Crazy 'Fro

There was a fellow who lived in my neighbourhood -- the same neighbourhood as the store. I saw him sometimes when I wasn't at work, storming down the streets, talking to himself, sometimes yelling, sometimes screaming or brandishing a huge stick that he had ripped from a tree with his own angry hands. But regardless of where he was, or whether he was interacting with others or with his own demons, he was always the same.

6'5", maybe more. 6'8" with his jet black 'fro. Black hair, black tank top (though "wife-beater" seems unfortunately appropriate in his case), black jeans, black steel-toed boots. Even his eyes seemed black, clouded with rage, or urgency, or...I could never really pin-point what. He looked like a giant Bob Ross, if Bob Ross had taken steroids and gone absolutely bat shit nuts to the other extreme.

Not unlike this person's depiction in the photo above. (thanks: http://www.zakeh.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/4.jpg)

He came into the store a few times. Always for the same thing. I would hear the flap of the plastic door strips and before my brain could register that I had a customer, he would be at my counter...still taller than I, even though he was standing a foot below.

A quick look around to make sure no one was eavesdropping (though even when there were other customers, his volume never modulated during his request) and then always the same thing.
"Where do you keep your XXX-rated porno?"

The first time I encountered him in the store I took the time to assure him that, in fact, we had no "behind-the-counter" porn, and to explain that in Australia, since all porn was illegal except in the Australian Capital Territory, there was no such thing as XXX porn... that it was ALL equally illegal, so once it was restricted, it didn't receive further classification. I never bothered to explain that what he seemed to be after wasn't actually XXX-rated porn anyway.

After some clarification, he decided that it was satisfactory to look through the fetish section around the right hand corner of the store, and after several minutes of imploring me about which videos contained the MOST XXX material, I left him to his own devises, off-handedly suggesting if he was really torn, there was always the option of previewing a video before or instead of purchasing it.

This encounter occurred almost exactly the same every time between Crazy 'Fro and I, until one day, he did find a movie that he wanted to preview... or at least was tired of having his efforts frustrated when nurses, urination, and hemaphrodites just didn't seem to do it for him by the still shots on the back of the cover.

It was (dare I say "unsurprisingly") a Latex Fetish video from Germany, made in the 80's and likely our oldest remaining VHS tape. Unlike our "fully equipped" DVD booths, we only had one viewing booth with VHS capabilities, and much to the chagrin of countless of his predecessors -- no remote.

He agreed, in his aggressive and volatile manner, that he nevertheless wanted the room, and I gave him the usual spiel and changed his fistful of bills to the $2 coins accepted by the machine. He entered the booth and I started the film, returning to my cleaning, or sorting, or whatever I had been occupied with prior to his intrusion into the store.

Only a few moments went by before I heard the creaking of the booth door, and the amplification of the previously muffled sounds of 80s German porn. Immediately, he was in front of me again, inquiring about a remote control, the length of the film versus how much time his money would buy, the quality of the picture, whether he could watch the VHS in a DVD booth, and again, the remote control.

I explained once more that there was no remote and that if he was unhappy with the image I could try the tracking button but if it didn't work there wasn't much else I could do.
He seemed flustered, and perpetually ready to explode, and very, very upset at the lack of remote control.

Always putting customer service first, I offered that perhaps I could fast forward the film to the middle of the movie for him from the VCR which was situated behind the counter with me. Again, seeming like a satisfactory solution, and when he was finally reassured that I had, in fact, hit fast forward, he disappeared with the creak of the door back into the booth.

There was another minute or two of peace when I heard a shout, and a little scuffle in the VHS booth, followed by a quick squeal from the door and then,
"Stop! STOP!!...Hit play! HIT PLAY!!"
So I obliged, and the door closed.
Moments later, it re-opened.
"Nah. Fast forward. FORWARD!"
And so I unwittingly became his remote control for the next five minutes until he arrived in front of the counter with a different issue.
"The picture is wavy. It's bad. Can you fix it?"

I tried to explain that he was watching a VHS from the 80's and that it was unlikely that he would obtain a clearer picture regardless of my efforts, but he was adamant that I fix it, but not before he insisted on showing me just what kind of grainy image he was dealing with.

As a tangential note: I am always wary of when customers insist I take a look at the porn on the screen they are watching in a booth. Not that it is a far stretch to intrude on the privacy of someone who has already handed me the DVD case of the video in question, which I then have to locate, load into the DVD player, and hear through the plywood doors of the viewing booths behind me (sometimes at excruciating volumes) and who will eventually leave me a booth to clean, by actually bearing witness to that which he has chosen to watch. But, I am unsure of looking at a screen with the customer's "performance" of choice because I don't want to be cornered into a room with no escape, I don't want someone to get his kicks from watching me watch his porn (whether or not that happens), and I don't want to be brought into the fantasy world of a stranger in the unrealistic medium of pornography -- especially in light of the high volume of men who ask me, upon being given the go-ahead to enter the booth, whether I care to join them, if I would like to give them a "hand", If I could help them out (wink wink), or if I'd like to watch, or maybe even be satisfied. There was only one or two times that I can remember where the suggestion was even mildly tempting -- and even then, any temptation I may have felt was immediately erased by the banality, the audacity, and the un-originality of confusing a female sex-store clerk with a free prostitute. [Sometimes on the other side they would have realized this --generally if we proceeded to have a conversation-- and apologized. But generally, if I wasn't ignored afterwards, I was told that the offer was still valid, or that I missed out as they left the store.]

No part of me had any desire to behold the Latex porn that Crazy 'Fro was watching, so I had him hold open the booth door as I sat on the counter, peering around the wall at the screen.
He was right of course. The picture was shit, but amazingly viewable as far as old VHS is concerned. I tried the tracking to no avail and after he turned down the suggestion to choose a DVD (which would have a remote!) he returned to the booth for a few more rounds of our bizarre human remote control ritual. His time was running out, most of which he had spent standing at the counter staring into the booth and barking commands, and he knew it.
He wanted his money back.
He wanted to find another movie.
He wanted the stuff we kept behind the counter.
He wanted a better picture.
He wanted a remote control.

I suggested he come back another day as our booths closed an hour before the rest of the store (to allow me time to clean them), and it was already pushing a quarter past. He took all this in, nodding ferociously, said "O.K., I'll be back" and left with the same intense aggression with which he had entered, leaving behind the lingering and overpowering body odour that shadows a man who, in 6 months, I never once saw wear anything but the same black outfit.

I remember spraying the store with air freshener after he left that night, and feeling relieved that it was only his repugnant stench, oppressive as it was, that remained.