"Under Near-Constant Video Surveillance" by Theodore McDermott

The Nightcaps webcam (http://members.tripod.com/~cappersodacity/sc/capcam) is installed behind the bar, on the counter, between a three-quarters-empty bottle of Evan Williams and a souvenir Pez dispenser of Steve Spurrier’s head in a Gamecocks cap. Highlights from last Thursday’s webcast are summarized below:

11:36 am: Hayes Richards, the first shift bartender, sits alone at the bar, looks around, winks at the webcam, tears the filter off a Newport, twists the tobacco out into an ashtray, and jams marijuana into the now empty paper tube with a ballpoint pen. With the bright but unenthusiastic lights of video-poker machines blinking behind him, he smokes what looks like a busted cigarette and says, “Geeeeeeeez.” The bar opens in half an hour.

6:12 pm: An elderly Papa Johns delivery man tells the middle-aged lady on the stool beside his, “You’d be prettier without all that hairspray. You smell like spilled gasoline. I’m worried to even light a cigarette beside you.” She adjusts her scrunchy while he lights a cigarette. They were married once for a few months.
Behind them, a Jim Moore Cadillac salesman speaks a paragraph that includes the words “sister-in-law,” “tits,” and “head” as well as the phrases “like a putting green,” “back of her Buick,” and “near Blytheville,” though not necessarily in that order. A friend wearing Croakies quotes a Nate Dogg song in approval. Another friend, a slightly overweight woman wearing a Palmetto-flag-print blouse, says, “Y’all nasty,” then sidles her way through the increasingly crowded bar to order a drink.

7:49 pm: Now, already, Nightcaps is packed. Two Midlands Tech dropouts make out, open-mouthed, in the back. A mid-50s woman sits on the lap of Chip Pangel, mechanic at Kenny’s Muffler Supply. Two guys, middle-aged, one with braces, the other wearing a prison-guard uniform, discuss “that fucking bitch.” A few stoned Carolina freshman try to buy coke from some-girl-they-know’s older brother. This older brother leads one of these kids into the bathroom to sell him a half-gram at five times the street value. And then in the foreground, Jeff Price, owner of an eponymous Tennis, Ski, & Skate Shop down the street, orders bourbon, which he drinks quickly and without ice, as always.

9:38 pm: Tom Malonis, ex-husband of one of the waitresses at the Greek restaurant a few doors down, pushes his way through the throng of bad facial hair and lip gloss to stand at the bar. His mustache looks somehow crooked: it gives him the look of a crook, of a charlatan, of disguising himself behind himself, which is what all the other regulars suspect. For years, he has claimed to have a Ph.D. in Physics and insisted on being called “Doctor Malonis,” though there is nothing about his current personality that would corroborate these credentials.
“What’s up Doc?” Hayes asks, mocking Tom in the usual fashion, putting down a napkin.
“Don’t call me that,” he responds.
“What’ll it be, Doc?”
“Bud Select.”
“Fair enough.”
Tom is sullen and silent on screen for a second while Hayes get his beer, and then he is rudely pushed out of the way by a twenty-nine-year-old woman with a bad nosebleed. “Napkins,” she says, holding her head back but unable to prevent a few blood spots from splotching her t-shirt.

10:07 pm: Two girls no older than eighteen and prettier than a beach at daybreak sit down at two just abandoned stools. They wear halter-tops and glitter. They order Jack-and-Cokes. Hayes checks their Hawaiian drivers licenses, smirks, and then fixes their drinks.

11:42 pm: Hayes goes around the bar and shakes the cold hand of Clark, a once promising cyclist and now Nightcaps’ most popular coke dealer. They go off camera, skip the long bathroom line, and return around 11:49 to take Jäger bombs.

12:19 pm: “In ’78, my patent for the XL III Sleep-Dream Monitor was awarded an IR 100,” Tom says ostensibly to Clark, who is not listening, who is lost in a WIS newscast report about a developer, a floodway, and the machinations of the Cayce City Council.
There is a lull in the jukebox plays—everyone cheap and waiting for someone else to waste their quarters—until Jeff Price yells to Hayes, “Turn some fucking music on, man,” and then motions with his eyes toward the two girls dumb and sullen down at the end of the bar.
Clark nods in enthusiastic agreement.
“Is that David Allan Coe?”
A new couple dances. The guy puts his hand on the girl’s ass. The Carolina freshmen ogle, making spanking motions with their hands.

1:23 pm: One alleged Hawaiian falls asleep on the bar, with Clark’s arm around her shoulder. The other asks the Papa Johns deliveryman for a cigarette.
“Trade for your phone number?”
She says nothing, picks up his pack, and takes one. “Light?”
He passes her matches. She takes them and then pushes past some people to continue her conversation with Jeff Price. You can see them there in the back left, blurred by the fog of cigarette smoke: he’s the one saying, “Hell, I do own a ski shop,” to a seventeen-year-old girl provocatively adjusting her halter-top.

2:07 am: The bar is emptying out now. Quieting. Tom licks salt off the back of his hand and takes a tequila shot. A man in a camouflage hat and Oakleys comes in and asks for a Miller Lite, oblivious to the hour. A lady with foundation spackled over acne scars just wants a water. Chip Pangel puts his hands over his face, rubs his eyes. Hayes stirs himself a screwdriver, already preparing for tomorrow morning. Behind them, in the background, a woman with stiff, teased hair spills her drink on the Bally V-2000 Draw Poker Video Poker Machine, acts like nothing happened, returns to stand before the webcam, and orders another.
“G & T?”
“Yep.”
“It’ll have to be the last one.”


2:52 am: Jeff Price and the conscious Hawaiian leave in his dented convertible to straddle the broken white lane lines that run down Devine Street and onto Garners Ferry Road and then end when they turn into the driveway of his new house by the Bi-Lo. Hayes remains in the new silence, smoking a cigarette with one hand and rubbing the thigh of the unconscious girl with the other, wondering when she’ll wake up.

Videotaped in a shed somewhere on the peninsula

The new issue of the Minus Times has been mailed to Chicago for publication. It is 72 pages long-- basically a double issue with twin interviews by David Berman and Harmony Korine. We hope to see it printed before the end of the year, but who knows when it will see the light of day. In the meantime, we are reluctantly joining the 21st century.

Occasional posts will follow. Maybe even pictures...