Hollywood & Vine
Richard Raymond Engelke owned and operated a video store called Hollywood & Vine two addresses down from my apartment building. In the afternoons after lunch he would get stoned with his friend Keith, a big black guy with Coke bottle glasses and a patchy beard who he used to hang out with sometimes behind the counter, and challenge me and Nick to rubber band fights when the store was empty. After a while he’d declare himself the victor, usually when he was winded or defeated, and pinch our asses before we went out. Funny, though, I never thought of Rich as gay. Word was he had a ladyfriend towards the end there.
He was from a small town in Missouri in an era when orthodontia was still in its infant stages. His front teeth were yellow and rodential and were separated by a wide gap that was usually filled in by something opaque and organic. No matter the company, he referred to strip clubs as “titty bars.” He often had occasion to do this.
One afternoon in early November of the year when I turned eleven, I came to him with the new X-Men videogame and placed a ten on the counter. He gave me my change all in ones. He laid out three of them one beside the other, each one folded three times to resemble a penis, with the presumable meatuses pointing towards the ceiling.
“Dicks.”
He emitted a crude chuckle, which was his trademark. It matched his appearance well.
“Use them at the titty bars. Three folds, man. Lay em out there and they pick them up with their tits.” Chuckle. “Don’t touch em though, or else they have a big guy come and throw you out.” He threw a glance at Keith, who was behind the counter watching a monitor that we could not see, his eyes transfixed, eating a chili dog. Keith did not meet his gaze, nor did he appear to hear the joke.
Chuckle.
He looked back at us with a wide grin. He was in a weight loss stage—it tended to go in cycles—and his front teeth were, for the moment, unobscured. He hadn’t had a haircut in a while and his white sideburns were curling in wide wings over his eyeglasses and behind his ears. He gestured with his liver spotted right hand at the middle penis.
“You little peckerwoods want to donate a dollar to charity?”
In front of him on the counter next to the monochrome CRT was an empty two-gallon size commercial Laffy Taffy container adorned with a scissor-slotted plastic lid and a faded neon green Lions sticker. On the back in shaky capital letters in broad black permanent marker he had written the words: “MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY.” It was roughly half full, mostly with metal and not paper. He raised his peaked eyebrows and smiled convincingly, first at us, then at the jug.
It was well known that behind the fabled counter was one of the county’s richest stockpiles of adult films. Occasionally, I’d be in there with my dad, and a guy with a worn leather jacket and dark bifocals would come in, make eye contact with Rich, point hastily in the general direction of the back room, and make a quick sweep into the privileged zone as I avoided eye contact with my dad. He always made a point to come out of the back room after we had left, because I never saw him come back out.
At this very moment, right behind the muscular dystrophy jug, two empty movie boxes lay rubber-banded together with a dot-matrix printed receipt next to the CRT. The spine of one of them pointed outwards and, in white block letters festooned with Christmas lights, read: JINGLEBALLS. Keith’s eyes remained glassy and unmoved from the invisible video monitor above Rich’s head. Beside him in a red-striped KFC takeout box were the sloppy remains of his chili dog.
After noting this, and removing his hand from his chin, Nick angrily snatched the three dollar bills from the counter and shoved them into his pocket. Self-righteous, inflamed, he pointed at Rich, who had unwrapped a wooden toothpick and was now picking absently at his teeth while he stared my brother down.
“You’re a pervert.” Unperturbed, Rich continued to probe, now nearer his molars.
His speech impaired by the maintenance, he replied, “What would you little jagoffs know about it.”
A statement, not a question. He took the toothpick and said clearly now, “Two little rich kids too good to help out some poor little homeless kids.” He shook his head in mock disapproval.
From an invisible place behind the counter he removed two pieces of Laffy Taffy and slid them across the counter to us.
“That’s bad karma,” he said, and grinned again. “Get on out of here now.”
And with that, he placed the toothpick back in his mouth, left it there and locked eyes with us dramatically before turning his the back of his customary black T-shirt to us in judgment.
He was from a small town in Missouri in an era when orthodontia was still in its infant stages. His front teeth were yellow and rodential and were separated by a wide gap that was usually filled in by something opaque and organic. No matter the company, he referred to strip clubs as “titty bars.” He often had occasion to do this.
One afternoon in early November of the year when I turned eleven, I came to him with the new X-Men videogame and placed a ten on the counter. He gave me my change all in ones. He laid out three of them one beside the other, each one folded three times to resemble a penis, with the presumable meatuses pointing towards the ceiling.
“Dicks.”
He emitted a crude chuckle, which was his trademark. It matched his appearance well.
“Use them at the titty bars. Three folds, man. Lay em out there and they pick them up with their tits.” Chuckle. “Don’t touch em though, or else they have a big guy come and throw you out.” He threw a glance at Keith, who was behind the counter watching a monitor that we could not see, his eyes transfixed, eating a chili dog. Keith did not meet his gaze, nor did he appear to hear the joke.
Chuckle.
He looked back at us with a wide grin. He was in a weight loss stage—it tended to go in cycles—and his front teeth were, for the moment, unobscured. He hadn’t had a haircut in a while and his white sideburns were curling in wide wings over his eyeglasses and behind his ears. He gestured with his liver spotted right hand at the middle penis.
“You little peckerwoods want to donate a dollar to charity?”
In front of him on the counter next to the monochrome CRT was an empty two-gallon size commercial Laffy Taffy container adorned with a scissor-slotted plastic lid and a faded neon green Lions sticker. On the back in shaky capital letters in broad black permanent marker he had written the words: “MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY.” It was roughly half full, mostly with metal and not paper. He raised his peaked eyebrows and smiled convincingly, first at us, then at the jug.
It was well known that behind the fabled counter was one of the county’s richest stockpiles of adult films. Occasionally, I’d be in there with my dad, and a guy with a worn leather jacket and dark bifocals would come in, make eye contact with Rich, point hastily in the general direction of the back room, and make a quick sweep into the privileged zone as I avoided eye contact with my dad. He always made a point to come out of the back room after we had left, because I never saw him come back out.
At this very moment, right behind the muscular dystrophy jug, two empty movie boxes lay rubber-banded together with a dot-matrix printed receipt next to the CRT. The spine of one of them pointed outwards and, in white block letters festooned with Christmas lights, read: JINGLEBALLS. Keith’s eyes remained glassy and unmoved from the invisible video monitor above Rich’s head. Beside him in a red-striped KFC takeout box were the sloppy remains of his chili dog.
After noting this, and removing his hand from his chin, Nick angrily snatched the three dollar bills from the counter and shoved them into his pocket. Self-righteous, inflamed, he pointed at Rich, who had unwrapped a wooden toothpick and was now picking absently at his teeth while he stared my brother down.
“You’re a pervert.” Unperturbed, Rich continued to probe, now nearer his molars.
His speech impaired by the maintenance, he replied, “What would you little jagoffs know about it.”
A statement, not a question. He took the toothpick and said clearly now, “Two little rich kids too good to help out some poor little homeless kids.” He shook his head in mock disapproval.
From an invisible place behind the counter he removed two pieces of Laffy Taffy and slid them across the counter to us.
“That’s bad karma,” he said, and grinned again. “Get on out of here now.”
And with that, he placed the toothpick back in his mouth, left it there and locked eyes with us dramatically before turning his the back of his customary black T-shirt to us in judgment.
posted by Michael Deuser at 7:56 PM
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