The Blockbuster Chronicles - Chapter 8: My First Mentor

It is often only after we grow older that we recognize the people who helped shape us. For some, those people were parents, teachers, coaches, aunts, or uncles. In my life, they tended to be men about ten years older than me whom I met through work. They saw something in me I had not yet learned to see in myself, then quietly introduced me to a larger world.

The first was Eric.

Eric was thirty two and spent his days tinting car windows before working nights at Blockbuster. He was short and heavyset with a bald head. Those same words could describe me now, which is only one of several indications that I eventually became him.

He had a tremendous laugh. Whenever it erupted, everyone nearby joined in, even if they had missed the joke. He was kind, hardworking, and an encyclopedia of useless facts, obscure technology, comic books, and cult movies.

Yes, I definitely became him.

Eric and I worked together for several months before becoming friends. As an eighteen year old manager, I was always conscious that most of the staff was older than me. I assumed they resented taking instructions from someone who still had homework. Sometimes they did.

Eric never made it an issue. He worked hard and rarely needed direction, so there was no awkward struggle for authority between us. That gave us room to talk, and those conversations gradually became a friendship. Eventually, without either of us naming it, Eric became my mentor.

He was an enormous nerd who followed every new development in technology. He could explain video game physics engines, the trajectory of bullets, or some obscure piece of computer hardware I had never heard of. On paper, much of this sounds boring. When Eric explained it, you cared. He was a gifted storyteller who could make almost any subject sound important. He probably should have run for office, although politics would have wasted valuable time he could have spent discussing Star Trek.

I had visited comic book stores throughout my childhood, but Eric gave me my first real comic shop experience. His store was the Comic Cellar, located inside an old bank. The unusual building gave the shop character, although the thick walls made receiving a cell phone signal nearly impossible.

A comic shop can feel like any other store until you know the people inside. Eric was friends with the owner and one of the regulars. He had a pull box, which meant the store set aside new issues for him every Wednesday. Customers with boxes often received a small discount and could collect their comics whenever they had time.

The regulars at the Comic Cellar received additional privileges. The owner kept imported anime tapes from his personal collection hidden beneath the counter. Trusted customers could rent them for one dollar for three nights. At the time, many of those titles were nearly impossible to find in the United States.

Walking into the store with Eric granted me immediate access to his little world. He shared his box with me and encouraged me to rent my first two anime tapes, Cowboy Bebop and Princess Nine. Then he began explaining the history of comics. He taught me about the Comics Code Authority, Marvel's MAX imprint, and which writers and artists deserved my attention.

I absorbed everything. Eric knew so much about the corners of nerd culture I had only begun exploring. Within weeks, I was spending forty dollars on comics every Wednesday, desperately trying to catch up on all the stories he had mentioned. Mentorship has many benefits. Financial restraint was not one of them.

Because Eric was older, he also knew films from the seventies and eighties that had never crossed my path. He introduced me to Enemy Mine, Time Bandits, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. He explained the history of old superhero movies and why most of them were terrible.

Then he suggested something I was not prepared to consider. He wanted me to watch Star Trek.

I was a Star Wars fan. As far as I was concerned, Star Trek was slow, dated, and unnecessarily complicated. There were too many series, too many crews, and too many people discussing diplomacy when they could have been having laser sword fights. I saw no place for it in my life.

Eric persisted. He had never steered me wrong, so I eventually agreed to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Within a week, I had watched all the even numbered movies and begun working through the odd ones. Somewhere beneath the defenses surrounding my Death Star shaped heart, Eric planted the seed of a future Star Trek fan.

He understood my taste remarkably well. Recommending movies became a running joke because we agreed on nearly everything except two genres. Eric loved musicals, and I did not. I loved horror movies, and he did not. I guess, every friendship needs boundaries.

One of my most important memories of Eric began after a closing shift and continued in the Blockbuster parking lot until three in the morning. I was struggling with my faith and receiving little support from the people around me. Questions made many believers uncomfortable. They either told me to stop asking or repeated that I simply needed more faith.

Eric saw that I was struggling and offered help in the only way he knew. He told me he was a Jehovah's Witness.

My knowledge of Jehovah's Witnesses was limited to people waking us on Saturday mornings and refusing to leave quickly enough for my father's liking. Discovering that someone as intelligent and interesting as Eric belonged to that faith made me want to listen.

That night, he explained his beliefs with patience and respect. He talked about witnessing, why members did not celebrate birthdays, and why they did not pledge allegiance to a flag. When I asked difficult questions, he did not become angry or tell me that questioning was a moral failure. He knew what he believed and why he believed it. What resonated with me was not the doctrine. It was the way he presented it.

Eric did not pressure me to attend a service or insult the tradition in which I had been raised. He asked permission to bring me a few pamphlets I could read whenever I wanted. If I had questions afterward, he said, I could call him.

I never became a Jehovah's Witness, but that conversation changed the way I viewed people of other religions and denominations. Eric showed me what sincere belief could look like when separated from judgment and fear. He was passionate, informed, and willing to let another person reach his own conclusions and I have never forgotten that night in the parking lot.

Unfortunately, I did not treat the friendship with the care it deserved.

After leaving Blockbuster, I found a job with regular daytime hours and began dating seriously. Like many young people entering a new phase of life, I acted as though everything from the previous one would remain available whenever I wanted it. I stopped making time for friends and rarely invited anyone to do something. I was not angry with them. I simply got busy.

About two months after I left, Eric called and reminded me that comics were still accumulating in our box at the Comic Cellar. I had not picked them up. That placed the owner in a bad position because some issues had been ordered specifically for us and might be difficult to sell later.

I told Eric I could not afford the books, which was true. It was also the last telephone conversation we ever had.

Of all the people I allowed to drift out of my life, Eric is the one I miss most. He introduced me to stories, communities, and ideas that became permanent parts of who I am. More importantly, he treated an insecure teenager as someone worth talking to. I repaid that generosity by becoming busy and assuming the friendship could wait.

Years later, I tracked him down through a column he wrote for his hometown newspaper. The article criticized Facebook and announced that he was closing his account. I sent him a message before he disappeared. He replied that he would email me.

The email never came.

Perhaps he forgot. Perhaps too much time had passed. Perhaps I remembered our friendship as more important than he did. I have no way to know, and that uncertainty is part of what remains.

When I think about mentors now, I do not imagine formal lessons or grand speeches. I think about a man standing behind a Blockbuster counter, explaining why I needed to watch The Wrath of Khan. I think about imported anime hidden beneath a comic shop counter and a conversation about faith beneath parking lot lights long after the store had closed.

Eric never announced that he was teaching me. He simply shared what he loved and made room for my questions and that was enough to change me.

The comics, movies, and technology were the visible gifts. The more lasting lesson was curiosity. Eric showed me that the world became larger when you allowed someone else to guide you into the things they understood. He taught me to listen when another person spoke with knowledge and enthusiasm, even when the subject initially seemed strange or uninteresting.

I wish I had understood then that friendships require the same attention as every other meaningful part of life. People do not remain in a box behind the counter, waiting indefinitely for us to return.