"He isn't quite old enough to start rationing things," Nellie said.

"He won't go coasting, he won't play ball, he won't do his homework, he won't even take a walk because he might miss a program."

"I think he'll grow out of it," Nellie said.

"But you don't grow out of an addiction. You have to make some exertion or have someone make an exertion for you. You just don't outgrow serious addictions."

He went back across the dark hall with its shifty submarine lights and outside the noise of rain. On the tube a man with a lisp, dressed in a clown suit, was urging his friends to have Mummy buy them a streamlined, battery-operated doll carriage. He turned on a light and saw how absorbed his son was in the lisping clown.

"Now I've been talking with your mother," he said, "and we've decided that we have to do something about your television time." (The clown was replaced by the cartoon of an elephant and a tiger dancing the waltz.) "I think an hour a day is plenty and I'll leave it up to you to decide which hour you want."

Tony had been threatened before but either his mother's intervention or Nailles's forgetfulness had saved him. At the thought of how barren, painful and meaningless the hours after school would be the boy began to cry.

"Now crying isn't going to do any good," Nailles said. The elephant and the tiger were joined by some other animals in their waltz.

"Skip it," Tony said. "It isn't your business."

"You're my son," Nailles said, "and it's my business to see you do at least what's expected of you. You were tutored last summer in order to get promoted and if your marks don't improve you won't be promoted this year. Don't you think it's my business to see that you get promoted? If you had your way you wouldn't even go to school. You'd wake up in the morning, turn on the set and watch it until bedtime."

"Oh please slap it, please leave me alone," Tony said. He turned off the set, went into the hall and started to climb the stairs.

"You come back here, Sonny," Nailles shouted. "You come back here at once or I'll come and get you."

"Oh please don't roar at him," Nellie asked, coming out of the kitchen. "I'm cooking veal birds and they smell nice and I was feeling good and happy that you'd come home and now everything is beginning to seem awful."

"I was feeling good too," Nailles said, "but we have a problem here and we can't evade it just because the veal birds smell good."

He went to the foot of the stairs and shouted: "You come down here, Sonny, you come down here this instant or you won't have any television for a month. Do you hear me? You come down here at once or you won't have any television for a month."

The boy came slowly down the stairs, "Now you come here and sit down," Nailles said, "and we'll talk this over. I've said that you can have an hour each day and all you have to do is to tell me which hour you want."

"I don't know," Tony said. "I like the four-o'clock show and the six-o'clock show and the seven-o'clock show…"

"You mean you can't confine yourself to an hour, is that it?"

"I don't know," Tony said.

I guess you'd better make me a drink," Nellie said. "Scotch and soda."

Nailles made a drink and returned to Tony. "Well if you can't decide," Nailles said, "I'm going to decide for you. First I'm going to make sure that you do your homework before you turn on the set."

"I don't get home until half past three," Tony said, "and sometimes the bus is late and if I do my homework I'll miss the four-o'clock show."

"That's just too bad," Nailles said, "that's just too bad."

"Oh leave him alone," Nellie said. "Please leave him alone. He's had enough for tonight."

"It isn't tonight we're talking about, it's every single night in the year including Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. Since no one around here seems able to reach any sort of agreement I'm going to make a decision myself. I'm going to throw that damned thing out the back door."

"Oh no, Daddy, no," Tony cried. "Please don't do that. Please, please, please. I'll try. I'll try to do better."

"You've been trying for months without any success," Nailles said. "You keep saying that you'll try to cut down and all you do is to watch more and more. Your intentions may have been good but there haven't been any noticeable results. Out it goes."

"Oh please don't, Eliot," Nellie cried. "Please don't. He loves his television. Can't you see that he loves it?"

"I know that he loves it," Nailles said. "That's why I'm going to throw it out the door. I love my gin and I love my cigarettes but this is the fourteenth cigarette I've had today and this is only my fourth drink. If I sat down to drink at half past three and drank steadily until nine I'd expect someone to give me some help." He unplugged the television set with a yank and picked the box up in his arms. The box was heavy for his strength, and an awkward size, and in order to carry it he had to arch his back a little like a pregnant woman. With the cord trailing behind him he started for the kitchen door.

"Oh, Daddy, Daddy," Tony cried. "Don't, don't, don't," and he fell to his knees with his hands joined in a conventional, supplicatory position that he might have learned from watching some melodrama on the box.

"Eliot, Eliot," Nellie screamed. "Don't, don't. You'll be sorry, Eliot. You'll be sorry."

Tony ran to his mother and she took him in her arms. They were both crying.

"I'm not doing this because I want to," Nailles shouted. "After all I like watching football and baseball when I'm home and I paid for the damned thing. I'm not doing this because I want to. I'm doing this because I have to."

"Don't look, don't look," Nellie said to Tony and she pressed his face into her skirts.

The back door was shut and Nailles had to put the box on the floor to open this. The rain sounded loudly in the yard. Then, straining, he picked up the box again, kicked open the screen door and fired the television out into the dark. It landed on a cement paving and broke with the rich, glassy music of an automobile collision. Nellie led Tony up the stairs to her bedroom, where she threw herself onto the bed, sobbing. Tony joined her. Nailles closed the kitchen door on the noise of the rain and poured another drink. Fifth, he said.

All of this was eight years ago.

VI

Tony had gone out for football and had made the second squad in his junior year. He had never been a good student-he got mostly C's-but in French his marks were so low they were scarcely worth recording. One afternoon when he was about to join the squad for practice it was announced over the squawk box that he should report to the principal. He was not afraid of the principal but he was disturbed at the thought of missing any of the routines of football practice. When he stepped into the outer office a secretary asked him to sit down.

"But I'm late," Tony said, 'I'm late for practice already."

"He's busy," the secretary said.

"Couldn't I come back some other time? Couldn't I do it tomorrow?"

"You'd be late for practice tomorrow."

"Couldn't I see him during class time?"

"No."

Tony glanced at the office. In spite of the stubborn and obdurate facts of learning, the place had for him a galling sense of unreality. A case of athletic trophies stood against one wall but this seemed to be the only note of permanence. Presently he was let into the principal's office and given a chair.

"You've failed first-year French twice, Tony," the principal said, "and it looks as if you're going to fail it again. Your parents expect you to go on to college and you know you have to have a modern-language credit. Your intelligence quotient is very high and neither Miss Hoe nor I can understand why you fail."

"It's just that I can't say French, sir," Tony said. I just can't say any French. My father can't either. I just can't say French. It sounds phony."