggot, you know. I had a wife once. Just like you.