At 10:59 I would get in my car, a 1979 Chevy Blazer my parents gave me after they were done with it. The car was basically a tank—an SUV before everyone started driving SUVs—that would break down almost weekly and cost me a full weekend’s worth of tips to repair. Lisa lived around the block, so I could arrive at her house at 11:00 on the dot and honk the horn. A few minutes later, she would emerge from her front door, looking perturbed as usual. She was a little wisp of a thing, five feet tall, probably not even a hundred pounds, with a mane of chestnut hair half-assedly feathered because she just rolled out of bed.
“Hey Clyde,” she said, lifting herself into the passenger seat. Today she wore acid-washed jeans, white sneakers, and an oversized lemon-yellow sweater.
“Good morning, Baby Face,” I replied.
Lisa and I drove to the video store where Lisa’s father had a membership he never used. Located in a strip mall featuring a Carvel and my dentist’s office, it was one of those independently run shops that were eventually crushed by Blockbuster, which was in turn crushed by the Internet.
The store was pretty big as far as stores of its kind went; the space had previously been a bank so it featured a drive-through window, which I always thought was pretty cool. But because the store wasn’t even computerized, the interaction at the window was inevitably more time-consuming than just getting out of your car and walking in. In any case, our video-selection process was more nuanced than asking a dim-witted teller for a recommendation.
We entered—just your average teenage duo looking for a movie to pass some time on an average Saturday in an average one-horse town—and started picking up VHS boxes. Younger readers might not understand how the video-rental process worked back then, so allow me to explain. A local store might have multiple freestanding racks and shelves displaying empty video boxes, which you could pick up to read a description of the movie and see a few stills. Usually, if you wanted to rent that particular movie, you would bring the box up to the cashier, who would give you the VHS tape to take with you in a generic hard plastic case. But this particular store had a particularly high-tech Velcro tab selection feature: When you decided upon a movie to rent, you would remove the corresponding “button,” a metal rim tab about the size of a quarter with the movie’s name written in felt-tip marker on the front and a Velcro button on the back, and bring that to the cashier. Ridiculous, I know. But at least we could watch TV without having to get up to change the channel.
We began perusing the racks, beginning with the movies closest to the front door.
Lisa picked up The Shining. “This looks like fun.”
“Nah. I hate romantic comedies,” I replied. I held up Raiders of the Lost Ark. “What about this one?”
“No. I hate arks.”
The bit continued for half an hour, same as every week. We were “That Crazy Couple Who Can’t Decide on a Movie,” all for the sake of the pimply-faced clerk two years our senior who barely noticed our existence. You would need a time-lapse camera to even realize it was happening, but the entire time we were slowly making our way to the back of the store.
Because that’s where the “adult” room was.
Eventually, Lisa would feign complete exasperation and say, “I can’t find anything I want to watch. Maybe there’s something in this back room.” Then she’d skip through the swinging saloon-style doors into The Room of Porn.
At this point my heart was beating like a jackhammer in my scrawny rib cage, but sensing the clerk’s eyes on me, I picked up another movie. “How about Annie? I like the part where the aliens kill everyone.”
“Get in here,” Lisa barked in her most annoyed voice. And as though I were jumping into an ice-cold pool, I held my breath and pushed myself through just one side of the swinging doors, so as not to cause too much swinging.
The Room of Porn was windowless and fluorescently lit, about ten feet square with five levels of shelves on all sides, every inch of which was lined with box covers. It was like being in a candy store, except this candy gave you hard-ons instead of cavities. I felt dizzy, probably because blood had been diverted from my brain. My instinct was to just grab any one of the Velcro buttons and get the hell out, but that’s not the way Lisa worked.
“This one is fine.” I held out On Golden Blonde.
She wasn’t looking at me. She was reading the cover of The Poonies. “Cool your jets,” she said. “I want to find one with a nice story.”
“Look at this. It’s called Beverly Hills Cox. I’m guessing it’s about horny policemen in California.”
“Shhhhhhh!” She was reading about the plot of Wet Paint, the story of a horny artist in California.
Back then porn was pretty silly, not the gonzo stuff you can’t avoid today. The average porno movie was about an hour and a half, with a story line, often a parody of a popular TV show or movie, and sometimes snappy dialogue. There were costume changes and sets and awesomely cheesy background music made on a synthesizer in some guy’s mother’s basement. The really high-end stuff featured actual theme songs.
After another half hour, Lisa and I were able to agree on Caddy Shack Up, the story of horny caddies in California.
“OK,” I said, pulling some money out of my jeans. “Here’s a twenty. I’ll meet you in the car.” She rolled her eyes, but she knew the drill.
I left The Room of Porn through one of the swinging doors. As per our unspoken agreement, Lisa would wait another five minutes before emerging. During that time I would pick up a few more video boxes from the nonporn collection and act as though I still couldn’t decide on one, slowly making my way toward the front of the store, at which point I would let out a sigh of defeat and give a shrug of indecision. Then I’d head out into the parking lot and wait for Lisa.
I decided to grab a soft-serve from Carvel before getting in the Blazer. Lisa was taking forever. I had finished almost the entire vanilla cone with chocolate sprinkles by the time she arrived.
“What took you so long?”
“Ronald was there.”
“Who?” I was wrapping the last bit of the cone in a paper napkin to give to Noel.
“My father, you idiot.”
“Oh my God. In the porno section?”
“No. He was at the drive-through returning some movies. I almost shit my pants.”
I laughed like it was the funniest thing I had heard in my life.
“Let’s go to Wendy’s, asshole,” Lisa said. “I think Meredith’s working.”
High on the excitement of a new dirty movie to watch tonight and the freedom of having my entire house to ourselves, we drove toward Nesconset Highway where a Wendy’s, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Ground Round peacefully coexisted within a quarter mile of one another. When “Never Gonna Let You Go” by Sergio Mendez came on the radio, we blasted it and sang along at full voice.
Lisa had been correct. Meredith was working, but not the register as she usually did. She was at the griddle, so she didn’t notice us when we got in line to order. She took her job of flipping burgers very seriously, and her manager, a nervous-looking man of around thirty, was flitting around nearby.
“What do you think of that guy?” asked Lisa, referring to the manager.
“He looks like a rapist,” I said. “Why?”
Lisa let out a snort. “Awesome. Meredith has the hots for him.”
“Gross. He’s so old.”
“I know, right? I wouldn’t be surprised if she lost the big V to him.”