What else did Lyman purchase?

In addition to the red convertible of the title, Lyman also purchased a color TV for his mom. However, when Henry comes home from Vietnam, Lyman regrets buying the TV because his traumatized brother spends all day zonked out in front of it, staring intently at the screen.
The bright, vivid colors emanating from the screen seem to mesmerize Henry, in a way that the faint, flickering images of the old black-and-white TV never would have done. The older images were more distant, but the color pictures give a sense of vivid immediacy to what's coming out of the TV, especially news reports of the ongoing war in Vietnam. Henry is at once disturbed by, and addicted to, the endless hours he spends in front of the TV. At the same time, the experience somehow seems to calm him down physically, which nothing else has been able to do.