by Stephen Biro
You watch me fill the balloon with the first cartridge. I twist the balloon, keep the air inside of it as I twist the cracker, and open it up while sliding the used cartridge out. I stick another cartridge into the cracker. You have questions about this, so you look up at the ceiling for me.
The sound of my voice filters all around you: “If you twist the balloon, you can put multiple cartridges into the same balloon. It makes you higher because you have more nitrous—that is, more laughing gas—in the balloon.”
You turn back to the couch and watch me put three more cartridges into the balloon. I am beaming as the new Rob Zombie video comes on TV. The song is “Superbeast,” and the room inexplicably dims. Zombie begins the show, as a kaleidoscope of colors and objects dance around the room. I take a hit off the balloon.
The song’s rhythms rip across the room, making you agitated; the apartment becomes menacing, almost alien. You watch the TV, slowly becoming desperate to understand the growled lyrics. You decipher them a little, and you think you hear:
“Freak a leak across a ragged tongue/A dope a cross a final thing is mightily me
A cruise control, a cry out loud/The hounds of Hell are coming for me.”
I take another hit. This time, I hold it in and play with the air in my lungs as I breathe in and out of the balloon. This gives an even better high.
Zombie thrashes about as the stereo speakers enlarge and fill the whole room with sound. Colors swirl around the room, dancing in front of me as I take another hit from the balloon.
“The ragged they come and the ragged they kill / You pray so hard on bloodied knees.
They ragged they come and the ragged they kill / Down into the cool air I can see.”
The room gets larger and somehow smaller at the same time. Time and space become nothing as the rhythmic sounds jostle the reality around you. You watch me play with reality, or maybe reality is playing with me. It’s hard for you to tell, but you lean against the wall, watching it all. Reality and fantasy collide in the hope of forming something better. The furniture twists slowly. The air shudders and breathes with a life all its own.
The balloon in my hands becomes depleted as the last of it is huffed into my lungs. I am still holding it as the character from the music video steps out of the TV, into my living room. The look on my face invites it in—hoping for something, anything beyond this reality to hold true. And it does.
The entity from the TV raises its arms, and its multicolored dream coat spreads out before me in a psychedelic resonance of profound proportions.
This thing looks around me and then deep into my eyes. It is inviting me to follow it. It knows I am there for a reason, a reason that even I am only just beginning to understand. It knows I am willing to go to Hell and back to learn my purpose in life. And it knows too much about me at that moment; I feel it stare into my soul and discover what I most want in life. It is like catching a wild animal’s eyes and staring deep into them, knowing you are making meaningful contact with another sentient species. Except this species is unknown, alien in its presence, or, really, omnipresence. I am looking into a supreme being’s eyes and it makes me giddy with the possibility of knowledge. There is something on the other side, and I just made first contact.
I breathe out with a cascade of reality that drives it back into the TV. It closes its eyes and flows back to where it came from. Reality rushes back.
Normal.
At least, normal to the extent allowed by a four-hit acid intake. The popcorn ceiling is still waving about and things still look a little eschewed but it’s really not normal. It’s as a schizophrenic sees normal. Reality is a thing you see during the day while straight. Unreality is a thing that happens during drugs or very extreme events.
When you open your mind to all possibilities and to the realms of ultimate reality and you go with it, you open a door that takes you places. Each experience is a different place and each time is another truth or even a total lie. It might not be what you’re looking for but it’s usually something you need to know on the way to another intention. Sometimes, our mind’s synapses are backfiring and all you can do is sit back and watch the fireworks until something deep within your subconscious happens. That is exactly what happened to me. The problem was, that this was my reality. And I experienced something maddening. Something that was in the fantastic had made its way through the ether and into my realm of possibilities.
I had hoped for something to shake me out of my daily reality and normalcy. And I found it. Actually, it could have found me. (But I won’t pursue this line of thinking now, because that puts me ahead of myself).
The next MTV video starts, and it happens to be Kid Rock’s “Bawitdaba.” You see me reach for the nitrous cartridges again as I begin to fill my punch balloon up. I hope to repeat the process I just experienced.
You stop looking into my past as you’re pulled back into the white room. I sit before you, smirking.
I explain that you had just seen the true beginning of my reality-altering life and my life-altering new reality. You caught me in the period when I needed something to change my life. This was just the beginning. It was a way for me to see just a little, and it was just a demonstration that true reality was not what it really is. It’s more than that.
My experience proved there was something out there you can get in touch with, and it is a real as you or me. After that, I began to keep my mind open to all possibilities. Just because some people believe in an afterlife, or don’t believe in ghosts, or don’t believe in God … well, that doesn’t make it so.
But I needed proof. I needed my own personal belief system—not something that someone else has figured out and told me via a book, a website or a film. I needed to learn this myself. If I cannot learn it myself, then how can I fully live life? This is when I began searching for my own belief system.
VIDEO DEBAUCHERY AND THE LOSS OF THE COMIC BOOK DREAM
We both stand in my old living room, surrounded by videotapes and the same white leather furniture you saw earlier. Sitting in the left hand corner of the room is a huge desk, and it’s beside another pile of tapes. You’re taking it all in, especially the sheer quantity of videos that fill every available space in the room. You back up and knock over a stack of them. So I grab your arm and lead you behind my desk, out of harm’s way, and sit you down in the black leather chair.
“Shhhh,” I whisper. “We don’t want to spook me.”
Speak of the devil: We hear a flush, and I, the younger Stephen Biro, enter from the adjoining bathroom, predictably stoned. I see the toppled stack of videotapes, and even though I notice they’ve fallen on an order someone placed through my website, Video Mayhem of Florida, I shrug it off: “Fuck, I’ll pick that up later.” Instead, I flop down on the couch and pick my bowl up. I flick the lighter and take a hit.
I, older Stephen Biro, begin to laugh, and you look confused.
“You have no idea how many stacks of videos have fallen over!” I say. “Until now, I never could figure out why!”
I get serious:
“Do you want me here, or do you want to see my past experiences by yourself? What would be easier?”
“I want you here,” you say after a moment’s thought, “To explain what I need to know. But then again, sometimes I don’t want you here, so I can witness it for myself.”
“You’re even more perceptive than I thought. Congratulations.”
I continue smoking my bowl and watching TV. You look at the screen and witness a scene of a cancerous baby struggling to live in a village in the Philippines. It cuts to a different scene, of a dead baby autopsied on a metal exam table. You wince and even gag.
“That’s Death File Black, number four in the series,” I say. “I bet you’re wondering why you’re surrounded by TVs and VCRs and video tapes in this small, crowded apartment?” You nod your head, wanting to hear how I got to this point in my life.
I explain that we’re looking at the headquarters of my vid
eo piracy company, the business venture that immediately followed the tragic end of my comic book store. At the risk of making a short story long, I also explain to you the comic book store and its origins:
I started collecting comic books as a hobby, and I eventually began taking them to comic book conventions—buying, trading and most of all, selling. I made good money at it. As the years went on, I began managing a store in Tampa for a family company that was running a small chain of comic book stores.
I knew a pudgy, old comics seller at the flea market. I used to visit him regularly because I could fleece him of comic books that were about to explode in value. He and I became friends, and he seemed like an honest chap. Knowing he didn’t have a job outside his weekend flea-market gig, I convinced the owner of the chain to hire him for another store he was just opening.
Time passed, and we both became better at our jobs, so we reasoned that the two of us should open a store together. We tried working with the chain’s owners, but they were a touch too greedy. They wanted us to buy a store as a franchise. I didn’t go for that.
So my new, chubby partner and I found commercial space to rent, and we put our two collections together to stock the whole store. Again, I was really good at picking the winners in the comic book industry, buying massive multiples of certain comics. They generally went up to eight to ten dollars apiece, occasionally streaking to $30. As we sat there pricing, he pulled $30 comics out of my box and three-dollar books from his. He was constantly saying, “I’m sorry,” and, “Shit, that’s valuable!” and, “Damn, you have thirty of those? “
I didn’t care about any lopsidedness because I just wanted to have my own store with my fat ole friend. I didn’t really know how to run a business, and I hoped to learn from my older partner. (I’d tell you this guy’s name, but I don’t want to get sued by some petty asshole. I’m still a little bitter about the whole deal, but I forgive the rat bastard. I can call him a rat bastard because it’s actually a term of endearment. He understands.)
So we opened this store and most of my customers from my old chain location followed us. We kicked off a grand opening, and life was good; I was doing what I loved and it showed.
My first passion was books, but a close second was film, the more extreme the better. Since a lot of the coolest films were from overseas and didn’t have stateside releases, I decided to start making bootleg copies of them and offer them for rental and sale in the comic store. My customers were in Heaven. Not only could they get comic books, Magic the Gathering Cards, or Star Wars figures, they could also watch the coolest Jet Li kung fu flicks, anime, Japanese “tentacle rape films” and every little weird foreign horror film they could never previously find. I built up one of the best collections of this stuff in the whole country.
My business partner started doing crack in the store when I wasn’t there. I had friends selling him Xanax and other drugs, and he took money out of the cash register to pay them. Strangely, he was getting paranoid about me. I wasn’t an angel either, but I wasn’t doing it in the store (mainly because I didn’t have to hide it from a wife and two kids). I have never done meth or the types of drugs he was using. I busted him doing everything except a prostitute in the back room.
Parents, just think about a 55-year-old fatty doing crack and selling your kids comic books. You don’t want to know what goes on behind closed doors in this world.
One night, I partied hard and didn’t open the store on time. I had been to a rave, partied my ass off, and ended up arriving two hours late. Mind you, I’m a slacker and had frequently opened five minutes late, ten minutes late. But never two hours before. So I arrived and found he had changed the locks. Further, he told me to fuck off, that I didn’t have any ownership in the store any longer.
I went home and grabbed the yellow pages and started making calls to lawyers. I also went back into the store one evening and just walked around pricing stuff. I needed to make sure he wasn’t selling our merchandise at ridiculously low prices and/or pocketing the money while not ringing it up in the register. He had taken my name off the bank account so I could no longer check at the bank. I needed to learn what the store was taking in so I could sue for a percentage of it.
I took notes on prices as the regular customers started to mutter and my jolly old red-faced business partner suggested I leave.
I refused. I made my way to the back office, and he screamed he would call the cops if I entered the employees-only area of the store. Yeah, it was another dick move on his part, but what do you expect? He’s a dick.
As we waited for the police, he spun a tirade that let me know how delusional he really was. He described the exact opposite of our partnership (and, I should also say, our friendship). He told me all my comics were never mine, that I was worthless and everyone hated me at the store. I didn’t help build the business up. Didn’t help it run smoothly.
I listened in shock and disbelief that anyone could lie to themselves that much and not feel disgusted or ashamed. I was revolted at what this fat old man was willing to do for his own ego. I believed in fairness and honesty and thought everyone else went by those rules.
The cops came, and my soon-to-be-ex-partner said, “Officer, this man refuses to leave my store and is not allowed into the back room.”
“I own half this store,” I retorted. “This is my partner and we opened this store together. But for some reason, that overweight, suspender-wearing asshole changed the locks and told me to get out!”
The cop smiled and said, “This sounds like a court matter, so I suggest you both get lawyers and figure it out from there.”
I was elated and certainly didn’t have a bruised ego as my partner did. Understand, he was very insecure about himself. He hated that almost all the customers preferred talking to me. He had a gang of four kids that always hung around him, and he had likely talked shit about me to win their loyalty. It was his way. I tried to be personable and didn’t condemn anyone for their tastes or purchases. I enjoyed every aspect of the comic book industry, and customers knew I was there for the fun and for the hobby, just as they were. It’s very different than being in it for the money. But if you can earn scratch off something you love doing anyway, it’s just a bonus.
He, on the other hand, made customers feel bad for having this hobby and looked down on them. A lot of patrons didn’t come in while he was there. Some even sat in their cars, waiting for him to leave. It was that bad.
I can understand now why he did what he did. He was 55 years old, and a much younger guy had given him a leg up in starting a career selling collectibles. He had had a bankruptcy on his credit history, and mine was good enough to get the lease for the store. I had already had a great business, selling comics at conventions while working at the chain-store location. I had wanted to help my older friend, partly out of friendship, partly out of pity. But I thought for sure it would start a better life for both of us. I put my faith in him, and we started the store to have freedom, to be on our own schedules. To work as hard as we could to move ahead. For both or us.
I was only about 28. So it must have been painful having a hotshot younger kid doing better than you when you worked your whole life for nothing and had to start over.
My lawyer got back to me and told me I was fucked, as was my partner. If we were 49-51%, it would have been a different story, but we were 50-50 in the company, so a third party would have to come in and liquidate our business. And after everything was sold, my lawyer and my partner’s lawyer would get most of the money. We would be lucky to get ten percent.
I didn’t want to fuck over him and his family, even if he wanted to fuck me over. I didn’t want to ruin the coolest comic book store in Tampa. I knew I could make it again on my own, and I was perfectly willing to do it. We talked, and I told him I wanted the computer, every movie, every VCR, and $2000 to move on with my life. I didn’t want a single comic book even though I still loved them. He brought up bullshit about deposits, so I settled for a grand. I didn
’t care at the time. I just wanted out so I could start life anew.
I thought about it and remembered my ex-partner once telling me he used to have a jewelry store with a partner. One day, he went to work and the whole store was cleaned out. His partner had stolen millions of dollars of jewelry and disappeared. The guy was never jailed, and my ex-partner didn’t get an insurance settlement, only a bill for the last month’s rent!
And here I was getting screwed over by him, after he already knew the pain of being on the receiving end. What a rotten human being (and this time, I’m not using a term of endearment).
He had me sign a non-compete clause in the dissolution contract because he was afraid of me starting a new store with our old customers. He knew I was the selling point to the business.
So with the bootleg videos, VCRs and a computer, I decided to delve into video piracy on the Internet. I really had no clue how to work the computer, and I didn’t even have an e-mail address at the time. But I didn’t let that stop me. The Internet was still pretty new, so I learned HTML in order to design my new-fangled website. Once the website was up, videos flew out the door.
This is where we are in my timeline now, as we gaze upon the scene in the cramped apartment. I fade away, leaving you alone with the younger me.
I sit on the couch, watching the autopsy on TV, and you hear older me’s voice around you, “That’s The Basic Autopsy Procedure. It’s an actual government film from 1953, and they show it to budding pathologists before they assist in a real one.”
You look in awe at the tape-covered wall directly behind you.
“Yeah, that’s the collection I built up after the comic store. I traded with many other video pirates all across the world to get that library.”
The collection has everything from long-out-of-print horror videos to the freakiest S&M. And when I say freakiest, I mean: scat, piss, pain, torture, mutilation, humiliation, all the way up to guys with three testicles and female amputees who sodomize guys with their stump.