mujaki: Clerks, The Darcy Edition: Hardly Clerkin'; Clerks, The Thor Edition: This paper you give me is not money!
Wherein Kevin Smith happens in the Ordinary Love universe and the author regrets nothing. (Humor. PG-13.)
(As a side note, Kyle is in fact the name of the guy in the pet store in Thor. The DVD place is indeed across the street; who knows if Cherry Beth is as well. I like to think so.)
Kyle has, as a general rule, tried to keep his head down with regards to the Batshit Brothers. Yes, they're new and different in a place that doesn't see new and different things that often, but new and different isn't always good. A lot of times it's just… batshit. And that much free porn? Has to be a trap.
Best to just stay out of it.
But it's hard to stay out of things when you get a call from your boss at seven in the morning announcing that you've got a new employee to train.
"Tell me," says Thor, looking around Pet Palace, "where are the stables?"
Kyle's not even supposed to be here today.
Cherry Beth of Titan Video has adopted a strict rule of working no more than four hours of her six hour shifts. What with the advent of internet piracy and streaming downloads and, now, free pornography from the mad scientist's lab, business isn't exactly booming. But for the people who still live out in the sticks and do moisture farming and Jedi meditation like all desert hermits, there's no cable and daily Redbox returns aren't feasible. So once in awhile Obi-Wan lookalikes will turn up, drop off two dozen DVDs, pay a hundred dollars worth of late fees, then scoop up another two dozen and wander back off into the sunset. That's how Titan Video survives.
Point being, it's not a job that requires staying behind the counter for six hours every day. Not as long as she can see the front of the store from wherever she goes.
Which is how she explains it to Darcy.
"If you feel like going out," says Cherry Beth, "leave the phone off the hook. That way if the boss calls it sounds like you're busy."
"Yup," says Darcy.
"If a customer asks, you don't have any opinions about what movies are good and what ones aren't."
"Right."
"If someone wants to pay with a card, say the machine's broken. Cash only. Easier to process at the end of the shift."
"Got it."
"Cool. I'm off, then." Cherry Beth grabs her purse from off the rack. "Try not to let the place burn down."
"No problem."
Training done in fifteen minutes. New record.
"The newspapers need to be changed twice daily in every cage," Kyle tells Thor, unfolding the third copy of the Puente Antiguo Chronicle (which is seventy-five percent classifieds). "Otherwise the smell gets pretty bad."
Thor isn't paying attention. (Of course. Because that would be too easy.) He's busy scratching one of the kittens beneath its orange chin, smiling as its eyes glaze over in bliss. "At what time are they released?" he asks.
Kyle frowns. "Released?"
"Yes. For the hunt."
"Uh… there's no hunt, man."
Thor stops playing with the kitten (it immediately reaches through the bars and starts pawing for him) and turns to Kyle with a confused expression. "Then how," he asks, "do they capture vermin for their sustenance?"
Kyle lifts a bag of Meow Mix. "They eat kibble, not vermin."
The batshit brother takes the bag and looks inside. "But it does not move," he says doubtfully. "The animals cannot understand this substance is intended for their consumption."
"No, they eat it fine."
"How do they know to do so?"
Kyle is pretty sure a lecture on the history of feline domestication would fly over the trainee's head. "They just do," he says.
Thor shakes the Meow Mix in obvious skepticism, then raises his eyebrows in surprise as the kittens all start to mew with excitement. "Each time I feel I've come to comprehend Midgard," he remarks, "I discover there is something else to learn."
Kyle sighs.
"I'd like to rent The Godfather," says the customer.
"It's not in."
"There's a copy right in front of you."
"That one doesn't count."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm borrowing it."
The customer peers at the stack of twenty DVDs on the counter. "Okay," he says, "how about The Wizard of Oz?"
"That one's mine, too. They're all mine."
"You can't just take all the most popular movies and keep them for yourself."
Darcy glances up from her legal pad for the first time. Most of the AFI's top one hundred films are listed on it neatly. "Look," she says, "do you know how much work there is in educating aliens on pop culture? I've been at it for months and they still don't know about flying monkeys or taking it to the mattress. Well, Loki sort of does, but not like that. I've still got a lot of ground to cover. But if you want to come over for movie night once the electricity's back on, feel free. Just know that sometimes they get really angry with the television. Thor almost smashed in the screen at the end of Million Dollar Baby, and Loki didn't talk for hours after The Empire Strikes Back."
The customer backs slowly out of the store.
After picking up a Slurpee and a newspaper, Cherry Beth makes the executive decision to stop into Pet Palace. Everyone knows the blond batshit brother is working there now, and Fernanda's got a book going on how long he'll last. (Cherry Beth's down for the afternoon of his fifth shift. The pot is up to three hundred dollars.)
"While she does seem to be pleasant company," Thor is saying when Cherry Beth walks in, "I fail to see the purpose behind a hound that doesn't behave as a hound."
Kyle looks like he's about to shoot Thor, himself, or maybe the Chihuahua in his hand. "People like little dogs," he says.
"It cannot be considered a dog if it would drown in a mug of mead." Thor nods courteously to the squirming puppy. "I intend you no offense, my friend."
Cherry Beth sucks the end of her Slurpee from the bottom of the cup and wonders if it's too late to bump her entry back a few shifts. "There's a parakeet about to get sucked into your air vent," she says to Kyle without a 'good morning'. (You don't waste formalities on someone who ate your paste in elementary school.)
"Oh, shit." Kyle hands the puppy to Thor (it can sit comfortably in his palm and still have room to lick its tail) and grabs a net from the corner. "How did that get out?"
"There was an insect upon the ceiling," says Thor, allowing the puppy to nip at his thumb. "Your bird eyed it hungrily, and so I opened the cage."
"Look, I told you, the birds are decorative!"
"Just because they are pretty does not mean they cannot be of use. Consider." He nods to a tank of angelfish, which swim mindlessly among plastic ferns. "They are quite beautiful, but they will also make an excellent supper once they've grown a bit larger, will they not?"
Cherry Beth and Kyle stare.
And the parakeet disappears into the vent.
A few minutes later a ruffled and confused purple bird flutters onto the sill of the Titan Video display window.
Darcy nods to it.
It nods back. Maybe. It can be hard to tell, with birds.
"Excuse me," says the woman holding a squirming toddler on her hip, "where is the children's section?"
"That way, I think," says Darcy, waving absently, attention returned to her list. The stack of DVDs on the counter now numbers thirty.
A few moments later the customer exits in a huff, having no interest in renting Cum-Guzzling Sluts XIII.
"I'm not even supposed to be here today," moans Kyle, wrestling the three foot boa constrictor back into its cage, not noticing that Thor has placed the nearly-eaten Chihuahua puppy in with the kittens. (They are the same size.)
Cherry Beth just flips another page of the newspaper. "Hey," she says to Thor, "tell me — is Darcy seeing anyone right now?" It's a bad idea to date co-workers, as a general rule, but this chick is hot enough that Cherry Beth could make an exception.
No luck. Thor frowns and says: "She sees me, of course."
Damn. Not a surprise, but still… damn. "Well, let me know if that doesn't work out for you," Cherry Beth says, scanning the wedding announcements in the Lifestyle section. "Hey, Kyle — that ex of yours is getting married."
He drops the lid of the cage. "Huh?"
"Not your day, is it?"
Thor glances over Cherry Beth's shoulder. "What," he asks, "is an Asian design major?"
Unnoticed, the snake slithers free once more.
It's dusk when Cherry Beth returns to the video store. "You're off," she tells Darcy. "Hold up okay?"
"Yup." Darcy comes out from behind the counter, stretches, then gathers up an armful of about six million DVDs. "Can I get these taken out my paycheck?" she asks.
"How much did the boss promise?" Kyle asks Thor, popping open the till.
"The agreement stands at six per hour. A fair price, he informed me, for a man with no Security Numbers."
That would explain a lot. "All right, then. Rules for that are you get paid in cash at the end of each day — and if anyone in a suit asks, you don't work here." Kyle pulls out sixty dollars, which is way more than the trainee earned (less, if you count deductions for the variety of lost and damaged items), but, shit, he's not supposed to be here today. "Go in peace."
But Thor just narrows his eyes. "I have given my word to aid Jane Foster," he says, and he suddenly seems a lot taller. "It is vitally important that I receive currency in compensation for my assistance."
"Uh, yeah. That's where the twenties come in."
"Do not mock me, my friend. Your paper will not suffice. I will accept no less than silver pieces."
Kyle blinks… then shrugs, pulls out the lock box, and starts counting out from the backup supply of quarters.
"Nice haul," Darcy remarks when she and Thor meet on the sidewalk.
He hefts his plastic bag of coins. "Loki is not the only one to stand firm on bargains," he says. "What have you procured?"
"New stuff. Once the power's back we're starting with Doctor Zhivago— hey, wait." Darcy stops mid-step, staring down the street at their lab. Their very well-lit lab. "The lights are on. When did that happen?"
Thor smiles. "Today, it would seem. Employment is even more lucrative than I was led to believe. Now, tell me: what are your opinions on the subject of hounds that fit in teacups?"
Thor is somewhat disappointed to discover that Loki has restored the electricity, and thus his employment shall end at a single shift. Darcy cheers him up with 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The 7-11 cashier wins the pool.