“I don’t care.”
“Fine, jerk face. And FYI, Blad is short for bladder infection. I don’t remember why.” He grabbed his book off the coffee table, climbed over the edge of The African Queen, and began to descend the staircase. “Stay up here if you want,” he called back. “It’s not like we have any customers anyway.”
Alaura spotted a bottle of Sierra Nevada, picked it up, popped it open against a corner of the coffee table. She lit a cigarette. Finally good and ready, she restarted High Fidelity, which she had seen years before and which she would soon reevaluate as a flawed but endearing portrait of music store snobs, who were in many ways similar to video store snobs, and that Waring had probably been offended not only by Cusack’s fading charm (he was too beefy to be that neurotic), but also by the basis of the movie’s humor (that the characters’ snobbishness was fundamentally ridiculous). Nonetheless, she found herself drifting easily into the mesh of the film, into the interdependent professional and romantic plot threads, because being engaged with a film was her favorite craving, the relief of images, the dependable escape, the conflicting empathies, the forming of plot hypotheses, the subverting of expectations, the satisfactions of suspense, all of it, all the tricks of narrative, all the lies they use to tell the truth. This was her truest religion, her most reliable form of meditation, and she knew it.
“Are you okay, ma’am?”
Alaura’s attention jolted from the movie onto Jeff’s face floating above the wall of The African Queen. She was crying again. Eye shadow probably ran down her cheeks. So she turned away from him. On screen, John Cusack and some no-name actress were reuniting after the sudden death of her father. They sat in a car, kissing, their hair wet from rain. The scene was nothing special, not visually original in the slightest, but the expression on Cusack’s familiar face, his amazement that the girl of his dreams wanted him back . . . Alaura had not been able to restrain the tears. Normally she preferred indie and foreign films. But even Hollywood movies (especially Hollywood movies, she had to admit) could make her cry.
She paused the DVD.
“Jeff?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“If you call me ma’am again, I’ll rip out your eyeballs.”
No response.
“Oh, you know what I mean,” she said weakly.
“Are you okay . . . Alaura?”
“Peachy keen.”
She massaged her temples, tried to straighten the neckline of her tee shirt. Still facing away from him, she said, “Did you need something, Jeff?”
“It’s, well . . . Waring’s on the phone. I think it’s Clarissa Wheat from that Guiding Glow Distribution place again. It sounds like bad news.”
Alaura: sarcastic puff of laughter.
Clarissa Wheat is calling, and it sounds like bad news, she thought. Waring’s on an epic bender. Pierce just broke up with me. Pierce fucked me before breaking up with me. Jeff just saw me crying. My makeup is running. Blockbuster just opened. I live in a dinky town thirty minutes from the dinky town where I grew up. I’ve never lived anywhere else. Waring is a ridiculous human being, and he might be running out of money. I might lose my job. No one will ever hire a girl with these tattoos. There’s a marijuana charge on my criminal record. I’m half-drunk in the afternoon. I haven’t talked to Daddy in a month. I haven’t visited Sprinks in six. I’m old. I’m gaining weight. My only marketable skill is . . . my only marketable skill is . . .
“Thanks for the update, Jeff,” she said.
“Can I do anything?”
“You can leave me the fuck alone.”
Silence.
Then she listened to Jeff descend the steps.
And now I’ve been rude to Jeff, aka the Nicest Kid in the World.
She’d apologize later. But not now. Now all she could manage was—resetting High Fidelity to the beginning of the scene with Cusack and the girl in the car and taking a huge gulp of beer.
Your life hasn’t turned out how you wanted, Waring had said.
No shit, Sherlock.
THE DISCREET CHARM OF CLARISSA WHEAT
A few moments earlier, the store phone had rung, prompting Waring to stare at it in disgust. He didn’t want to answer, but Jeff was nowhere in sight. So after four rings, Waring slammed down his book, snatched up the phone, and offered the caller an annoyed “Mm?”
“Waring Wax, please?” asked a sober female voice.
“He’s retired. Or asleep.”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Pardon?”
“Message,” he barked. “This is where you leave a message.”
“I must say, sir, you’re being a little—”
“So sorry, ma’am. I’ve got a line of ten customers.”
“Oh?” said the woman, her voice rising in what sounded like pleasant surprise. “That’s nice to hear. Please tell Waring that Clarissa Wheat from Guiding Glow Distribution called—”
Waring stood from his director’s chair. His entire body cringed. With his free hand, he punched the air as if battling a shadow, or perhaps Clarissa Wheat herself.
“Wait!” he cried into the phone. “I see Waring! Just a sec!”
Waring had put off talking to Clarissa Wheat long enough. After a brief pause, he spoke into the phone using a ridiculously deep voice and, for some reason, a pinch of a British accent:
“Clarissa! How are you?”
“Waring, my darling.”
“Darling?” he said, instantly confused.
“Waring, dear, I’ve been trying to reach you. I don’t think we’ve spoken personally in over a year, since my last visit. Did a Blockbuster recently open near your store?”
“Oh, is that all?” He tutted a fake laugh. “It’s a long way down the street. Miles, really.”
“Still,” she continued, “the board of Guiding Glow is concerned. There’s a not inconsiderable balance on your account, and it’s been growing as of late. And, to be frank, we’re surprised that you didn’t inform us earlier about Blockbuster, as it’s quite likely to impact your earnings.”
“I see, I see. Oversight on my part.” His voice trailed off, and he punched the air again.
“Of course, we should have kept you informed ourselves,” Clarissa Wheat said. “For that, I apologize.”
“Um, apology accepted.”
“We’re concerned, as I can tell you are. We had a group prayer for you this afternoon.”
“Why, thank you. I recently did some . . . some praying myself.”
“How is business, Waring?”
“Fine!” he belted out assuredly. “A slight drop, perhaps, but that’s to be expected at the end of summer.”
“Really? I assumed with students returning—”
“Business should be ticking upward,” he interrupted. “It’s fine. I’m fine. We’re all fine and dandy. I’ll catch up on my account shortly, and there should be no drop-off in our ordering, none whatsoever, not any time soon, not at all.”
Waring scoured his pockets for cigarettes but found none.
“We’ve planned a visit to West Appleton,” Clarissa Wheat said. “It’s been too long. There are some things I’d like to discuss with you personally.”
“Discuss?” Waring said, then he laughed as if her suggestion were pleasantly offensive. “Not needed. Like I say, business should be ticking upward in the very near future.”
“My dear Waring, I’m sure you’re aware that many of the stores we contract with are posting losses. All across the country. Significant losses. And obviously Blockbuster isn’t the only issue . . . the Internet and Redbox have hit us all harder than we calculated. As one of Guiding Glow’s most, well, unique clients, we’d like to come take a lay of the land, see if we can offer any help. Things are changing, Waring. We need to prepare for the future.”
“But I just don’t think—”
“We’ve already purchased our plane tickets.”
Waring’s head wilted forward.
&
nbsp; “That’s fantastic,” he muttered.
“And Waring?” Clarissa said. “I’ve missed you. I think about my last visit all the time.”
A twinge of recognition. A murky memory. Waring visualized Clarissa Wheat, the middle-aged heron of a woman in a starched gray business suit—she was bony and bloodless and offensively makeup-caked. Something strange had indeed happened between Waring and this specimen during her first and only visit to West Appleton, one year ago, soon after Guiding Glow—the Christian corporation she worshipped and served—had purchased Star Video’s original distributor for fiscal and propagandic reasons completely inconceivable to Waring. Clarissa Wheat had arrived without warning one evening when Waring was whiskey-hammered and working alone, and among her many un-Christianly shrill complaints, she had particularly harped on his new contractual obligation to provide a more family- and faith-friendly movie selection. He remembered cracking up in laughter—at her deadpan suggestion that he now operated at the pleasure of the Almighty—then realizing she wasn’t joking at all.
But somehow, on that occasion, everything had worked out fine. Waring had awoken in The African Queen the next morning, deathly hungover, memory obliterated, but with the vague sense that his distribution deal was secure.
“Barney and I arrive in three days,” she said. “Tuesday, two o’clock.”
“Barney?”
“My husband, Barney Wheat. Vice president of distribution? Your employee, Ms. Eden, places her monthly orders with him. I’d rather come alone, of course. But you know how Barney is.”
The call ended, and at once, Waring resolved to make peace with Alaura, who today had been distant and crabby and later than normal to her shift, and who for some reason was in a particularly anti-Waring mood. But whatever the issue, whatever it took to win her back, Waring would do it, because Clarissa Wheat was a problem, and now he really needed Alaura’s help.
Jeff stepped down from The African Queen. Waring turned and considered the preposterously tall, preposterously well-proportioned youngster.
Had Jeff been talking to Alaura? Smiling at her? Existing for even a second within her field of vision? Unacceptable.
Then Waring remembered that night last week: those bicycle deadbeats. How Jeff had swooped in like a zitty Errol Flynn. But you’re not getting a thank you, Waring thought. I didn’t ask for your help. And if I find out you’ve told Alaura, then you’re fired, Opie Taylor. That whole incident is better left forgotten.
Jeff scurried onto the floor without looking at Waring—probably to organize DVDs or to dust or to do something else in a preposterously productive way—and Waring’s gaze scrolled across his expansive store and came across Farley, who was standing near the Criterion section.
Farley held his video camera. The camera was trained on Waring.
Had Farley captured his entire conversation with Clarissa Wheat?
Waring sneered at the camera and its rotund operator. “Farley?” he said. “Alaura might not let me fire you. But that doesn’t mean maiming is out of the question.”
Farley smiled and gave Waring an enthusiastic, directorial thumbs-up.
THE ONE WHERE THEY PERPETRATE A COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS SCHEME THAT COMES TO BE KNOWN SIMPLY AS “THE CORPORATE VISIT”
On Tuesday, three days after the bad-news phone call, Clarissa and Barney Wheat arrived at precisely two p.m., driving a rented minivan, and as Jeff watched Alaura welcome them outside the shop, he decided that he had never witnessed a couple dressed so identically who also looked so different. The Wheats wore matching three-button navy suits, crisp white shirts, red ties, and shiny gray shoes, and around their necks hung thick silver chains upon which dangled thick silver crosses, resting over their ties. But Clarissa Wheat was a head taller than her husband. And twenty years younger. She was rail thin where he was pudgy and folded. Her coal black hair was pulled into a tight bun, while Barney Wheat’s hair was sporadic and disheveled and gray. A dopey, perpetual smile swung on his sagging face, while her lips seemed to disappear into a haughty point an inch below her nose.
As if the Wheats’ arrival had initiated a dimensional shift, Alaura looked like a different person. She wore no makeup besides a swipe of dull red lipstick. Her hair lay flat and parted like a brunette Mia Farrow. And though the temperature was well over eighty degrees, she wore a white turtleneck sweater and a pale blue, ankle-length skirt—an outfit designed to cover her tattoos, Jeff decided, just like that morning at Tanglewood Baptist.
Jeff watched Alaura banter and smile with the strange couple. He watched her ask questions and nod thoughtfully at their answers. But her skin was pale. Her face looked thin. Shadowy circles hung under her eyes. Jeff had caught her crying in the loft the other day, and she’d been mean to him, but he’d probably deserved it, though he didn’t know why. Since then she’d been hours late to every shift, and she no longer emitted that same bright energy with customers or employees or him.
“Look alive, freshman.”
Waring stood at the counter.
Jeff could not believe what he saw.
“What?” Waring said. “This is a thousand-dollar suit.”
But Waring’s charcoal suit was wrinkled and crooked, too tight over the stomach, too loose in the shoulders. One button dangled like a dislodged tooth, and around the suit’s neckline looped a weird ring of dark wet spots. His hair was combed back and glistening. Jeff smelled the heavy tang of Vitalis.
Waring looked like a member of the Brat Pack after too many calzones and a rough night in a country jail.
“Stop staring,” Waring said.
“Sorry.”
“Listen, Blad, I know you’re not thrilled about this corporate visit thing. But you have to play along.”
Jeff sighed. Waring had employed the phrase “You have to play along” at least five times that day. Which apparently meant lying to Clarissa and Barney Wheat. But lie about what? Jeff had no idea.
“None of that,” Waring said. “No discontented exhales. No shrugs. Understand?”
“Not really.”
Waring placed both palms on the counter, as if to stabilize it. “Alaura thought you should work today,” he said, mostly to himself, “which was clearly a mistake. At least Rose would have stayed quiet. Meaning less likely than you to say anything, well, wrong. Listen, Blad. I mean Jeff. It’s very simple. I buy movies at a cheaper rate because I’m part of a distribution group. Even a rinky-dink distributor like Guiding Glow affords us a minimum of a 25 percent discount. The concept is called wholesale pricing—”
“I understand wholesale pricing.”
“Good for you. Now, listen. My original distributor was purchased last year by a Christian cartel called Guiding Glow. Those twits outside . . . they’re Guiding Glow minions. They manage my account. In order to get them off my back, we have to convince them, first of all, that we’re making money hand over fist, which we’re not, and second of all, that we stock a, quote, faith-friendly selection, unquote, which I’m delighted to say we don’t.”
Jeff glanced at what had once constituted the front panel of the Foreign Film section—Kurosawa and Fellini and Godard front and center for every customer to see, as well as Bergman and Antonioni, who had both apparently died, tragically, astonishingly, on the exact same day earlier that year. Now this section was labeled “Spiritual Spotlight,” and its shelves were filled with Christian DVDs, many of which Jeff recognized from his old Baptist youth group and as the horrible movies Momma watched when Bill O’Reilly or her favorite televangelists called it quits for the night. Predictable storylines, laughable production value, shameful acting, Kirk Cameron. And the documentaries . . . the unforgivably biased documentaries. Jeff had given up on this entire subgenre years ago and never looked back.
The sole reason the Spiritual Spotlight movies were kept boxed in Waring’s office, Jeff had surmised, was for these rare Guiding Glow visits.
“Familiarize yourself with those titles,” Waring said. “There’ll be a quiz.”
<
br /> “Fine.”
“And remember, the Porn Room is locked. For today, it doesn’t exist. Obviously we buy our porn from a different distributor. To your knowledge, we haven’t rented a single title with visible genitalia since The Piano was boycotted by all those anti–Harvey Keitel Jesus freaks.”
Jeff nodded weakly.
Waring nodded mockingly in response. “Honestly, Blad, I don’t understand your problem.”
Then he exited to greet the Wheats.
“I don’t understand your problem,” Jeff muttered to himself, walking the length of the counter. “Ungrateful jerk.”
No, Jeff decided at once. He would not lie. The way Waring had been treating him—the yelling and the insults even though Jeff had kept his stupid secret about the bicycle gang, without so much as a “thanks”—Jeff had had enough. If asked a direct question by the Wheats, he would tell the truth. That he’d made compromises to work here, that he’d withheld from Momma that Star Video rented pornography, that he’d be missing church this weekend because he was scheduled for a Sunday-morning shift with Alaura . . . Jeff was sickened by the scope of his own failings.
So today—though he doubted it would have much effect on his immortal soul—today, at least, he would not lie.
“It’s so nice to see you again!” Clarissa Wheat fluted as Waring approached her.
Waring cringed. He forced his WASPiest smile.
Clarissa Wheat stepped forward, kissed Waring’s cheek, and pressed her hip into his. His back stiffened. He noticed that her ropey neck was as veined as a heroin addict’s forearm. She smelled like a freshly mown lawn—not a bad smell, necessarily, but not how a human being should smell at all.
She stood leaning against him for a few beats longer than made any rational sense.
“Hell-ooooh!” Waring said, Seinfeld-esque, and he gingerly tapped her back.
“We’re excited to be here,” she said.
“I’m excited that you’re excited.”
“Very excited,” she whispered, and she finally backed away.
Waring glanced at Barney Wheat—an oblivious smile dangled on the old man’s face.
The Last Days of Video Page 6
