The Last Days of Video

by Jeremy Hawkins

  “No,” Jeff said, looking down at the scuzzy alleyway under his feet. “No, that makes total sense.”

  “So if I e-mail you these pictures, will you post them for me? I mean, I doubt it’ll even make Entertainment Tonight, but we should still try, right?”

  Jeff nodded. He felt his soul being shredded. He gave her his Ape U e-mail address, and he looked down at her as she sent off an e-mail with the pictures attached.

  Then she turned to walk back into Hell.

  He called out to her, “Celia!”—three syllables forced into a desperate, descending plea.

  She turned back.

  But Jeff realized, as he had feared all along, that he had absolutely nothing worthwhile to say to Celia Watson.

  They stared at each other for a long time.

  Finally he blurted: “So I hear Match Anderson is hallucinating. Weird, huh?”

  Celia Watson eyed him with her huge, famous eyes. “What?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Match Anderson is seeing things. Like a crazy person.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jeff thought about it—yes, this was all true. He was not making it up. “I overheard Alaura talking with my boss,” he explained. “After you guys left Star Video yesterday.”

  Celia nodded. “And?”

  “And Alaura said that Match is, I don’t know, seeing the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock.”

  Celia’s eyes widened. “Is that fucking true?”

  Jeff managed a nod.

  She stepped toward him. He froze. She reached up with both hands, placed her palms gently on his checks, and guided him down. She kissed him, this time with her mouth closed, this time soft and sweet.

  Then, before he knew what was happening, she had turned her back to him again—he wanted her to stay, he wanted to put his arms around her. But his mouth had gone limp and useless.

  A moment later, she was gone.

  Jeff closed his eyes, phased into another dimension—all he wanted was to hold her. Maybe lose his virginity, sure, but just holding Celia would have been enough.

  He stood in the alleyway, wobbling like a flagpole in the wind.

  •••

  Two a.m., Star Video. The bodyguards mumbled downstairs while Waring and Alex Walden sat in The African Queen, drinking. Walden smoked a fat cigar, and they watched Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, because three times that evening Walden had pronounced the phrase “Cary Grant was a god.” So Waring had listed as many Grant movies from Star Video’s catalogue as he could, and when Walden had confessed that he hadn’t seen Charade, Waring had guffawed and said, “You’re fucking kidding me, you’ve never seen Charade?”

  So they watched and marveled and laughed together at the immaculate banter between Hepburn and Grant.

  Later, Waring caught something on the screen.

  “Hey,” he said, and like an old pal he elbowed Alex Walden, who had just nodded off to sleep.

  Walden snorted awake.

  “Looksie who it is,” Waring said. Using the remote, he rewound the movie a few seconds. Hepburn and Grant, over coffee on a Parisian riverboat, were engaged in yet another witty exchange. Their young waiter, whose head slid into view only for a moment—a moment barely long enough for Waring to capture with the “Pause” button—was George Walden, Alex’s father.

  “Shit,” Alex Walden said, sitting up straighter. “I didn’t know he was in this.”

  Waring watched Walden. The actor’s face was oddly blank, but there was a crumpling of the skin below his mouth—Waring had seen this expression before, in countless movies: this was one of the subtle ways Alex Walden conveyed sadness.

  “I didn’t know he was in this,” Walden repeated.

  Then his head rolled back onto the couch cushion, and his eyelids fell shut.

  Waring lit a cigarette, his last of the night. He removed Alex’s smoldering cigar from his fingers and set it in the ashtray. Then a boozy tide rocked him forward until his elbows rested on his knees.

  How, Waring wondered, had Alex Walden not known that his own father had an uncredited role in Charade? It was exhilarating, he thought, to have been the one to deliver this information.

  But there are always truths rippling beneath the surface, clamoring to break into our awareness, yet we do not see them. Not all movie revelations are bullshit plot devices. And again Waring thought of that plane ride, twelve years ago, how he had bitched and moaned to the guy sitting next to him about how unreal it was for his wife to have left him—and he thought about the hotel room—why rehash this now?—Waring did not know. It was probably because Star Video might be saved and Alex Walden, celebrity, was Waring’s new drinking buddy—it was probably because for once, if Waring let himself, he could feel good—but what fucking right did he have to feel good?

  In the hotel room, drunk, after the disastrous interview in Charlotte, the phone rings. The caller is Waring’s wife. He tries to hide that he is overjoyed to hear from her, but she has called with single-minded purpose—and with false excitement he begs her to go right ahead, to explain everything, especially the “Dear John” note currently residing on his hotel bed stand, transported with him from New York, read hundreds of times. She explains. She tells him that she has wanted a divorce for years. She tells him that he has failed her in every way. She hates his drinking and his constant television watching. She tells him he is horrible in bed and that she has seen a doctor and he must be the one who is infertile. She tells him his money isn’t enough. And finally she confirms what Waring already suspects, that she has been sleeping with his former boss, Ethan, and that is why Ethan had him fired, and that she is moving in with Ethan, and they are starting a family right away.

  The emotion of the moment was painfully vivid—he’d rarely recalled it through the years, he’d successfully avoided reliving it, but it had remained unaltered, sharp, noxious. His wife. Helena. They hadn’t spoken since the divorce.

  But what if Helena could see him now? Sitting in his wonderful, crappy video store?

  She would laugh at him. She would take one look at Star Video and roll her eyes and laugh and thank her lucky stars that she had gotten out while the getting was good. The only person who thought this crappy video store was wonderful was Alaura, whom Helena would also, he knew, dismiss with searing displeasure.

  No one cared about Star Video. There had been no community movement to save his store. Like his marriage, the video store’s time had passed.

  He nursed the hurt of it.

  He sucked hard on his cigarette.

  What was he supposed to do with his life?

  Everything in the universe—technology, finances, local government, everything—was pointing him away from Star Video. But he had no idea where they were pointing. He looked off into the black space of his shop—the dusty warehouse ceiling, the rectangular gridded lights, all of it dark.

  Then his attention turned again to Charade. Beautiful Audrey Hepburn, the most enchanting creature ever to live.

  A dream blazing in the darkness.

  MATCH POINT

  At six a.m. that morning, there was a knock on Match Anderson’s hotel room door. Match was showering in preparation for that day’s big shoot, and when Alaura answered the knock, a young male intern asked her to come downstairs on an urgent matter. Alaura dressed quickly, followed the intern, and was led into the small conference room where she had been reunited with Match a week before. And like a week before, she was instructed to sit and wait.

  Five minutes. Ten minutes. Twenty.

  Finally a woman wearing a slate-colored business suit entered, and she introduced herself as a [name of film studio omitted] executive—Alaura did not catch the woman’s name or her specific title at first. But the woman meant business. She was short and boney, had the sunken cheeks of a corpse or a vegan—a female Harry Dean Stanton. Alaura was too confused to be scared.

  “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Mr. Anderson?” asked t
he executive, who stood stiffly in the middle of the small room, arms crossed, looking down at Alaura.

  “Yes,” Alaura said.

  “Sleeping here every night?”

  Alaura gulped. “I don’t think that’s your business.”

  “I’m the executive producer of The Buried Mirror, so everything is my business.”

  Trying to counter the woman’s rude aggressiveness, Alaura said quickly, “I want to go back to Match’s room.”

  Harry Dean Stanton squinted, and her voice lowered. “Is there something you want to tell me, Ms. Eden?”

  How did Harry Dean Stanton know her name? Looking around the room, Alaura wondered if she was being Punk’d. Doubtful, she decided. “What are you talking about, ma’am?”

  “I think you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Aren’t you listening to me?” Alaura said—a tremor had entered her voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Ms. Eden, are you aware of any mental problems that Mr. Anderson is currently experiencing?”

  At this, Alaura shrunk in her chair. Her face warmed over, her stomach curled. “No,” she finally managed. “I’m not aware of any . . . problems.”

  Harry Dean Stanton nodded, and she left the conference room without another word. A moment later, Alaura was escorted back to Match’s room, where she found Match sitting dumbfounded on his bed. He was wearing a blue bathrobe, like Bill Murray, she thought, in Lost in Translation. His hair was still wet from showering, and on his feet were wedged two cheap hotel sandals. The bathrobe hung from his shoulders like a towel on hooks, and it pooled in a mass of fabric atop his potbelly. He did not seem to have noticed her entry into the room.

  “It’s all over,” he said, gazing at the floor with an oddly beseeching look, as if he expected the carpet to answer.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think I need a lawyer. Have you spoken to a lawyer?”

  Alaura did not understand—why would anyone need a lawyer? “No,” she said. Then, almost as a joke: “Have you spoken to a lawyer?”

  “No.” His gaze moved from floor to ceiling, slowly. “I took some phone calls. But except for Hitch, I haven’t seen anybody since they took you away.”

  Alaura closed her eyes, but only for a moment—she threw back her shoulders and nodded resolutely. “Match, I talked to this woman who said she was your executive producer—”

  “Oh, man, she’s here?”

  “Yes. She’s a bit intimidating. She mentioned something about . . . about mental problems. But I didn’t say anything. She didn’t mention Hitchcock, so I think if we just say that you’re mentally exhausted or something, then maybe we could avoid—”

  “Thank you,” he said breathily, as if relieved—but he added, “Don’t worry about it.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll work it out. We’ll place a call, get things rolling.”

  “We?” Alaura said. Did he mean his brother? Tabitha Gray? Hitchcock?

  “I don’t need your help, Alaura.”

  She stood up, but she sat back down immediately. “No,” she said weakly. “I want to help you.”

  “Don’t get involved in this.” Match looked at her directly for the first time since she had reentered the room. “You’re too good for all this, Alaura. For me. I’m going to quit the movie.”

  Around Alaura, the walls of the room seemed to shudder.

  “But why? The celebrity auction, Match. We need the celebrity auction to save Star Video. You promised.”

  Match interlaced his slender fingers, pushed his fingertips back and forth over the tendrils on the backs of his hands. “I’m a terrible director,” he said, as if that made any sense.

  She tensed her legs, tensed her arms—willing herself to stay calm. “No you’re not, Match. You’re a great director. You’re just having a rough time right now. It’s just exhaustion. That’s what we’ll tell her. We can get through this.”

  “No, we can’t.”

  “Tell me the truth, Match. What’s going on?”

  Match rolled his spindly shoulders, and he reached up with his bony hands and massaged his puffy, recently shaved face. His eyes were large, bloodshot. His chest seemed concave, and he breathed quickly, deeply, almost panting, as if possessed by the demon in The Exorcist.

  “What’s going on,” he said, “is that I got a call this morning, before you woke up. It was my agent. He told me that he could no longer represent me because of some rumors. I don’t know what rumors exactly. Though I can guess. I don’t know how the secret got out. I thought only Finn knew about Hitchcock, and I doubt he would tell the studio. But he must have. Or the doctor in New York. Or you, Alaura.” He shook his head. “But I know you didn’t tell anyone. I just don’t understand.”

  Alaura covered her mouth with a tense hand; had Waring mentioned Hitchcock to someone? No, she thought. Impossible. Not even Waring was that stupid.

  “We just have to make it another few days,” she said. “The celebrity auction, Match. Star Video.”

  Silence. Tears swelled in her eyes for a moment. But Match did not notice.

  She heard Match mumble something.

  “What?” she said, looking back.

  “I said perhaps it’s for the best.”

  “The best? How is quitting the movie for the best? How the hell is giving up for the best?”

  “Because I’m exhausted, Alaura. I’m so tired. Even if I don’t quit, they’ll fire me. No matter what. They’re going to take The Buried Mirror away from me.”

  “They?”

  “The studio. Everyone will know about Hitchcock. It’ll be on Twitter and the blogs by this afternoon. And then it’ll follow me forever. Everyone will know I went crazy—”

  “Match!” she said, trying to curtail his wandering mind.

  “And it’s a relief, really. That I’m quitting.”

  “No.”

  “Because it’s shit, isn’t it? This movie is just shit. It’s my fault, Alaura. It’s a terrible screenplay. I’m sorry to admit it, but it is. I’ve just been working on it too long. They’ll finish it. They’ll film in California somewhere, on a shoestring, and release it. They never wanted to come to North Carolina in the first place. But the movie will bomb. I know bombs. I’ve already directed a few. The Buried Mirror is a bomb.”

  Alaura stood, almost leaping from the bed, and she walked to the far side of the room to the big bay window. Outside the window sprawled several beautiful homes: Appleton’s Historic District mansions, where family fortunes as old as the hills churned and turned and tumbled, always making more money, always growing, while those damn beautiful houses stayed exactly the same.

  “Take it,” he said, and she turned back to him, saw him pointing to his cluttered desk where a tattered copy of The Buried Mirror screenplay lay. “Read it,” he went on. “It’s a terrible, barely functional screenplay. And it’s the best I could do. And anyway, Alaura, what’s the point? I’m asking myself, not you. What’s the point? Of any movie? Simple characters. Ridiculous circumstances. Pseudorealities where everyone is beautiful and everyone speaks perfectly and says perfectly interesting things, and no loose ends allowed, unless they’re interesting loose ends, when who are we but the summation of our loose ends? And even when movies are at their best, when they’re artful or challenging or original, they’re still just a way for the audience to forget how shitty the world is, to experience something that resembles real emotion, only to be returned safely. Movies are a drug, a sedative. We trade in a controlled substance. You watch a movie and laugh and cry and jump in fear, and your brain thinks it has experienced something real. But it’s bullshit, it’s all a mirage—”

  “No!” she yelled. “Stop it, Match. Movies are—”

  “Movies are dying, Alaura. That’s the truth. Every year, box office numbers go down. It’s a dying industry. Everyone in Hollywood knows it. No one says it, but we all know. It’s not just video stores, it’s the movies, too.”r />
  “Match,” she said softly. She recrossed the room and dropped to her knees in front of him—she couldn’t give up—not yet—not on Match. “You are a good director,” she pleaded, setting her hands on his legs, squeezing the fabric of his bathrobe. “You just have to stick with it. Your movies help people. They’ve helped me. They really have. Movies are important, Match. They are! You’re a good director.”

  “That isn’t true,” he said.

  “Yes, it is.”

  The door to Match’s hotel room opened—the female executive with dead eyes, Harry Dean Stanton, entered.

  Alaura returned to the bed beside Match.

  “Mr. Anderson,” Harry Dean Stanton began, taking position in the center of the room. Her feet were shoulder-width apart, hands clasped behind her back. “Thank you for your patience. Let me begin, Match, by saying how sorry we are for this inconvenience. But we’ve received some information that we must take seriously. In the simplest terms, Match, we have been informed that you’re hallucinating, seeing the dead film director Alfred Hitchcock.”

  “Oh, I see,” Match said—his voice now weirdly calm, composed.

  “Yes, very strange,” the executive said. “Please understand that I’m not asking you whether this rumor is true, though if you choose to tell me that it’s true, I’d be required to report that information to the studio. Insurance, obviously, is a major issue. Fortunately we have an indemnity for cases such as this, which we’re now being forced to exercise. But if you are deemed mentally unfit and were to continue directing, we’d lose our insurance. Not to mention that someone hallucinating is not terribly likely to direct a profitable movie. Also not to mention that the buzz from your dailies has been, frankly, unbuzzworthy. Legally, I think we’ll have no problem removing you from the picture, though of course an arbitration procedure is more than within your rights—”