King Video's Bread & Butter

I was sixteen when we moved into the neighborhood,

what would become the only real home we ever had.

Good ole' Greenfield Road.

I didn't have any friends that lived close by

so I spent that entire summer

renting and watching movies.

It wasn't a Blockbuster or Hollywood Video

and this was years before Red Box or Netflix

the place I would rent from

was called King Video.

A small mom & pop video store

filled with hundreds of VHS tapes.

Rare, old, cheesy b-movies,

Faces of Death videos

Girls Gone Wild

UFC tapes from the early 90's.

A lowlife video library

if there ever was one

It was only 99 cents to rent out one VHS movie.

Tuesday's it was 2 for 99 cents.

I'd get like ten movies

and make a marathon of it.

I can't tell you how many hours I spent in that place

bent down looking for something good to watch.

Sometimes it would take me over an hour.

The only way a small video store

like King Video, could stay open and turn a profit

was because of their porno section.

It was behind two swinging doors

with an 'adults' only' sign above.

The shop was in the center of five senior community RV parks

so a good majority of their

porno patrons

were old men getting their skin flicks

so they could get in a jerk

while the wife was off

playing bingo or shuffle board.

And it was always the same scene

played out over and over

I'd be browsing the movies

a guy would walk in

making a bee-line straight for the swinging doors of the porno section.

Then he'd see me and quickly stop his bee-line

for some reason

I could never understand the point of this

but they'd stop next to the horror section

grab a random video and look at the back of it

for a few seconds

pretending to be interested.

Then very quickly, they'd put the tape back

and disappear behind the two swinging doors.

The VHS tapes are gone

it's all DVD now

they got rid of every last videotape they had.

People from the surrounding ghetto apartments

still rent movies and they even have some video games

but we all know what really keeps the lights on.

The pocket pleasure for the dusty dicks of retired America.

Shit

that's their bread & butter.