Leap of Faith (477 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by gascs (View user info) at 2004-04-17 14:29:23 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
"Do you have 'Leap of Faith'?" a whiny voice inquired.
Joe didn't have to look up. He knew the voice after just a few days. It was Steve again.
"No, Steve, we don't have Leap of..." Joe attempted, before he was interrupted.
"It's just that my wife really wants to see it, and she thought you might have it."
"I'm sorry Steve, we don't even..."
Steve persisted, "It's just that it's her favorite movie, did you know? She's a big Steve Martin fan."
It was obvious this was going to be a long day. "Steve, we don..."
"It's just that she really wants to see it." Steve obviously wasn't giving up.
"STEVE, WE DON'T FUCKING HAVE LEAP OF FAITH, OK, GODDAMMIT?!? WHY DO YOU EVEN WANT IT?!? IT'S STEVE MARTIN'S WORST GODDAMNED MOVIE!!! HE'S NOT EVEN FUNNY TO BEGIN WITH!!!" Joe screeched in a blood-curdling death scream, before leaping over the video counter. He grabbed hold of the register and belted Steve in the face with it, sending him careening to the ground while spitting out mouthfuls of his shattered teeth. Joe dived to the floor and began wailing on him like there was no tomorrow, through his muffled cries of "It's just that..."
Joe blinked away his fantasy to hear Steve keep going. "It's just that there aren't really any other video stores nearby."
Lisa, the all-star video store employee, whom Joe had been in love with since he started this job, came to the rescue again. "Steve, why don't you come with me, and I'll show you the other Steve Martin flicks we have." Lisa didn't have an exorbitant knowledge of movies. She didn't always know where to find things. She wasn't great at closing the register at night. There was just a quality about Lisa. Everything about her, her smile, her attitude, her ass-kickin' body, all screamed, "CUSTOMER SERVICE." A lot of people still came to this small, local, independent store, just for the extensive help she offered. With a flirtatious grin and a kind word, she enchanted all of the customers, male and female alike. She and Steve walked off to examine one of the video racks in the comedy section toward the back of the store.
Joe sighed and looked down into his coffee. He never wanted to deal with crazy video store characters all day. He never expected to end up here. He made all of the right decisions in life. He worked hard in high school, he got into a good film school, and he even directed a critically acclaimed film. Unfortunately, it was that film that undid him. Regardless of his hard work, even going as far as to empty his life savings to promote it, he just couldn't get any studios to distribute his film. He couldn't figure out who wouldn't want the rights to a movie about a doctor desperately searching for a cure for AIDS, because he's formed a friendship with one of the chimps he's infected during tests. It was a heart-wrenching, emotional rollercoaster of a film. Hollywood just hasn't been ready for another emotional, heart-wrenching story about a man and a monkey since Matt LeBlanc's Oscar-caliber performance in "Ed".
In LA, he tried to get jobs doing camera work, editing, holding microphones, even getting sandwiches for legendary actors like Matt LeBlanc, but he always got the same responses.
* * *
"Sorry, Joe, but you're way too good of a director to be JUST photographing."
"Sorry, Joe, but you're too high profile to be among the lower staff running cables."
"Sorry, Joe, we already have somebody to clean our toilets, but we'd like to talk with your monkey friend about directing some low-budget pictures!"
* * *
No job that he could get could even pay his heating bill in LA, so he had to move.
Now he was stuck, back in his hometown, broke, living with his parents, working for just above minimum wage in a local video store, where an odd little man with a serious listening problem by the name of Steve visited every morning to find some ridiculous movie from the early 90s that nobody has rented in years.
He sighed and took another sip of his coffee, making the standard grimace that goes with really bad coffee better than doughnuts.
Lisa returned to see the look of discomfort on his face. "Our coffee tastes about half like bad coffee, and about half like that sticky green thing stuck underneath the counter." Lisa joked.
Harry, the store's movie expert, overheard her comment from the stockroom behind the counter. He peeked out; a look of complete enlightenment appeared on his face as he agreed, "You're right! It does!"
Joe wisely decided to ignore any questions of why Harry might know what the 'sticky green thing stuck underneath the counter' might taste like. To say that Harry was only a very strange man would be like saying that David Arquette was only mildly mentally retarded. It was true; he was the most knowledgeable employee at the store. He always knew a DISTURBING amount of information about EVERY movie you could think of.
* * *
"Hey, I'm looking for a movie, where this guy looks like Buddy Holly and this little kid screams a lot. Do you have it?"
While anyone else would reply with, "Wow, you just won our Triple-Decker Chocolate Covered Dumbass of the Day Award, with Sprinkles!!!" Harry would just give a bored reply, without looking up from his magazine, like this was something people asked every day.
"Six-String Samurai. Third rack on the right, on the bottom."
* * *
If Harry could've applied his knowledge retention skills to something else, perhaps he wouldn't be a 42 year old man still living in his mother's basement, working in a video store for $7 an hour.
Lisa began to give Joe some newcomer's advice. "Steve is kind of tough to deal with, at first, but you just have to get him to look at some other movies, and then he'll sit in the back and read the covers for about an hour, which is kind of weird, but at least then he'll leave you alone."
"Thanks." Joe responded as he looked longingly into Lisa's eyes, threw down his coffee, and pulled her to him in a passionate kiss.
"I NEED YOU RIGHT NOW!" she moaned in a husky voice.
Joe blinked, and she was just continuing her advice about the customers. Damned daydreaming.
"I think he just really hates his wife, and this is a good way to get out of the house, I guess. He always asks for movies that we don't have, which gives him an excuse to look around for hours. You just treat him like a 5 year old; he's pretty easy to deal with. Certain other customers, though, you have to really be firm with. Like Bertha. She's an old lady that comes in here every few weeks and wants to argue about a tape not being rewound or paying a late fee. Bertha, you just have to tell her how it is, and lay down the law."
"Thanks." Joe was happy to get the advice, but he was usually too passive to be too firm. Joe's face contorted again as he took another sip of his coffee. "Right now, my mouth is fighting with my stomach over who should hold this gulp."
Lisa smiled. "I guess either way, you lose."
Joe laughed at her joke, laughed a little too much, and an awkward silence manifested between them. God, I wish I could impress this girl, thought Joe. He had been trying to think of something since he started this job, but he just couldn't find anything to work with - his life was in the shitter, and he had pretty much no hope of it turning around any time soon. He was too embarrassed about his monkey film to talk about it. In fact, he had gotten to a point where he HATED the monkey film. He furiously changed the subject whenever it was brought up.
Secretly, though, Lisa knew all about it. She had seen it ten times, and she loved it. She loved the way he brought out the passion in the actors, the wonderful photography, and the unique camera angled. She adored the way he brought the relationship between the chimpanzee and the doctor to life. She loved the way he managed to relate the idea to every person's struggles in life. She was apprehensive to ask him anything about it. She heard Harry ask him about it when he started this job last week, and his reaction was somewhat akin to (although somewhat less destructive than) the eruption at Pompeii.
A dilapidated old lady came through the door, breaking the uncomfortable quiet between Joe and Lisa. She must have been at least 75 years old; it seemed as if moving around was causing her a great strain. She slowly and carefully wobbled over to the register.
"May I help you?" Joe asked, hoping to impress Lisa with his customer service skills.
"You certainly can, you little pigfucker. You're going to get in your computer and take that lousy late fee right off of my cotton-pickin' account," she calmly shot through clenched teeth, which was somewhat odd coming from such an old lady. "I returned 'Black Cock Down' on time."
Taken aback, Joe started nervously hitting the computer keys. "Let me pull up your account..." he offered.
"You goddamned well better!" the little old lady pushed.
He glanced at Lisa, who mouthed the word "Bertha" to him.
He wasn't sure about disturbing this fragile old lady's condition by forcing her to pay the late charge, but he wanted to impress Lisa, so he ignored his usually reserved personality, took a leap of faith, and countered with, "Listen here, lady. You're going to pay the late fee, and every other goddamned late fee that I want to charge you, and you're going to like it, because that's what I command and I AM THE LORD OF THE FUCKING VIDEOS."
He tried to snap out of it, but there was no fantasy to blink away this time. Yes, he just told an old lady, probably with a heart condition, that he was the "LORD OF THE FUCKING VIDEOS". It didn't seem to matter, though, because she just adopted a started, scared look, then turned around and left the store.
Lisa was astonished. "Whoa, there, killer, it usually takes a few months before people figure out how to deal with Bertha. Great job."
As Lisa walked away, Joe glanced down underneath the counter and saw a stack of videos, including 'Black Cock Down'. "Harry, can I ask you a stupid question?"
"I wouldn't expect anything else," Harry replied from the back room.
"What are these videos?"
Harry came out to look. "Oh, those? Oh, yeah, those are just returns I forgot to log. We'll have to remove everyone's late fees, I guess."
* * *
The next day, Harry had to tell Joe that Bertha had died from a heart attack after she left the store.
For Joe, it was a moment of disturbing realization, like when you notice that you're drying your face with the same part of the towel you dried your ass with yesterday. He had just killed an old lady over a late fee that wasn't even correct.
* * *
Joe, Lisa, and Harry all decided to go to the funeral. It was a small funeral, and not too many people were there. They were just about to leave, when a man in a really expensive looking suit eagerly approached them.
"Joe Scheissmann?" he asked.
"Um, yes?" Joe replied, confused. He had no idea who this man was.
The man was excited. "My name is Phil McFeely, and I'm the VP of Distribution at a small film studio in LA. I saw your film, 'Monkey Love', and I absolutely loved it! I've been trying to get in touch with you for months!"
"Really?"
"Of course! I'm sure you've already got a distributor... but if you don't, here's my card, give me a call, and we can talk. "
"Thank you! Thank you so much!" This might have been the best funeral he'd ever been to. "May I ask how you knew Bertha?"
"Oh, she was my mother. I'm only in town for a few days for the funeral. How did you know her?"
Joe decided to keep quiet about the fact that he had just killed this man's mother, and simply said, "We all worked in the video store where she came to rent... uh, Disney movies."
"Ah, mother always loved those cartoons... Alright, well, thank you for coming, and give me a call if you're interested!"
Things were starting to look up, and Lisa actually looked pretty impressed. Sometimes, Joe thought, to really make it in life, you have to take a leap of faith and kill an old lady.
User Reviews
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2004-05-16 23:39:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I still can't believe you beat me... bastard. :)