But Alaura couldn’t follow Harry Dean Stanton’s words—this was all too dreamlike. How had they learned about Hitchcock? Why wasn’t Match trying to defend himself?
And was there any way to keep the celebrity auction going?
“—and we expect your decision within the hour,” Harry Dean Stanton concluded some time later. “I’m sorry, Match. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Harry Dean Stanton left the room.
Alaura turned to Match. “Okay,” she said, regaining her composure. “Everything’s fine. We’ll call a lawyer. We’ll find out how this rumor started, and we’ll refute it. We’ll go to arbitration or something. I’ll tell them whatever I need to tell them—”
“No,” he said. “I’ve made my decision. It’s best if I resign.”
Alaura’s breath left her; her chest twisted into a painful void.
“They’ll cancel the shoot in Appleton,” he said. “I’m sure of it. The production will leave North Carolina, probably by tomorrow. It’s all over.”
“Over? But what about Star Video?” she said, her voice cracking.
Match did not respond. He simply stared off at nothing in that singularly vacant way of his, lost in his own crazy thoughts, seeing Hitchcock, totally unmoved by her pleading mention of Star Video. He didn’t give a shit. He had never given a shit. He had just wanted to keep her around, to use her for her company, just hoping to finish the movie.
She stood up, spotted the small suitcase she’d brought with her to the hotel, on the floor by the bed. But she decided to leave it. Then she saw the mangled manuscript of The Buried Mirror on Match’s desk.
“I’m leaving, Match,” she said.
“Do you . . . do you really like my movies?” Match asked pitifully, his huge, bloodshot eyes wavering up to face her.
She felt her heart sink into her stomach. She was close to tears. She wanted to tell him to go to hell, that he had ruined everything, that giving up on the movie, and on Star Video, meant giving up on her.
But then she caught her own reflection in a gilded mirror on the wall. She was surprised to see the angry expression there. The rage that twisted her face. She couldn’t believe how ugly she looked.
She took a deep breath.
Then she walked to the desk, picked up the copy of The Buried Mirror, and walked toward the door, where she stopped and turned back to him.
“Yes, Match,” she said, knowing that she could completely decimate him now, but also knowing she didn’t want to. “You’re a very good director. Never forget that. I hope things work out for you. I’m sure they will. Don’t . . . don’t give up. But now I need to go, okay?”
“But Alaura, I’d really like it if you—”
“I’m sorry, Match.”
And instead of slamming the door, as she had intended to do seconds earlier, she closed the door slowly. It clicked shut quietly behind her.
INTO GREAT SILENTS
That morning, Jeff walked across Appleton University’s campus toward the central library. The air was cool, and Jeff noticed that a few branches of the university’s mighty oaks were tipped with russet. Summer was a distant memory. Autumn was here. It was a Wednesday, and those students who had foolishly signed up for early morning courses were now stumbling, like confused ants, into buildings.
Jeff had class, too. But his thoughts were too scattered to even consider it.
He entered the five-story yellow-brick library, which was one of the newer buildings on campus, and he quickly made his way up the elevator to the glitzy computer lab. He wished that he’d been able to upload the pictures from Celia Watson with the ancient laptop he’d inherited from his cousin, but the machine had a terribly slow Internet port, so he knew he could only get the important work done at the library’s computer lab.
He walked around a corner, saw the long bank of IBMs, several of them attended by tired-looking students who had probably been working all night. He found an empty station, sat down.
The photos of him kissing Celia Watson were undeniably real. He had not dreamt it. You could see her face, clear as day. His hands clawed at her white dress. Her tongue was in his mouth. Her perfect little breasts were pressed into him. Her tanned arm, stretching out to hold her phone, constituted a quarter of each frame.
Now, sitting in the computer lab, he couldn’t help laughing. He doubted that anything so amazing would ever happen to him again, and fortunately, he had photographic evidence to back it up.
He quickly uploaded the photos to his Facebook page, along with the tag: “Yep, this is me and the beautiful Celia Watson, living the dream.”
Then he opened another window, and he signed up for a Twitter account. He had no idea what Twitter was, or how it worked, because it had only been around for a few months. But he’d heard all the kids on campus talking about it. So he created a profile, uploaded the photos, and waited for the world to take notice.
A few minutes later, Jeff logged off the computer, walked out of the library into the cool autumn air, and headed toward Star Video. He was scheduled to work later that morning.
Jeff crossed Star Video’s parking lot—lost in thought, lost in another replay of Celia Watson’s body against his—and he stepped up to the shop’s front door. The white sun hung like an amulet, low in the sky, and it reflected brightly against the shop’s front windows. But when Jeff pulled at the door, it rattled stiffly, immobile.
The shop lights were dark, and a sign in the window written in Waring’s scrawl read: “Closed, Staff Development.”
Using his key to enter the dark shop, Jeff saw bluish light emerging from The African Queen’s flat-screen TV. He ascended the spiral staircase, and on the couch he found Alaura and Waring watching an old black-and-white movie.
Waring’s arm was draped over Alaura’s shoulder.
Jeff realized he had never seen them touching.
“Jeff!” Waring said with a baffling, toothy smile. “Now this is a movie you should watch while you have the chance.” He pointed at the screen. “Sunrise by Murnau. I know it’s a silent movie, and that it’s black-and-white, and that it doesn’t star Tom Cruise or Meg Ryan or whomever you kids watch these days—”
Alaura burst into laughter. “Meg Ryan?” she said.
Waring grinned. “Are my references no longer culturally relevant?”
“I like Meg Ryan,” Jeff said, feeling a little defensive about it.
“And here, Jeff,” Alaura said. “If you want a real giggle, give the old Buried Mirror a read.” She handed him the screenplay. “It’s a yuck-fest.”
“I thought it was a romantic thriller.”
“In the sense that The Room was a romantic thriller,” Waring said, “yes, The Buried Mirror is a romantic thriller.”
“It’s awful,” Alaura clarified.
“Awful awful,” Waring seconded.
Jeff set the awful screenplay on the loft’s cluttered table and said, “Are you guys drunk?”
“Actually, no,” Waring said.
“I wish,” Alaura said, “but I haven’t been drinking for almost a month.”
“Is that true?” Waring said, and he seemed truly surprised. “Shit, I hadn’t noticed.”
“I’m actually thinking of laying off booze for a while longer.”
“Did you fall and hit your head or something?”
Alaura shook her head, smiling, and she patted Waring good-naturedly on the thigh.
To Jeff, they both certainly seemed drunk.
Finally Alaura, wearing a sarcastic smile the whole time, explained the reason for their bizarre behavior—how all was lost because of everything that had happened with Match Anderson, the Hitchcock hallucinations, that the executive had found out, that Match had quit the movie, and that the film crew was leaving Appleton, thus ensuring the cancellation of the celebrity auction.
“Oh my God,” Jeff said. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Alaura said, who immediately seemed to notice that his reaction to the news was mor
e intense than it should have been.
Jeff sat down on the top step, where he had been standing. He couldn’t breathe. He glanced again at Waring—for whom he had kept the stupid secret about the bicycle gang. And Alaura—to whom Jeff had never worked up the courage to confess his feelings.
His body felt tight, pressured. He didn’t need to say anything—they would probably never find out—
“It’s my fault,” Jeff blurted.
“What?” Waring said.
“I . . . I overheard you guys talking about the Hitchcock thing. Up here in the loft, day before last. And I told Celia Watson about it. Last night.” Jeff looked guiltily at Alaura. He winced in intense pain. “She kissed me, I’m sorry, and I was drunk, and it sort of . . . flew out.”
Silence.
Waring stood up in The African Queen. His face flushed red. His scraggly black hair shivered atop his head.
Sitting behind him, Alaura leaned forward and gave Jeff the nastiest look in the history of the world.
“I didn’t mean to,” Jeff said, almost crying now, and he stood as well, terrified, took a few steps down the stairs. “I’m sorry, Waring. I’m so sorry—”
“You’re sorry?” Waring said. “You’re sorry?”
“Waring . . .” Jeff whimpered.
Then, with frightening calmness, Waring said: “Jeff, you’ve ruined Star Video. Which means you’ve ruined my life, and Alaura’s life, and—”
“Waring, I’m sorry!”
“—and if you don’t leave right now—”
“Waring! I really didn’t mean to! I’m so sorry!”
Alaura knew how ugly she appeared. She knew her expression was twisted with anger and disdain, and that her face looked even worse now than it had in Match’s hotel room mirror earlier that morning. She knew she looked like a monster. But she didn’t give a shit. She didn’t give a shit that Jeff worshipped her, that he looked up to her, that he was probably in love with her. Jeff had ruined everything. How had she ever, even for a moment, considered kissing him? Match had only needed to make it a few more days, and Jeff had blabbed like the stupid little teenager he was. So she scowled at him. She felt her lips ache and her jaw clench painfully. Jeff cowered pathetically in front of her. The moron. The tears on his face only solidified her fury.
She glanced at Waring, whose countenance was bent into Waxian attack mode. Alaura wanted him to attack. Everything had been leading to this point. If they’d just made it to the celebrity auction, then everything that had happened might have been worth it. She looked at Jeff and thought of Pierce, her shitty ex-boyfriend, who had used her for an entire summer and then dismissed her like a servant. She thought of Thom and Karla, those culty weirdoes, who’d implied that everything Alaura had ever done with her life was a waste. And she thought of Match—that Match was insane didn’t relieve him of his responsibility to be a good person, to be compassionate, to help her.
She hated all of them. And she hated Jeff.
“Fuck you, Jeff!” she spat out.
The kid was crying, and she was glad.
“Tell him, Waring,” she said. “Tell him he’s fucking fired.”
•••
But what was going through Waring’s mind now? Yes, he was infuriated. Jeff deserved every awful thing that would ever happen to him for the rest of his life. And this was a perfect opportunity to scream, because how often do we actually have a chance to act in truly righteous anger? To let our rage explode? The kid needed to suffer. He needed to understand the extent of his inanity. When people do awful things, they must be punished, or the world will devolve into chaos.
But Waring realized he couldn’t do it.
He looked down at Alaura, whose normally beautiful face was cinched into disgust—it was a magnification of the look she had given Waring many times. Though he’d always acted like he didn’t give a shit whenever she was angry at him, he did give a shit. And Jeff, the dumb young kid (emphasis on young, Waring thought), was in love with Alaura, or whatever passed for love with dumb young kids, so Waring knew what that look must feel like to Jeff, how it must be burrowing like a steak knife into the middle of Jeff’s stomach.
So instead of yelling, Waring sat down next to Alaura.
“What is it?” she said angrily, twisting on the sofa, craning her tattooed neck toward him. “Aren’t you going say something? Aren’t you going to fire him?”
Waring reached for the remote and pressed pause, silencing the silent movie’s score.
“For fuck’s sake, Waring,” Alaura snarled. “Jeff fucked everything up. We should be getting ready for the celebrity auction. I should be with Match right now—”
At the mention of Match’s name, however, Alaura’s voice seemed to leave her. She fell back into the couch, looked off into space.
“We’re going to need Jeff,” Waring said flatly, to both of them, to neither of them. “I can’t fire him because the store is closing, so he won’t have a job anyway. But we’re going to have to sell off all the movies and—”
“No,” Alaura said weakly, and her body folded. She collapsed downward onto her own knees, as if preparing for her plane to crash.
But Waring nodded—his mind was made up. “You knew this was going to happen,” he said softly to her. “I knew it, too. And if we didn’t know, we were idiots. Jeff might have done the stupidest thing in twelve years of stupid Star Video moves, which is saying something. But it doesn’t make any sense to fire him.”
Waring looked at Jeff.
The young man’s hands had dropped from his face. He now donned a wet, hopeful expression.
“You didn’t do it on purpose,” Waring said. “Did you, Jeff?”
“I’m really sorry,” Jeff said, his voice shaking.
Waring nodded. “Apology accepted.”
And Waring watched his two employees gasp, as they considered the many implications of this unprecedented act, and as they both comprehended that, in the end, what his apology really came to was . . . a final admission of defeat.
Star Video was finished.
Alaura said in a weak voice, “But Ehle County needs an independent—”
“No, Alaura,” Waring said gently. “Thank you, but it’s time. We weren’t going to make it anyway. Maybe a few more years, but that would have been it. People want different things now. And yes, Jeff made a stupid mistake. But look at him. He can’t help himself. He’s stupid.”
Long silence.
“I still think we should fire him,” Alaura murmured, and she shot Jeff another piercing glare.
“Well, I think it’s still my store,” Waring said—lacing the comment with more of his old-fashioned cockiness, hoping to calm her down.
“But Waring,” Alaura said. “What are you going to do? What the hell does Waring Wax do without Star Video?”
He looked at her, and he thought about making another snarky joke. Ten possible comments filtered in front of his eyes, each snarkier than the last. But he didn’t say anything. He just sat there, his big idea now bobbing through his mind, forming and reforming and bifurcating and taking on nuance. He visualized his future. But instead of saying anything, he just looked at Alaura, beautiful Alaura, the girl he loved.
She shook her head.
A mischievous smile flitted on his lips.
A dream blazing in the darkness.
The shelves were nearly bare, and Star Video, or what remained of it, now seemed twice as large as it ever had. Over half the shelves had already been dismantled, their remaining DVD and VHS show boxes shifted toward the front of the store. The remnants of the shelving now lay in a gigantic metal heap, over eight feet high, near the entrance to the Porn Room. The African Queen had also made its final voyage. Its wooden hull was now a splintered shipwreck covered with a large blue tarp. The result of all this was a new, strange, wide-open space that made Star Video look more like a business at its earliest stages than at its end. The room now echoed. Fully half the floor space was bare, a gaping hole where o
ne could now do cartwheels, run sprints, lie down and take a nap on the cool linoleum. In this rear section of the store, at least, the battle against the dust bunnies had been won.
Today was Star Video’s last day of business.
But where the hell is everyone? Alaura thought. Where are all the regulars?
Alaura had informed them (those twenty or so most faithful cinephiles) that Star Video would be closing early tonight, and for good. That they could all bid adieu by having the last grab at the remaining DVDs and VHS tapes. One dollar per title. Fifty cents. Free. Who cared.
But none of them had come.
Only the dregs of cinematic history remained, of course. DVD collections of The Real World and Road Rules and Big Brother and The Bachelor—because no one cared about watching reality shows several years after that reality had transpired. And there was Garfield: The Movie, Crash (not the 2004 movie by that title, which had inexplicably won Best Picture, but the 1996 Crash, by Cronenberg, which alone should have gotten it sold), Spielberg’s 1941, Mac and Me, Junebug. And Gigli—they’d tried for years, literally, to sell their last DVD copy of Gigli, but it had all been for naught. Every disc remained of Wire in the Blood, a British mystery series that Alaura had actually quite liked but that no one else seemed to know about, even the nice old ladies from Covenant Woods. Hundreds of old comedies remained, and hundreds of old dramas, and a somewhat higher percentage of indie films, like The Trouble with Perpetual Déjà-Vu, The Mystery of Trinidad, and Death and the Compass, movies with promising titles that had turned out to be mind-numbingly awful—even though Alaura had always touted the merits of independent cinema, there was no denying that quite a lot of those titles had been simply unwatchable.
And it had not escaped Alaura’s notice, and it made her throat clench to see: Changeless, Match Anderson’s failed sci-fi epic, was her lone remaining title on the Employee Picks shelf.
For five weeks—since the production of The Buried Mirror had closed up and left town—every movie at Star Video had been on sale. Liquidation. Classics and new releases (everything from King Kong to Casino Royale) had been gobbled up first, and as she and Waring had aggressively reduced prices, more and more of the store’s impressive back stock had evaporated. Porn, of course, had gone like cocaine pancakes (Waring’s term). Then those television series popular with the Ape U intelligentsia: The Sopranos, The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street, Deadwood, Black Adder, Black Books, Fawlty Towers, Firefly, Arrested Development, all the others. Then the Criterion collection. Then everything else. Several customers had spent over a thousand dollars each, toting away laundry baskets filled with DVDs. And the fanatical collectors: anime hounds, horror snobs, Peter Sellers junkies. One customer, a fat African-American man with a C. Everett Koop beard, had purchased every film in the Korean Horror section, as well as every Takashi Miike movie still in stock, insanely claiming that Miike would one day go down as Japan’s greatest director since Ozu. Another customer, a hale and hearty Swedish guy with sand-blond hair who spoke less English than a tree stump, had expressed and then acted on his rather awkward penchant for black-on-white gay porn.
The Last Days of Video Page 23
