Past Indiscretions

by Jack Bantry

"Bullshit. Is it because she's prettier than I am?"

  Even at his stupidest, which was extremely stupid, Nick wasn't dumb enough to answer that question truthfully. "Of course not!"

  "Then why?"

  "I don't know!"

  "You're going to lose everything in the divorce. You know that, right?"

  "Can't we seek counseling or something? Why does this have to end in divorce? We should talk about this."

  "I've been thinking about this all day, and I really don't see how I can forgive you. Unless we even things out."

  "What do you mean?"

  "What do you think I mean?"

  Nick couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Are you saying you want to sleep with somebody else?"

  "That would make it fair, wouldn't it?"

  "I guess."

  "So do we have a deal?"

  Nick shook his head. "I couldn't handle you being with another guy. I'm sorry, I know it's a double standard, but that's just the way it is."

  "Who said anything about another guy? You got lucky with Elizabeth, so now it's my turn."

  "Excuse me?"

  "It's the only way I can forgive you."

  "Are you talking about...a threesome?"

  "No, I'm not talking about a threesome! What's the matter with you? How the hell would that make things even?"

  "Sorry, sorry, this just isn't what I was expecting to hear." He had no idea that Heather had bisexual tendencies. If he'd known that, he never would have cheated on her.

  "Do you think you could set it up?"

  "I don't know. It's not anything we ever discussed."

  "Well, if you don't want to lose your house, I recommend that you make it happen."

  "Would I be watching?"

  "Do you really believe that I'm trying to fulfill your pervo fantasies?"

  "No."

  "I need to know if we can repair this marriage or if I need to move on with my life. I'll go get ready."

  ***

  They didn't speak much during the drive.

  ***

  "Nick! What are you doing here?" Elizabeth seemed pleased but very surprised to see him at her front door. She looked past him and frowned. "Is that Heather in the car?"

  "Yes. She doesn't usually wear that much makeup. Can I come in?"

  "Um, sure. Should I be worried?"

  "No, it's okay. We just need to talk." They went inside and Nick immediately plopped down on the couch. "Could I have a whiskey?"

  "Yes, but first tell me if your wife has a gun."

  "It's nothing like that." His mouth had gone completely dry. "A drink, please?"

  Elizabeth went into the kitchen and came out a moment later with a glass of whiskey. Nick thanked her and took a sip.

  "So...?"

  "Heather knows."

  "Aw, shit."

  "But it's okay."

  Elizabeth looked like she wanted to throw up. "How is it okay?"

  "I don't quite know how to explain this, so I'm just going to come out and say it: she wants to make love to you."

  "She what?"

  "She's proposing a fair trade. I had sex with you, so if she has sex with you, we're even."

  "Are you kidding me?"

  "I know, it's totally insane, but she won't divorce me if we do this. Are you up for it?"

  "Did you seriously just ask me that?"

  "It's the only way!"

  "You think that I'm going to turn gay to save your marriage?"

  "It's not gay, it's bi. And why not?"

  "Because, one, I'm not a total slut, two, I don't swing that way, and three, your wife is clearly mentally ill."

  "You've never experimented or anything? Not even in college?"

  "No."

  "I don't know exactly what she has planned. Maybe you'd only have to receive."

  "Nick, I'm not doing anything with your psycho wife. Get out of my house."

  "Please. You have to do this for me. I'm begging you."

  "I said, get out."

  Nick sobbed for a few minutes, but that didn't change Elizabeth's mind. He walked out of the house and returned to the car, sniffling.

  "What'd she say?" Heather asked.

  "No."

  "Did you describe my lingerie?"

  "She didn't care."

  Heather sighed. "I guess you have to kill her, then."

  "What?"

  "If this marriage is going to last, I can't have the woman you cheated on me with still alive. If you kill her, maybe we can work this out."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Quit asking me that. Everything I say from now on is serious. You can kill her, or you can call up your mother and tell her that I'm divorcing you because you couldn't keep your dick in your pants."

  "I can't murder somebody!"

  "Why not?"

  "Why not? Because it's murder! You don't just go around murdering people!"

  "Don't be a jerk. Nobody said anything about going around murdering people. I'm asking you to kill one person, the person you shattered your marital vows with. But if you think our marriage isn't worth saving..."

  "I don't think I can do that."

  "Then get out of the car. My car. At least, that's what the judge will say."

  "How would I even do it?"

  "However you want! She's petite. You could probably strangle her with one hand. One quick snap of her neck, and plop, one dead whore. Or I think we have a hammer in the trunk."

  ***

  Elizabeth glared at Nick as she opened the door. "Look, Nick, I need you to stay the--"

  Her head shot back with a spray of blood as he smashed the hammer into her face. As she stumbled backwards, he stepped inside and slammed the door shut behind him. He took another swing, and though she successfully blocked it, there was an unnerving crunch as the hammer struck her fingers.

  She fell to the floor, gurgling blood. She was screaming less than Nick would have expected, but she was still making enough noise to alert the neighbors, so he had to make this quick. He smashed her with the hammer, over and over, not enjoying the experience but knowing it had to be done.

  Elizabeth wasn't dying very quickly. It was probably because he couldn't quite bring himself to bash her with his full strength, even though that would be the merciful thing to do.

  His right arm was getting tired, so he switched to the left.

  Soon there was blood all over his clothes and he could barely recognize Elizabeth through the gore, but she was still alive. For God's sake, how many hits with a hammer did it take to kill somebody? This was embarrassing.

  Now his left arm was tired. He dropped the hammer, went into the kitchen, opened a drawer, and took out a butcher knife.

  He stabbed her in the stomach seven or eight times, practically disemboweling her, but she still drew breath. He knew he could end it if he simply jammed the blade directly into her throat, but deep inside he didn't really want to be stabbing the object of his lust to death.

  He had to do this. She was a ruined, grotesque mess, and it was time to end this. He held the tip of the blade over her throat, whispered a prayer for forgiveness, then slammed it into her. A geyser of blood spurted into the air, more blood ran down each side of her mouth, and then she lay still.

  Nick cried for a while, he called Heather on her cell phone to let her know the deed was done. Less than thirty seconds later she opened the door and saw the mutilated corpse that had been her competition.

  "So do you promise not to get mad at what I'm going to say?" she asked.

  Nick nodded.

  "I've changed my mind. Let's have the threesome."

  So Bad

  by

  Adam Cesare

  “And this one too,” I say, laying down another tape. The guy on the cover looks like Charles Bronson. Actually it’s an illustration, so he was painted to resemble Charles Bronson, but the likeness isn’t right and Chuck’s name isn’t on the box. The distributor did their best, though: they put the word Death at the front of
the title.

  The lead actor in this flick probably doesn’t even have a moustache. It’s going to turn out to either be an alternate title for a flick I already have, some Canadian tax shelter piece of shit, or some unwatchable SOV vanity project made by some guys in their backyard on weekends.

  I hope I strike gold.

  I’ll find out when I toss it in later tonight.

  Eddie counts the tapes like this is the first time he’s ever done it.

  I’m not good with guessing ages when people are over forty, but I’d wager that Eddie is at least sixty-five. He runs a stand at the Berlin Flea Market, which is over the bridge in Jersey, a forty minute drive from Philly if there’s no traffic, a fucking-million-minute drive if there is.

  It’s been a relatively light Sunday. I’ve got a milk crate of about twenty tapes, some are duplicates that have nicer packaging than the copies I have, so I’ll take a look at the quality of the tapes themselves when I get home and put the lesser dupes up in my eBay store.

  I mostly collect horror, action and sci-fi VHS, but I’ll pick up an exercise tape or religious scare flick if the cover looks crazy enough, if the celebrity endorsing the workout is gonzo enough.

  There’s some kind of horrifying statistic that gets passed around, that something like eighty percent of all the material on VHS will never make the leap to DVD and end up lost forever. Which is something that keeps guys like me up at night, and is almost as bad a retention rate as nitrate stock.

  “That’ll be forty two.” Eddie says. I’m his best customer, but I don’t think the old guy has any special affinity for me. I take the trip out to Berlin about once every two weeks, sometimes more if I’ve got nothing to do, but he’s never happy to see me.

  It could be my age, twenty-six, and that I’ve got more life left than Eddie and he doesn’t like that fact. It could be my tattoos, I’ve got a full sleeve on my left arm dedicated to the films of Joe Dante—Gizmo and friends, one of the aliens from Explorers, a long-fingered claw from The Howling—and then some miscellaneous stuff on my right.

  Eddie only has one tattoo that I’ve seen, a diving bald eagle on his right bicep, faded with time, and I’m guessing it’s from a stint in the military but I’ve never asked him about it.

  “Not forty? You’re sure?” I say, kidding with the old man. He charges two bucks a tape and I’ve got twenty-one.

  In the hundreds of dollars worth of transactions I’ve made, we’ve never bartered. Well, I’ve tried, but I’ve never received a bulk discount or even a “Have a good one” and a smile when I pay.

  Eddie narrows his eyes, like he’s acknowledging that I’ve made a joke, but not willing to laugh.

  I count out two bills and two singles and take my purchases. I brought my own milk crate.

  As I load the box into my trunk, I survey the tapes before slamming the top down. It’s not a huge haul, but not a bad one, either. Among the highlights are a crumpled-as-fuck Wizard big box, Oasis of the Zombies, Jess Franco at his absolute worst, and an old rental store copy of DeathStalker II, no original art but it came in a cool plastic clamshell that still has the name and address of the store on it: VideoScope, 137 Cooper Landing, Cherry Hill, NJ 08002.

  Huh. Never heard of it. The shop probably closed up in the nineties, pushed out by a Blockbuster or a Hollywood Video. Not that there are any more of those, either.

  The rest is flippable junk I can use to trade or sell outright.

  I wind back with my hand, make to slam the trunk closed as my eyes finish scanning the titles and I see the one tape that doesn’t have a name.

  I’m curious by nature, so even though the tape, no indication as to what’s on it except for the fuzzy ghost of a label on the face and side, could just be someone’s dad’s football recordings, I have to spend the couple bucks to find out for sure.

  It’s not like I’m some brave archivist, combing the backwoods and private collections looking for lost Lumière shorts or Eisenstein’s stag loops, but if I find something too good to be true, I put it up on my YouTube channel or hook up my local programmer friends.

  See: I’m into the stuff that rots your mind.

  Not only the sex and violence you find in your run of the mill Euro-trash potboiler, although I’d never push a lesbian vampire out of bed, but the weird movies that seem like they were made by people who’ve never even seen a movie before, no less know how to properly make one.

  And yeah, before you ask “Like The Room?” Yeah, like The Room, before it got all played out and you and your friends found it, dipshit.

  A big part of why I love this stuff isn’t because it’s “so bad it’s good” or some shit, but because when they’re good a film can become the perfect alchemy of misguided auteurship and a peculiarity that bumps up against the autism spectrum.

  It’s not that I don’t have good taste—I’ve got a degree in film studies, bub—or that I like to laugh at these movies.

  No. These films are true outsider art: they are the democratization of cinema long before everyone’s iPhone turned them into fucking Roger Deakins.

  I close the trunk and have to give it a second whack before I hear the latch catch, then I hop in the front seat and begin the ride back to Fishtown, fingers crossed as to the state of the Ben Franklin bridge.

  As I drive, I amuse myself with the possibilities of what could be on the mystery tape.

  It could be anything, and that kind of scope gives me nose bleeds, so instead I choose to fixate on something else.

  I think about Eddie and just how it is he has access to all these tapes. Enough access that he’s able to replenish his stall at the flea market between my visits. I’ve asked him before and he just grunts and says that he has a “garage full of this shit” back at his place but offers no further details as to how he acquired them.

  One time I made the mistake of asking if I could stop by and have a look. He asked me “Why, so you can show up while I’m not there and knock the place over?” Not a trusting guy with a giving heart, dear Eddie.

  So I have to access his cache twenty drips at a time. I try to do the math and between the stuff I want and the tapes I have no interest in he must have thousands. I think of that, the fact that his garage probably isn’t climate controlled, how the roof may spring a leak and ruin the tapes, and my stomach does the mambo.

  Since everything seems to be upsetting me and there’s a sea of brake lights stretching over the bridge in front of the car, I turn up the stereo (some rare underground doom metal, natch), and let the drone take me through the rest of the drive.

  ***

  I’ve got a small row house apartment. Neighbours upstairs and downstairs, but no roommates, haven’t had one of those since I was able to afford it.

  Although I’m sandwiched on the second floor I’ve got a separate entrance and no one seems to mind the noise from my TV. I’m pretty sure the lady above me grows pot and the kids downstairs throw enough parties that they’ve really given up any right to complain.

  I’m left alone and I like it that way. My day job keeps me in shit food and rent and I can watch movies on my phone while I do it.

  I don’t know when the last time you were around tapes was. 2002? Did you buy one of the Star Wars prequels, even though it shames you now, before you made the switch to digital? But if you ever hefted around a bunch of tapes, maybe to put them out for a yard sale, than you know that a milk crate full of twenty-one tapes is not light.

  It’s a religious fervour that’s got a hold of me as I carry them the three blocks from my parking spot and then up the stairs to my apartment.

  I could split the load and make two easy trips, but fuck that. I want some spicy microwave noodles—a Shin Bowl—and I want to find out what’s on that tape. Even if it’s nothing, even if it’s a bitter disappointment, somebody’s cam bootleg of There’s Something About Mary, I’ll still have that not-quite-Charles-Bronson flick to fall back on. Or something else from the stash. Or something else from my collection.
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  It’s a collection that’s gotten so out of hand I hope they never hike the rent because I’d have to pay it. I can’t ever move out of this apartment because there’s hundreds of pounds of magnetized cinema lining the walls around my couch/bed. I collected, from Eddie and various other sources, until there was no wall space left and the tapes spilt over like crashing waves, forming semi-organized piles and pressing permanent rectangles into the acrylic carpeting.

  I drop the crate the second I work the key into the door and it falls so hard that it bounces, tapes fanning out across the carpet but not going far because there’s not a lot of free space on the floor, just the arc of the door, an area to stomp off my shoes, and then the piles start.

  Audibly cursing, I dive for the unlabelled tape, the mystery. I’m sure you’ve busted one or two in your life, if you were a collector. Ever drop a tape, crack the plastic window over the spools and still try to run it? Sometimes it works out, other times you’re treated to an ungodly crunch as the machine sucks it up.

  Knocking over a stack (victims of the Video Recordings Act of 1984, pile one of three), I find where it’s flown and am relieved to see that the mystery tape is unharmed.

  I navigate my way over to the VCR and press it in. Then I grab one of the remotes and switch on the flatscreen. It’s a nice TV, but if I’m feeling extra nostalgic and want to watch a tape the way it was meant to be seen, I’ve got a compact tube TV sitting beside to the newer one, curved glass and built-in tape deck.

  Yeah, two TVs and no bed. I don’t entertain much.

  I hit play and there’s that whirr…

  We begin in medias res, on the screen are three figures in black robes, flat lighting but enough grain that I can tell that it’s film rather than video. At first I think I recognize the scene and it bums me out. Satanis, a “documentary” about the Church of Satan that’s not rare at all, in fact it already has a DVD release. But no, this is different.

  The three figures each have third eyes, open and unblinking, built up with stage wax on their foreheads. Classic.

  But there haven’t been any credits or title cards, so I eject the tape to make sure I’m starting at the beginning. Yup, there’s just a thin sliver of black under the left window, the minute or so I’ve just watched. That’s not a good sign. It means this may only be a partial film, who knows when it will cut out or how much I’m missing.