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. Fuck, I definitely became him. Eric and I worked together for several months before becoming friends. As an eighteen year old manager, I was…