 WELCOME | Sometimes when filming on location, we met extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances, and sometimes we met ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Charles Alpert was something else entirely. We were shooting in the dead of winter in a town that was, the year before, the EPA’s top offender at the same time that it had been recognized as the most economically distressed community in the U.S. Welcome to Weirton, West Virginia, circa 1983. We were shooting six days a week, which is probably just as well, since there wasn’t anything to do in Weirton on the weekends in a cold and bleak winter. Most Sundays you could find half the crew wandering the clothing section of K-Mart in a daze, looking for new combinations of thermal underwear and outerwear that might make a few degrees’ difference the coming week. But for me, Weirton will always be about renting furniture. We had a set to build and furnish, and I was trying to stay true to one of my goals, which was to bring as much business to Weirton as our little art department could. We were building our set in an abandoned high school gymnasium just over the border in Mingo Junction, Ohio, just on the other side of Steubenville, and I needed to furnish the set from top to bottom with furniture that was 30 to 40 years old, give or take. It turns out that neither Weirton -- nor Steubenville nor Mingo Junction -- had a Good Will store or any kind of consignment shop. We started to wonder how far we’d have to go to furnish the set. Then Nora, one of our art department stalwarts, told me that she’d found something startling. Up on the hill, in Weirton, was a used furniture store. We’d missed it because the sign was never lit when we drove past. She warned me that the owner was a little strange. I was unconcerned; I felt good about my on-location diplomacy skills, and I had arrived at a stage in my life, at the ripe old age of 30, when I figured there was very little that could surprise me. Of course, I was wrong. Nora and I had an appointment with the proprietor of Alpert’s Hardware and Used Furniture for five o’clock. We wandered in, and I was immediately taken by the abundance of old-school props on display -- we were in Retro Housewares Heaven. A man I would come to know as Charles Alpert stood at the cashier’s counter with his finger up in the air, a gesture that we understood to mean that we should stay put right where we were, a couple of paces inside the front door. He was peering toward the back of the store. He finally turned back to us and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “Could you come back later? I think I may have a customer.” He resumed peering at the back of the store. There was no one visible back there, and I was fairly certain it was just the three of us in the store. Nora made a little grimace at me privately, as if to ask, “see what I mean?” I asked Mr. Alpert to suggest a convenient time, and he offered 7pm. We returned at the appointed hour and he was ready for us. The lefthand side of his store was full of housewares, some of which were items I hadn’t seen since my childhood. The righthand side was full to the ceiling with furniture. Not arranged in little groupings, like in a furniture store, but stacked up high and arbitrarily, with an aisle down the middle. It was dark on that side. “I have here a brand new pen, a brand new pad of paper, a brand new flashlight, and a brand new pair of batteries” he said, offering us those very things. “Perhaps you could go have a look and make a list of what you’re interested in.” We took the brand new items from him and went about identifying the pieces of furniture, as best we could in the dark, and made a list. We were done in about fifteen minutes, and showed him our list. Mr. Alpert studied it for a moment, his brow furrowed. He looked up and shook his head. “I can’t sell these, they belong to a man from Dayton.” Not to be deterred, I countered with “We could rent them.” He looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “How would that work, exactly?” I decided to go basic. “We would give you some money, borrow the furniture for a few weeks, bring it back to you, and you would keep the money.” “Now that sounds tricky and complicated,” he responded. “Well, we would also buy some stuff,” I offered, as I gestured toward a grim-looking set of flour, sugar and tea tins with a handwritten price tag on them. He dove between me and the tins. “I can’t sell these!” he nearly yelled. He surrounded the wretched tins with both arms, as if trying to hide them from our predatory view. “These are part of the charm and attractiveness of my store! This is what draws my customers in! I can’t sell these!” I tried to look him right in the eyes, to see if I could catch a glimpse of his strategy, but he avoided my gaze. “Okay. Well, it was really nice to meet you,” I said. “We’ll be in touch.” And we left. We soon learned that it was common knowledge (except to us, the movie people, the out-of-town people) that Mr. Alpert wasn’t right in the head, and that you couldn’t actually buy anything in his store. His brother had set him up with an enormous playpen, an imaginary store that he could open when he felt like it and close when he needed a nap, and occasionally, if he was feeling energetic, it was full of things he could dust. We were told his brother was a lawyer for the Mafia over in Dayton. We eventually concluded exhaustive negotiations with Charles' brother for renting some of that furniture for our set. The amazing thing was how perfect the pieces were, in style and condition, in size and in color, for the story we were trying to tell. It was also the most we’d paid for a furniture rental, ever. But we learned something about brotherly love, and the lengths a person might go, to create a safe place for a sibling. If you had the disposable income to do so, what would you build for a family member with special needs? |
