It's Made a Liar Out of Me

2014 started off frigid and full of hate. Temperatures which hovered around thirty degrees below zero Fahrenheit proved absolutely remarkable for business, and the Dominion saw a fine surge of custom despite the fact that the bulk of releases were crap that only saw limited theatrical release which nobody in the Saladolsa area had ever heard of. The year seemed destined for brightness and mirth.

Then one of Fernando's regular customers came in to rent one evening and all the good omens were flipped topsy-turvy thanks to Fernando's wretched penmanship and said customer's notions of entitlement.

This person had been coming to the store for years and years, since well before Fernando took over as the Dominion's steward. She was not a perfect customer (few are), but she had never stolen anything nor broken anything and any late fees which she racked up would, eventually, be paid off in slow one- and two-dollar trickles. She came in on this occasion to rent some movies and she also decided to purchase one of Fernando's extra copies of World War Z. She selected, in addition to the purchase, three new releases and two older titles.

Fernando writes up the slip like he had for this woman countless times before, only this time she opts to pay with a check. That's fine; Fernando has no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary with regard to her bank account's credit. She fills out the check while Fernando mills about the shelves retrieving her stack of movies. The total had come to sixteen dollars: eight for the purchase, and eight for two of the new releases. It was a rent-one-get-one-free day, so the other three movies were rendered gratis beneath that aegis.

She writes the check out for $15, doubtless because Fernando's penmanship is a blight to the world about on par with endometriosis, and Fernando remarks on this when he returns to the counter. "You're a dollar short, but it's no big deal. Check's already written," he says.

"What do you mean, a dollar short?" she asks.

"It's supposed to have come to sixteen dollars. But, like I said, it's no big deal."

"Wait, why sixteen?"

Fernando blinks. "The purchase is eight, and then the two new releases."

"Wait, I thought I get one of those free."

"You did."

"Then why is it sixteen? Shouldn't it be fourteen?"

It does not even dawn on Fernando to ask why she would make the check out for fifteen dollars in that case. Instead he is at a loss for words. "Er...no."

"Why?"

"Because you have the purchase, and then two new releases. They come to sixteen."

She half-closes her eyes for a moment. "I just did the math, and it comes out to fourteen. You're charging me for the one new release when you shouldn't."

Fernando is confused. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Shouldn't I get two of the new releases free and then pay for one of the old ones?"

Fernando tries to put things as politely as he can. "Er...no. The rentals have always been done in tiers like this."

"Tiers?" she asks. "I don't under...." She trails off in confusion while scratching her cheek.

"It goes by the number on the tag, descending, for which ones are free."

"Wait, so I'm paying for the new ones before the old ones."

"Yes."

"That doesn't seem fair at all."

Fernando wallows in a mire of pure consternation while putting on a facade of geniality. "It's been done this way every single other time you've come in to rent."

She ruminates on things a bit more. "And you do it like this to everybody?"

"Yes. Not just me, but the owners before me, and the owner before that, and probably even going back further all the way to when the store was first founded. That's the policy."

"It sounds like you're ripping people off."

Fernando cannot even find the energy to get upset at her noxious accusation. He is quite effectively trapped, for any justification he could give for why he insists on being inflexible--primarily that Fernando is not going to make an exception for her which would doubtless be abused, nor is he going to permanently change things so that he runs the risk of earning up to fifty percent less income on a rent-one-get-one day by letting old titles go first--would be taken in the worst possible light, for she has already convinced herself that Fernando is in the wrong and she is in the right.

So he shrugs and reiterates, "That's the policy and always has been the policy."

She then thinks for a little longer, and says, "I probably won't come here anymore."

Fernando shrugs again. He might perhaps have apologized that she feels this way, but he does not particularly feel like lying to her. Instead he tells her, "Have a good evening," and waits for her to perhaps ask that she be refunded.

Instead she takes her movies and leaves.

Priority

One of Fernando's regulars comes into the store one afternoon not long after opening and takes a quick look at the new release rack. "All your Wolverine is already out?" he asks, scowling.

"More like they haven't yet gotten in. I'm expecting all of them back today."

"Okay, how about this," Fernando's customer says. The Keeper hears the skritch of velcro as one of the other rental tags is torn off its case. "Hold this one for me and when the other comes in I'll come down and pick it up."

"That I certainly can do," Fernando says, taking the tag from the gentleman and placing it reverently on the desk in his office. "Did you want me to give you a call?"

"Nah, I'm gonna be running around for a little while anyhow. I'll stop by after I get gas at the station and see if you got it in."

Fernando nods. "Sounds good. If it gets in, I'll hang onto it for you. No promises, though."

And so Fernando's customer departs to complete his errands. A few minutes later a car pulls into the parking lot and a family of father, mother, and daughter clamber out. Fernando is fairly certain they owe him money, but not positive; he could not recall their names, since they had not visited the store in a rather long while, but verification would be swift and sure once he asked their indentity and he took a gander at the late list.

Anyhow, they fan out throughout the store and the two adults chat amongst themselves. Mainly they complain that all of Fernando's copies of Wolverine are out and they rather rudely, in that passive-aggressive not-a-whisper, point out that the Dominion "never has anything good in."

Ignoring or overlooking, of course, that if copies of the goddamn movies are present at opening from the night before without having been rented, the business model is doing something terribly wrong.

The daughter asks if they can rent something else but the mother (who is the one Fernando suspects of owing money) puts her foot down and tells the youngster that if the movies the grown-ups want isn't in, she "doesn't deserve" to rent Smurfs 2. At this moment, two more vehicles crunch over the snow in the parking lot simultaneously. One of them is the gentleman who had just been in. The other one is a truck owned by a man who had, on the previous day, come in and rented Wolverine. Fernando rises from his chair, scoops up the other tag which he had been asked to hold, and walks up to the counter to begin filling out a rental slip in anticipation of things to come.

Fernando's earlier visitor parked slightly closer to the front door, so he is the one inside first. "Did it make it?" he asks.

Fernando points over the man's shoulder at the second gent crossing the parking lot, who carries a stack of three movies. "He's got one, right there."

"Attaboy."

The mother, having deduced something potentially interesting albeit irrelevant to her own sad life is amiss, has since sidled closer to the counter to listen in on the conversation. The father and daughter are off in the kids' section of the store doing Pazuzu-knows-what.

The chimes tinkle and the second man enters. Fernando takes the films from him. "Thank you much." He sets two of them behind the counter and leaves the third, Wolverine. The second man squeezes past the mother, who lurks near the archway, with a low, "Excuse me," and browses the rental racks.

"Which ones did you bring back?" she asks him.

"Uh, The Thing, 2 Guns, and Wolverine," he answers.

Meanwhile, the transaction between Fernando and the first man has been completed. "Thank you much," Fernando says as the man walks out with his movies. "Have a good evening." He gathers up the rental slip and sets it on his desk, then goes about returning the rental tags for the other two movies to their cases out on the floor. He is peripherally aware of the woman approaching the counter.

"Yeah, I heard you got a Wolverine in." the woman tells Fernando.

Fernando briefly glances over at her. "I did, but it just went out again," he says, replacing the remaining cases on the shelf.

"I wanted that one."

"I'm sorry," Fernando tells her. "I am expecting my other copies back, if you would like me to hold one for you and let you know when it gets in."

"Why did you let that other guy just have it?"

Fernando blinks. "Because he asked nicely for me to hold a copy for him." He pauses, mulling over precisely how large a dick he wanted to be at this moment. He arrives at the conclusion "titanic." "And if I had put it out onto the floor, I would not have kept that promise."

The woman's mouth becomes a hard line and she fixes a death glare upon Fernando's uncaring self. The Keeper repeats his earlier offer, "Did you want me to hold one for you and give you a call if I get it in?"

"No," she hisses, sotto voce. "We're leaving."

"Alright. Have a good evening." With that, Fernando weaves through the rental racks to return the other two tags to their homes.

He ignores her so thoroughly that he does not even give a cursory glance over his shoulder when the door chimes jingle twice in rapid succession from the family's departure.

The second man rents three movies and has the social grace not to comment on what had just transpired.

Monstrous

The lady who tried to fleece Fernando out of rentals multiple times in the past decided to return to the store one evening. Why, Fernando had no idea, as he had been fairly certain that he had driven her away with his no-nonsense tone and immovable position on giving her an endless chain of gratis rentals. Maybe she was a glutton for punishment, or her avarice fueled a temptation that could not be resisted.

Nonetheless, Fernando greets her and she, not surprisingly, does not respond, caught up as she was in her own world and doubtless plotting her next move. So Fernando returns his attention to the internet while she browses the store. She comes up a few minutes later with a pair of tags for Turbo and Monsters, Inc. Fernando fills out the slip and takes her money and she leaves.

The following day, her vehicle pulls into the parking lot and she climbs out with her movies. The chimes jingle and before Fernando knows it, she stands before his counter, her perpetually irate expression made even more intimidating and vampiric, for her lips are pressed together so tightly as to not exist at all. "This one didn't work for me." She holds the case for Monsters, Inc. in her hand vertically, so Fernando can clearly see the colorful surface of the disc in case he needed to be reminded about how his inventory looked.

"That's no good," Fernando says, rising from his seat and crossing the office. "Let me take a look at it."

"It just didn't play at all," she insists, setting the case down on the countertop rather than passing it over into Fernando's outstretched hand.

"Peculiar. Let me pop it in my player and see. What exactly didn't work about it?"

"It wouldn't load at all. It just spun in the disc holder." She pauses for a breath, then appends with a generous dollop of vitriol, "This is not the first time this has happened."

Fernando ignores that. He powers on his DVD player and places the disc on the tray. When he pushes the button to close said tray, the woman suddenly shouts, "I didn't use a DVD player!"

Fernando looks over his shoulder and blinks rather confusedly. "Then...what? Like a game console?"

"XBox."

The DVD player faintly hums and churns. "Three-sixty?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's probably the cause of your problem. This disc was pressed in what, like 2001? It's older than some of my customers. Newer players, especially ones in consoles, don't like playing nice with geriatric discs like this one."

The woman puffs out a snort through her nostrils.

Fernando follows that up with a question. "Did you ever try this in an actual, like, DVD player?"

The woman folds her arms across her chest. "No."

"Perhaps you should try that tonight and see if the disc treats you better in that instance." Fernando pushes the power button to his television and, lo and behold, there's the DVD's title screen featuring music by Randy Newton. "It seems to be working fine for me." He pushes the eject button, replaces the disc in its case, and passes it back over to the woman.

She looks as though she wants to say something more, but decides against it and instead skulks out.

Here We Go Again

Firearm deer hunting season looms and with it come the entitled outsiders who expect Saladolsa and its businesses to cater to their every selfish need. The Dominion is in no way exempted from this farce and, while Fernando has a few hunters come in during the bow hunting season immediately prior to firearm season, they are much fewer in number and, overall, less dickish.

One day, Fernando has just headed into the back room to turn on the exterior lights, for it was about five in the evening and the sun has sunk below the horizon, and he does want for the parking lot-slash-road in front of the store to be illuminated. While he's back there, he fixes up a cup of coffee. He hears the door chimes jingle but thinks little of it. Then he hears an unfamiliar voice addressing someone else: “Goddamn, Hangover Three. They never stop.”

Fernando peeps around the corner of the door which separates the store's front from the sanctuary in the back and sees a couple of gentlemen in their late 30s or early 40s perusing the new release rack. They wear forest-colored attire and have taken no heed that the Dominion's office is unoccupied. To their credit, they also didn't immediately make a beeline for the back room. Fernando feels a niggling in the back of his brain, a sense of vague familiarity that he nevertheless cannot immediately place.

“Hello,” Fernando greets them. “I'll be right out.” His coffee preparation takes another thirty seconds or so, then he pops back out to the front and shuts the door to the back room behind him. In the meanwhile, the pair of gentlemen have continued scouring the rental racks for something to watch, but they have either, apparently, seen everything Fernando has to offer or have no interest whatsoever in seeing, say, Oblivion.

In fact, one of them gives rousing and insightful commentary that changes Fernando's outlook on life forever regarding Katie Holmes, her overall physical appearance, and the voluminous and frequent sexual urges she inspires in anybody “who isn't a closeted homo like that jackass [meaning Tom Cruise].”

And then Fernando remembers where he'd seen them. They'd came in the previous year and made similar sorts of observations among their runnin' crew before they turned to Fernando for film-watching advice. On the bright side, at least Fernando has the one dude, Thailand, in his records so he would not have to do the un-fun song and dance which is account creation this time 'round.

Speaking of the homos, Thailand, the less-crass of the two gents, points out World War Z to Vietnam as a possible night's diversion and Vietnam responds with vitriol, “I seen it. It's not a bad movie. The ending's weird but the biggest problem is it has that fag in it.” Now, Fernando is by no means an expert, but he strongly suspects that Mr. Brad Pitt can pull more tail in a week than good ol' Vietnam has in his entire life. Perhaps instead Vietnam was taking a zealous stand against cigarettes?

Enough of this. Fernando wishes to spare his ears and brain of as much bigotry as possible. “Something I can help you with?” Fernando asks them. It worked last year, after all.

“We're just trying to find something good, y'know. Something with action,” Thailand says.

Action, got it. “Iron Man 3. Have you seen it?” Both men shake their heads in the negative. “It's better than the second one. Not as good as the first, but what ever is in sequels, right?” Fernando shrugs as though sheepish.

“You're telling me,” Vietnam murmurs. Fernando surmises this to be another reference to Hangover Three, one which he does vehemently share. But Thailand plucks a tag off the case and heads up to the counter with Vietnam, while Fernando takes an alternate path behind selfsame counter through a parallel rack arrangement

“You'll have to forgive me, I misremember your name,” Fernando asks of Thailand when everyone is ready to complete the rental process.

“Thailand. We were in here last year a couple times.”

“Oh yeah, I remember now,” Fernando says, as though he only just remembered now. “It'll come to four dollars.”

Thailand digs out a five dollar bill while Fernando retrieves the movie. The swap is made, change is doled out, and Fernando bids them a good evening.

At least this time it wasn't an election year.

One Hour

Fernando sits at his computer one evening when a minivan pulls up and a guy comes in. He had rented some movies earlier that week and returned them two days late, racking up a neat twelve dollars in late fees. He picks out a couple of films, comes up to the counter, and says to Fernando, “I also have some late fees.”

“Yep, twelve bucks. Did you want to put something down on them?”

“Yeah, I'll pay that off.” So he does, and Fernando hands over the change, and the man leaves.

Not one minute later, a woman storms into the store and waves the cases at Fernando. “How much were these movies?”

“Those came to eight dollars.”

“They're four bucks each?”

“Yes.”

“And why was the late fee twelve dollars?”

“Because you had out three movies for two days.”

She slams the cases down on the counter and crosses her arms. “Two nights?”

“Yes, they were returned at around eight on the second night out. The movies are due back at seven.”

“And you charged two nights for that?”

“Yes.”

“For one hour?”

“Yes.”

“I want my money back.”

“Alright.” Fernando shrugs, rises, and heads on over. He places the movies she'd just rented on his desk and then pops open the till to hand over eight dollars.

She looks down at the money, then back up at Fernando. “What is this?” she hisses.

“Your refund.”

“I want all of it back.”

“I'm sorry, the late fees which were assessed are a debt that needed reckoning.”

“I want all of it back,” she repeats.

“Sorry, I'm not giving you back the twelve dollars in late charges you owed me.”

“I'll tell the police you ripped me off.”

“Go right ahead. I have the signed rental form back here and the daily rate of late charges posted here, there, and there.” Fernando points for emphasis.

“We're never renting from this place ever again!” she shouts as she storms out.

“And I wish you all the best. Have a good evening.”

That's Just, Like, Your Opinion, Man

One afternoon a semi-regular customer who waitresses at a greasy spoon diner-slash-gas station in nearby Peeweeston comes in. She browses the Adopt-a-Movie Box for a short while before selecting a title from it to claim as her very own. As Fernando retrieves the film and inspects the disc to make sure it doesn't look like someone knifed it, she tells him, “A weird lady came into the restaurant last night.”

“Weird? Weird how?” Fernando asks, snapping open his rental case and moving the movie in question to its new home.

“Well, she was really quiet and kept to herself. Like, she didn't talk much even when I went to serve her. So she comes up to pay and then she asks me, 'Do you guys do a lot of business here with people coming through?' And I'm like, 'Well, yeah.' And she said, 'I thought the sign would maybe turn people off from coming in.'”

This establishment, you see, does not adhere to a Fernandesque view of keeping the personal and business life of its proprietor good and separate. No, the owner of this joint instead proudly puts his politics on display, not in the last through a rather large sign which reads, in big bold letters, “DEFEAT OBAMA.”

This is the deep kind of political discourse Fernando's rural neighbors embrace.

Fernando's customer continues, “So I looked at her and I said, 'I don't know why you would think that,' and she goes, 'The man in the shirt over there doesn't help things either.' So I look and there's a guy who always comes in and he's wearing the same shirt I've seen him wear a bunch of times.”

“And which shirt is this?” Fernando asks, more out of obligation to be a good conversationalist than because he finds this tale of any interest.

“It's one of those ones that reads, 'Twenty years ago we had Johnny Cash, Steve Jobs, and Bob Hope. Now we got no cash, no jobs, and no hope.'”

“Classy,” Fernando says in a deadpan tone.

“Right? Why couldn't she just keep her opinion to herself?” his customer says, mistakenly believing that Fernando's thrown his lot in with the bumpkin who attires himself with puerile talking points.

Fernando shrugs. “Why be upset?”

“Nobody needs to hear about any of that.”

“I notice you don't seem to have any problem with the guy in the shirt.”

“No, why would I?”

“Because he's doing the exact same thing.”

“No he's not. He's not bothering anybody with it.”

“Weird. It sounded to me like it was bothering somebody.”

Fernando's guest looks at him for a moment as though she is about to retort with something, but instead she closes her mouth, scoops up her movie, and departs.

Love Bites

A middle-aged woman comes into the store one afternoon. “Hey, boss, you got When a Man Loves a Woman here?”

“Sorry, I'm afraid I do not. It was here on VHS long ago, but I cleared those out a while back.”

“And you didn't get it new?”

“No. I didn't really see the point.”

“It's such a good movie though.”

“This is what I've heard, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Well, I'm not particularly the target demographic so my opinion doesn't really figure into things, plus I'm the guy who owns the store so even if it did it wouldn't practically matter.”

“Will you get it?”

“For you? I could certainly look into ordering you in a copy to buy.”

“No, to rent.”

“I'm afraid not then.”

“You just said you'd order a copy.”

“Yeah, for you to own and to treasure for always. I'm not going to order in a movie that's twenty-five years old and have it take up premium inventory space for the foreseeable future.”

“I would rent it.”

“I'm afraid that doesn't change my conclusion. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

There is not, and the woman leaves.

Haggle Hag

Fernando, upon doing some basic economic diligence one August afternoon, concluded that he needed to raise his prices to keep pulling in an amount of money which would allow him to exist more-or-less comfortably. His distributor had been slowly hiking up prices on the supply end of things, and the cost of living had, of course, been creeping its slow way upwards over all of history as inflation worked its magic.

He increased the price on his new releases by fifty cents, effective September 1^st. Everything else in the store remained the same price. He did not in the slightest look forward to explaining this change to his customer base, but for the most part people were cool with it.

Then one lady came in to rent Star Trek: Into Darkness.

“It's four dollars now, actually,” Fernando tells her after filling out the slip upon noticing she has dug out three-fifty in bills and change.

“What's that?”

“New releases are now four dollars.”

“They're supposed to be three-fifty.”

“Well, they used to be three-fifty. Now they are four dollars.”

“What if I don't want to pay that much? What if I decide not to come here anymore?”

Fernando shrugs. “Then I suppose you won't be renting or coming here anymore. Though let me pose this question: Do you also threaten the managers of gas stations or grocery stores when they change their prices?”

The lady's mouth snaps shut. She does not answer Fernando's question, but she does withdraw another dollar bill, and that is good enough for him.

Correct Address

A guy comes into the store with a girl one Monday evening. Fernando has seen the girl before, but not in the company of this man. Presumably they are swapping lovejuices on a routine basis.

The guy, you see, owes Fernando forty-eight dollars in late fees, dating to about three years prior. The Keeper suspects that maybe, just maybe, the young lady had been brought along to rent for him by proxy, so that the delinquent could avoid putting any amount of money onto his debt. It's not the first time people who owed Fernando money have tried to skirt the Keeper's wishes.

The two browse the store for around ten minutes, and the guy is the one to select all the movies for the evening, a sizable pile of four titles. This lends further credence to Fernando's hypothesis that she is here as his representative-minion. At last they approach the counter, and already Fernando stands at attention on his side of the barrier. After placing the tags upon the counter, the young man hands the lady a five dollar bill.

“Did you want to throw something onto your late fees?” he asks the young man.

“Uh, I'm not renting these. She is.”

Fernando's eyes flick to the girl, then back to the guy. “I had surmised as much. But I'm not asking her, I'm asking you.”

“I, uh, I didn't bring any cash with me.”

Fernando presses his lips together and squints at the five. “Hrrm.”

“That's, uh, that's hers.”

“Oh, no, absolutely. My friends tell me to hold their money for them all the time, too.”

The two lovebirds exchange an awkward look. Finally the guy says, “Can I put a dollar on it?”

“It's a start. The largest journey begins with but a single step.”

Miraculously, the movies are returned the following day. Perhaps this mini-saga will indeed prove itself to be a story of redemption and—pssshhhhahahahahaha I crack myself up.

Godwin

“Hey, is this movie about Hitler?”

“Which movie is that?”

“This one that has Hitler on the cover.”

Fernando peeks out the office at where his guest, a high school-aged young lady, points to one of his wares, Emperor, which features General Douglas MacArthur as portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones front and center on the cover. “...No. That is not Hitler.”

“He looks like Hitler.”

“In no way is that statement correct.”

Did The History Channel become so abject a failure in quasi-educational television so long ago already?

Bless Me

One day Fernando rests upon his throne and looks out his viewing portal at the great wide world surrounding the Dominion. Across the street, a backhoe which has sat half-buried in a hole for the last two weeks continues sitting. Traffic passes, trucks and semis and sedans. A young man walks along the sidewalk.

Wait, a man walking along the sidewalk? That doesn't happen in Saladolsa, not ever. Or in America, for that matter. And he....Fernando leans forward in his seat and squints to get a better view. The young man wears a checkered, button-up shirt. A navy blue satchel is slung over his shoulder. And his hair....

Fernando leans back in his chair, eyes wide, and looks around his office in shock. The Aryan!

He immediately changes the subject in a conversation he has with his e-companion, Lucretia. “The godmongers are in town! One of them's across the street. What should I do if it comes in? I need a character.”

The Aryan has by this point stopped before the insurance place across the street from the Dominion. He peers through the business's window, then turns the doorknob and lets himself in. Fernando hastily appends to his chat, “Oh yes, he's entering businesses. Just slithered into the insurance place across the street.”

Lucretia answers, “Oh boy. Break out the Russian mobster guy.”

Mobster guy...? Nicolai! There's a name and a face that Fernando does not consider too often. His memories of that man are still...quite fuzzy. Break him out, though? Of where, jail? Was he in some kind of legal trouble? Fernando much prefers not to engage in felonious conduct, if he can at all avoid it.

He also posits his question to others present in the internet world. Cortez responds with a vote for Vinny. Vinny is an asshole. He shit Lorenzo's bed and needs to get his ass kicked. Vinny's pad, though, is a sprawling and chaotic deathtrap. The last time Lorenzo and his posse visited, they would up trapped on another plane of existence entirely.

Vinny is a dick, and Nicolai had tallied more votes by the end of election season. There may have been some stuffing of the ballot box, but that's democracy for you.

As Fernando prepared the tools needed to break out this character from his long absence, the chimes over his door tinkle. A young lady enters, with mousy brown hair and slightly crooked front teeth. She wears a sensible blue cardigan over a white button shirt with a plaid skirt. She bears a satchel identical to The Aryan's, from which publications and papers and pamphlets protrude. “Hi!” she chirps.

“Hello,” Fernando says. His voice is a strange half-gargle, like he is trying to do a bad Slavic accent. This was not as it was meant to be! The Aryan was to have paid Fernando a visit for Round Two! Now he has to converse with a woman? Madness!

Fernando plays it cool and clears his throat. “How can I help you?” he asks, smiling.

“My name is Elizabeth, and I'm visiting everyone here in town to ask if they would like to donate any money to a missionary nurse program.” She rifles through her satchel and withdraws a stack of five books. She does not extend any of them Fernando's way, nor make an immediate sales play. “It's so strange that you own a video store here, in a town this small. How many people are there here again?”

Hmm. Either she was lucky in her guess, or she had been briefed at some juncture on Fernando's existence and credentials. Rather than being a contrary fucker as with The Aryan or Mad Cultist in earlier years, Fernando opted to treat this visitor like a customer. He's never done that with the godmongers.“Oh, around four hundred,” he says, tilting his gaze upwards and to the side. A sizable Guardian Spider lingers in a corner of the office. “Maybe a few dozen more if you count the suburbs.”

Elizabeth laughs. It sounds almost, but not quite, genuine. “So I have a question for you.”

“I may have an answer.”

Now she fishes out one of her tomes, a spiral-bound cheap piece of shit that purports to be a cookbook, the same title which The Aryan bore last year. It made claims of “hearty homecooked meals in minutes.” She places it in Fernando's hands. He opens it to the table of contents, as he had given up on his oxygenarian lifestyle shortly after taking it up last year. He has no willpower.

And, mmm, what a collection of culinary masterpieces. Macaroni and cheese. And meatloaf. Oh, blueberry pie and breaded pork chops. Truly Jacques Pépin would be hard-pressed to match this caliber of comestibles.

“Would you consider yourself to be more the cook or more the eater?” she asks Fernando as he browses the cookbook.

The Keeper arches an eyebrow. “I am of the belief that you can't be one without also being the other.”

Elizabeth laughs again. “Surely you must favor one over the other.”

Fernando shrugs. “I switch it up. Keeps things from getting too stale.” He places the book face-down upon his counter.

Elizabeth smiles and looks Fernando in the eyes. Fernando smiles back. After around five seconds, his visitor tells him, “You seem like you're really intelligent.”

“Well, that depends on how we define intelligence. It takes all sorts and styles of knowledge to truly be considered all-knowing.”

“Are you a Christian, by chance?”

“Afraid not.”

“Catholic?” Weird. Fernando had always assumed the latter to be a subset of the former.

“Sorry, no.”

Elizabeth's smile grows wider, and her voice pitches up a quarter-octave and takes on a guttural undertone, as though her throat did not want to allow the following word to pass her chords unobstructed. “Atheist?”

“Atheism is too strong a position for me to take.”

Her body relaxes a little. “Agnostic?”

“No, I believe that there exists some all-encompassing purpose behind things.”

Her lip quirks. “Skeptic?”

That's a new one. “About most things, yes. Proof ought to be had before conclusions are made, on any topic.”

Elizabeth gives a little sigh and shakes her head from side to side. “I give up. What are you then? Buddhist?”

“All of the above. I live by my own set strictures and rules and don't believe it is ethical for me to use them to unduly impact the lives of others.”

“Oh, it seems like you're a very moral person who seems to put a lot of stock into logic and thought,” she murmurs, withdrawing another book. “This is a book of philosophy and aphorisms, and the history of all kinds of moral and religious movements. It will change the way you look at the world, I promise.”

No doubt, since the book's subtitle makes note of freedom having been under attack through the ages.

Fernando takes the book from her, then immediately sets it down. “Ah, there's the rub. I also believe in quid pro quo in my moral dealings with others.”

Elizabeth smiles at Fernando. “'There's the rub,' that's from Hamlet. Did you quote Shakespeare on purpose to me?”

“I hadn't planned on it, but great minds sometimes do think alike.”

Here Elizabeth begins to quote that particular soliloquy at Fernando. Sling, arrows, misfortune, dying and sleep, the rub, all of it up until the shuffling off from the mortal coil. It's certainly more Hamlet than Fernando had ever bothered to memorize. “Well done!” he says, and genuinely.

“Do you do a lot of reading?” she asks after giving a small curtsy.

Fernando has fielded this question previously and has a canned response on hand: “Indeed so. Roughly equal parts fantasy and nonfiction.”

She withdraws a third book. This one has a placid scene of some tropical paradise emblazoned on the cover, a stereotyped palm tree-at-sunset, waves-washing-on-the-beach image. “Here is another book. It has a number of stories, both real ones and fiction. They're great for relieving all the stress in your life. Surely you must have a lot of it, running your own business.” She flips it over and puts it in Fernando's hands, then slides her finger across the cover to the barcode and price on the back. “As you can see, it is normally priced at nearly thirty dollars, but really anything you can give would be appreciated so very much. Most people give somewhere between twenty and twenty-five dollars for this.”

“Well, truth be told, I'm feeling pretty good about my life right now,” Fernando says, adding this third book to the growing pyramid. And this is true, for later that selfsame week Fernando would embark on an excursion to magical, faraway lands, one which had been planned into his life-schedule since February.

“Everyone runs through rough patches.”

“This is true. But, I feel adequately equipped to parse them through on my own should they arise, or perhaps with the help of my friends.”

Elizabeth's smile falters now, and Fernando sees the merest hint of desperation in her eyes. She hands over one of the two remaining pamphlets in her hands. “Would you like a prayer book? Really, any donation at all is appreciated.”

“I'm sorry. I don't have my wallet on hand here, and I can't take anything from the till. You understand.” Fernando makes an internal promise to provide a burnt sacrifice of amendment to Gord the Lawgiver as penance for his lie. Though, in Fernando's defense, his wallet was not immediately on hand; it rested in his back room, upon his comfy futon.

Now she hands over the last item in her grasp, a feeble postcard with a generic Christian blessing/greeting writ upon its front. The postage is not even paid. “A postcard, then? Even a dollar in loose change could help me with my program.”

“No, I'm sorry.” Fernando uses the postcard as the capstone of the architectural masterpiece of glossy, pulped wood.

Elizabeth shovels the stack back into her arms, holding it against her chest. “In that case, thank you for your time. May God bless you.” She makes the sign of the cross in midair with her free hand, then sweeps that arm wide. “Jesus will return soon, in His Second Coming! I don't know exactly when it will be, but all of the signs are here!” Her rapture swells, as does the volume of her voice, as she passes her edict down upon Fernando. “I will pray for you, that you will find the path to salvation before it is too late.” Then she turns and leaves.

Fernando stands behind his counter for a moment or two after she departs, then returns to his seat. That went much better than expected. Nicolai didn't even need to make an appearance.

One thing, though: isn't Find the Path a druidic spell? Methinks somebody is flirting a little too closely with paganism!

Suggestion

A strange man enters the store one bright afternoon. It is a Wednesday, and quite possibly he visits Saladolsa to attend the music festival which is slated to begin the following evening. “Hey, what's a good movie?”

Fernando provides the exact same sequence of words he always does when someone asks him that question without greater specificity. “Depends what you're looking for. Action, comedy, horror...?”

When Fernando trails off, it is meant as a rhetorical tool to encourage the listener to continue mulling through film genres and styles internally, to perhaps come to a conclusion which can then be shared with Fernando so that the Keeper can try to do his job by using his expertise to guide his customer to an appropriate title. When the man pauses the conversation, Fernando assumes he is mulling over things of that nature.

Instead, when he speaks again half a minute later, his tone is somewhat confrontational, dare Fernando say offended. “Is that seriously all that you got?”

Fernando had not planned on being a pedant and holding the man's intellectual hand any longer than necessary, but it seems he has no choice. Enter the snark. “No, I also have other genres available. Musicals, dramas, westerns, kids and--”

The man interjects, “Okay, I get it.”

“--family films, sci-fi, war, oh, okay, good.” Fernando stows away his staff of snide words and retrieves his carrot. “Good is incredibly subjective. I don't want to recommend, say, Last Exorcism 2 if you think exorcism flicks are a waste of your time and money. If I did that, you would be less likely to take to heart anything I suggest later, because I'd been wrong before. So, what do you like to watch, and we'll go from there.”

The man mentions Taken and Taken 2 as movies he'd recently seen which he really enjoys, so Fernando points out the existence of Snitch with Dwayne “No Longer The Rock” Johnson. The man reads the back of the case and it seems good enough, for he selects the tag and brings it to the counter.

He doesn't even throw a conniption over setting up the account, and the movie is in the drop box when Fernando arrives at the store the following morning.

Transfer of Ownership

A guy comes into the store one Saturday. The weather is, for a change, not a brutally hot and muggy oven, but instead a nice high-70s, low-80s breezy summer afternoon. Fernando does not recognize him, but the dude seems to know what he is doing, for he marches into the welcome foyer and immediately turns to face Fernando.

The strange man slumps down on the countertop. He's a stocky bloke with a Ron Jeremy-esque mustache decorating his top lip, and when he speaks he reveals to all the world that he falls squarely into the boisterous fat guy category. “Hey, old timer!” he booms at Fernando, who sits about ten feet away.

This even though the gentleman looked to be at least twenty years Fernando's senior.

“Hello. What can I do for you?”

The man scratches at a jowl. “Yeah, I've got a free rental here.”

“Interesting. Can I get your name?”

“Yeah, it's under Kosovo Waterloo.”

Fernando recognizes that name, as it's one of his regular customers. “If it's under him, then why do you say that you have a free rental here?”

“He told me that I could use it.”

“Well, that's awfully genial of him. But I'm afraid I can't do that, not unless you have some proof besides.”

“What, you don't believe me?”

“It's not that I disbelieve you so much as that I am quite hesitant to let people use other peoples' duly earned rewards on nothing more than a say-so. If you had a free rental coming, would you like it if the man in charge of keeping track of it let someone else use it merely on his say-so?”

“Yeah, if I told him that he could.”

“But how would I know that you told him?”

“He'd tell you.”

“If I told you that someone you know said that you would hand over the keys and ownership papers to your house to me, would you do it?”

“Nobody told you that.”

Here Fernando realizes he would be trapped in endless stalemate if he continued his argument, so he cuts short the conversation and puts his foot down. “I'm sorry. I can't do what you ask.”

The strange man heaves back up and walks out.

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

Fernando walks into a bar.

He takes an open stool near a woman in her mid-50s and waits for the bartender to finish serving a group of young ladies seated across the bar. “You're Fonzie's brother, aren't you?” she asks.

“Indeed so, last I checked.”

“I'm sorry for your loss.”

Fernando tips the brim of an imaginary hat her way. “Thanks.” The bartender has yet to finish mixing these girls their drinks.

“Let me buy you your first drink,” the woman says. She knows Fernando's brother, and seems to know him (though by rumor and reputation, or because they'd met at some point in the nebulous past, is something Fernando does not know), but Fernando has no idea what her name is, and he doesn't particularly want to look like a buffoon by asking her what it is, not if she treats him so familiarly. He can return that favor.

Besides, Fernando is not one to turn down free booze. “I'd appreciate that, thanks.”

“What are you having?”

“Ginger vodka with a splash of lemon juice.”

The older woman raises a finger skyward and shouts. “Hey, Canada! Once you finish over there, get me another and a ginger vodka for this young man!” The bartender ducks his head briefly and this seems to satisfy the woman. “He'll get that to us.”

The bartender takes another minute to wrap up his mixology with the other ladies. “We don't have ginger ale here,” he says to Fernando. On the one hand, this is surprising, since ginger ale seems like a thing every bar should keep in stock. On the other hand, this is a bar attached to a restaurant in Zail-Kanzin, so why would they have the makings for good drinks? “Can I get you something else?” he asks.

“Southern Comfort Old Fashioned, then. Sour, please, orange slice but no cherries.”

The old lady looks at Fernando proudly. “You look like you know what you want.”

“I always have a backup plan.”

“What if you couldn't have gotten that here, then?”

“Then probably I'd have gone with a vodka tonic, or maybe a beer, if there any beers worth half a shit here.” All of the taps proudly bear the mark of Miller Lite or Budweiser or similar rice-water ilk, and Fernando can see no minifridge in which cans or bottles of less-wretched brews might lurk.

“They've got Corona.”

“If I wanted to drink piss with a lime garnish, I'd ask for a slice of lime and make my way to the restroom to serve myself.”

The old lady squints at Fernando. “You are exactly like your grandmother. She was so...so....” The lady trails off speaking as she undertakes a quest to discover the vocabulary

“Forthright? One does one's best.”

The bartender delivers the drinks. The old lady has something clear and fizzy in her tumbler, while Fernando's Old Fashioned is tinted ruby, likely with cranberry juice or grenadine. What either of them have business doing in an Old Fashioned is beyond Fernando's understanding of the bar arts, but it doesn't taste like a Bad Idea nor a Manhattan, so he is satisfied.

“How long you staying?” the woman asks.

“This drink, maybe another. I can't stay overlate. I have to work tomorrow.”

“It's the Fourth.”

“No rest for the wicked. I closed the store today so I probably should try to make up for it tomorrow. Hell, holidays are better for my business because people need something to park the kids while they grill and drink in the backyard.”

“You have an explanation for everything, don't you?”

“Everything has an explanation.”

“See, I can't believe that. Some things just happen for no reason.”

“Everything has a reason for happening.”

“Not coincidences.”

“Sure they do.”

The woman twists in her seat and faces Fernando head-on. Her posture is one of defiance. “Okay, explain that to me.”

“There's a reason for you to have been at a place when the coincidence happened.”

“Not always. Sometimes you're just there.”

“Nobody is just anywhere for no reason.”

“What if you didn't plan it?”

“Doesn't matter. You decided on something else that put you there.”

“So the coincidence isn't your fault!” she trumpets.

Fernando shakes his head. “Sure it is. If I decide to walk down Main Street in order to meet my best friend at the movie theater, then it's partially on me when the firetruck crashes through the brick wall and turns me into road lasagna and confetti in front of a crowd of innocent bystanders. If I'd not chosen to go down Main Street at that time, then I wouldn't have been there for the truck to pulverize.” Fernando takes another sip of his drink. It is quite good. “Good news is, this only counts for my choices, and not for others.”

“Why?”

“I can't judge others' choices because I don't know what choices they'd made previously.”

“You can't believe that.”

“Sure I can. I do. That's tautological enough for most purposes.”

“Doesn't it ever get to be too much?”

“Nah, not really. I've gotten pretty good at handling existential crises over the years.”

“But why even be like that?”

“Why not?”

“You say everything's because you made a choice.”

“Yes.”

“Then you chose to believe all the stuff you just said.”

Fernando mulls it over. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

“Why stick with it, then?”

Fernando shrugs. “Because I choose to. Because most other people choose not to.” Fernando tilts back the remainder of his beverage. “Thank you again for the drink, and moreso for the conversation. I'd best return to the afterparty, such as it is.”

“Take care, sweetie. Butt your head against me some other time soon, you hear?”

Fernando grins. “That's what she said. Have a good evening.”

It is easy to take another's “why” for living and apply it to oneself. It is not easy to create one's own “why.”

Reckoning

A reedy guy who'd been to the store only maybe five times over three or so years comes in one day and rents a couple of movies. His modus operandi over previous visits was as follows: return the films a day late and take the three or so dollar late fee. Fernando diligently adds the tally to the late fee list and it sits there, a toady blemish, until Fernando reaches the point where he wants to trim the damn thing down to below four or five pages, whereupon he culls the late fees under ten bucks attached to people who hadn't come to the store in roughly a decade. Soon thereafter, through a combination psychic resonance, word on the street, and confirmation bias on Fernando's part, Timely Tim returns to the store with a clean slate and this phoenixesque degeneration starts anew.

The second-to-last time Fernando culled the late fee list, he had once again purged this debtor's history, and Timely Tim made his reappearance. This happened around October of 2012. He rented a couple of movies and they were, again, dropped off a day late. This time, though, Tim came in the following day and rented again. The conversation went roughly like so:

Fernando: “You have three bucks in late fees from yesterday. Did you want to kill them off?”

T.T.: “Oh...I only got enough money for these. I'll hit you up next time?”

Fernando: “That's fine.”

Those movies, too, were returned late. Now, though, T.T.'s late fees had no real reason or excuse on Fernando's part to be swept away, so when Fernando most recently cropped his late list T.T.'s six dollar debt remained intact.

Now it's June, 2013. Timely Tim had made like the cicada he somewhat resembles and stands in the Dominion's foyer. Fernando says to him, “You've got six bucks in late fees, if you wanted to put something down on them.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, from October of last year.”

T.T. screws up his face in concentration. “Are you sure?”

“Fairly sure. We had a talk last time. You returned some movies a little late and said you'd pay the late fees next time you were in.”

“You said that was three bucks.”

“You rented again that day and returned those late too.”

“Well, that one wasn't my fault. My friend was s'pposed to drop them off.”

“But your friend didn't. Perhaps if you ask you will be reimbursed for your troubles.”

“How much does it come to altogether?”

“Thirteen bucks.”

T.T.'s expression is momentarily cunning, then resigned. “'Kay, fine.” He squares up with Fernando and takes his movies out.

They are returned four days late. Eighteen is many more dollars than six, and Fernando looks forward to T.T.'s next visit a year down the road.

Negotiator

At around 1.30 in the afternoon one Wednesday, Fernando hears the rumble of a vehicle outside the store. He peers through a corner of the blinds. A red pickup is sprawled in the parking lot directly blocking the door. A woman sits in the cab, idling away. Her location leads Fernando to surmise that she is dropping off a movie, but after two minutes of sitting there he amends his supposition and views her as a camper.

Fernando makes himself busy in the office, straightening things which do not need straightening. 2 PM rolls around and the truck has not moved. He sighs and unlocks the front door.

The lady in the truck's cab leans out the window at him. “Oh, now you open?”

“Yes, now I open. It's two.”

“I been waiting half an hour for you to come in.”

“I get that a lot,” Fernando says, turning and striding to his office. The lady shuts off her truck and comes into the store after him.

She browses the store for about five minutes, then comes up to the counter with six tags in hand. “It's get one free day, right?”

“Indeed so.” Fernando retrieves a pen and rental slip. “Can I get your name?”

“Azerbijan Switzerland,” she answers as she fishes through her purse for crumpled small bills.

Fernando stops writing. “You have twenty-eight dollars in late fees. How much did you want to put down on them?”

“Oh...all I have is this.” She drops nine tattered dollar bills to the countertop.

“That's not even enough to cover the rentals, setting aside the late fees.”

She frowns at the pile of tags. “How much do I need to pay off on the late fee?”

“How much do you feel you ought to pay off?”

“A dollar?”

“Let's do this: you rent two of those and put the remaining five-fifty from your nine dollars towards the late fee.”

“Well....okay.”

Fernando takes her money, retrieves her movies, and watches her depart. The movies wound up two days late, so she now has two and a half dollars more on her late fee than previously.

It never stops.

Understanding

A guy Fernando has never seen before enters. He had been in the company of one of Fernando's female quasi-regulars, who remains outside. Fernando is okay with that. This woman comes to the store about once a month and has choice words for Fernando regarding the fact she does not win his weekly free rentals drawing. Notwithstanding, of course, that she needs to rent more than once a month to have a decent shot at having her name plucked and every week sees the bucket emptied so three-quarters of the time she is not even a contender.

Fernando has given up telling her this after it became apparent she paid his words no mind. He has better uses to which he can put his interpersonal communication skills.

The man immediately leans onto Fernando's counter, which he had just cleaned. He wears a tattered brown t-shirt liberally speckled with dirt, oil, and grease stains, and his forearms are much the same. “Hey, you got Battleship?”

“Indeed I do,” Fernando says. “Let me get that for you.” He levers out of his chair and retrieves the tag in question, then sets to filling out the rental slip.

“You seen it?” asks the stranger.

“I've not,” Fernando responds.

“You're shitting me. You work at a movie place and you don't watch the movies?”

Why is it that people automatically leap to that inference? “I don't watch most of the movies I have. Time and taste play a big role in determining where and when I pop in the things I have here.”

“Man, this movie is awesome. You can't stop watching once you start.”

“I'm glad you enjoy it as much as you do. I, however, would be unable to suspend my disbelief and immerse myself in the narrative, and would instead look for inconsistencies in the plot.”

“Man, if all you care about is a movie's fuckin' plot then you can't watch nothin....” Fernando looks up as the man trails off and understanding dawns. “Ohhhhhhhh.”

Fernando nods, finishes writing, and retrieves the film in question.

Typecast

One of the quasi-regulars peruses the store's new release rack one afternoon. Fernando hears the soft, assorted clack of cases being rearranged on the shelves, but pays it little mind. The door is propped open by a VHS rental case, the sun is shining, and dandelions have come into bloom to devour all the world. Fernando never understood why people would consider the dandelion a weed and seek to eradicate all traces of it. It is a flower—a mighty successful flower, one which provides a great abundance of pollen and nectar to honeybees and gives ordinary dull grass pretty yet un-gaudy splashes of color. They are edible, besides. That it can choke out and murder daintier plants like tulips or carnations is not the dandelion's fault. One does not blame professional basketball players for their ability to shame sixth graders at the sport, but to do the same to the dandelion is somehow accepted.

Anyhow, this quasi-regular speaks at Fernando. “Hey, this Hyde Park movie, it's a comedy?”

“Hyde Park on Hudson? No, not at all. It's a history drama.”

“It has Bill Murray though.”

“Indeed it does. That does not automatically make it a comedy.”

“He's a funny guy. He was great in Zombieland.”

This young man is somewhere around the age of eighteen. Fernando inwardly cringes. “If Zombieland is the metric by which you judge Bill Murray's body of comedic work....” he begins saying, then trails off upon realizing the statement would prove pointless spoken to someone whose idea of a “retro” gaming system is the N64.

“If you're in the market for a comedy, I can recommend This is 40 or...I think I have a copy of Guilt Trip in as well,” Fernando says at last. The young man takes Fernando's first suggestion to heart, pays, collects his movie, and departs.

Grumble, grumble.