By Shawn Scott Smith
When you used to go into a Suncoast Motion Picture Company store, the eyes of Kim Basinger seared into you, but you wanted to buy old copies of Star Trek episodes instead of anything worthy of an Oscar.
And the plastic wrap that thinly held in the vhs tapes slid in your fingers as you read the back of boxes to discern if this was a good show, a clerk with bifocals and a unformed Tom Selleck mustache would say, “Hey kid, this ain’t Blockbuster.”
You nod, but indifferent to his pleas, you reach into your puffy Starter brand jacket and pull out a wrinkly twenty dollar bill holding it in the air.
“I’m a paying customer,” your voice squeaks with adolescence and anger.
The clerk shakes his head and goes back to pricing the latest shipment of tapes, preparing them for ogling on the floor. You think about sneaking into the back to see how long you could look at the pornography, covered up by nothing but black plastic, easily removed for a quick peak.
Instead, you look through weird Anime tapes where the aliens and robots look cool, but 24.95 for thirty minutes of what could end up being a high school romance seems steep even when it’s your parents’ money. Plus to be honest the fandubs in those days were atrocious.
Finally you settle on Demolition Man, honestly one of Wesley Snipes best performances, and it’s on clearance for $10. Money left over for the arcade and maybe a discount gameboy clearance game. It’s a win.
Trailers are playing on the store’s many tv screens and you watch Freddy and Jason murder people right here in the shopping mall. Freddy had a smile that seemed genuine. Like that dude really loved his job.
No one bats an eye at violence in generic corporate America,
You pay for Stallone and Sandra Bullock and the clerk begrudgingly says
“Thanks for being a loyal customer.” and you cuss him under your breath as you exit, the stolen gum you swiped while he was bagging your purchase already being unwrapped.
You head across the mall to the food court, past the smells of bad pizza, and halogen lamp heated chinese chicken and see some friends waiting for you there.
“What you got there?” Billy says, his jeans dirty from doing kick flips poorly in the mall parking lot.
“Demolition Man.”
“Cool, cool. The movie about Taco Bell, right?”
Shawn Scott Smith is a writer and pinball player. He is on all socials @luckycreature and luckycreature.neocities.org