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It was a typical Saturday night for Arthur, the twenty-one-year-old clerk who was crouched on the floor behind the counter of Video Deluxe, sorting through a cardboard box of old promotional items – posters, yes, but also stickers, pins, hats, even a thermos – while his teenage coworker Delia stood poised at the register, ready to attend to the town’s video rental needs. Arthur was looking down at an enormous pin promoting a Jim Carrey movie. “Wouldn’t people be more likely to pin this to something if it were smaller?” he asked Delia.
She smirked, but before she could respond, a customer came to the counter to check out some VHS tapes from the store’s back catalog. The telephone rang, at almost the same time, so Arthur reached for it, tossing the Jim Carrey pin back into the box below the counter.
The caller had the wrong number, but at first she refused to hang up, intrigued when Arthur said, “Video Deluxe.”
“Is this a videography company? Are you a videographer?”
“What?” Arthur asked. He knew his response had come out sharper than he intended, but his temper seemed to be getting shorter and shorter lately. “No. This is a video store. We rent movies to people.”
“Oh.” The woman sighed. “I don’t use the video store anymore. I just watch whatever’s on cable. I need a videographer for my daughter’s wedding.”
“That’s not us,” Arthur said. Many years ago, he had promised himself that he would never turn to filming other people’s weddings, and he wanted to keep that vow, no matter where he ended up working next.
“So what are the new releases, then? What should I be watching?”
Arthur named a few titles, then, out of sheer force of habit, asked the woman if she was interested in a membership. He was surprised by his ability to forget, if only for a split second, that the store would be closed in two months. The woman wasn’t interested in a membership, which was just as well. It meant that Arthur didn’t have to talk to this woman about the fact that he was about to lose his job, not to mention – and for cinephiles, this was a painful experience – his favorite video store. Arthur had worked there almost continuously since he was seventeen and had been renting tapes there since he could remember. He didn’t want to see the store go.
It was too bad that Video Deluxe was obsolete to everyone but Arthur. There had been talk, for a while, about selling off the entire catalog of VHS tapes and raising money, then switching to a smaller, more affordable location and continuing renting DVDs to those who hadn’t been swayed by their many competitors. But at some point the store’s married owners, Constance and Morris, decided that it would be wiser, and certainly easier, to sell the tapes, then shut their doors just after Labor Day and retire. In June Constance had taken the time to call a meeting with the two of them and explain the situation. She had always been much more hands-on with the store and its employees than Morris.
Arthur and Delia sat down with her in the break room, and she told them to have some of the movie snacks that they kept back there. It would be on the store. Her blue eyes had been sad, maybe even a little dewy, as she broke the news. Constance’s own children were grown, and she often treated her young employees as surrogates, bringing them little gifts for birthdays or Christmas, plates of cookies for no reason at all.
“Oh Constance!” Delia had cried. “I’m so sorry to hear this! I grew up with this store.”
Arthur hadn’t been able to come up with anything to say, but he felt pressure building in his temple, the kind of headache that came from trapped frustration and stifled tears. It was worse than just being laid off, as if that wasn’t bad enough. When they left the break room, Constance had apologized to him again. She had also said, “Maybe it will be good for you to move on,” the first time in three years that she’d offered such a prod.
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About Victoria Large
