==Best Comedy==
Justin Fixes the VCR – Part One: JC Plugged/Unplugged © 2001 by Patti *
Justin was heated. He turned from his spot in front of the entertainment center in the back of the bus to face the men who sat scattered in the makeshift living room.
“It’s fucking broken,” he shouted. When no one paid him any semblance of attention, he stomped his foot and shouted again.
“It’s broken!”
“Oh well, JC said, not looking up from the computer screen in front of him.
“Fuck ‘oh well’ JC. I need it to not be broken. Who used it last,” Justin demanded, his face flushed in frustration.
“J. It’s not like when the shitter’s stopped up—VCR’s break all the time. You can’t find out who used it last and blame them,” Joey said diplomatically.
“You broke it, huh?” Lance whispered, leaning in towards Joey who nodded.
“Oh yeah. It went like ‘crrrrrnnnkkkk’ and I shut it off.” Lance nodded thoughtfully.
“That’s the sound Justin makes right before he breaks down,” Lance observed as he returned to his cross-stitch.
“Fucking Joeeeeeyyyy,” Justin whined that award-winning whine he was so proud of. “I got a tape from my mom and I was really looking forward to watching it and you fucked up my plans.
Chris stood from the Sit and Spin he had acquired at a yard sale three cities back.
“A buck fifty for nostalgia. You can’t beat that,” he told Justin, who had accompanied him to the sale.
“Nostalgia, yeah. Kinda reminds you of that time that buddy of yours invented the wheel, huh?”
Teen magazines always failed to mention that Chris held grudges.
So he approached Justin, who, sensing an attack stood firmly in front of the VCR. They stood facing each other and if asked, Joey would swear that he heard the ‘Showdown Whistle’ in the background. Chris and Justin sized each other up; mentally assessing his opponent with narrowed eyes.
Seconds later Chris moved, reaching to the left with his left arm stretching Justin. In a flash Justin moved, successfully blocking Chris’s grasp. Just as quickly the smaller man moved to the right, waiting for Justin to stop him in a similar manner. He did and as Chris smiled evilly he flicked Justin-hard-in the middle of his forehead. As Justin’s hands flew to his injury, Chris pushed past the man, ejected the tape and withdrew it from the machine.
“Juju’s Favorite Full House Episodes, Love Mommy,” Chris read aloud from the label on the cassette. JC, Joey, and Lance joined in his laughter, as Justin stood solid, turning eight shades of red.
“Shut up Joshua,” he spat, picking his target. “At least I don’t spend all my free time reading fan fiction, you big loser.”
“Hey now,” JC said angrily, closing his laptop. “There’s nothing wrong with fan fic Justin so watch your mouth.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with Full House. I think that there’s a lot that can be learned from the trials and tribulations of the Tanner clan.”
“Like how an OCD neat freak, a miserable stand up comic who talks like Popeye and a grease monkey live together in San Francisco, hugging all the time manage to score dates with hot chicks,” Joey asked.
“Yeah, and how to raise 3 girls to ‘maturity’ yet without any of them ever getting their periods,” Chris added.
“Oh, and how to deal with the death of family members. Like when Papouli died…that one was so sad,” Lance volunteered not looking up from his needlepoint.
“Yeah, I got that one on tape,” Justin said quietly smiling a small, sad smile at the thought of how upset Michelle got before remembering that he was pissed.
“Yo, fuck this, I’m fixing the VCR,” he announced, unplugging the box and removing it from it’s place on the shelf. He laid it gently on the floor and moved towards his bunk.
Joey flipped through the pages of a Tiger Beat and held a picture up towards Chris.
“You think I should do this?” Chris examined the poster of AJ McLean and his new labret stud.
“I think you need a new role model.”
Justin returned to the back area with a small toolbox and a stack of videotapes. He pulled out a Phillips head screwdriver and went to work, removing the outer casing.
“I need a screw receptacle,” he muttered looking around on the floor. “Not a word Kirkpatrick,” he said sharply, causing Chris to close his opening mouth.
Lifting off the cover he gazed into the bowels of the machine; a whispered ‘shit’ escaped in his breath.
“Justin, we’ll just get a new one at the next city,” Lance said, placing down he hoop which held a baby blue swath of fabric emblazoned with a stitched red heart complete with the tiny white X’s that spelled out the word ‘MOM’.
“Lance, I can do this. I know about this stuff,” Justin said, gazing at the small but shiny parts of the VCR.
“Watching The Electric Company doesn’t make you an electrician,” Chris pointed out.
“And being in NSync doesn’t make you cute,” Justin answered. “Now shut the hell up.”
He peered at the mechanical box and noticed a small metal cover hiding the part of the VCR he needed to work on. So he unscrewed that as well, using his sneaker as a ‘screw receptacle’.
“Okay,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “JC, plug this in. I need to see how it works.” Justin tossed the cord to JC who uncomfortably leaned far over in his seat to plug the VCR into his power strip. While JC’s attempt at chair acrobatics took place, Justin rummaged through his pile of videos.
“Hmmmm… maybe. Nope. Hell no!” He assessed each tape and caught Joey’s attention with his last rating.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I need a test tape. Something that I won’t be too upset about if it should happen to get eaten.”
“Well, what was that last one? The ‘hell no’?” Justin motioned for Joey to move in.
“It’s a tape of Before They Were Rock Stars; the one with JC’s Mickey Mouse Club audition on it. I like watching it when he gets on my nerves. Kinda keeps me grounded, ya know, because I watch it, and feel really bad for that little geek.” Joey pursed his lips and ‘hmmmm’ed’.
“Let me borrow that some time.”
“Fuck you!” JC screamed. Joey and Justin turned towards him, fearful that their friend had heard them.
“What’s wrong now JC,” Lance asked, not caring about anything that didn’t involve his needle getting threaded.
“She…she. Ugh, she fucking left me.” Joey and Justin exchanged puzzled glances.
“Who left you?”
“Daisy. She caught me kissing her twin sister Rose and left me. But Rose kissed me! I swear, I didn’t do anything wrong.” JC became noticeably upset and hung his head in his hands.
“WHY do you READ that stuff?” Joey screeched, fearing for the sanity of his friend.
“Dude, they’re triplets and you’re dating the third sister, Ivy.”
“They hot?”
In the end Justin decided on his Austin Powers tape because really, if he never heard Joey say “London baby, Yeah!” again, it’d be too soon. He slid the cassette into the slot and watched in amazement as the small bars hooked under the tape to pull it around a large round piece in the middle. Gears and small tiny belts began moving, the hum on an unseen motor filled his heart with excitement.
“Hey, I think I’ve figured it out. And it’s wor—“ he stated before the hum wound down and the VCR shut itself off.
“Fuck.”
“Figure out the problem yet Mr. … uh…Electronic Guy,” Chris said lamely, unable to find a suitable taunt for Justin.
“Not yet,” he answered.
“Oh dear god why,” JC spoke, eyes glued to the screen in front of him.
“Look Jace, I’m making this look way easier than it is and if you think you can do better—“
“Are you talking to me Justin?” JC asked, finally tuning in to Justin’s rant.
“DUH JC! I was answering you because you asked ‘why.”
Justin’s head began to throb.
“Oh. I, I wasn’t talking to you. I was just, well, now all of a sudden I’m in a coma and Daisy’s singing to me to try to bring me back but I just won’t wake up,” JC said, his voice clenching with emotion. Justin rolled his eyes and yet again returned to the task at hand.
That damn VCR.
He saw that the peg-things that wrapped the tape around didn’t move all the way.
“Oh my god, I’ve figured it out! Maybe this can-doohickey will…YES! That’s it.” Justin moved the small part aside and pushed the cassette pegs further back, to where they were supposed to be.
He quickly turned the power on, ejected the tape, and pushed it back in. As he watched the tape pullers get stuck, Justin pushed aside the restricting piece and eagerly looked at the counter after pressing ‘Play’. The humming filled the air. Justin smiled a cocky sort of smile that quickly fell as the machine shut itself off again.
“Fuck.”
This time, Justin thought, I’ll watch the other side, see if everything is okay there. He ejected and injected the tape as he did earlier, but focused now on the small wheels held together by an elastic band, and the three gears that moved underneath. There was an aqua colored ‘stuff’ between the rubber band wheel and the gray thing that Justin had determined to be a battery.
“Hmmm…wonder if that should be there?” He repeated the eject/inject/Play process and concentrated on the gears.
This time, when the VCR turned itself off he was watching the ‘stuff.’
“Somebody put fucking GUM in the VCR!”
Chris crawled over to where Justin was seated and looked inside the VCR.
“Asshole, that’s not gum, just look at the color. And how would it get all the way back there if it were gum? And we’re not toddlers so why would we put gum in the VCR?”
“I dunno.” Justin chewed on his lower lip. “Well,” he began slowly. “You rented that movie ‘Shampoo’ a while ago, and it kinda looks like Lance’s dandruff shampoo…”
“Hey!” Lance yelled, momentarily stepping out of his ‘Bitchin’ Stitchin’ Zone.’
“You really are an idiot Justin. That’s not shampoo,” Chris laughed. Justin crossed his arms and narrowed his mouth into the scowl he’d been perfecting since infancy.
“Then what the hell is it, smartass?”
“It’s goo,” Chris answered matter-of-fact-ly.
“Goo, eh? JC unplug the VCR, I need some supplies.” Justin stood and ran into the bathroom, returning with a roll of toilet paper and some Q-Tips. He stuck a swab into the VCR and wiped at the goo. Holding it up to the light, he examined it like a Doctor would a patient.
“Yup. It’s goo all right. Here Chris, smell it,” he said, thrusting the Q-Tip into the older man’s face.
“Shit for Brains, I’m not smelling THAT,” Chris yelled, pushing Justin and the goo swab away from him. “You want to know what it is, YOU smell it.”
“I’ll have none of that. But see, the goo is clogging up the gears. If the gears stop, then the tape won’t play,” Justin explained as if he really knew what he was talking about.
“Then why does it shut itself off,” Joey asked from behind the current issue of Pop Stars.
“I dunno. Maybe it’s tired.” Justin ignored the looks of malcontent from his friends and attacked the goo with the Q-Tips. When he felt he was done he sat amidst 34 aqua colored swabs and proceeded to test the VCR. He watched expectantly as he pressed the Power button.
Nothing happened.
