Late Fees

This is a chapter / abridged version of a much longer story. Enjoy.

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" Late Fees "

            This is not a story for anyone wanting resolution, significance, or a happy ending. It has nothing to do with love, redemption, or any deep revelations or understandings.

            This is a not a story about life long lessons, sentimental moments, or spiritual experiences.

            No, this is a story simply about just getting through the night with your health and dignity still in tact by its end.

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Everything is broken today.

            I’ve been working at Movie Gallery for only two hours and already I’ve gotten three DVDs returned that do not work right.

While this is a common problem for the Gallery, it’s really not our fault. Customers don’t tend to take very good care of our DVDs and, as a result, they tend to come back worse for the wear. I’m talking about all scratched up and smudged with oily fingerprints. Sometimes, you can see hair stuck to them.

The few DVDs that I get returned tonight don’t have anything unusual about their appearance. One of them even appears spotless. However, that trend changes pretty quickly. Only a few minutes after I get my second return, a male customer enters the store and says that he has a DVD that freezes up and skips around to various places in the film. I take the DVD out of its case and give the backside of it a good look. As my eyes travel over the side of the disc that is scanned by the laser in the DVD player, I find my stomach dropping and my hand holding the DVD tremble and nearly drop it. I can see why it is having trouble playing: it has what appear to be globs of dried, flaky semen on it. Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve seen this sight on the back of a DVD.

I put the thing back in its case and begin the process to send it back to the manufacturer for replacement. There’s no way I’m putting this thing back on the wall. I don’t have the heart to tell the guy what exactly was on the back of the DVD that was causing it not to play. I can’t believe he could not figure it out himself. In the back of my head, I’m mourning for this poor guy’s DVD player. Nothing’s going to be wrong with it of course but just the fact that this was inside of it makes me nauseous. My OCD begins to kick in and I feel the urge to start cleaning. I feel the ants on my legs…

The ants… we haven’t covered that yet. Well, let me fill you in.

Earlier this evening, I went outside to return a phone I had received when the store was busy. I stayed outside for as long as I could. However, it was so hot and humid that I had to go back inside the store pretty quickly. It actually burned to breath in the air. As I began to re-enter the store, I noticed that the sidewalk that I had been standing on was covered in ants. For the next half hour, I keep imagining ants crawling all over my legs. Of course, there weren’t any on me but by obsessive brain kept telling me otherwise.

During this time, I start restocking the wall again. I restock the wall every time a DVD is returned. It’s part of my OCD. I just have to do it. After all, the new movies are supposed to be stocked and ready for rental for the customers anyways. Some co-workers just let the movies pile up behind the counter their entire shift. I can’t do that. My mind just won’t let me.

Every time I walk back to the counter to get more movies, I check my shoes and legs for ants.

Moving back from the wall, I am surprised to find myself hungry. This is a shock considering the disgusting sight on the back of that DVD I handled not too long ago. I pull my little, brown bag dinner out from its shabby, little hiding place in the counter and put it before me. I look around. There are one or two other people in the store. I look out into the parking lot. It appears to be empty. I begin to open the bag, pulling out my tin foil wrapped Coke and my plastic bag containing a ham and cheese sandwich. I ask my co-worker if she wouldn’t mind covering for me for five minutes so I can quickly stuff my food down my throat. She’s working on her training modules that we have to complete in order to keep our jobs. She has been working on them ever since she started her shift and has not stopped talking about every question and complaining about it. She’s in mid complaint with one of them when she says, “Oh yes, that’s fine.”

If there’s one thing that I actually hate about working at Movie Gallery, it’s that we don’t officially get a lunch or dinner break. Usually, we just eat behind the counter in front of all the customers. I hate eating in front of the customers. They always watch you intently as you do so. As they do, I always have the feeling like they’re secretly judging me, like I’m lazy for stuffing a sandwich in my mouth.

I’m hungry, damn it. I have to have food so I can have the energy and focus to serve you. Stop looking at me!

Every time I bite down, I’m paranoid about a piece of food making its way out of my mouth and staying on my lip for the entire store to see. I imagine the mayonnaise of my ham and cheese sandwich running out over my lips and becoming hardened and encrusted in the corners of my mouth. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a meal behind that counter. I usually just stuff it down as quickly as I can.

What’s worse is when you don’t have a co-worker with you. Then, in the middle of your meal, you have to put your food down and serve a customer with your mouth still full and your throat dry. Then, when the store is clear, you have to quickly run to the back and wash your hands so you can pick your food up again. At least, that’s what I have to do.

My co-worker’s covering for me but, to my dismay, the store’s starting to crowd up. I get as far away from the counter as possible, even turning my back to it as I cram the food into my mouth.

Don’t turn around, my mind tells me.

Don’t you dare turn around, Wesley. Don’t you dare.

 I’ve got one bite left of my sandwich when I glance back at the counter to see my co-worker dealing with a line of customers. One of these customers makes eye contact with me and begins to walk towards the register on my side of the counter.

Son of a…

With my mouth still full, I rub my hands briskly together and walk up to the register. Through the sludge of sandwich in my mouth, I ask him how it is going. It must sound and look disgusting. I then serve three more customers.

After the little rush has ended in the store, I ask my co-worker if it would be all right if I could just go into the back office to finish my dinner. I promise that it won’t be more than five minutes. She says that it would be just fine. Carefully using the plastic bag to pick it up, I put the last of my sandwich in my mouth as I head to the back office.

After a trip to the bathroom to wash my hands and experiencing the dismay of being out of hand towels, I make my way into the back office. I don’t really like the back office. It’s filled with empty display cases and just feels lonely. I make sure to eat over the tiny trashcan and not the desk where we make our deposit at the end of the night. I want to keep this place as clean as possible. Despite the fact that I’m away from the prying eyes of customers, I still feel the pressure to rush through my food. In my mind’s eye, I see my poor co-worker being swamped in an unexpected rush of customers. I inhale a bag of Doritos, a Little Debbie snack cake that I don’t need, and even a bag of Fruit Snacks. I then down my Coke and bring all my trash to the front of the store to throw away. There’s no evidence that I was even back there.

I throw my trash away at the front of the store. My co-worker says there hasn’t been a customer since I left.

 Of course there hasn’t been…

My stomach feels awful as all the food and beverage I have shot down my throat all hits it at the same time. I feel nasty indigestion and acid bubbling in my throat. I don’t feel all that great… but at least I got my dinner out of the way. At least I’ll be able to serve my customers without thinking about food.

God, I hate eating at work.

I’m still trying to get my food to stay down when she walks in.

Her name was Christa.

But first thing’s first-- women and I have never really mixed well. And by that, I mean not at all. After years of countless errors and follies in attempts for love, I’ve finally signed them off. Yes, that’s it-- I’m off women. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not going the opposite way or anything like that. I’m just focusing on other things. I want to achieve a complete sense of focus on my work. I want to devote myself completely to my filmmaking, screenwriting, and creative writing in general. I want to learn as much as possible. When I got out of school a month ago, I immediately began training and testing my mind. I spent all of the day either reading a book, writing an article for my website, or doing creative writing. I didn’t and still don’t want any distractions. All women have done for me is cause pain and waste my time. Besides, I always fall in love with the wrong one anyways. It’s just a waste of time, energy, and the thought process. No, I want complete focus-- no women, no alcohol and no drugs. I need to focus. I want to focus.

Of course this all goes right out the door once one of them just shows me a little bit of attention. After all, I can’t just eliminate all my feelings. I don’t want to deal with it but it’s still there. I just do my best to ignore it. To be honest, I’m pretty much in love with a girl right now. You know what? It’s a mistake. It always is. Every now and then, I’ll find myself wishing that she’d somehow be the next customer to walk through the door. Then, I curse myself. I tell myself to focus. I tell myself to put up the movies. In the end, she just ends up making me feel like crap exactly the others. Every time I think of her, it’s like a having coal burning inside my stomach. I tell myself that I hate her and that I’m off again. Then I find myself thinking about her again. Then, I go and put some more movies up, get off work, and write for my website late into the night.

Despite my need for an asexual lifestyle and my off-and-on again feelings for a certain someone, all it takes is just a little attention from a relatively attractive woman to get my mind to immediately imagine a future with her. Christa was one of those women. Honestly, I can’t even remember what she even looked like. I remember her being somewhat attractive but, for the life of me, I can’t get a perfect picture of her in my head. This is something that always happens to me when I meet girls that I’m attracted to. They literally cause a memory block in my mind. It just makes me think about them more often, struggling to put a mental image of them together in my usually focused head. This just causes more of a waste of my thought process.

Apparently Christa was a regular. She knew my co-worker pretty well and they chatted it up for a little bit. However, when she was ready to check out, she came to me. She didn’t have anything in her hands and she told me that she needed to pay off a late fee. As I rang up her account on my computer, I saw that she owed twenty-three dollars to the store. I began to go into my whole spiel on how I’m going to sell her a Discount Rental Card to save her a few bucks. I start to go into how it works when I notice a strange look on her face. Suddenly, I feel like an idiot. Obviously, she has established herself as a regular and, due to that, she probably has heard this a million times.

“I’m guessing you know all this already?” I ask.

Yep. I give a little fake laugh and reply, “Well good, that makes my job easier.” She laughs too. Then, she starts to ask me about myself. She asks where I go to college. She asks if I’m off the next day. She’s witty and sarcastic in her replies and the way she delivers her questions. She’s not really flirty… just energetic and interested. She shows interest and emotion. God, what’s wrong with me? Is that really all it takes anymore? Just a little bit of attention? Eye contact. I make eye contact. She smiles. I smile.

She’s got warmth going through my stomach. For a brief moment, I remember why I love women so much and just the idea of a woman; just the idea of love and being loved. The idea of someone being interested in you and what you have to say. I’m thinking about this, the warmth inside of me, and all is going so wonderful when she looks up at the TV monitor above my head. It’s showing a promo for Larry the Cable Guy’s latest uninspired comedy entitled Witless Protection. I have the promo memorized by now. It plays every ten minutes. She gasps and asks if we have a copy of that in. My stomach drops. The warm feeling I had in my gut is long gone, replaced with that burning indigestion from inhaling my dinner earlier that evening. Slowly and gravely, I point to the wall to my right.

“It’s in the W’s…” I reply.

She gets her copy. In my head, I’m trying to weigh things out. Am I going to sell out my movie taste for this woman? What am I even thinking that for, she’s just a customer! We just met! She’s just been sarcastic to me… that’s all. She’s just been friendly and already I’m trying to imagine a future and babies and all that crap. Babies? I hate kids. What am I thinking?

I finish her transaction. I tell her I’ll give her the receipt and her movie on the other side of the counter. I say this to every customer that graces me with his or her presence. I move to the other side, tearing the receipt out of the printer as she makes her way over. I have my pen ready. I give it to her.

“You going to tell me what to do?” she asks sarcastically, a glimmer in her eye. I just manage a smile.

I slide that unforgivable choice of film on the counter next to the receipt. She starts to sign her name.

“You know, I tend to be too sarcastic sometimes. I’m not trying to give you a hard time or anything. I know it can get annoying…” she says as she signs.

“No… I like it… it’s nice… for a change…” I say quietly.

She looks up and smiles, taking that black hole of cinema from the counter top.

“I look forward to seeing you around, Wesley. What’s my name?”

“Christa.”

“That’s right. Better remember it.”

I just smile and say goodbye. Then, she’s out the door.

She hasn’t been back in the store when I’ve worked, but every day since then I’ve waited for her to walk back through that door. I know it’s nothing. I know nothing is going to come of it. But, I can’t help but want to see her walk through that door. I want her attention again. I want the sarcasm. I want the smile. Then, I remember that I need to focus. I remember my new asexual stance on things. I remember the girl that I’m already in love with. Plus, I remember Christa’s unforgivably terrible taste in movies. After all, that’s the most important factor here.

Then I start to hate myself again. The fact is this-- there’s nothing about Christa that would ever make me want to have a future with her. It’s not just her movie taste. There’s just something about the way she holds herself that screams incompatible to me. The fact that I’m even remotely interested in her, even for a second, is disappointing.

When it all comes down to it, the fact is that I’m striving for any kind of human connection. I feel nothing while standing behind this counter and serving these people. There is no connection, sense of empathy or even understanding. At times, I’m shocked that I even share the same ground that they walk upon. Then I feel like an asshole for even remotely thinking that way. But, at times, I cannot help it. It just feels hopeless sometimes.

All I’m trying to do is just get through my shift and go home. That’s all. Still, they constantly berate and disgust me at every turn. They return Pan’s Labyrinth because it’s in Spanish and they are too lazy to read the subtitles. “If I wanted to read, I’d buy a book,” they always tell me. They return DVDs covered in semen. They refuse to let me eat in peace. They take their frustrations over late fees out on me when I had nothing to do with it. I’m just here for them to unleash their worst impulses on. I’m just a target at a gun range and I’m surrounded by rednecks.

There isn’t anyone else to really turn to here. My co-worker is just as annoying as most of the customers. Most employees only last a few weeks at Movie Gallery before quitting or getting fired for not doing their job or even for doing something illegal. Last summer, one co-worker of mine got the boot for committing coupon fraud. She stole over two hundred dollars in one week. Even those that you manage to strike up a friendship with tend to fall away. My manager from the first summer became diagnosed for depression after I left. Slowly, she spiraled into a drug addiction, got pregnant and then tried to abort the baby herself. This is the same girl that wore a popcorn box on her head with me one Friday night just for fun.

So I think of Christa. I have to. She was nice to me. She at least acted interested. And that’s all I need tonight-- interest, empathy… someone to talk to. My head turns to the right, spotting out Witless Protection on the wall. I can’t help but hang my head in despair.

I go to put up some more movies on the wall.

I scratch at my legs when I think I feel something crawling up them.

Another customer brings back a DVD that won’t play right.

Everything is broken today.