The Basement
Behind the broken shelf was a Laminex table. On the table were five large stacks of DVDs. There must have been a hundred discs – perhaps more. Next to the DVDs lay a pile of glossy colour-copied covers of movies, most of which had not even been released on DVD yet. Some, including one with Tom Hanks and another with Charlize Theron, weren’t even in the cinemas in Australia as far as I knew! A list of labels with addresses lay on top of postal envelopes on the ground. Unopened plastic boxes of blank DVD discs were stored neatly under the table.
On the other side of the table lay a handful of console game discs next to a pile of clear plastic covers and photocopied covers. I recognised one as a favourite of Topps’.
It looked like a real sneaky little operation. The DVDs and console games were obviously copies. I picked up one of the discs, a film about drag racing in the streets of Los Angeles. It was definitely pirated. Whose were they? My boss Vince was the only one who bothered with anything down here. Crass just threw down empty boxes and the odd poster. And what was with the envelopes and labels?
Kids were always swapping copies of DVDs, music and games at school, but they didn’t look like these. They were always downloaded off the Internet or in photocopied covers, bought in Fiji or Bali by older brothers and sisters on holiday. I once saw a Spiderman movie on a pirated disc and had to put up with a lady suffering a sneezing fit and the guy holding the camera moving it down to his lap when he reached for popcorn. Then I’d missed the entire ending when a guy stood up in front of the screen and practised what looked like Tai-Chi.
The covers of the DVDs, however, looked like the real thing. I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference from a new overnighter at the Video Saloon and one of these. Someone had put a lot of effort into them.
I took the drag racing DVD and walked back up the stairs. I didn’t want to be seen down here.
The customer had left when I returned to the counter. Weird, I thought, I’d only been gone a few minutes.
‘What took you so long?’ said Topps. ‘I’m running out of movies to recommend…’ I reached out and grabbed his arm in an effort to shut him up. ‘Topps, you’ll never guess what I’ve just found.’
‘A signed poster of Megan Fox?’
‘No! Just take a look at this.’
I held the pirated DVD cover up to his face.
I let Topps take a good look at it, which he did with a slight look of bewilderment, as if he knew he should be surprised or shocked, but couldn’t figure out why. ‘Yeah, it’s a rev-head movie, like Fast & Furious. So what?’ he said.
‘Take a look at the disc and cover itself, Topps. Doesn’t it look suspicious? Like, it’s not really original. There is a mega load of the stuff down in the basement too.’
It was only then I noticed Overalls-Man staring at me from the small snack bar on my right. I hadn’t seen him when I bounded up from the basement and I thought he must have left. Instead he had grabbed a DVD and a Diet Coke from the fridge and was now staring at me with more than just casual bemusement.
‘Sorry, I couldn’t find the cut-out,’ I told him shakily. ‘You’ll have to come back when Colin is here.’ He shrugged his shoulders and paid for the movie and Diet Coke. ‘You could have told me he was still here,’ I hissed at Topps as the guy walked out. ‘He probably heard everything.’
‘Where did you think he’d gone?’ said Topps. ‘He was hardly going to run out of the store. Anyway, I don’t know what you’re talking about, so I’m sure he doesn’t either.’
‘I’m talking about pirated DVDs,’ I said. ‘Topps, I think Vince may be involved in it big time, cause right below our feet in the basement is a big pile of illegal DVDs. All the latest movies as well as covers, blank discs and loads of envelopes. It’s like a small business down there.’ I gave Topps the drag racing DVD as proof. ‘And there’s games too.’
‘Wow,’ said Topps, examining the cover and then the disc inside. ‘Nice cover, pity about the disc. They could have done better than this. Obviously used a simple design program and printer to apply the disc title.’ He put the disc back in the cover. ‘Do you think Vince is selling the copies? Or perhaps he’s renting them out to customers?’
‘I don’t know, but there’s a lot of movies down there. Man, Vince must be stupid. If the police find out they’ll shut the Video Saloon down for sure. Then I’ll have to work at The Chicken Shack for six dollars an hour.’ I pulled at my blonde split ends. ‘Do you think we should tell?’
Before Topps could answer Vince Gurrieri, of all people, walked into the store. Topps made himself scarce and investigated the latest release section. Not a good look to be talking to friends when the boss walks in and it wasn’t the first time he’d caught Topps and I gossiping.
Vince looked stressed out. He had very little hair and the worry lines stained into his forehead like the ochre swirls of an aboriginal art painting seemed out of control today.
‘Where’s Colin?’ he asked.
‘Gone to lunch Vince.’
‘I don’t like him leaving you alone. I told him before,’ he snapped.
Vince always treated me as some little girl who couldn’t handle herself without a guy around. It’s probably why he’d never let me work alone, which sort of defeated the purpose of hiring cheap labour. Sure, he paid me nothing, but he had to pay Crass to look after me on a Saturday afternoon.
Then he looked around the empty store. Topps was the only one in it. He was pretending to read the back of a Battlestar Galactica TV series cover.
‘So, the joint is empty again,’ Vince said. ‘Every day is slowly getting worse. I should get you a microphone and make you spruik for customers outside.’
‘I wouldn’t know what to say. It’d be a disaster.’
‘Hey, my cousin Frankie is missing his two front teeth. Having a conversation with him is like talking to a wind tunnel. But he stands outside his restaurant and drags in three hundred, four hundred people a night. Why couldn’t it work for us?’
I didn’t say anything and just let him have his whinge. Then I saw that Vince had the pay envelopes in his hand. Boy, did I love those little white envelopes. Even more than Vince loved whinging. I loved tearing mine open to see the orange tip of a twenty dollar note poking out. Not that the envelope was often full. The only reason Vince hired me was so he could pay me peanuts. Eight dollars an hour – and that’s on weekends.
‘Mate, what do I have to do to make more money?’ Vince asked, putting one arm over my shoulder and gently squeezing it.
‘I don’t know, Vince. I often think that myself,’ I said, squirming a little.
‘Well, you’re no good to me then,’ he said, removing his arm. ‘Money is money, and I need ideas. Now with that bloody Blockbuster store all my customers are beginning to leave. I gotta start branching out. There’s no money in DVDs anymore.’
Vince gave his wart on the back of his neck an angry massage, complained that Blockbuster was only popular because their store smelt “new” and that most of the films made this year were rubbish and he wouldn’t watch them for free, so why would customers pay six dollars to hire them? Then he left.
‘Vince sounds like he needs some happy pills, and what’s with the little hug?’ said Topps.
‘Yeah, he does that a bit,’ I said, ‘it’s kinda totally creepy. Anyway, what’s up with the DVDs though? Would he risk keeping pirated DVDs in his own store?’
‘Hey, maybe he watches too much Sopranos; you know, thought some oldfashioned Cosa Nostra counterfeiting might make things spark up.’
I had to admit Vince was looking more and more desperate. The last time I worked with him, all he did was complain. But that was Vince. He whinged about his estranged wife’s spending habits and child support of his kids, his 4WD that kept breaking down, about government taxes and GST and the film distributors who charged him a hundred dollars a DVD. I looked around the empty store. Vince probably did have a good excuse to resort to renting and selling illegal DVDs.
Topps walked behind the counter and into the office. ‘I’m going to take a look. See what sort of operation Vince has.’
‘What about Crass? He’ll be back soon.’
But Topps had already gone out the back and down the stairs. Oh, man. I’d admit he was one of the smartest kid I knew, but sometimes he just had no idea. I could feel myself immediately beginning to sweat. I was about to yell out to Topps to get his butt back to the counter when the store door opened.
It was Vince again. ‘Topps!’ I tried to hiss as I backed away from the counter, trying not to look panicky and suspicious. Instead my voice froze up in fright.
‘I hafta grab…something,’ Vince said as he walked around the counter towards the back. What if he found Topps poking around the office or down the basement with a couple of Vince’s pirated DVDs in his hands? I had to do something and fast.
‘VINCE!’ I said, a little too loudly. He jumped.
‘What?’
‘Er…I was thinking. The new Nicole Kidman movie.’
Vince raised his wormy eyebrows and looked at me. ‘What about it?’
‘It’s just that you’ve put it on the bottom row of the new releases. I heard it was really good. Don’t you think we should move it up so customers will see it?
‘Do what you want,’ said Vince. ‘As long as they rent the stupid thing.’
He walked into the backroom towards the stairs. I heard the first wooden stair creak. Then the second. He was going down the basement. Oh man, this was bad. This was really bad. I hadn’t wanted Topps to go down there in the first place. And he was such a skinny little runt, with his gawky stare, his glasses and slouchy walk and hair stuck up like a carrot. Vince would probably beat him up.
‘Hey, VINCE!’
He rushed back to the counter thinking something serious had happened.
I didn’t have a clue what to say now. I just wanted to give Topps a warning. I fumbled around with ideas. ‘Um, Vince, I wanted to ask you about the err...’ I looked around the counter wildly until I saw the cash register. ‘The emergency alarm underneath the register. Does it still work?’
Vince didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he looked really annoyed. ‘Yes it still works! Why do you ask me these stupid questions, eh?’
‘Well, you know, what if there was some sort of emergency?’ I reasoned. ‘Is it connected to the police station or something? I’ve never been told.’
‘Why don’t you press it and find out, yeah? I sat on it three years ago and the police where in here in five minutes waving their revolvers around, so I’m guessing the thing is still okay, okay?’ He threw his hands in the air again, turned around and walked straight into Jim Carrey.
Vince staggered backwards and Topps put the cut-out on the ground. It was life size and taller than his slight frame.
‘I found Jim,’ said Topps. ‘He was hanging around beneath the stairs. A customer asked for it.’
‘Gimmie a break here,’ said Vince. ‘What are you doing the hell in my office?’.
‘I’m Peter Topolski, I come here all the time. I’ve rented every one of your South Park discs and most of your Manga titles. I just wish you’d get more in.’
Vince looked at me and narrowed his eyes. I could see his nose hairs sprouting defiantly as he flared his nostrils. A most unpleasant face. ‘What’s going on here? The office is for employees only. Not your boyfriends.’
‘Sorry Vince. He was helping me out.’
‘Maybe I should hire him instead then, yeah?’
Vince stalked out the back and down the stairs. Topps looked at me and grinned like a moggy cat. ‘He called me your boyfriend.’
‘He didn’t say it in a nice way. He said it in a really sarcastic way.’
‘Are you sure? He seems like a serious sort of guy who wouldn’t throw around words like that.’
‘You wish.’
I grabbed the cut-out of Jim and made a big deal of putting it safely behind the counter. Topps was my mate; a good mate. Just like Skye. We’d been best friends for two years but we weren’t a couple and, as far as I was concerned, we never would be. I just didn’t have any feelings for him beyond friendship. Why couldn’t it have stayed that way? I guess deep down I knew he liked me, even though he pretended to only joke about it. It got a reaction from me because I didn’t find it funny. I just hoped it was his hormones and he’d grow out of it.
At school I had to put up with constant questions and teasing and laughs about me and Topps. Girls like Courtney Jarratt, who thought because she had a boyfriend we all needed one. So she went out with Year Nine’s resident hero because he made it to the All-Schools long jump championship and came second. Big deal, he could jump a couple of meters, so what? And so what if they’d been going out for a year and a half and he’d given her an forty dollar gold necklace from Bevilles? Did that give Courtney the right to set up every other girl in our class?
No, I liked things the way they were. Being able to watch Anime or Jack Black movies without Topps trying to slip his arm around me, or getting all mushy when we were alone walking through the park. We could just have a good laugh and goss. That’s what I wanted in a friend at the moment. All that romantic stuff was sort of gross, if you thought about it. I’d never tongue wrestled a guy, and I wasn’t about to start. French kissing? Yuck. It’s okay for people like Jessica Alba. They got paid millions to do it.
‘Try and make some money for me, yeah?’ said Vince as he left, a bunch of paperwork stuck under his arm. ‘And make sure your boyfriend pays for his movies.’
When Vince was gone I said, ‘You were lucky to get out of that, dopey, but hey, did you get down to the basement?’
‘Yeah, but I only got a real quick look. The covers are good quality, that’s for sure. Digitally printed. You can tell they’re fake, but people would pay seven, maybe eight bucks for them, no problem…’
But Topps didn’t get time to even move. Crass walked in as we were arguing. He didn’t look happy. He dumped his gym bag in the backroom and came out brushing his peroxide blonde hair in that spiky-echidna look he loved.
‘Any action?’ he asked.
‘Vince came in to drop the pay packets off. They’re in the top drawer.’
‘What? Oh man, he hates me leaving you here alone.’
‘He said that too.’
Crass swore for at least half a minute. Something was bugging him. A few customers came in so Topps waved goodbye. I told him I’d speak to him later.
‘That your boyfriend?’ said Crass as he scanned videos in for a customer.
‘No. He’s just a mate.’
‘Righhht...’ he said, drawing out the word sarcastically.
‘He really is just a mate.’
‘You two seem to hang out a bit though.’
‘Yeah, as mates.’
‘Righhht...’
I gave up trying to justify myself.
Then the last person I wanted to see walked, or rather, stalked into the store.
Robert Keppler.