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The late '80s and early '90s were all about the VHS and then the DVD rentals. I worked in such a place that was the best and the worst kind of job to have toward the end.
The work environment was very toxic because of the kind of clique that ran the store. It went from the position just below senior assistant manager, assistant manager, and then the singular title of store manager. Everyone else below that whom the store could not have functioned without was mistreated. One day, Theo, the store manager, hired an applicant who wanted to work his first job while attending high school. He was a mousey kid named Major Harris. He was haole on his father's side and Japanese on his mother's side. They were brand new to Hawai'i living in Japan for seventeen years. The management team was all athletic types who were assholes in every sense of the word. They were all married, trying to relive their former glory. They spent most of the time at work, hitting on all the younger female staff. The blowback on that is another story for later. In the situation concerning Major Harris, they set their sights on him right away and made his experience at work a living hell. Major was a great employee, and we all liked him, but Theo, Garret, and the rest of the team picked on him relentlessly. Major took it in great stride and put his head down and did his job. Before I get to the point of this story, I'll tell you that the list of things Theo and his staff did to Major was purely juvenile and cruel. They'd trip him when he was walking by with an armful of videos to stack on the shelves, or they'd push him into displays that took Major a whole hour to put together. I had to step in a few times as a nothing employee to tell Theo to cut it out, or else I would call the cops. He called my bluff, and I called the police. When they arrived, they said there was nothing they could do unless Major filed harassment charges. Major just laughed it off and said that it was all out of fun, no harm done. I couldn't wrap my mind around why this kid wouldn't do anything about it?The time came when Theo and Garret went too far, and it cost them their lives. While Major was at work, Theo and Garret called his house pretending to be immigration officials. They told Mrs. Harris that her paperwork was not filled out properly and that she was going to be deported. The panic those two idiots caused almost led Major's mother to commit suicide. Major's father phoned a friend who worked at the immigration office only to find out that no such call had been made to his home. The same number that called a minute previous rang the phone again. Finally, a number came up on the caller ID. Steve Harris called it back, and Major answered the phone. After some back and forth, Major's father told his son what happened with the crank phone calls generated from his workplace. Major already knew who the culprits were. Calm as you please, with no signs of his demeanor showing that he'd intended to do anything, Major Harris reached into the membership drawer and grabbed to letter openers, and made his way to the back office. When he walked into the office, Theo and Garret had the store security camera focused on the newest female hire who worked the cash register. "What I would do to her," Theo shook his head. "She'd never be the same after I was done."
"I know that's right," Garret agreed.
The two had no idea that Major was in the office until they heard the door shut. They turned to see him standing there holding on to the letter openers. "What's up, mayjah-rayjah?" Theo laughed.
"What's twerp?" Garret barked a challenge.
Major quickly paced forward and dispatched Garret by stabbing him in the eye. Once he was out of the way, Major plunged both letter openers into Theo's heart, again and again. Once he was done with that, he went back to work on Garret. He stabbed simultaneously in the throat with the right, and then the left, and right again one after the other until he was completely exhausted. When we noticed that neither of the three surfaced for the closing procedures, I went to the back office to check on them. That's when I found Major standing there in the middle of a blood-soaked carpet. Unfortunately, by the time Steve Harris got there to cause a scene of his own, it was too late. His son beat him to it.
~
That former video store has become a bank, three different kinds of Pizza Parlors, and a bank again. Nothing stays open for too long in that space. The urban legend is that the spirits of Theo, Garret, and Major are all stuck in that store and that they can't move on. There always seems to be a conflict between management and the staff. The staff gets fed up, and they mutiny. Sometimes to the point of trying to kill on another. You don't have to ask where this place is because you already know. Just think Royal Sunset Drive-Inn.
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