The Dealers and Junkies of Electromagnetic Crack

To what do I refer when I say "Electromagnetic Crack?" Cable television. It is just as addictive as street narcotics. This is my tale about how I let myself be dragged into its dark underworld.
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Chapter 1: "I used to do a little but a little wouldn't do it so the little got more and more"

My previous roommate and I shared a common addiction. Cable. Not just any cable. The movie channels. We started out small, just a little HBO package. Y'know, for the weekends. Before we knew it, we forced our third roommate to buy into the Gold package. Split across 3 people, it was $40 bucks a month for extended basic and every movie channel. We were doing Showtime, Encore, Stars, TMC...we were even falling asleep to TV-PG Cinamax only to wake up to TV-MA soft-core porn Skinamax in the middle of the night. As devastating as that can be, we never cancelled Cinamax...we just vowed to avoid the C-pack before bedtime.

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Chapter 2: Enablers and Co-dependants

We had mixed emotions about it when our third roommate moved out a month ago. We knew we had to get a third before our we had to start splitting our bill between the two of us. On a grad student salary, $60 for cable is steep. Becoming a crack whore for cable is pretty unthinkable...but, sometimes you need to see Sixteen Candles on HBO East and then an hour later on HBO West. I knew I had a problem when I found myself using our Gold package as an incentive to encourage a potential roommate I was interviewing to sign the lease. I knew I had him at the possibility of total access. I can tell these things about people. I knew he was one of us.
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Chapter 3: Diagnosis

He bought a new tv. Nice one. All the capabilities; flat. Beautiful. All it needed was its cable hook up. The service to the box in his room had never been cancelled, even after its former user had moved out. Why? Because fuck that, that's why. We plugged it in. Nothing. Not even the time came on. Dead box. I knew it - I'd seen it all before.

I called the cable company, Nip Tuck was going to be on soon. I'd had experience with these dealers before; I knew not to fuck around dialing buttons and spiralling deeper and deeper into menu hell. "Operator," I said. I wanted direct access. My phone dropped that call and three more. God damn cell phone. It's like they know. The fifth call went through - we couldn't handle the wait, we suffered through the over-the-phone diagnostic computer. It confirmed the death of the cable box; it said I had to take it back to the walk-in center. It is my account; it is a line I must walk alone.

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Chapter 4: Hey Dante, I found another circle for you...

I live in the Bronx. The walk-in center is in the Fordham section. Yeah, I'd been down there before, but never this far down...I know vaguely where these dealers are, so I leave work early and get in my car. I circle around a few times, I scope out the area. You can never be too careful. Finally, I see the walk-in center. Dazed, anxious, I peer past some trees; a line of at least 20 people has formed outside. I know I have to act fast so I feed the meter and run across the street clutching the cable box and its innocent bystander, the remote, close to me. I get on line. I am close enough to peer in through the window of the walk-in center, I see others like me. Wild-eyed, desperate, the fifty or so within cling similarly to their boxes, pay-per-view bills. My people. I shift on my feet, I tap. I check my phone - could I have missed a call? Could I call someone sympathetic? Someone who would not try to coax me out of line? Someone who...wait a minute......that cop is ticketing my car!!

But I've only been in line for 20 minutes. It must be a mistake. What is it, a $60 ticket? Addictions cost. Besides, the ticket is already fuckin written - I can't protest it now. I will contest it later. Of course, I stay in line.

The line moves. A security guard with vitaligo admits 10 or so people at a time. I envy them. I am distracted by the white patches on his skin. I am trying to mind my own business, when out of the corner of my eye, I see a tow truck pull up next to my car. "What the fuck!?!" I cry aloud. Yeah, I pause to consider staying on the line, but the small rational part of my mind that recognizes the addiction takes over.

I dash across the street: I am a wide receiver, gripping the cable box like a pigskin of old, before instant replays complicated the game; I weave between the oncoming vehicles, the afternoon sun glinting off the hood ornament of the Escalade that stopped just inches of disengaging my fucking femurs from their socketed home. I may be an addict, but I am not stupid. I go striaght to my car and drive off. {You see friends, the classic mistake is trying to plead with the tow-truck driver. Don't do that. Few people can carry off shit like that. Besides, if your car is not fuckin there, they can't fuckin tow it.}

I find another spot around the corner; as I run back to line I realize that I cannot re-take my place. I also realize that the line is now much longer and I couldn't even find the woman I was behind if I wanted to. Vitaligo probably already admitted her into the store. Finally, he lets me past the door, and I behold the enormity of the line within.

Not 40 minutes later, I am getting close. I can feel it. A disruption at the door! A woman screaming in New-Yor-Rican {the dialect of Spanish spoken by Puerto Rican New Yorkers}, Vitaligo cries out in dismay "You can't push your way in!!" She shrieks, self-righteous, grey-haired, 4 feet 8 inches tall, chin hairs, lower abdomen bulging from her midsection in a way that begs for a hysterectomy, "Ay! Ay! No hablo Engles! Dees meng ees de meng que en de line with me!" She points to a older caucasian man who has a look on his face that men get when a woman is frantically yelling and pointing at him. "You can't cut the line, lady" Vitaligo is exasperated. "Dis meng, dis meng, I in line here." She scoots into line in front of the man who is now awash with relief as he tells Vitaligo that yes, she was in line in front of him but she left. She says, "Ay, no hablo Engles," waving Vitaligo and Placeholder Joe off. "You left the line" Placeholder Joe says. "No, I din-not. I no hablo Engles. I on line here with you. I go Con Ed. Now I on line with you." {The line for Con Edison, the local electrical authority next door, was as fucking ridiculous as the cable walk-in center. She thinks she is a time-wise multitasker. We think she's line-cutting bitch.} People gripe, they moan, they curse, she stays, she wins. Vitaligo walks away. Defeated. Bitch. Fuckin bitch. We, the line, think bad thoughts at her. Some complain, mostly, we accept our fate, knowing, our need to be on this line was brought upon by our need for cable. Then, this fucking line cutting bitch tries to be magnanimous and lets Placeholder Joe go before her when she gets to the front of the line. Bitch. Only in the Bronx. We band of brothers shake our heads in disbelief.

By the way, it ended up being a $115 ticket. Only in the Bronx does a lane of metered parking become an express bus lane at 4pm. Motherfuckers.

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Chapter 5: The Move

So I finally am told I am getting my own studio apartment, not two weeks after the Walk-in Incident, as it has come to be known. I dread it, but I know I have to call my dealers ASAP - the longer you wait to call, the longer they take to hook it up.

I call that night, at 12:45 am. I explain that I am moving in 72 hours. I explain that there must be minimal down time. I explain that the technician who comes to hook up my electromagnetic crack must also take the old boxes away. I shall NOT go back to the walk-in center, God dammit. I explain that I have really enjoyed the Gold package, but money is an issue.

With my vulnerability now exposed, I lose control of the transaction.

The cable relocation technician turns into Tom Cruise during the height of his couch-jumping-on-Brooke-Shields-hating phase. He practically calls me glib and tries to tell me that I haven't read the history of cable. He tells me that I have to sign on as a new customer to avoid paying extra for basic cable; he tells me that they won't take away my old boxes; he asks me if I know what DVR is. I am broken. I submit. Basic cable, HBO, DVR, for $72.00 per month. I am devastated.

That night, I pack; I try to sleep, but I toss and turn, it is 3 am, and I am watching Walk the Line. I respond to its messages, I decide that I too can dislodge the tractor from the mud. I resolve to call my dealers and rengotiate. I sleep...

Reinvigorated, I get Axle. He all but calls "Tom Cruise" an asshole. He feels my pain as I describe how I was coerced, forced to agree to a package that I did not want. I explain to Axle that I want the Gold package. He wants me to have the Gold package too. I feel it. We fuckin bond, me and Axle. I tell him that I just can't afford the Gold package. "I'm addicted to cable." "I'd have to give up smoking to afford the cable I want." Axle says, "well, maybe you can start out small, with DVR, and by the time you quit smoking, you can work back up to the Gold." I reply: "I'd be trading one addiction for another..." "Exactly." he says, " Cable is much healthier than smoking, right?"

Indeed, a metaphysical certitude.

So he gave me a 12-5 window, and promised that the technician would take away my old boxes. I signed up for the fuckin basic, the fuckin DVR, and NO FUCKIN MOVIE CHANNELS. Not until I quit smoking. I am devastated, but strengthened. I will always remember you, Axle, wherever you are.

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Chapter 6: The Move, Part Deux

The confirmation call came yesterday. I missed it. They changed my window from 12-5 to 10-8. A whole day of work. A small sacrifice. After all, I've been without cable for 30 hours by this time. I watched some of my DVDs and a Spike Lee joint loaned to me by a friend - it ended up giving me something good to carry me through the withdrawal.

The technician came at 5. He was quick, adept. Shaking a little, I turned it on. I flipped through the channels and set the DVR to record some favorite shows. Like any junkie, I know the movie channels are back there. They called me, I swear. I kept the channel button depressed, the screen went black as the receiver flipped through. I get to the 300s. That's where the good stuff is. I let go at 301, where the HBO pack is. The picture flickers on. A movie. I press the channel button once, to 302. Another movie. 303, another movie. 304, another movie. 305, a director's interview. Showtime package, active. Encore, active. Stars, active. Cinamax, active. I practically shit my pants and forgot my name. Extended basic, active. Even the fuckin foreign language channels, active!

I look around, no one is there to confirm it. Doesn't fuckin matter. I know what I'm seeing. I HAVE EVERY FUCKIN CABLE CHANNEL. My mind splits: Rational versus Addict.

-Rational: "Oh, it must be a short promotional period. It will be over really fast."
-Addict: "Oh shit oh shit, this is how they fuckin hook you, this promotional shit, they give you a taste, get you hooked. Then they take it away, then you gotta pay for it."
-Rational: "I wonder if Axle made a mistake when he set it up; I should call the cable company and check. I really can't afford all these channels."
-Addict: "Dude. Axle and I fuckin bonded. He totally gets it. He's one of us, man. He set it up so that I could get my shit for free, because he gets me. Holy shit. I can't call the fuckin cable company, they'll find out I'm getting all this shit and they'll fuckin take it away. Fuck that. They'll have to pry my remote out of my cold dead hands."
-Rational: "Um, Addict, you made a deal. And put down that cigarette."
-Addict: "Maybe it was the technician. Maybe he hooked me up. He was really nice - he gets it too. Yeah. Maybe it was him. Where's my fuckin lighter?"

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