It's New Release Tuesday
and one of Fernando's quasi-regulars appears in the parking lot about
fifteen minutes before opening time. He comes up and pulls at the
locked door, then taps on Fernando's large office window. He hadn't
been to the store in a couple weeks now.
Since Fernando has no
other housekeeping to do, he figures he can open a little bit early.
“Hey guy, what you got
that's new? Anything I'd like?” the man asks .
This guy asks Fernando
this question every time he comes in, so rather than the usual “Well,
that depends what it is that you like,”
answer-that-is-not-an-answer-but-lets-Fernando-give-a-better-answer-answer,
Fernando cuts right to the chase and selects two movies in the genre
the man Fernando has learned he prefers. One of them is a title that
had just come out today, but Fernando does not mention this fact to the man.
After the man leaves, at
around six in the evening, the phone rings. “Hello, Dominion of
Movies,” Fernando says as he picks up.
“Yeah, it's Jordan,
Jordan Amman. I was in there earlier.”
“Indeed. What can I do
for you?”
“This movie that I got,
it's all scratched up.”
“Oh, Freelancers?”
“No, The Hole.”
“That's odd.”
“Yeah, I wanted to tell
you that it won't play at all.”
“Really now.”
“Yeah. I ain't asking
for no free rental or nothing [dear Baba Yaga, those negatives!] but
I figured I'd tell you so you know.”
“It was like this when
you got it?”
There's a short pause.
“Well, yeah.”
“You realize, right,
that you're the first person to rent it. It just came out today. I
put that movie in its rental case about six hours ago and it looked
fine to me.”
The silence is longer
this time. “Oh.”
“Oh.” Now Fernando
pauses for effect. “So it's scratched up and won't play, you say?”
“N-no, I think it's
actually good. Maybe it's just my player or something, I dunno. Just
got a new one, maybe that's it.”
“Yeah. I hope that's
the case and not that a brand-new disc is wrecked.”
The gentleman on the
phone starts speaking quickly, almost babbling. “Well, I'll go try
it out again and see if that does it. I'll, uh, I'll get it back to
you tomorrow.”
“Indeed. Good-bye.”
“Bye.”
When the movie appeared
in Fernando's drop box the next morning, an inspection of the disc's
underside revealed it to be pristine.
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