doppelgänger

dennis

Saturday morning, Dennis decided to run to the store for his parents while they were gone that late morning, and take Wolf along with him since he had him for the weekend.

Dennis was considering having Bex move in with them. It would make it a whole lot easier with Wolf, and they wouldn't have to split the time up between them for when to keep him. It wasn't fair to Wolf that he couldn't just have both of his parents always in one place; Dennis realized that, and he wanted to make it fair, badly. He just wasn't so sure as to what Andy and Scout would say if Dennis were to ask them if Bex could move in with them.

Walking into the store that morning, setting Wolf in the baby part of the shopping cart, Dennis could already notice the discomfort in several people around him. It wasn't often that they saw a teenage emo guy with his kid at Walmart, and Dennis knew in the first place that everyone seemed to have an attitude about teenage parents. He kept his face down as he got into an aisle, keeping his face hidden with his straightened, teased hair.

I don't get it, Dennis thought, that people will just never be accepting of one another. Just because I wear black and have a different style doesn't mean I'm a criminal.

He bumped into someone just as he stopped in one of the aisles, accidentally ramming the end of his shopping cart into a man. The man turned to look at Dennis, in disgust.

"Watch it, kid," he snapped, giving him a hard look. The man looked down at Wolf, then back up at Dennis, doing it several times before looking away, saying as he walked away, "and keep your eyes on your little mistake."

Dennis looked down at Wolf, who was looking at him, smiling. A mistake.

Wolf was a mistake. At least, that's what everybody else said.

And what was heartbreaking was that the man was right.

Dennis forced a smile back at Wolf, ruffling the little bit of blonde hair he had on top of his head. "Don't listen to them, Wolfie. You're my little man."

Wolf squealed and took his father's hand, bringing a finger to his mouth, and Dennis laughed, easing his hand out of Wolf's. "No, Wolf, hands aren't for eating. Or slobbering on."

The baby looked at him curiously, and Dennis laughed again as he continued on throughout the store. He tried to never feel out of place, but he still did. He was sixteen and he had a son. How could he not feel out of place, he always thought.

When Dennis got to the register, with Wolf still sitting in the cart beside him as he unloaded the groceries for the cashier to ring up, he stood there, tapping his foot anxiously as people around him stared at him. Even the cashier would glance up and look between them with a weird look on his face, a disapproving look.

It finally came time for the cashier guy to ring the last thing up, and it the last thing just so happened to be a cheap tube of basic black mascara. The guy looked up at Dennis, one of his brows raised. "Is this yours?"

Dennis kept quiet, and paused for a second before nodding.

The guy raised both of his eyebrows at Dennis this time, then rung it up and tossed it into the last bag. "Your total is fifty-six dollars and eighty cents."

As Dennis reached in his back pocket for the money, the guy watched him and also continued to occasionally glance at Wolf. "Is the little kid yours?"

"Yeah," Dennis responded.

The guy nodded slowly. "Is the makeup for your girlfriend?"

"No," he said. Then Dennis looked up at the guy and straightened. What was he doing? He couldn't just let people step all over him like this and let people think he was a fool! "Does it matter who it's for?"

"Well...."

"If you want the truth, it's for me. Why? Because I want it. Why? For different reasons. You don't have blonde hair or eyelashes," he observed.

"So?"

"So, you don't get it. My hair's blonde, so I wear mascara to make my eyelashes darker. Is that okay with you, or....?"

"Yes. I mean, why wouldn't it be?"

"You seemed awfully upset with the fact that I wear mascara and nail polish at first. Even now, as you're staring at my fingernails," Dennis said, as he curled his fists and pounded the one with money in it on the counter in front of the guy, making him jump, and letting the crumpled money drop out of his hand.

"Next time you see someone with a style you don't like, I believe you'd better think twice. Because if its someone like me, you're gonna get pounded."

The guy swallowed, nodding slowly as he watched Dennis start to walk away with his cart full of bags.

"You're damn right this is my kid!" Dennis continued, saying it louder so the next couple rows of people in checkout lines could hear. "Isn't he cute?" he finished, laughing a little to himself and shaking his head as the people around him continued to stare, their expressions more surprised now. He walked out of the store with the cart, tears threatening to pour over as Wolf said his father's name, trying to catch his attention.

Dennis could certainly put on a tough show, but deep inside, that wasn't how he felt.