Monica's VCR

I was bored, laying on my couch in the basement, putting off the task mom and dad asked me to complete. They wanted me to start cleaning out the dusty bedroom in the basement—we had been using it as a storage room for years. It was packed with ancient boxes filled with relics from my childhood. Austin, perhaps trying to prove his worth as a temporary roommate to my family and I, was already in the room, going through boxes and bringing them out into the den of the basement. He was lining them up in front of me and would give a brief inventory of each box, as if I was the decider of each box’s fate. With a wave of my hand, I would tell him to put each box in either the garbage pile, the keepsake pile, or the maybe pile.

His parents kicked him out, or so he says, a couple weeks ago. My parents were more than happy to let him stay with us while things settled down. Most parents would be wary about letting their daughter’s male friend stay with them, but mine were progressive enough—they let us smoke weed in the house. Austin won’t tell me exactly what happened, but I think I figured it out. We have been friends since elementary school, so I know his parents and how conservative they are. I also know that Austin and Duncan had been spending a ton of time together right before Austin became homeless. Neither of them were out, that I knew of at least, but then again, Austin and I had been friends for more than a decade, all the way through school till now, the summer after our senior year of high school—when you’re friends with someone for that long, you start to know things about them that they won’t tell themselves.

“Attic?” Austin asked.

“What’d you call me?” I replied. He was standing before me, pointing at the keepsake pile. He laughed a little, a short breathy chuckle, and explained,

“You want me to start taking these boxes up to the attic?”

“Oh,” I said, blushing. I sat up and made sure my hoodie’s sleeves were pulled down. My skin was starting to feel clammy. “No not yet. Let’s get the room cleaned today and move those up tomorrow.”

He nodded and went back into the room. As he shuffled boxes around in the room, letting out little exclamations of discovery as if he was discovering treasure, I stood up and walked past the bedroom, down a dimly lit hall and into the bathroom. I locked the door and turned the vent on, then opened the cabinet underneath the bathroom sink. I reached far back, moving several spray bottles of cleaner, and pulled out a box. It used to hold packets of soluble sinus rinse, now it held my stash of dope, some needles, cotton balls and a spoon that was burnt on the bottom.

I cooked myself up a shot of tar, turning on the sink while I did so just to add another layer of noise to cover the flicking of my lighter, and pulled up my left sleeve. My arms healed quickly and normally I was pretty good at hiding my track marks, but lately they were getting a bit heavy. I found my favorite vein that ran along the inner edge of my arm and hastily administered my fix, rinsed out the syringe, and put everything back in the box and under the sink. The heroin massaged its way into my brain and my skin stopped being clammy. I looked at myself in the mirror—I was tall and skinny but hid my gawkiness with baggy hoodies and sweatpants. It was a tomboy style I had adopted years ago and it worked in my favor. People were used to seeing me in a hoody or sweatshirt and never asked why I was wearing long sleeves during the summer.

Austin knocked on the door suddenly and loudly—I jolted upright from the sink and let out a

little yelp.

“Money,” he called. “Look what I found.”

“Give me a minute,” I said, spraying Febreze to cover the lingering, vinegary scent of the shot I just cooked. Even if he smelled it, he probably wouldn’t have known what it was, but still—I didn’t like taking chances of anyone finding out about my relatively new habit. I listened as he walked away from the bathroom door, then opened it and found him back in the den, holding an unlabeled box.

“Look at all these tapes,” he said, setting the box down and pulling out an unlabeled VHS tape.

“Oh wow,” I replied, rubbing my arm. “You must have dug deep in there.” I walked over and looked into the box. Some of the tapes had their plastic boxes that they came in—old Disney movies, cartoons, kid shit—but most were unlabeled in multicolored paper sleeves.

“We should watch them. Do you have a VCR?” he asked.

It was like the universe knew what I had done the other week, before Austin had come to stay with us, and was throwing karma in my face, to see what I would do. I was in the basement bedroom a few weeks ago, going through the boxes, hoping to find some old forgotten jewelry or antiques I could sell for money, when I had found our old VCR, sitting on top of a stack of boxes. I wiped the decades of dust off and took it to Iolani’s antique and pawn shop. I hated that Iolani worked there—she was always there when I brought something to sell for quick cash, and always gave me a sideways look, like she knew why I was pawning off my parents’ old junk. We were smoking buddies in high school—and sometimes fuck buddies until she told me that she actually was more into boys than girls—but once we graduated and she started working at her parents’ shop, we saw each other less and less.

She had given me $100 for the VCR—apparently they’re harder and harder to come by these days—and I bought myself a gram of dope that lasted me four days.

“No, I don’t think we have one anymore,” I told Austin. His narrow shoulders slumped and his face twisted into an expression of contemplation. Then he said,

“Maybe we can find one. I know my parents have one but…” his words trailed off into a type of

melancholy I wasn’t trying to feel.

“You really want to watch these?” I asked.

“I mean, it’ll be something to do, right?” he answered. I shrugged and he gave me a sideways glance, the same one that Iolani was so fond of giving me. “Normally you’re much more argumentative,” he said. I rolled my eyes and he continued, “but I’m not complaining. I like agreeable Money.”

“Oh shut up,” I retorted, hitting him in the arm. He chuckled and said,

“Maybe you have one in that room somewhere.”

I tried not to show my apprehension. “I’m pretty sure we don’t.”

“Have you looked for a VCR in there recently?”

“No.”

We spent an hour looking through the crowded basement room, our only light coming from a tiny window that just barely peeked above the ground outside and a single light bulb on the ceiling, housed in an overdesigned ceiling fan with a burnt out motor. At one point, Austin said,

“I think your parents might be hoarders.” I shot him a look and he stifled his chuckle.

Once Austin realized that most of the boxes were filled with nothing but old clothes, he gave up.

“Well fuck. Maybe we know someone with a VCR. Let’s go on quest.”

I loved it when Austin referred to outings as quests or adventures. I also loved it when he drove me around. I agreed, praying he didn’t want to start browsing pawn shops, and we left my house. I was hoping that during the drive, we’d smoke enough weed until Austin lost interest in finding a VCR and we did something else, something normal, like getting Taco Bell or bribing old alcoholics outside the liquor store to buy us booze.

We got in his car and he immediately pulled out a rainbow-swirled pipe and bag of weed from his center console. He loaded it and started driving. We stayed mostly on the neighborhood streets, those winding forest paths where the tree branches cast flickering poles of shadow along the car and over my face as I laid against the window and let myself nod off. He drove us past replicated houses and playgrounds nestled between pavement and cul de sacs. As he drove, I mentally noted all the spots I had parked my car and shot up at. After ten minutes of him driving, I had already counted seven—three of them being spots where I had nodded off while parked in my car and not waking up until hours later in the middle of the night. Those times weren’t as great—I had to think of some lie to my parents as to why I was out till four in the morning.

Austin turned onto the main street of the town, Institution Boulevard, and drove us south. He cracked open a window to release the accumulating pot smoke and then knocked me out of my trance by offering me a hit. He was the more avid stoner between us—I usually turned his offers down, but this time I lifted my head from the window and took the pipe from him. I thought maybe smoking with him would encourage him to smoke more also.

My body, already heavy and warm from the heroin, felt even more comfortable to be in as I started to get stoned. We smoked until the weed had all turned into ash, and, driving with his knee, he loaded another bowl. Good, I thought. But as we drove southward, I could only feel paranoid that he was taking us to the pawn shop. I asked him where we were going and felt like he had slapped me in the face when he confirmed my suspicions.

I prayed Iolani wasn’t working when we pulled into the old shopping center. There were only a handful of cars in the parking lot. The strip mall formed an L shape and the antique shop where Iolani worked was tucked in the elbow of the complex. Austin swerved around potholes and crumbling parking barriers, parked crookedly, and led us into the dim shop.

When he swung open the door, I got a waft of Iolani’s unmistakable perfume. I sighed quietly, trying to think of how I would explain myself, coming back looking for a VCR when I had just sold her one.

As usual, the brightest thing in the store was Iolani herself, who sparkled when she looked up from the desk and saw us. She smiled at Austin and gave me a quick look that asked “you again?” “Hey hey,” she said in her voice that sounded like caramel. “I don’t think you’ve ever visited me at work, Austin.”

Austin just shrugged. “Does Money?” he asked, gesturing towards me.

“Oh yeah, she’s in here all the time,” she began, but she stopped abruptly when she saw the death-stare I gave her. Austin then turned to me and asked,

“Well why didn’t you suggest coming here?”

“What are you guys looking for?” Iolani asked. Austin turned to her and said,

“A VCR.”

Then it happened—Iolani gave me that sideways look, but full on, with both eyes boring into mine, their confusion and desire for an explanation evident. I willed at Iolani, Please don’t say anything, but she didn’t pick up on it.

“Money literally sold me one a few weeks ago.”

Austin’s face showed confusion and then he looked at me also. I was caught between two laserlike gazes and knew I had to say something, but words failed me.

“So you did have one, up until recently?” Austin finally asked, his voice sounding more confused than anything else.

“Yeah but,” I gestured vaguely at the air, trying to grab at an excuse as if it was a will-o-the-wisp floating in the sun. In doing so, my sleeves fell towards my elbows and I quickly pulled them back down, hoping no one got a glance at my pinpricked arms. Then I said, “I didn’t think it would still be here.

They’re collectors items now.”

Austin made a grunting noise, as if he were judging the validity of what I just said, and Iolani was still staring hard, but now at my arms instead of my eyes. Then she looked at me with an expression of knowing sadness and said,

“We still have it, if you want it.”

Neither of them said anything as she led us down a broad aisle. After all my times coming into the shop to sell things, I had never actually taken the time to look around at what all they sold. We walked past a variety of old electronics—there were first generation iPods, HD DVD players, old thick televisions, cassette players, and then the single, familiar VCR. It was huge and wide, grey, with large circular buttons. It had an orange price tag on it—three hundred dollars.

“Damn Money, how much did you get for it when you sold it?” Austin asked. I could hear the skepticism creeping into his voice.

“A hundred bucks,” I said.

“And what’d you spend it on, Monica?” Iolani asked.

I hated when she used my full name. When she squinted her eyes at me and her smooth, brown face turned into something wrinkled and judgmental, I was reminded of the resentments I used to have against her when we were seeing each other, how I hated feeling like she was always judging me. My unspoken grudges against her made things easier when she cut off our relationship but now they just felt cold and hateful. I grew defensive.

“Like food and shit, Lani.”

She didn’t respond, she just grabbed the VCR and led us back up to the front.

“You guys can have it for ten bucks,” she mumbled, not looking at me. Austin was quiet—he got this way when he was thinking about things.

The place seemed darker as we walked out the door. Carrying the VCR, I looked back and saw Iolani looking at me, her eyes turning wet.

Once back in the car, Austin sat in silence, not putting the key in the ignition. Finally, he asked,

“What was all that?”

Maybe it was the freshness of my last shot of dope that had muddied my brain and prevented me from thinking of a good lie earlier, but now I was able to—which meant the shot was wearing off and I’d need another soon.

“Okay so I got really stoned a month ago and really wanted a burger from BJ’s but had spent all my money on weed, so I sold our old VCR. I was really high when I did it so,” I faked a laugh, “I totally forgot about it.”

There was a moment of silence as I waited for my lie to land and be accepted. I mentally congratulated myself for blaming weed rather than heroin for my lack of money. Finally, Austin laughed and said,

“That sounds like something you would do.”

He drove us home. The relief I felt at having sold my lie overrode the discomfort my body was beginning to feel as it yearned for more heroin. The sun, low in the sky now, cast shadows through the trees again as Austin pulled onto neighborhood streets, but the cascading shadows felt like disruptions to my thinning sense of serenity.

Austin pulled up to my house and we went inside. He carried the VCR this time—the thing was surprisingly heavy. He went straight for the tv in the main level living room. I heard him pulling off the tape on the VCR which held its wires secure against it as I went down to the basement and sped to the bathroom. I locked the door and turned on the vent again as I quickly readied another dose of dope and took it. I sighed in relief as I opened the door and walked back upstairs. But at the foot of the stairs was

Austin, looking at me with concern.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

“What?”

“Iolani texted me. She told me to ask you to roll your sleeves up.”

I felt the color drain from my face. “She’s stupid. Why would she tell you that?” I replied.

“You tell me,” he answered.

“You’re being dumb,” I retorted, aware that I only looked more guilty by refusing to do what she and he asked. He just looked at me—I could feel him thinking, thinking about how he was a guest in my house, how he shouldn’t ruffle any feathers—and sighed. He walked over, grabbed the box of video tapes, and went upstairs. I followed him.

Upstairs, the VCR was on the floor in front of the tv, wires sprawling from the back of the small grey box upwards into the television.

“What should we watch?” I asked, trying to get his mind away from what just happened. It seemed to work, because a thread of excitement entered his voice.

“There’s some really good old animated movies in here. But let’s start with one of these home videos, yeah?” He pulled a tape from the box. It was in a red paper sleeve—he pulled it out and pushed it into the VCR, turned on the tv, and pressed play. He had to fumble with the remote to find the right input for the VCR, but when he did, a grainy, blurry image appeared on the screen. It was a video of me, when I was young, in a pair of rollerblades, completely protected with a helmet, elbow pads, wrist guards, and knee pads. I was outside in front of our house, the house we still lived in, and was screaming joyfully as I skated down the street.

The video went on. I fell at one point, and a younger version of my mom came bolting onto the screen and lifted me off the ground. Then the video changed abruptly, this time, to a family gathering. I identified a young me, younger versions of my two brothers, and even, I think, young Austin. We looked so innocent and happy—I couldn’t remember what the event actually was, whether it was a birthday or holiday, but the sounds and smiles radiating off our young faces stirred something in me. I don’t know if it was a yearning for that purity again, or the simplicity of childhood, or the desire for a time when I didn’t have to lie to all my friends, but whatever it was sent me back down to the basement bathroom where I sat on the toilet and cried.