The Shopkeeper

I recently raided my family's desktop computer. It's an old Dell that has been around since I was 13. Naturally, I discovered numerous gems on it, everything from pictures of me with a "Jew-Fro" to saved AIM conversations from freshman year of high school. This is a story I found that I wrote in my senior year AP English Lit class. It was inspired by an angry letter written in 1975 that I purchased at a garage sale. I forget the writer's name, but apparently he purchased a box of peanut brittle from Kraft Foods and was quite dismayed to find that it was filled with spider webs and larvae. So he wrote to the company and demanded some free coupons and better quality control. Can't say that I blame him.

The Shopkeeper

Growing up, my three favorite things in life were (from 3rd to 1st) Thanksgiving, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” and my mailman, Ted. I knew not his last name, marital status, favorite color, deepest secrets, etc. etc., only that his name was Ted, and he was deeply committed to delivering my family’s mail in a timely and regular fashion. Each day (except Sunday, of course) at 3:00 PM he would walk slowly and purposefully to my red mailbox, the mail tucked under his left arm, a cup of coffee held preciously in his right hand. I frequently made excuses to be outside at 2:55, with the hope of striking up a conversation with my trusty postal liaison. On these days, he would say, in an unnaturally high voice, “Hey kid,” to which I would respond, “Hey Ted.” While conversation was not the focal point of our relationship, I felt we had a different connection, one much deeper than mere words could possibly cater too. You see, I had always dreamt of being a mailman. I longed to wear the stiff, government issued uniform, to carry the sack of letters and bank statements, to be the man upon which some faraway neighborhood depended to deliver its post.

I truly wish this was an essay documenting my long and illustrious career in the Postal Service, or perhaps my heart-warming, unforgettable friendship with Ted. It is not. Rather, this is the story of how my dreams were spoiled by my bastard of a father and his god forsaken general store. My dad, Jim, was raised in rural Idaho. The area was so rural, in fact, that the nearest post office was fifteen miles away. Accordingly, my father never developed any type of affinity for the hardworking and respectable people that deliver our mail. At the age of 25 he moved to Branchdale, Pennsylvania and opened a general store, Jim’s. The store was his pride and joy. Six years later, my mother married him knowing that next to the store she was his one true love. They lived in peace for two more years, at which point I was brought kicking and screaming into the world.

I am not by any means knowledgeable of the deeper workings of the universe. I am not in touch with the cosmos, nor am I a spiritual man by nature. But I feel that I know enough to securely identify a blaring error in His plan. Why would a boy who longs to be a mailman be born to a general-store-owning father whose sole wish for his son is that he carries on the family business?

My father’s desire for me to take over Jim’s upon his death changed my life forever. You need not know the particulars; all that is important is that following my runaway and subsequent return, and after the light “chat” we had as he lay on his deathbed, guilt took over and I agreed to forget about my dreams and work at the family store.

And so it was that on my twenty-first birthday, I woke up at 5:00 AM and walked over to the store. On the way I passed the post office. Inside were three mailmen, each with an enormous grin on his face, eager to tackle the day’s work. When I got to Jim’s I opened the doors, cleaned the counter, and waited for the sun to rise. People started moseying in around six. I sold a lot of sugar. I took a lunch break. A kid tried to steal a candy bar. I went home.

I settled into this routine, finding only bitterness in its monotony. One day I woke up and realized that I was twenty-six. Had I really spent five years wasting away at Jim’s? Was I cheating my destiny? Where was Ted? I cursed my father every day.

Years passed. I grew a beard and put on twenty pounds. I slept with Amy Shelton from Lightly Road. My mother died, but before she did she told me how proud she was that I was keeping up my father’s legacy, keeping up the family legacy. And then one day, at the age of thirty-seven, I snapped.

It was a cool but pleasant morning, perfect weather for delivering the post. I got to Jim’s at 4:30AM to meet a Kraft Foods representative who was delivering items to the store. I had ordered canned mac and cheese and boxes of peanut brittle, two items that had been flying off the shelves. Upon my arrival, I saw that the man was severely overweight and smoking a fat cigar. He spoke in a deep, guttural, barely comprehensible voice: “Ya I go’ tha’ stuff for ya. Sign here ok?” It seemed he wanted to be on his way, so I signed quickly and together we lugged the boxes into the store.

Twenty minutes later I came upon a ghastly discovery. I was stocking peanut brittle on the corner shelf when I realized that inside the box, coating the delicious (and quality-guaranteed) Kraft item, was a thick layer of spider webs and larvae. This particular box had clearly spoiled in transit, and now it looked like a science experiment had taken place inside the plastic container. The larvae were pulsating, and they looked like they might explode at any given second. God only knows what would have happened then.

Now, any other day, any other second, I would have acted the part of the responsible worker and removed the dangerous item from the shelf. I would have written a strongly worded letter to Kraft Foods complaining about the disgusting incident and threatening to sue on the grounds of “psychological damages.” But not today. For moments before I picked up the contaminated box I had been thinking about my father and about the life he had left there for me. I was just so bitter… It was because of him that I was stuck behind the counter at Jim’s, unable to realize my true dream. Because of him that every day blended into one, monotonous, never ending nightmare. I looked down at the blighted peanut brittle with these thoughts in my mind, and made a strange connection. Was the brittle representative of my life? Was I slowly decaying, caving under the pressure of outside forces?

“To hell with you dad.”

I put the box back on the shelf.

Two hours later, a rather rotund young woman walked into the store. Her cheeks were flushed red from some excess of physical activity. She had a cell phone to her ear and was babbling incessantly. Spittle flew when she talked. Upon reaching the corner shelf, she did not hesitate in selecting an item that would satiate her painful hunger. In her rush to eat and continue talking, she hustled over to the counter without ever looking closely at the contents of the Kraft’s Peanut Brittle box she had chosen. She paid, ripped open the container right there at the counter, and eagerly stuffed a large piece of spider web and larvae coated peanut brittle down her fleshy throat.

It was as if her eyes realized what had happened before the rest of her body did. They opened wide in fright, and then squeezed shut in disgust. Her face turned green, and from my angle, her head looked like a bushel of lettuce. She let out a soft “oh!” I heard a voice coming through her cell phone say “WHAT? WHAT? CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Then she shuddered, keeled over, and died.

And for the first time in a while, I laughed.

Yes, there was an investigation, and yes of course there was a trial. I was charged with “Unlawful and Irresponsible Action” as well as “Third Degree Manslaughter.” I pleaded innocent, but the jury, upon reviewing the Jim’s security tapes from the day in question, declared me guilty, saying, “Son, those tapes show you gazing intently at the infected box for two minutes, and then knowingly placing it on the shelf. If you are not guilty, then who is?” I suppose they had a point.

But it’s not all bad. My cot is much more comfortable then I expected it to be, and my cellmate is very amicable for a convicted arsonist. And the greatest surprise of all: Ted is here! Turns out he’s doing ten to twenty for Federal Racketeering. He got rather high up in the Postal Service and made some bad decisions. We work together in the mail room, sorting and delivering letters to all the inmates. Sometimes, when I look at him a certain way, I think he almost remembers me.