Horror Time Video Visit

The wooden front door of Horror Time Video was hidden behind a life-size black and white cutout of Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein. Pushing the door open set off Horror Time’s version of a door chime – a woman’s terrified SCREAM!

Pausing inside the door, Michael sniffed the store’s acrid bouquet of mold and burnt wicks. Ray, the owner, favored ambiance over commerce, so his horror video store was lit by thirty-six candles flickering atop a half-dozen Liberace-style candelabras set on tables around the low-ceilinged room, the tarnished bases gloved in pleated jackets of wax. Stepping from a sun-washed Florida day into this shadowy den, Michael felt like he was nervously descending a basement staircase in The House On Haunted Hill.
God, he loved this place!

He picked up one of the silver, baton-style flashlights Ray provided for customers on a table by the door, the pale beam revealing racks of VHS boxes garish with Godzillas, teen-agers from outer space, and masked slashers waving hatchets or machetes. Poster board knives, dangling from strings, pointed out Horror Time’s various specialty sections, each blade marked with a jagged, hand-lettered inscription: CORMAN, HITCHCOCK, WHALE, 5Os SCI-FI, SLASHERS, VAMPIRES, WITCHES AND WARLOCKS, JAPAN’S FINEST and more.
Michael bypassed the video racks, heading directly to the checkout desk in the back. Ray had called the day before saying he’d located “something I know you’re going to really like. I got it all wrapped up for you.”

Ray Villadonga, a horror film savant, who appeared to be gestating triplets under his grimy T-shirts, was the closest thing Michael had to a friend. Crystal Donnelly had home-schooled her son, and until her untimely exit, she had been his main companion and confidant. Now, except for occasional trips to a mall movie complex or Horror Time Video, where he and Ray jousted for hours over arcane bits of horror movie history, Michael was at the drafting desk in his bedroom, sketching out storyboards for the fright films he was certain would catapult him from Palm Beach to Hollywood.

A toad-like teenage clerk, his cheeks dotted with fresh constellations of acne, hunkered on a stool behind a blood-red counter reading the latest Conan the Barbarian by flashlight. The clerk hadn’t looked up when the door SCREAMED. He didn’t notice the restless customer idling in front of him

“How much for that one?” Michael finally asked, his flashlight focused on the promo poster for the upcoming Slasher High, featuring the screaming face of Dawn Karston, the film’s blonde teenage star.

The clerk’s head made a lazy swivel, following Michael’s flashlight beam to the wall behind the counter. He quickly returned to his comic.

“Not for sale.”
“But I want to buy it.”

Setting his own flashlight on the counter, the clerk closed his comic book with feigned care, taking a long breath before looking up.
“You can want to buy it, but you can’t. It’s not for sale. The movie isn’t out until next week. We got old posters in the corner.” The kid nodded in that direction before going back to Conan the Barbarian. He didn’t see Michael pull a fat roll of cash from his pocket, but his head jerked up when Michael slapped a fifty hard on the counter.

“I want to buy that one.”
“It’s not…”

Another fifty slammed down.
The clerk aimed his flashlight at the bills, just to be sure. Then, setting the glowing baton back on the counter, his hand crept crab-like toward the bills, thick digits fluttering briefly above the face of Ulysses S. Grant. The decision didn’t take long. His hand came down on the crisp fifties, sliding them back across the counter and into the pocket of his jeans.

“You want me to roll it up in a tube? Or what?”
“Yes. In a tube. Did my order come in?”
“Who are you?”
“Look under the name Bava. Mario Bava. Where’s Ray? Or Tony? They know me here.”

The clerk searched under the counter and came back with a VHS tape, wrapped in a sheet of lined notebook paper with “BAVA” scrawled on it. Snapping the rubber band that held it and crumpling the paper wrapper, the clerk shined his flashlight on a video box for Bay of Blood – Collector’s Edition. On the cover, a screaming woman, the tops of her breasts breaking the surface of a bloody pool, was about to be stabbed in the throat by a curved blade wielded by an unseen attacker. There, just below the title, was the director’s credit: Una pelicula de Mario Bava.

The clerk lowered the video box and shined his light in Michael’s face.

“You don’t look like a Mario to me. You made these movies?”

Looking away from the light, Michael pushed a hand through his unruly hair. He couldn’t believe this.

“Let’s just say I’m a fan,” he said, reaching out. “Can I have it now?”
The clerk aimed the light back at the blood red cover.

“So who is this Mario guy?”
“He’s the goddamn Fellini of gore!” Michael almost shouted, as he reached out again for the tape. “Can I have it now, please?”
“Hmmm.” The clerk hummed, turning the box over and reading the back. “Never heard of him.”
“How’d you get this job?” Michael barked, his patience gone. “This is Horror Time Video, right? Bava’s the father of modern horror. There’s a knife with his name on it right over there. Friday the 13th was a direct rip-off of Bay of Blood…”
“Yeah, Friday the 13th was cool,” the clerk said, still eyeing the back of the box.
“No. It wasn’t,” Michael shouted. “It was shit. Does Ray know you work here?”
“You mean, Uncle Ray?” the clerk asked, holding the box out to Michael. “Yeah, he knows.” •

Florida Hustle was released in June, ‘22 by St. Petersburg Press, is available locally at Tombolo Books and Book + Bottle.