Bill carried in the television the first day. He switched it on with trepidation and stood guard over it.

The first show the Angels saw was Search for Tomorrow. The title appeared over a picture of the moon in a cloudy night sky.

Bill waited for the reaction. There was none. At first the old, mad people kept staring somewhere else in their own private world. Then some of the women looked up, attracted by the sound of a young female voice and the sight of fresh makeup and nice dresses.

Brought to you by Procter and Gamble.

They scowled slightly, not sure they had the thing figured out. A kind of radio with pictures. They were only mildly bemused. The whole world had passed them by so long ago that nothing made sense. But they liked the sound of families, and breakfasts, and husbands being kissed goodbye, and the softened voices of women dealing with secret shame.

At night, it was taken away.

The next day, they clustered around it, a new hunger in their eyes. Inside that little box, children bounced in and out of living rooms or wept in their mothers' arms. Grand and powerful women schemed: husbands faced bankruptcy; toothpaste was sold. Gradually the nothingness sucked in the Angels.

Old Dynamite stood with her back to it, looking out of the window. Or she sat, staring somewhere else, her mouth creased around with smiles as if her face were a pond into which someone had thrown a stone. Sometimes her eyes blazed. Sometimes she sang softly. Bill found himself growing disturbed by her.

"Listen, Bill," said Tom Heritage, "the only way you can stick this job is to put it all to the back of your mind. You start taking it to heart, you could end up like them. Once I get my license back, I'm getting out of here, drive a taxi, anything. You should do the same, boy, I can tell you."

Forty years, fifty years, in this place, thought Bill. What a waste of a life.

In November, there was going to be a movie on TV. Networks did not usually show movies, so it was a special thing, a lot of publicity. It was a kids' movie, but a lot of the staff wanted to see it. A kids' movie would not have anything in it to rile the Angels.

So it was decided to wheel out the television from nine to eleven at night. The Angels, like children all over the country, were going to be allowed to stay up late to watch it. Bill, the gentle master of the TV, took the night shift for the first time.

The staff crowded in, the caterers especially, all the employees who were still too poor to own a television. They returned to the Home in their cloth coats. Some of them brought their kids. The children looked fat and sleepy and grumpy. A few of the Angels showed up too, drawn by the excitement and by the sound and sight of children.

The old people in their slippers shuffled up to the children, cooing, confused, wanting to warm their hands around young life, such as they had never had a chance to nurture. The children hated it.

Old Dynamite came lumbering forward too, like some stick insect on long prairie pins, in her Home pj's, smelling slightly of sweat and dry-cleaned sheets. She staggered smiling toward one of the children.

"Hello, hello," she said in a breathless but supple voice. "Hello children. Hello my little ones."

"Mo-mmmie!" wailed one of the children in fear, and turned her face toward her mother.

"I told you, Hattie," said the mother. "I said you was to be nice to the old people."

"Now aren't you the prettiest little thing!" said Dotty, with longing and bad breath. The child covered her mouth, shrank back into her mother's arms.

"Sunflowers," said Dotty. "You like sunflowers, honey?"

The child stared at her with sullen dislike.

"Well," whispered the old woman. "Their real name is moonflowers."

Bill smiled at the mother to let her know that nothing was wrong. "Come along, Dotty, it's just about to start," he said, across the room.

"Do you like Indians? I'll tell you a secret, honey. The Indians won. They're everywhere, but they're just invisible."

Bill walked among the old people, gently guiding them away from the children, into chairs. They should have realized the effect that seeing children would have. None of them had seen children in so long.

"And taffy apples," Old Dynamite was saying. "Oh, I used to like those. They pull out my teeth now."

Bill was next to her, lulled by the normality of her voice. Bill still thought normality was hardly to be breached. He touched Old Dynamite's arm, to lead her away.

The insanity came leaping out of her. Her face twisted up, and she hissed at him like a snake and threw off his hand with clumsy, sweeping strength. She staggered backward and nearly fell over. Bill felt something in him leap back with fear. Her back stiff with pride, Dynamite began to walk by herself toward an empty wheelchair.

The child's mother shifted her body and the subject, looking away from the old insane woman. "I don't know why they have to put on a kids' movie this time of night," she said to her buddy from the kitchens. She had been hoping all the Angels would be asleep, so her little Hattie need not be frightened. She was bitter about being poor and what it cost her little girl.

That'll teach me, thought Bill. Looks sweet, but she's in here for a reason. I reckon Old Dynamite could still be quite an ornery handful. Some rough old pioneer lady who went mad.

They had their first bad reaction to the TV that night. Wasn't more than five minutes into the movie when Old Dotty stood up and shouted. "Who put this on?" she demanded.

Bill moved quickly. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Just sit still, Dotty," said Bill, trying to soothe her.

"How'd it get there?" she shouted, loud. "That's me. How did I get there?"

"It's just a movie, Dotty."

"Who said they could put me on that thing? They got it wrong! Wasn't like that. Only one room we had and couldn't afford no hired hands, I can tell you."

The woman from the kitchen made clicking sounds of disapproval. Did everything have to be ruined for her little girl?

"It's just a movie, Dotty," said Bill.

"What is that thing?" She pointed at the television.

"It's a TV. It's like a radio with pictures. You can show old movies on it. That's what that is, an old movie."

For some reason, that seemed to mollify Dotty. She dropped back down onto her chair, sulking, arms folded. "I ain't never seen a movie," she said, as though that might explain how she came to be in one. She sat looking merely disgruntled for a few minutes more.