Alone
I knew Topps would eventually raise the whole piracy thing. It was during an Australian History class. Ms Levante had to rush back to the staff room to collect her teacher’s “study help” book (a.k.a. answer book) – we were studying the Eureka Stockade and she had forgotten exactly why it had started. She was always doing that. Rushing back to the staffroom for something she had forgotten. Some kids said it was because she needed a cigarette, which she’d puff secretly in her office. Apparently, she smokes two packets of Winfield Blues a day. She sure smelt like it. Her fingers were stained the colour of honey and her teeth were off-white. I didn’t blame her though. If I had to control thirty kids every hour, five days a week, I’d smoke too.
‘So, how’s life at the Loon?’ Topps asked. I had Skye sitting next to me on the other side and didn’t really want to share too much information in class. ‘Yeah, it’s sorted,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t seem to be much going on.’ There was no way I could tell him about my decision – even though it had only lasted one weekend – to help Crass out.
‘You haven’t seen…anything more in the basement?’
‘No. Haven’t been down there. It must have been a one-off.’ I noticed he was being cautious with his questions, not wanting to get back into the same argument as before. I thought I could make him lose interest if I didn’t give him any decent feedback.
‘What do you think Crass and Vince did with the discs?’ he said, leaning even closer to me and whispering so Skye couldn’t hear.
‘Hey you two, no getting it on in class!’ Eric Marshall, resident idiot, suddenly shouted, pointing us out to the rest of the class. ‘Man, they were getting it on! Honest truth!’
The entire class let out a prolonged and high-pitched ‘woooooooh!’
‘C’mon Topps you stud, leave it for the bedroom!’ cried out Chris Noel.
‘Hey Topps, you’re my main man!’ laughed Will, who was sitting on the other side of Topps. He punched Topps on the shoulder. ‘And with the Staceman too!’
Topps looked genuinely pleased. ‘Hey, you’ve got to get it anyway you can,’ he laughed.
I said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
I hated being the spotlight in class, but it was probably a good thing to have happened. The subject of the Video Saloon was abruptly cut short.
I let the rest of the class fall into a slanging match about who was kissing whom and who wanted to get it on with whom. I’d tell Topps one day. About the Video Saloon, that is. I’d just make sure I was safely in another job before I did. No way did I want the added pressure of Topps telling me to quit, or worse, trying to convince me to tell the police what was happening.
Ms Levante returned to happily announce to us that did we know that the Eureka Stockade rebel leader Peter Lalor, who had his left arm amputated as a result of the battle, became a well respected politician, but in an awful twist, both his children committed suicide in his house in Richmond where he also died and the whole family are said to haunt the residence?
She was extremely happy with herself until Julia Carapellotti, who never let a teacher get away with anything, asked, ‘But Ms Levante, I still don’t understand. How did the Eureka Stockade actually start?’
Ms Levant’s face fell. ‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she said and left the room again.
* * *
I was more than happy to discover that Crass seemed to have forgotten about my decision to snub his little piracy business. I walked in Saturday afternoon to find the place fairly humming. Melbourne had had a cold snap and it was one of those days where the sky had the drab greyness of a school jumper and you knew it would basically not stop raining for the rest of the day. That’s when the Video Saloon got really busy.
I often wondered why Vince bothered hiring two people for the weekend, but at times like this you’d struggle by yourself. Saturday was the busiest day. There had to be at least forty DVDs and videos in the return bin, another stack of returns waiting to be shelved and a big list of reservations in the reservation book.
The reservations were the biggest hassle of the job. Someone would ring up (usually when you were in the middle of serving another customer) and ask for that film where that black guy fought androids or that blonde chick falls in love with the baseball player, and you’d have to remember the title and check if it was in, and then if it wasn’t you’d take the person’s name and number and then you’d have to make sure you reserved a copy when it came in. It also meant phoning the customer to tell them it had arrived.
Unlike Blockbuster, we didn’t have thirty copies of the one title so it meant we had to deal with a fair few reservations. I had only come unstuck once. I was asked to reserve a Nicole Kidman supernatural thriller. A copy was returned but before I could even scan it another customer saw it in the return pile and asked for it. We had around six copies due for return that night, but I still thought I better call the woman who originally reserved it first.
Nobody answered, although admittedly I only let it ring a half dozen times. I then rented it out. Of course, with my bad luck, no other copy of the film was returned on time. At eight o’clock the woman who’d originally reserved rang and wanted to know if a copy had come in. I’m not sure why I’d admitted it – perhaps because of her psycho voice – but I told her one had come in, only I’d rented it out again. ‘I tried phoning you but there was no answer,’ I said. She didn’t sound pleased. She said she’d wait until another copy came in, which it did, an hour later.
The woman turned out to be one of those fat, demanding old bags who always look like their husband had spent the weekly wage at the pokies. The type who complain at McDonald’s if their fries are cold or if you even dare to whisper in the cinema.
‘It’s now nine o’clock; almost too late to watch anything,’ she whinged. ‘I don’t know why I bothered to come down and pick it up at all. I was really looking forward to it as well.’
Again, I tried to explain to her I’d given her a call, but she told me she’d been sitting by the phone all evening, waiting for my call, and it had definitely not rung at the time I’d claimed to have phoned.
Sitting by the phone? Was she that excited about renting the film? Nicole Kidman is cool, but worth sitting on the couch stuffing your face with Doritos as you wait for the phone to ring? I don’t think so.
‘Look, I think you’re lying,’ she told me when I gave her the video. ‘I don’t think you phoned me at all.’
‘You think I’m lying?’ I had spluttered, my face blushing. What else could I say? I was so angry I charged her the full rental, even though she obviously expected me to give it to her for free. Still, besides her, Robert Keppler and Sleazy Eric, I haven’t had too many problems with customers.
I noticed, as I was collecting a few old videos from the back, that the box of DVDs from under Vince’s desk had gone.
Later that afternoon when the place had quietened down Crass walked out of the store. ‘I’m going for a ciggie,’ he said. ‘Be back in a few minutes.’
I let him go and finished dusting the rather neglected special interest section. It was full of old WWE wrestling and Rex Hunt fishing DVDs. For some reason the store collected dust like Topps’ younger sister collected Bratz dolls. If a DVD had been languishing on the shelf for longer than a week it was usually covered in a thin layer of dust, and I enjoyed cleaning them all up, making them look used. I felt sorry, for some strange reason, for DVDs nobody wanted to rent anymore.
I had just started on the action aisle when the phone rang. The Video Saloon is a big store and I had to run to catch it.
‘Hello Video Saloon, Stacey speaking,’ I said, puffed.
Silence.
‘Hello?’
I could hear a whirring sound, like a spinning top, but nobody said anything. It was a bit freaky. Then whoever it was hung up.
A customer walked in and I put the call to the back of my mind. A lot of kids who should have been studying for final exams came in to hire five weeklies or take out Disney films for babysitting jobs. They all said hello. That was the good thing about the Video Saloon, you became well known at school.
‘You doing anything tonight?’ Crass asked me out of the blue later that evening as he ate Chinese sweet and sour from a plastic container.
‘No, I’m going straight home. Why? Are you?’
‘I wish. Toni, the girl who was here last week, is going clubbing in the city tonight. I’d kill to go with her.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Cause I have to lock up here. I won’t be finished until ten-thirty. I wouldn’t get in there way past midnight. By then she’ll be half smashed.’
I looked at my watch. 8.30 pm. I finished in half an hour when my dad usually picked me up. I lived about twenty minutes walk away and Dad didn’t like me walking home late at night.
‘Maybe you could leave early?’ I suggested. ‘Lock up at nine.’
‘Nah, Vince would get aggro if he found out.’
Crass had to stay behind and count the money, print out the daily activity sheet and balance the till. I wasn’t allowed to lock up by myself. I’d locked up a few times with Crass when Dad was running late, so I knew how to do it. I’d sure get on Crass’ good side if I let him hook up with Toni.
Crass had the same idea. ‘Stacey, do you think you could help me out? You know what to do. Could ya lock up tonight?’
‘I dunno Crass, I’ve never had to do it myself.’
Crass became stuck on the idea. ‘No problems,’ he said, ‘you don’t even need to print out the activity sheet. Just leave the computers on. I’m in early tomorrow anyway. I can do it then.’
It wasn’t the locking up that was worrying me. It was being by myself in the store late at night.
‘C’mon Stacey, it’s easy as.’
I really did want to smooth things over with Crass, so I relented and said I’d do it; but only this once.
He was out the door an hour later. ‘Thanks dude!’ he waved as he ran out to Main Street.
I hoped he was happy I was letting him get off his face with Toni. Who knew what those two would get up to. I went to give my dad a call on my mobile and discovered the battery had died again – I’d left it on all night and forgot to charge it, and the battery was dodgy anyway. It barely lasted a day. I phoned him from the store phone and asked him to pick me up after ten. I didn’t tell him I was locking up. He’d freak. I told him it was so busy Crass asked me to stay with him to help shelve returned discs.
‘Okay, I’ll drop by at Dave’s first; bit of car trouble,’ he said. I reckoned they’d be downing a few stubbies instead. The car, which actually was in need of a service, was an excuse.
Nobody came in at all after nine-thirty. I put on an old Britney Spear’s movie, Crossroads, and watched it for the tenth time. Other girls at school hated the movie, but I thought it was fun. I sang along with “I love rock n’ roll”. It took my mind off the fact I was alone.
I stopped the movie close to ten o’clock, emptied the bins, turned the lights out at the front of the store and locked the big glass door. I left the keys in the inside lock of the front door. I’d seen Crass do that; you don’t want to lock yourself in and then lose the keys. Then I put the money on the counter and began to sort out the bills and coins. Two hundred dollars had to be put back in the register for tomorrow’s float, the rest was for Crass to count. I only had to bag the money and hide it under the counter.
I began to feel more comfortable about being alone, although I would have felt better if Topps was here. I should have asked him to cycle down and keep me company.
I folded the bills and coins and put them in a bag. Then the phone rang. The shrill ring echoed around the store and gave me such a shock I put my hand over my mouth and said: ‘Oh!’ It sounded so much louder in the quietness of the store.
Who would be phoning me at this time? I thought it was Dad or a customer wanting to know if we were still open.
I picked up the phone.
‘Video Saloon, Stacey speaking.’
Silence. Just like the call from earlier this evening. I felt myself stiffen with fear. My hand gripped the telephone so tightly my fingers turned white.
‘Hello? Is anyone there?’
Again, silence. Then, just as I was about to put the phone down, a hoarse voice whispered almost inaudibly: ‘Be afraid…be very afraid.’