TheBanyanTree: The Merchant of Dennis

[Monique Young]

	Dennis always met up with his merchant at approximately 8:30 am
Monday through Friday. Dennis would stop in at the merchant's on his way to
work, look over the selection of fruit, sigh in disgust, pick up a box of
cookies, the kind that advertised themselves as 100% Organic (as if that
made them somehow healthier than the normal cookies), pick up razor blades
if he was out, or soap, or anything else small and inconsequential he was
likely to run out of, a carton of orange juice, with pulp, and he would then
present himself at the counter for checkout. The merchant would scowl, as if
Dennis's foray into his kingdom was unwelcome, then ring him up and always
ask, "paper or plastic?" as if this weren't a ritual they carried on every
day. 
	"Plastic," Dennis always replied, being a creature of habit and in
the process of building himself a giant plastic bag collection under his
kitchen sink. He'd pay with his debit card, swiping it through the machine
and always marveling at how this simple action could take money from his
bank account and deposit it into the merchant's, like so much magic that was
no longer magical, just a fact of life. 
	The merchant would scowl some more, giving his face a particularly
unpleasant cast. A large man of indeterminate height and weight, and even
more indeterminate age, he always appeared annoyed, though not at anything
in particular. Sometimes, if he was feeling particularly sociable, he might
ask, "Off to work, are we?" and Dennis would reply, "Another day, another
dollar, or a dollar fifty, for inflation," and the merchant would grimace so
quickly Dennis was sure it was an attempt at a smile, but there was no way
to be sure.
	If Dennis had ever thought about it, which he never did, not being a
particularly deep thinker, he might assume the merchant had an unhappy life,
waiting on unruly customers day after day in his small store, waiting for
something interesting to happen, something that would suddenly give his life
meaning, some sort of small event that might awaken the spark of life that
appeared to be dormant in him. Instead, Dennis usually walked away thinking,
"What a sourpuss!" This was often his reaction to most people of a certain
indeterminate age, and he didn't blame them since it was obvious the best
part of their lives were over. He knew that he too would one day be a
sourpuss, but he was still the pot, and not yet the kettle.
	The merchant, for his part, would think nothing at all of their
interaction. It was just a routine occurrence, just one of many regular
customers who came in to buy the same things day after day, that it never
occurred to him that any of his customers was any different than any other.
They all appeared before him as supplicants, needing something he had, and
which he was happy to charge them for, but they were not individuals, just
an amorphous mass of people he didn't care to know any more about than he
already did. It was bad enough, knowing the sort of garbage they put into
their bodies and called food, like the young man who always bought a box of
cookies, organic even, as if that made them good for him, when he should be
eating fresh fruit. The merchant could tell from the pallor of the young
man's skin that he didn't eat enough fresh fruit, or vegetables. 
	The merchant wouldn't have been surprised to know that the young
man's mother had the same opinion of Dennis's eating habits and would, upon
occasion, berate him for not attending to himself better. Dennis saw his
mother once a week, on the weekend, a scheduled visit in which they would
discuss his week, his work, his social life (nonexistent, for the most
part), and his ambitions. Dennis was a man of few ambitions, but one of them
was to become independently wealthy. He thought if he worked hard at his job
and became noticed, he could rise through the ranks and eventually gain
enough clout to be considered for a management role. He had no idea, really,
what that might mean, but knew it was something he should aspire to.
Everyone did, didn't they, when they were barely out of college and on their
way up?
	Dennis's mother, for her part, would always regret that Dennis had
no father, but never so much that it caused her to lose sleep, or to knit
her brow with anxiety that Dennis had not grown up with a father figure. It
was just something that happened, long ago, and she had made the best of it.
As far as she was concerned, there had never been another option, and Dennis
never asked again, not after that one time when he'd asked, rather
plaintively, "Why don't I have a dad?" and she'd answered, "Because you
don't need one, you have me."
	No one ever knew if Dennis missed having a father because no one
ever asked him. It wasn't a question that would come up easily in
conversation, and it was easier for everyone to assume that he did not. As
for Dennis, he never did know if he would want one or not. Some of his
friends had fathers and didn't  seem to enjoy the experience much, while
others did. Who could possibly know what his own father would be like.
Perhaps he was better off, not having one. Maybe they were like cold sores,
and one just waited for them go away while enduring the pain. 
	The week before Thanksgiving Dennis stopped at the merchant's but it
was closed. This was quite an inconvenience to Dennis, as he really needed
something to eat on his way to work, and he was forced to find another store
on his way. He transferred his allegiance from his merchant's store when it
failed to reopen, though never found one quite as satisfactory. Instead, he
would try different stores, sometimes even skipping a store altogether and
instead picking up a dozen donuts at Dunkin' Donuts. 
	He would never know the merchant's name, and even if he had, it
would have meant nothing to him. To his mother it would have had some
meaning, and she would have been startled to know that her son had been
meeting his father daily, Monday through Friday, at approximately 8:30, for
18 months before the merchant had become ill with a particularly insidious
cancer and died shortly thereafter. But she would never know, and of so
little consequence was the merchant to Dennis that he was never mentioned by
Dennis to anyone. He was an anonymous merchant, just as Dennis had been an
anonymous customer.
	Sometimes we are all anonymous.