Fanon by John Edgar Wideman Page A

her other hand a remote controlling the TV suspended from the ceiling at the foot of the bed. She clicks from scene to scene, Bedouins on camels crossing a desert, masked skiers, snow that looks like sand, sand dunes drifted like snow, talking heads speaking foreign languages, a man in a chef's hat chopping a red lump of something into tiny bits with a huge cleaver, a woman who sings and dances as she scrubs an oven, a naked man and woman in bed, tonguing each other's fashion-model faces, a helicopter's-eye view of roofs burning, a posse of galloping cowboys, a plump baby circled by a tire, etc., and on and on and so
forth as if the flow of pictures might soothe like Muzak soothes, as if the eyes of the man in bed, shut now, might pop open and be seized by an image flashing on the screen, distracted from pain for a split second by a lucky coincidence of worlds bumping and overlapping so he can beam from one spaceship into another, escape his flaming berth, his anguish, long enough to catch a breath, gear up for another breath, saved by an image he takes as real. She clicks, instantly weaving and dissolving worlds with her nimble touch, hoping to seduce his eyes, to fool him or awaken him or relax him to sleep. Who knows which is better or which is which. Awake or asleep. Does it matter in these last days. Either one, either way, any way, just so the pain quiets. She asks this peace in her god's name before she dozes off, clicking, watching with him.
    Never forget this simple fact, he warned her one day: always some person or persons at the controls monitoring what you read, hear, see. Never underestimate the power or ruthlessness of those at the controls, Fanon had taught himself and instructed his patients, as he's instructing her. He sees a split-screen submarine view. Submarine-split screen. Two underwater scenes, one on each half of the screen—one day, one night. One side the other side's nightmare. Screen half in color, half the colorless black, white, and gray of scorched earth. Brightly painted plants and fish busy on half the screen, the other half a wasteland of wiggly gray fingers, their bones crushed to jelly, tens of thousands of wiggly gray fingers all you can see, soft rippling fingers the current animates so they seem to be waving slow, sad goodbyes. After the counts of drownings and deaths, cameras pan the ocean floor in Southeast Asia to reveal long-term ecological damage. A telling submarine view of a coral reef before and after tsunami devastation, Fanon understands, in spite of the babble he doesn't understand coming from the TV. Then later, another submarine story on TV, not connected, not displayed split screen with the tsunami story. Unrelated it seems because numerous
stories in between and more ads than stories in between the stories in between ads. Submarine, nuclear, the woman in the wheelchair tells him, a submarine belonging to the USA, operating in Pacific waters when it runs aground. On a sandbar not there pre-tsunami. An accident. Not nuclear, thank god. Everyone's relieved. Hasn't god been flogging us enough lately. Yes, Fanon replies, though he doesn't speak her language and she doesn't speak his. Time out. Take a day off, old murderous god. Have mercy, Mr. Percy, she amens. Submarine/split screen. It rhymes, she says, like rap and nap and gap. And therefore the words go together. And therefore related. Therefore, how, why. Who's in charge of this juxtaposition, this submarine mission. The bright versus dark side. Peace and war. The split screen. Fanon sees a nuclear device implanted. Sees it detonated. The floor of the ocean rising like a rocket ship. Like lava from Mount Pelée. Overnight the seabed's fourteen fathoms below the surface instead of a thousand. Something wants out. Who opened the door. Who exploded something deep, deep within the deep.
    After the tsunami story, the second submarine story. Comes too late. The sub not guilty. No. No. Heavens, no. No split screen mourning our