Doorbell Next to the Door

Washington County, New York

October 1980

The screen is all static. Mike stands up to adjust the rabbit ears on top. It’s an old TV, one of those clunky, wood-paneled jobs that you could put a plant on top of—a big one. Now the picture is clear, but it’s those columns of color that used to mean “off-air.” He turns the VHF dial to 3. Thonk. Nothing. Now 4. Thonk. 5, 6, 7. Thonk, thonk, thonk. Nothing. Man.

He switches to UHF. Doesn’t know why, there’s never anything but snow on those stations. Thonk. Nothing on A. Shocker. B? Thonk.

A man with clear skin, like a jellyfish, walking down a two-lane highway somewhere out west. Way out west. He … it … doesn’t notice the truck bearing down on him. Truck or a bus, maybe. Big and moving fast. The vacant eyes in the gelatinous face register no comprehension as the shiny black behemoth obliterates it. Jesus! The picture zooms out, pans to reveal a painted canyon full of goo-skin zombies. Zooms out some more, and the highway isn’t straight—it’s curved. Actually, it’s just one big loop, miles in diameter but without off-ramps or intersections. Huh.

Thonk.

Picture is soft and hazy, like it’s from the early seventies … like this dumb, old TV. On the screen is a bonfire. A silhouette is feeding it paper by the ream. Thrilling. No wonder nobody watches UHF.

Thonk.

Chaos. Cartoon chaos. Colors flying around, spurting, spraying, exploding. Mike feels sick.

Thonk.

A gray wolf with three legs, gnawing on something. A leg. A gray-furred leg. Is it … ? Gross. Where is Lorne Greene when you need him? On VHF apparently.

Thonk.

Twin candles, side by side. Black smoke pumping out of them.

Thonk.

A kid, probably a little girl but the zoom is too tight to be sure, holds a bubble maker in front of her mouth, puckers up, and blows a zillion bubbles right at the camera. Inside one of the bubbles, something is moving. Looks like a bus on a highway, wait a minute … The bubble drops away, but another one floats by, this one with a whole restaurant inside. Then there’s another with an observatory under a purple sky. Effects aren’t bad, a little Bob Ross maybe, but pretty good for the seventies or eighties or—when is this?

Thonk.

A kid cowering behind a threadbare couch in a room with rotten floorboards and a piano against the wall. Wait! Mike knows this one! Behind the couch are a four-track recording machine and musical instruments! They belong in the music room at school. Mike knows this because he stole them when he was twelve and brought them to the house in the woods, the one with the piano. Mike also knows the kid hiding behind the couch. It’s him. Right? Picture is weird.

Mike fiddles with the Picture, Color, and Hue knobs.

Thonk. The channel knob spins by itself, but the picture stays the same. Thonk. Thonk. Thonk-thonk-thonk-thonk … No change. Mike turns up the volume.

The doorbell is ringing, and the kid behind the couch is hiding from whoever is ringing it.

Aw man, rerun. Mike already knows what’s going to happen. Any minute, the kid is going to crawl to the window, peek around what’s left of the window shade, and spot two kids. The Joyners, Sam and Kyle. They live in a neighborhood on the other side of the woods. They’ve found the house the way he did, though they probably weren’t playing bounty hunter at the time. The kid Mike will unlock the door and let them in. Kyle will get bored and leave, but Sam will see the instruments and ask to hear the four-track recording.

Mike knows that in the next episode, Sam will start bringing a drum kit to the piano house, one piece at a time, and that Sam will become his best friend. They’ll write tons of songs in that weird old house, including a whole series about two vagabond ne’er-do-wells called the Griffin Brothers and the bounty hunters Mike Monsoon and Connor Cyclone who chase them down.

The TV speaker pops and a song comes through, tinny, like it’s far away.

Harelipped, hog-tied
I said … How’s about four eggs fried?
Bullwhipped, broadside
I said … I’ll take mine sunny-side

Ding Dang Ding Dang
Ding Dang, your order’s up!
Slap Dash Slap Dash
Squeeze a cheek and pat her rump

Just a step ahead
Half a step ahead
Just a step away from John Q. Law

Slimmy Jimmy
How’s about this here Chevy?
Shiny Penny
Grand Theft Auto ain’t too heavy
Fire it up
Stomp Stamp Gravel Gun
Just a step
Half a step ahead of Johnny Law

Choo Choo, Whistle Blew
I said … Hopping trains is nothing new
Cocka Doo, a-Doodle Doo
I said … Just in time for morning dew

Mike can see his own smile in the curved glass screen. He knows that, in later seasons, as Sam and Mike grew up, the Griffin Brothers would find themselves dealing with disappointment, jubilation, insecurity, recklessness, and, of course, heartache. They’d start a band—Mike on guitar, Sam on drums—and write hundreds of songs about all kinds of things. Some songs were spontaneous creations sparked by some stupid phrase, like “I go shopping” or “Millionaire Jack had a heart attack from drinking too much cognac, and a week before, his doctor had said he was fine!” Others were slow burners, like the concept album they’d written after learning of a local legend about a woman who’d been imprisoned in her home for sixty years—and who’d written the world’s longest poem, one verse per day. Things would go on that way for years until marriages, kids, and jobs interfered.

But all that happens many seasons later. The kid on the screen has nearly twenty years of making music with Sam ahead of him. Mike knows he’ll go to the window … any minute now.

Something’s wrong. The kid stays where he is, clutching his knees to his chest. The tone of the doorbell is off-key, distorted, upsetting. There is a knock at the door, but not the front door. Someone is knocking on the basement door in the hallway.

“Open the door!” Mike says to the screen. Nothing. Mike’s got to get that kid moving. He leans forward and falls into the TV. He’s above the kid now, floating up near the ceiling.

The kid looks up. Right at Mike. The kid is Mike, but he’s off-key, too, distorted.

“I was never alone,” the kid says.

Ding-dong. Knock knock.

“He was always with me.”

Ding-dong. Knock knock knock.

“You never went down there.”

Ding ding ding ding ding dooong. Knock knock.

“And now you’re not supposed to be here.”

Ding-dong.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

Knock knock.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

The basement door opens. There is light. And then there is nothing.