Free The Last Days of Video by Jeremy Hawkins

Waring?”
    â€œFine!” he belted out assuredly. “A slight drop, perhaps, but that’s to be expected at the end of summer.”
    â€œReally? I assumed with students returning—”
    â€œBusiness should be ticking upward,” he interrupted. “It’s fine. I’m fine. We’re all fine and dandy. I’ll catch up on my account shortly, and there should be no drop-off in our ordering, none whatsoever, not any time soon, not at all.”
    Waring scoured his pockets for cigarettes but found none.
    â€œWe’ve planned a visit to West Appleton,” Clarissa Wheat said. “It’s been too long. There are some things I’d like to discuss with you personally.”
    â€œDiscuss?” Waring said, then he laughed as if her suggestion were pleasantly offensive. “Not needed. Like I say, business should be ticking upward in the very near future.”
    â€œMy dear Waring, I’m sure you’re aware that many of the stores we contract with are posting losses. All across the country. Significant losses. And obviously Blockbuster isn’t the only issue . . . the Internet and Redbox have hit us all harder than we calculated. As one of Guiding Glow’s most, well, unique clients, we’d like to come take a lay of the land, see if we can offer any help. Things are changing, Waring. We need to prepare for the future.”
    â€œBut I just don’t think—”
    â€œWe’ve already purchased our plane tickets.”
    Waring’s head wilted forward.
    â€œThat’s fantastic,” he muttered.
    â€œAnd Waring?” Clarissa said. “I’ve missed you. I think about my last visit all the time.”
    A twinge of recognition. A murky memory. Waring visualized Clarissa Wheat, the middle-aged heron of a woman in a starched gray business suit—she was bony and bloodless and offensively makeup-caked. Something strange had indeed happened between Waring and this specimen during her first and only visit to West Appleton, one year ago, soon after Guiding Glow—the Christian corporation she worshipped and served—had purchased Star Video’s original distributor for fiscal and propagandic reasons completely inconceivable to Waring. Clarissa Wheat had arrived without warning one evening when Waring was whiskey-hammered and working alone, and among her many un-Christianly shrill complaints, she had particularly harped on his new contractual obligation to provide a more family- and faith-friendly movie selection.He remembered cracking up in laughter—at her deadpan suggestion that he now operated at the pleasure of the Almighty—then realizing she wasn’t joking at all.
    But somehow, on that occasion, everything had worked out fine. Waring had awoken in The African Queen the next morning, deathly hungover, memory obliterated, but with the vague sense that his distribution deal was secure.
    â€œBarney and I arrive in three days,” she said. “Tuesday, two o’clock.”
    â€œBarney?”
    â€œMy husband, Barney Wheat. Vice president of distribution? Your employee, Ms. Eden, places her monthly orders with him. I’d rather come alone, of course. But you know how Barney is.”
    The call ended, and at once, Waring resolved to make peace with Alaura, who today had been distant and crabby and later than normal to her shift, and who for some reason was in a particularly anti-Waring mood. But whatever the issue, whatever it took to win her back, Waring would do it, because Clarissa Wheat was a problem, and now he really needed Alaura’s help.
    Jeff stepped down from The African Queen. Waring turned and considered the preposterously tall, preposterously well-proportioned youngster.
    Had Jeff been talking to Alaura? Smiling at her? Existing for even a second within her field of vision? Unacceptable.
    Then Waring remembered that night last week: those bicycle deadbeats. How Jeff had swooped in like a