As Joseph got out of the car, firmly shutting the door, he heard it. A clearly echoing, metallic clanging sound that was repeating rapidly, about once a second. It took a few more seconds to locate the source. He turned his head left to right, left to right, wide eyed, serious. Seeking. He spied the yellow Yield sign on the corner, about half a block down the street, and what looked like a tiny, jerkily pulsating lump attached to the top of the pole. He walked closer and the outline of the spotted woodpecker on the sign came into focus. Somehow this situation had arisen, unnatural yet as real as brick. The woodpecker didn't appear to be confused at all, he pecked with the single-minded purpose branded into his brain, into all of our brains. The clanging must be deafening for those tiny ears, he thought. He realized he was tugging on his earlobe to the beat of the clangs. He blinked and looked away, back towards the car he had gotten out of, one of a endless stream of black Lincoln Continentals in this period. Looking back at the bird, he contemplated somehow disturbing it off its perch, scaring it by approaching abruptly or throwing something in its general direction. But why? Shaking his head, he began walking back down the street, striding past the Lincoln, he nodded and smiled to his driver.
He strode towards the house, cutting across the front lawn and towards the door as the sounds of the televisions drifted out and into his ear. The door was opened for him as he climbed the first step of the porch by a tall, smiling man with dark skin and very white teeth whom he didn't recognize. The man stepped onto the porch, pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his right inside jacket pocket and shook one out in offering towards him. Shaking his head, he stepped into the house. The man pulled out a bone lighter, pulled the cigarette out of the pack with his mouth and sparked it as he shut the door on the man's wisp of Parliament smoke. It was extremely bright inside. I slip on the Affable Joseph mask, he thought, as he smiled wide and warm. But we love the masks. We need the masks and they sustain us. We keep them in large trunks, protected with newspaper between, opening the lid to look at them on occasion, organize them on occasion. Jeff appeared out of the back of the house and shook his hand firmly but much too fast, pumping up and down manically. "Glad you could make it, thanks for coming, good to see you, hello," he fired off. "I've started doing full-time research for a massive new tome about the Sampras/Agassi rivalry. I'm learning so much. About myself, about America, about life, especially." Jeff's eye's gleamed wildly which, along with the crooked, slightly strained grin made him hesitant, but Joseph knew that Jeff had the cred to back this up, personal, academic and otherwise. He just believed in him, had for a while now. He had come through with ideas like this before. This may actually be something serious, worthwhile.
He sat down on a stool with a laminated, green cushion, a slightly raised edge running its circumference. Pushing away an empty pilsner glass, he put his elbow down on the bar. He looked up, as Jeff was picking up a Prince tennis racquet from the holder on the wall. He knew Jeff knew why he was here, but he didn't want to say anything, yet. He just remained alert and looked. "I'm trying to give just as much attention to the events in their lives before that fulcrum point where they first meet in competition as to after, when their stars were on the rise and they were defining what tennis would be for the next several centuries. The opposing paths that lead them to the various courts they would face off on may be as important as the reality of the rivalry itself. I'm increasingly convinced that within the games, banter and context of this historical thread can be found the answers to many important and pressing questions for humankind." Jeff yanked out a drawer with a snap of his wrist and flipped a new can of Penn tennis balls onto the table before slamming the drawer shut with a bang. He took off the plastic lid and popped the seal confidently and crisply. He peeled back the aluminum and tossed it on the table as he closed his eyes and lifted the can to his nose and inhaled deeply. He took a ball out of the can, turned and tossed the can to Joseph, who caught it with both balls rattling inside and held it up to his own nose. "Getting beyond the surfaces of the rivalry, I started to find patterns in the matches, in the stats. I began to realize that a true, honest investigation of this data, to really do justice to what findings might come from it, may be a lifes work." Jeff lofted the tennis ball into the rafters of the houses high ceiling and jumped when it was slightly before the apex. Muscling it into a fairly decent serve as it began its descent, Jeff landed hard on both feet as the ball made a quick bounce off of the hardwood floor before ricocheting off of the wall and glancing off of a gold statue on a white, ornate pedestal. The statue gracefully and slowly toppled over, hitting the floor one of the elbows and the very top of the statue, an ear on the head, broke off and skittered away. "I see you've been practicing," he said, breaking the silence. "I've been filming my serves and watching them between the Sampras/Agassi matches," Jeff replied, "which leaves very little time for--hey, wait is this anyway? Some kind of award?" Jeff picked up the now broken golden statue and frowned. Joseph stared at Jeff's frown. "Seriously? That's an Oscar, man, an Academy Award."
"The one rejected on Marlon Brando's behalf by Sacheen Littlefeather," Hession intoned as he strode out of the back hallway, where the open door of his room cast a column of flickering television light on the hall wall; a paused VHS tape.
Hession was tall and pale, his thinning hair hovering above his bespectacled face. The beard was an excuse for the mustache. He glowered at Jeff before glancing at Joesph and smiling, his teeth blindingly white yet fairly crooked. "I know why you're here," he said. "Follow me." Joseph leaped up from the stool and clapped sharply once. "'Bout time!" He walked down the hall after Hession as Jeff pulled a Nike cap snug and low over his thick hair and began gathering, trance-like, his tennis balls from the various corners and nooks they had settled into. Hession shoved the door to his room 90 degrees open, the bottom of it dragging along the thick carpet with a hissing sound and gestured inward, before shuffling in and slamming it. "It's different out here, man," he rumbled, "out here in the sticks, in the cold, the hustles get desperate. You see the pace quicken in the city, they're faster, healthier. Out here, they're ragged and weary. And cold. Above all, ragged and cold." He paused and looked up, his glasses sliding down a long nose. "Sorry...I've been on self imposed lock-down in this house, ask me why."
He gestured towards the television, the VHS on pause, an anchorman. "I've been in here watching this tape for the last 17 days." He turned and continued into the room, which was huge. "Rewinding and Fast Forwarding, are these terms still in use?" "Somewhat," offered Joseph, cautiously. "Rewinding is the real one, the key." Hession was starting to get that far away look in his eyes and it seemed like he shrunk somehow into himself. He walked over to the huge, rear projection television in the center of the room, and bent down before the VCR nestled in its large housing and arcane architecture. "Rewinding," Joseph spoke slowly. "ANYWAY, sorry sorry sorry sorry, I lost track of myself for a sec, anyway, let me show you something before we discuss business than you can be on your way." "Hey, I'm not in a big hurry," Joseph was being honest, and he was really starting to try and get on Hession's level, stare at him, study his movements, suss him out and discover the true meaning of his involvement. He still had Andre Agassi playing Pete Sampras in 1995 at the Australian open in his head to contend with, Jeff to contend with. Was he going to be a problem? The tennis, at least, seemed solid. He tried not to get lost in thought. Hession finished rewinding the VHS and pressed play. The machine whirred, whined and buzzed. "Gotta have the high speed rewind." Hession mumbled, "it has taken me a while, but I've gotten the tracking as good as it's going to get at this point in time, on this machine." He pressed that large play button with an audible click, and stepped back, crossing his arms and cocking his head.
"Let's see what you make of this," Hession spoke low and clear, "This is the KRON Channel 4 news broadcast of April 22nd, 2009. I watched it all the way through many full iterations before rewinding and re-watching, but then I started watching specific sections of the news broadcast over and over again. Starting at the news, then moving on to traffic, weather, sports. I estimate I've seen the entire broadcast about 103 times, although it's very hard to be sure, for many and varied reasons." The news anchor was introducing herself and the program, and laying into the first story of the night, a MUNI passenger was killed-crushed between two buses. Hession continued: "I'm trying to get as deep as I can, really insinuate myself between the details of whatever events they declared newsworthy on this day. I've done serious research into the life of the man who was killed; he was a barely noteworthy software engineer, once briefly involved with a promising start-up and I have maintained that I am writing a biography on him, and several other programmers in the Bay Area, to talk to almost everyone who was important to this man. I need to know who he was. I have gone to great lengths to talk to this man's parents, uncles, nephews, friends and associates, pretending I am taking notes." He paused and sat down in the easy chair in his room, Joseph followed suit, sitting on the folding chair opposite. Neither of them broke eye contact with the news broadcast on the television in the center of the room.
"The traffic is truly fascinating, but once we get to the weather broadcast, we may have to pause and rewind several times," Hession said as he gestured wildly at the screen, intensely focused already. "Did you tape the commercials as well?" Joseph was attempting to take this all in, a heavy barge. "Well, I didn't create this tape," Hession seemed to clam up, then hurriedly said "but yes all the commercials are on there and that's another can of worms I haven't even begun to work on yet. I Fast Foreword them." Joesph turned back to the screen. "Friends gave him the nickname 'electric stranger,'" the anchor read from the teleprompter.
