The Last Days of Video (2 page)

“So is Blockbuster a big deal?”

Waring laughed bitterly. Then he muttered something about being tired/headachey/gassy, and leaving that night's paperwork unfinished, he retreated again toward the rear of the store, through the Porn Room, into his small windowless office.

In his MicroFridge he found a six-pack of Budweiser—lukewarm because the fridge hadn't worked in months—and he pounded two
in a row. He collapsed into his creaky office chair. Then he looked up and saw Alaura standing over him. Today her dark brunette hair—long on top, clipped short on the sides and back—was slicked back into a rather amazing pompadour, a sexy punk rendering of Travolta in
Grease.
Her arms were crossed, displaying the immaculate sleeved tattoo on her right arm: a giant squid slithering its purple tentacles from shoulder to wrist. She wore a black Misfits tank top and tight black jeans, and Waring's eyes lasered in on the chubby Buddha tattoo on her neck, beaming his contented smile. Conversely, Alaura's face was irate and beautiful.

“Waring, are you having money problems?”

Because, you see, Waring and Alaura had a longstanding deal—
We take care of each other.
He had paid for her lawyer, for example, in the early 2000s for several absurd pot charges. Covered her rent when she'd roadtripped with that hairy guru pervert. Forgiven her for her other impromptu spiritual escapades (vanishing for a week or two to study Hinduism, Shamanism, Insane Clown Posse-ism). And once he'd even paid down her student loans when they'd gone to collections—she'd materialized on his doorstep, weeping, pleading for help, and cursing at herself in the most heartbreakingly sincere display of self-loathing he'd ever witnessed. He'd helped her. Gladly. Of course that was all years ago—she had repaid him for all of it. She'd pulled her life together, or seemed to, she hadn't wept on his doorstep for years, and thank Christ she'd given up those absurd religious quests, but still . . .

Still there was the silent bargain
—We take care of each other.

Though Waring knew Alaura paid the greater price for their friendship. Appeased the customers he trampled upon. Hired new employees whenever old ones finally gave up. Fed him. Stuffed spearmint gum into his mouth to mask the smell of alcohol. Shoved him in a cab when he was too drunk. Instructed him when to buy new clothes. Everything.

In the end, he gave her nothing but money.

“No,” he said. “I'm not having money problems. We're fine.”

“But our bank account is getting really low.”

“You know I have money, Alaura.”

“And Blockbuster is obviously a big deal,” she persisted. “Is that why Clarissa Wheat from Guiding Glow Distribution has been leaving messages?”

He looked again at Alaura—her pouty lips and pert Jean Seberg nose and angry eyes overlaid by concerned brow. Her heart-shaped face framed by the office door.

“Every single day, she calls.”

But Waring didn't want to think about it. About Blockbuster, about money, about the downturn in business, about Clarissa Wheat from Guiding Glow Distribution. (And why
was
Clarissa Wheat calling? That was more bad news. Waring
needed
his feeble distribution deal and its measly wholesale discount, not to mention that Guiding Glow was currently allowing him to operate at a considerable debt. But Clarissa Wheat: a hideous Christian prude whom he had grudgingly screwed a year ago, though in truth he couldn't remember the particulars of her visit, such as conversations or copulation, because he'd been tanked. Perhaps nothing sexual had happened, which was possible, he supposed, given her Skeletor-like countenance and her obnoxious biblical proclamations, and especially given that his member hadn't functioned reliably since the early 1990s. But the point: Clarissa Wheat could cancel his distribution contract with a wave of her bony hand, effectively shattering the narrow margin upon which Star Video currently skated. And that, as they say, would be that.) No, he wanted to drink, so he chugged another beer, and he mumbled, “Don't worry, Alaura, everything is fine,” and very, very soon, yes, he started to feel the booze, and he wasn't hearing Alaura. He was talking to her but not participating in the interface. Alaura, the only person he gave a crap about, the quirky country girl from Sprinks, North Carolina, turned hipster West Appleton power goddess . . . but now he didn't
have the energy. This wasn't one of those times when
Waring Wax acts for a moment like a human being to gain sympathy
, this was instead when
Waring drinks
, which he did.

Alaura finally left the office.

He guzzled another beer.

Finally the warmth of the booze was pulsing again through his face, so when he thought about Blockbuster, he felt only a painful twinge that became easier and easier to ignore—because fuck it, he owned the ancient, rundown strip mall that housed both Star Video and Pizza My Heart, as well as the half acre on College Street where the building stood, and he owned his own house. Yes, they were shitty properties, but he
owned
them, so he'd never end up destitute. And when he thought of his family, all he saw of his father was a mound of wet clay, and of his brother a false, toothy smile, and of his mother a swath of gray and white—that cloudy headshot from her unsuccessful acting career that had adorned the mantle of his childhood home, a proud memento of her failure. And of his ex-wife, Waring saw nothing of her physical form—only the never-good-enough apartment in New York. And the bars he had frequented. And his office. And that last flight from the city, when he had decided, once and for all, that he actually didn't care about money, or working in an office, or owning things, or being married, or impressing people at dinner parties—especially dinner parties. He really didn't care, all he'd ever wanted to do was own and operate a video store, that had been all he'd ever dreamed about, and he had wept on that plane, and cursed, and told whoever would listen that his wife had left him for another man, that he'd been fired from his job by that same man, that he was leaving New York forever, and that life as he knew it, thankfully, was over.

An empty beer can slipped from his fingers and pinged loudly against the concrete floor—Waring jolted awake, surprised to find himself in his office at Star Video. It was two a.m.

He unearthed a half bottle of cheap bourbon in the bottom desk
drawer, under the credit card bills (unpaid). He kept drinking, and later, on his couch at home, he passed out during the first long tracking shot of
Touch of Evil.

The next morning, after
a shower and a change of clothes (in his head he heard Alaura reprimanding him for his odor), Waring stumbled down College Street through the harsh whiteness of day. He needed a drink. But coffee first.

Waiting in line at the Open Eye Café—a large, trendy study spot for Appleton University students—Waring realized that he was surrounded, once again, by a hoard of people all transfixed by tiny glowing terminals. The laptops: rectangular screens blooming blue-white light, like a field of illuminated gravestones, brighter than the sun streaming through the windows. And all the damn cell phones. At one table he saw three emaciated college girls, each wearing a pink tee shirt and plaid pajama pants, each gaping like zombies at their one-inch screens, tapping away with their thumbs, lost in an ether of idiocy.

And . . . good God . . . was one guy actually watching an episode of that god-awful
Two and a Half Men
on his laptop? Wearing headphones, plugged in like an android?

Then, as if to intensify this horror show, Waring spotted Alaura's boyfriend, Peckerdick, in all his graduate-art-student glory. The kid wore paint-splattered pants and a black hemp shirt that fit a little too well, his gym-sculpted muscles somehow belying his commitment to the painter's craft. What was Alaura doing with this guy? After Peckerdick had threatened to punch Waring that drunken night not long ago, Alaura had defended her boyfriend, arguing that deep down, Peckerdick was kind and complex. Waring knew what that meant. It meant that Peckerdick performed oral sex and listened to Yo-Yo Ma while he painted. He listened to
This American Life.
He probably wept in joy during Peter Greenaway movies and
worshiped the collective works of Terrence Malick without discussion. Peckerdick was, according to Alaura, “wise beyond his years.” But Waring didn't buy it. The guy was clearly a rich kid pretending to be evolved. And he was only twenty-three years old. Way too young for her.

Then Waring saw—Peckerdick was sharing a fruit pastry with a blonde girl in a powder-blue tee shirt. Some high-breasted sorority chick. Peckerdick forked a hunk of pastry toward the girl's shimmering lips, and as the airship reached its dock, he made eye contact with Waring.

Peckerdick leaned back in his chair, frowned.

Waring pointed a finger gun at him. “I knew it,” he mouthed.

Smiling at his discovery and resolving to lock it into memory so as to tell Alaura posthaste, Waring ordered a red eye. He paid the purple-tattooed twit who always sneered at him, and he thought,
Life sucks, but not as much as people
, and he wanted to say, “I know a girl with tattoos who knows a thing or two.” But he didn't say it. He was tired, and anyway, being rude in the Open Eye might get him kicked out, again, and this was one of the few places where he tried to behave. He was spoiled on espresso. And wasn't that the best sort of business to be in? To sell a truly addictive product to your customers?

Two nights later, from
the safety of Star Video's loft—referred to by those in the know as
The African Queen
—Waring listened to a staff meeting that Alaura had hastily arranged. He had spent the entire day in
The African Queen
drinking and smoking and reading a fascinating biography of D.W. Griffith (Waring supposed
someone
had to invent the establishing shot, but unfortunately it was a crazy racist) and just for fun watching
Thin Man
movie after
Thin Man
movie, and he had no intention of participating in the pointless meeting.
The African Queen
itself was tiny, only seven feet by seven
feet, nothing more than a rectangular wooden crate supported by the shelves behind the front counter where all the DVDs and VHS tapes were stored, and further secured by several rusty cables. The vessel's name was etched upon its berth in black stenciled letters, and the walls of the loft rose high enough that, when seated on its dusty yellow couch, one was hidden from the large store below.

The loft's television—a fifty-inch flat-panel, high-definition screen—was Waring's lone concession to modern technology at Star Video. Because no matter how you sliced it, these new televisions were amazing, though he hadn't yet figured out how to attach the thing to a VHS player . . .

He peered over the edge of
The African Queen.
Five employees. Apparently someone had just quit; he did not remember who. But Alaura, sexy as always. And the new kid (Jack? Jed? Jessie?), that tall trim smiling Richie Cunningham suck-up. The names of the remaining three, which Waring was astounded he could remember, were Dorian, Farley, and Rose. Dorian was a small effeminate kid of indeterminate age—his complexion was so polished that he might be either twenty or thirty-five—and he was the store's expert on musicals and concert videos. Dorian spoke softly and had a habit that Waring admired of rolling his eyes when he was annoyed. Farley (documentaries and dramas) was huge, almost three hundred pounds, but unlike his nickname-sake, Chris Farley (or perhaps Farley was his real name?), he could never maintain energy levels high enough to parlay his obesity into merrymaking, let alone go a half hour without sitting down. Rose (cartoons, especially classic Looney Tunes), a tiny, oily girl who resembled a mouse, wore huge hooded sweaters even in the summer, and she snarled if anyone violated her ten-foot personal space.

“We all love movies,” Alaura was saying to them. “Working at a video store isn't a glamorous gig. But if you're like me, you'd rather watch movies than do anything else in the world. Anything. And yes, I know what that implies . . .”

Waring watched as his employees chuckled at her corny insinuation and, he knew, in embarrassed agreement. That was Alaura's great talent: hiring certifiable cinephiles, those crackbrained personalities for whom the flickering screen was better than sex.

“This is a special place for
all
of us,” Alaura continued. “This is a college town. Ape U's right down the road—” (more chuckles for her deployment of local slang for Appleton University). “But the point is,” she said, smiling, “this is an artsy, progressive bubble in an otherwise stupidly Republican state. And Star Video is the only local store that stocks foreign and independent titles. We carry over thirty thousand movies. It's the best selection in North Carolina. We're an important part of the arts community in Appleton and West Appleton and Ape U. And we're an independent store. In-depen-dent. We do things
our
way. We stock the movies
we
want. When Waring bought this place over ten years ago, he turned it from a crappy little closet that only stocked mainstream releases, where you couldn't even find fucking
Seven Samurai
, into a goddamn cathedral of movie worship.
That's
why this store is special.”

The employees all nodded.

Waring belched quietly.

“I've worked here for nine years,” Alaura went on. “Since the nineteen freaking nineties. And if Star Video closes—I'm not saying we're going to close, because we're not, because Waring tells me that we're doing fine—but if we did close, then something special about this town would be lost. A piece of its heart. I really believe that, stupid as it sounds. So, we're making a few changes. We need to improve customer experience. Jeff and I have discussed some ideas. Would everyone like to hear them?”