The Last Days of Video (11 page)

“I am tough!”

She thrust two palms into Pierce's chest, stepping into the motion and sending him back several feet. He steadied himself by gripping the Spike Lee section.
She Hate Me
fell facedown onto the floor.

“What's your problem?” Pierce said furiously.

“You're a fake, that's my problem.”

“What?!”

“I really liked you, you fucking fake!”

“So you have no idea why I'm here?”

“No clue, dumbass.”

“You didn't throw this brick through my bedroom window?”

Alaura stopped short. She looked at the floor. She had been drinking quite heavily in the three days since he'd broken up with her. But surely she would remember throwing a brick through his window.

“And this was rubber-banded to it,” he said. He handed her a dirty, wrinkled piece of Star Video receipt paper. A note in blocked handwriting read:

MEMBERSHIP CANCELLED, PIERCE!

“That's creepy,” Pierce said.

Alaura had to agree.

“If
you
didn't do it,” Pierce went on, “then tell that little freak Waring to leave me alone. Whatever he told you about me, he's wrong.”

“Get. Out. Of my—”

Something breezed past Alaura.

It was Barney Wheat.

For a moment, Alaura imagined that the older man was swatting a bug away from the younger man's face.

But then Barney Wheat grabbed the collar of Pierce's black hemp shirt and said sternly:

“Ms. Eden asked you to leave.”

Oh shit, Alaura thought. Pierce will kill him.

Pierce raised a hand to dispatch little Barney Wheat.

But Wheat took a deliberate step backward, yanked Pierce's collar, and pulled the younger man's shirt over his face.

“What the—” Pierce yelped, his arms flailing.

And with the grace of a dancer, Barney Wheat slid a foot into Pierce's path.

Pierce tripped over the foot. He contorted for balance. He squealed a pathetic sound—“Lueeeeah!”—and he dropped in a flapping heap.

His body impacted the linoleum floor with a sick crunch. The mysterious brick catapulted from his grasp.

The brick soared in a high arc across the room, spinning like a stick grenade—and clanged into the Sports Documentary section, a length of shelving that had been tottering, in need of repair, for years.

The tall metal grating shuddered. Bolts pinged to the floor.

“Of course,” Alaura said.

The Sports section fell, like a gigantic domino, and slammed onto the floor.

Surfing documentaries and Pilates DVDs and Star Video's entire WrestleMania catalogue clattered to the floor like machine-gun fire.

Alaura turned to Barney Wheat.

“What fun!” Barney chirped, beaming at Alaura like he'd just won a giant stuffed gorilla at the county fair.

When Jeff heard the
crash in the back of the store, his first thought was that the ceiling had collapsed. Such a dramatic end—the literal obliteration of Star Video—seemed appropriate given the shoddy state of the building. Five minutes ago, Waring and Clarissa Wheat had retired to Waring's office, to do God knows what, and in Jeff's mind, disaster was imminent.

But when he crept toward the origin of the sound, he rounded a corner and discovered that it was the Sports section, not the ceiling, that had collapsed.

Out of nowhere, a shockingly handsome man in a black shirt appeared, knocking Jeff's shoulder as he rushed past.

“I'm done with you freaks,” the guy snarled.

Jeff watched the handsome man flee.

Then he saw Waring emerge through the Porn Room doorway. There was a wild look of terror upon his ashen face. His shirt was unbuttoned, his round white belly was exposed for all the world to see, and his loosened belt buckle clinked with each step.

“Alaura!” Waring yelled. “Where are you, Alaura!? Are you all right!?”

Am I all right?
Alaura thought. No, I'm not fucking all right.

She watched as Clarissa Wheat scurried out behind Waring, birthed
by the same Porn Room doorway, both of them coming, Alaura knew, from Waring's office. Clarissa Wheat was in a state of undress similar to Waring—shirt loosened, missing one gray shoe, and her silver cross swinging between a surprisingly full and youthful-looking bosom—leaving little doubt as to what she and Waring had just been doing.

There they all stood, facing one another amid the shrapnel of the Sports Documentary section: Alaura next to Barney Wheat, Waring next to Clarissa Wheat.

“Clarissa, darling!” Barney Wheat said happily. “I've just met one of Ms. Eden's acquaintances. The poor guy took a nasty tumble, and now I don't know where he's gone.”

“Oh hush, Barney,” Clarissa Wheat said as she futzed distractedly with her hair, trying to push it back into a bun and apparently unconcerned about the display of her (again, Alaura noted) unexpectedly impressive body.

Barney Wheat smiled and teetered. Alaura placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“Don't touch him!” Clarissa Wheat snapped.

Alaura removed her hand.

“She . . . she made me,” Waring said, looking at Alaura.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Clarissa Wheat assured him, and she approached her husband and took his hand, interlocking her fingers with his.

“You're lying!” Waring cried.

“Like you've been lying to us, Mr. Wax?” Clarissa Wheat said pointedly. “What is purchasing product on credit and not paying it back, except a lie?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Clarissa Wheat shot him a startled glance. “Guiding Glow is a Christian organization, Mr. Wax, and your contract with us states explicitly that no pornography can be rented from any store under our distribution umbrella. And, of course, there's the issue of your back payments.”

Alaura glared at Waring.

Waring looked down at the floor like a scolded child.

“I'm sure Waring just forgot,” Alaura pleaded. “He can write you a check. Waring? Can't you just sell some investments or something and write them a check?”

“It doesn't matter, Ms. Eden. None of this is even the real purpose of our visit.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We are here to inform you that, as of last Friday, Guiding Glow has sold its entire distribution network, including our two warehouse centers and our entire stock of DVDs, to Blockbuster Inc. It seems that they're expanding their DVD-by-mail business in hopes of competing with Netflix. They made us an offer we couldn't refuse.”

Alaura gasped. She felt her own lips quivering.

“Oh, Waring,” she managed.

Clarissa Wheat continued, “Star Video is in breach of contract. Your account has been terminated. We will continue to fill the orders you've already placed for the next two months, at which time you'll need to find a new distributor. Though incidentally, Mr. Wax, it doesn't appear that your credit is in any sort of shape to qualify you for a personal checking account, let alone a contract with Ingram or one of the others. No matter . . . at the end of those two months, your entire debt to us will come due. In summation, Mr. Wax—”

Alaura gripped Waring's arm to steady herself.

“—as of now, you are no longer associated with Guiding Glow Distribution. You are on your own.”

Articles

HOME>NEWS>OPINION

Appleton Herald

O N L I N E

Editorial—Is Hollywood's sudden descent upon Ehle County worth celebrating?

Published: Sunday, September 16, 2007 at 3:30 a.m.

When [name of film studio omitted] announced last week that the cast and crew of a Hollywood production titled “Not Tonight, Joséphine!” would film scenes in Historic Downtown Appleton, we were all excited.

We were especially excited when the film's star was announced to be Tabitha Gray—one of the silver screen's highest grossing actresses. (Ladies, hide your husbands!) And of course we were excited about the likely boost to our local economy that the production would provide.

But has anyone stopped to ask, why haven't more details about this movie been released? Its other stars? Its director? Or anything about the movie's plot? Why all the secrecy? What if the movie portrays the South or, in a worst-case scenario, Ehle County, in a negative light? Will this be yet another film where Southerners are portrayed as ignorant, backwards, racist caricatures, who in the end will be grateful to be enlightened by benevolent interlopers?

The production refuses to answer any such questions. It seems content to arrive under a cloak of secrecy . . .

CLICK HERE FOR FULL TEXT

HOW ALAURA GOT HER GROOVE BACK

“Where's Karla?” Alaura asked
Constance, an old drinking friend who was now (Alaura was just beginning to realize) a rather obnoxiously contented housewife.

Constance stared back with a frozen frown, as if to say:
Karla is your weird friend, not mine.

Alaura and Constance were drinking mimosas in a hipster diner in West Appleton. The place boasted mismatched flatware, waitresses with Bettie Page hairdos, and paintings of dancing skeletons on the walls. Roy Orbison's “In Dreams” slithered from the jukebox, masking, but not completely blocking, the muted trombone of Constance's yattering voice, like Charlie Brown's teacher.

“
Whah-whah-whah, whah-whah-whah-whah film crew?
” Constance asked.

“No, I don't know anything about the film crew coming to Appleton,” Alaura responded. “Just because I work in a video store doesn't mean I know anything about the actual film industry.”

“
Whah-whah-whah, Tabitha Gray whah-whah?
”

“Aren't we here to talk about my life, not Tabitha Gray?”

“
Whah-whah, whah-whah Not Tonight, Joséphine!
”

Alaura sighed. “That's probably a fake title. I think
Not Tonight, Joséphine!
was the working title for
Some Like it Hot
. . .”

But her voice trailed off.

It wasn't that Alaura didn't care about the movie crew coming to Appleton. She did care. But she couldn't help thinking that
it just didn't matter.
Star Video had lost its distributor. Waring was broke (or “maybe broke”—the bastard still wouldn't admit the full extent of his life's train wreck). In two months, Star Video would have to start buying movies from somewhere new, probably Walmart or Target, since it was likely that no legitimate distributor would ever touch Waring with a ten-foot pole.

And she'd been drinking a lot. Too much. She'd smoked an entire pack of cigarettes yesterday. She'd been getting stoned, sleeping until noon, spending all day on her couch, avoiding work (because
screw
Waring), and, perhaps most worrisomely, she'd been watching DVD after DVD and weeping at every ridiculous plot turn. But nothing seemed to help. No meditations. No combination of chemicals. No movies. Not even catching up on fun shows like
Lost
or
Deadwood
, on silly but brilliant shows like
Boondocks
or
The Venture Bros.
, on pretentious but obligatory shows like
Six Feet Under
or
The Wire
(though
The Wire
was turning out to be amazing) . . . none of it offered any solace, a definite indicator of looming depression.