July 9, 2013 scottcjones 3Comments

Loneliness, like a mangy vulture, turned in a slow, lazy circle above my Chicago life, always threatening to overwhelm me with its musty, oversized wings. I had two go-to strategies for keeping the vulture at bay. One, I could purchase a new video game—nothing lifted my spirits the way that breaking a $59.99 game out of plastic shrink-wrap did. Or, two, I could purchase a 12-pack from Lakeshore Liquors, and ramp up my beer intake. On an unseasonably warm evening in March, when neither of my go-to’s could stave off the vulture, I ventured into the unknown: a sex shop on Belmont Avenue.

The place had been on my radar for months. I’d walked by it many times, having made a mental note of its location and hours of operation, but was never desperate enough, or feeling gutsy enough, to actually go inside. As soon as I walked through the shop’s door—an angelic bell announced my arrival—I felt guilty of some abstract crime. The lapsed Catholic in me was certain that a phone was being dialed, that a call was being placed to my mother at that very moment, informing her of exactly where I was and what I was doing. I pictured my mother with the telephone pressed against her ear saying the words, “Yes. Yes. I see.”

The shop had low ceilings and was as silent as a church, except for the animal-like cries of an adult movie playing in one of the store’s back rooms. The air was thick with the smell of lemon scented furniture polish. Above it all sat a man with a beard reading a newspaper behind a cash register. He was housed inside some kind of fortified booth. Every few minutes, he’d look up from his paper and slowly scan the store, no doubt looking for trouble. The store’s patrons were as furtive as escaped hamsters. They didn’t browse the aisles, the way customers did in a JCPenny. Here, they lurked and lingered. Here, they stayed in shadow and gave one another wide berths.

It took me around 15 minutes to work up the nerve to select a movie and bring it to the bearded man on his dais. I spent $29.95 on a VHS tape of Andrew Blake’s Night Trips. Once my transaction was complete, I tucked the tape underneath my arm and loped home along the crowded streets of Broadway, feeling like I’d just gotten away with something.

By the time I reached my apartment, my heart was pounding. I was breathing the short, wheezing breaths of a aspiring pervert. I wondered if I should remove my clothes for this kind of thing. I lowered the lights, drew the blinds, then pressed PLAY on the VCR remote, ready to bear witness to all of the lurid images on the tape’s box cover—including two women together (!)—come to life.

Something was wrong. Instead of the avalanche of flesh that I’d been anticipating, white static stretched across the TV screen. It was the type of static that once played back when TV stations would go off the air for the night. I ejected the tape from the VCR, then monkeyed with the plastic wheels and various shutters for a few minutes. I tried it again. The result was the same: more static. The tape, I deduced, was faulty. What lousy, shit luck I had. If there was a lower moment than having to put your shirt back on after realizing that the X-rated movie you bought is deficient, I wasn’t sure what it was. I went to bed feeling unsatisfied and foolish.

Having hailed from a long line of people who were coupon clippers and avid readers of the Pennysaver, I decided that I wasn’t simply going to eat the $29.95 that the tape had cost me. So, the next night, receipt in hand, I sheepishly returned to the sex shop on Belmont for the refund I deserved.

Now, buying a sex tape required nerve. Returning one, I discovered, took at least twice as much nerve. “This tape does not work, sir,” I explained to the bearded man behind the counter. He looked down at me from his elevated perch. I felt like Dorothy must have felt as she approached the Wizard. His eyes were small and black. He donned a pair of drugstore reading glasses, which I’m pretty sure were women’s reading glasses. He frowned at my receipt for what felt like a long time. Then he frowned at me. “What do you mean it doesn’t work?” he asked. He spoke with a Middle Eastern accent.

I described the onscreen static for him. I told him how I pressed PLAY and nothing was there. “There’s nothing but this white fuzz on the screen,” I said. I was telling him the truth, but I felt like I was lying for some ridiculous reason.

He worked his fingers into his beard and scratched noisily. He seemed to be considering my story. Then he handed the tape back to me. “Take it home. Try it again. I’m sure it’s going to work this time,” he said. “Have a nice day.”

I explained that I had tried to get the tape working not once but twice, and that the results were the same both times.

He turned his attention back to his newspaper. “Then your VCR is broken. It’s not my store’s fault you have a bad VCR,” he said.

I assured him that my VCR was perfectly fine. “It’s not the VCR, sir—it’s this particular tape,” I said. “It is malfunctioning. And I demand a refund”—he looked up from his newspaper when I said the word “demand”—”or an exchange. Or, you can expect me to report you and your establishment to the Better Business Bureau.”

That threat—to report someone “to the Better Business Bureau”—was a threat I’d heard my mother use against arrogant cashiers for years. Whenever she was charged full price at checkout for an item that was supposed to be on sale, she’d do two things: one, she’d point out the item in the store’s sales flier (“It’s right there, plain as day,” she’d say, as if she was presenting a piece of key evidence in a courtroom); if that didn’t sway the cashier, she’d proceed to number two, which was to threaten to report the store to the “Better Business Bureau.” I had no idea what the “Better Business Bureau” was, or if it was even a real thing. For all I knew, it was a vaguely official-sounding name that my mother had cooked up to put a scare into cashiers with attitude problems.

It had worked for my mother. And, to my surprise, it worked for me.

“Fine,” the man said, snapping his newspaper closed and folding it in half. “Go pick out another movie. Same price. But make it fast.”

I quickly scanned the racks. I didn’t have time to linger and study the images on the backs of the box covers, the way that I would have preferred. I could feel the man watching me from the counter, glowering at me, hating me with his eyes. I had to make a decision. I picked a movie titled Nothing To Hide II: Justine which, according to the box, starred an actress named Sarah Bellomo, who reminded me of a girl named Cindy who I’d had a painful crush on in high school. No kidding, the crush would cause me actual physical pain. Sometimes I would double over and hold my stomach when I spotted her in the lunchroom.

The tape, it turned out, worked  just fine. Back in my apartment, sitting on my futon, I watched Sarah Bellomo slowly remove her clothing, piece by piece. I watched a man, who resembled a monkey, take her in his arms. Despite the fleshy wonders unfolding before me, all I could think about was the night during my senior year of high school that I found Cindy’s family’s number in the phone book. I was leaving for college in a few weeks, and I had the idea that I’d let Cindy know how I’d felt about her all those years. I had a dramatic speech that I’d deliver to her, confessing my feelings, telling her everything—how I’d spent years of my life up to that point imagining our future together, how I day dreamed about her constantly. I would have given anything to go out on one date with Cindy, to take her to one movie. Holding her hand, I was certain, would change my life. The phone shook in my hands as I dialed. It was ringing.

Cindy’s father picked up on the second ring. He was a military man who got his high and tight haircuts at the same barber shop my father frequented.

“Who’s there?” he asked. I froze, feeling like I was in over my head.

The two of us sat there. We listened to one another breathe for several seconds.

Then he said, “Goddamn perverts,” and hung up the phone.

3 thoughts on “A Field Guide to Moving to New York City: 27

  1. Not really. When you think about it. They should be a lot more money. Let’s say this story is about 1992. That is 21 years ago. At 1.5% rate of inflation this video game would be 31.5% more today at $78.58. Hell I remember when I bought my first copy of that gold colored Zelda game for my NES in 1986. It cost $69.99 i remember the sticker clearly. that would be $97.99 in today dollars. Anyways my point is food, gas, housing (especially here in Vancouver) have gone way up but video games have actually gone down in price at 1.5% per year for the last 30+ years.

  2. Hi Scott,
    I am not sure if you read the comments section. regularly. but I chanced upon this site after googling your name and trying to find current articles and stories written by you. I love Vic’s Basement podcast and I am somewhat new to it (probably heard ten shows thus far and need to catch up on all of them) but I just wanted to say that my friends and I sincerely enjoy your input, your observations, and dry wit. Frankly, I think you need to start your own podcast OR find some time to write more… because you have a lot of fans in B.C.

    Thanks and be well!!!

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