Being a Merchant was all about patience – quite obvious since all trading professions required it in some ways – but unfortunately for most — no matter how versed they were in the trade, no matter how many hauls they've sold out, no matter how many years they've spent garbage diving — the Trade always found a way to remind them that mastering patience was one of the few things they would never be able to do. Ironic that it was the same virtue that divided the good Merchants from the great ones.
Isaac too wasn't above it. Time and time again, the Trade – in other words their entire livelihood – reminded him, in small and great ways, of the golden rule; No Merchant is Above the Trade.
There will come a time when they don't feel like opening up shop, or when customers don't feel like entering their shop. Or maybe the ones that patronize them don't have the means to buy their goods, or even doubt the authenticity of the goods as a bloated con… or worse, they – the Merchant – start judging the worth of their customers with the quality of their goods. Now, that was as steep as the slope got.
It also summed up the only advice Isaac ever got from the older veterans when he was starting out; stay put and be patient.
Unfortunately for his stellar career, that piece of advice was one that he always failed to keep when it mattered the most back when he was starting out. He still had his 'deviant' episodes but those were very rare nowadays. His best record was a single outburst in a turnover.
Another piece of advice he got – this one he got from experience – was that dealing in mundane stuff made up at least 90% of the Trade.
In other words, 90% of his days would be the same boring shit. Life of a Merchant, what else could he do?
So, yes, while he was hopeful for the day he sold Pandora, nice child that she was, he would have to settle for the boring and less eventful days. Like this one.
The last week or so has been a slow one but, while a familiar occurrence to Isaac, did not mean that Isaac couldn't be bored through it.
Today was an especially slow one. For some reason it seemed as if time couldn't be bothered to move on. The seconds ticked by with an over-exaggerated swagger as if it was begging for attention. The minutes themselves acted as if they had something better to do, and the hours… oh the hours. They tiptoed around like the shy girl on prom night.
Suffice to say, the day had not been especially kind to Isaac. He cleaned every inch of his shop – every shelf, every window, every show glass, every cabinet – thrice. He couldn't wait for it to end and try again tomorrow.
He would have even preferred it if he sold some mundane goods but no, nothing.
As if to show that it heard him and sympathized with his plight, the Trade heeded his silent cries as soon as the sun took a skinny dip.
The bell tingled as three men came inside, anxious anticipation radiating off their frames.
Their eyes lit up when they saw Isaac manning the counter so they sauntered towards him in a straight file. A little strange but he was never one to judge.
"Welcome to Junk 'N Stuff. What can I get you gentlemen?"
The first one cleared his throat and hunched closer to Isaac over the counter while the other duo took simple glances at the inside of the shop.
"Hey man, how we doing?"
Isaac shrugged casually. "Heh, slow day. Could be better."
The man smiled, and the two behind him chuckled, "Name's Dre. And we're about to make it less boring for you, Isaac."
Isaac smiled, faintly amused and expectant. "How so, Dre?"
Dre gave sideways glances, and brought down his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "A mutual friend of ours, Pete, gave me your direct. Said you could 'clean' some things for us for cash, and hook us up with some 'valuables'. Hmm?"
Isaac looked confused for a moment, even a tad bit disappointed, but he quickly recognized the 'Pete' Dre was talking about. It wasn't the adventurous young boy who saw his shop as a 'choice' refuse dump. Either way he didn't judge, a customer is a customer.
Isaac shrugged, business was business, and he held the hand on what he would buy and reject.
"Let's see them."
Smiles broke out from their faces. They all reached inside of their jackets and brought out a slew of trinkets.
"Now, gentlemen, I'll preface by saying that I'm open to buying every junk and stuff you have, as long as they have some value. I don't deal in scraps."
Dre and his duo gave understanding nods. "We hear ya. Pete told us the rules."
They were behaving secretly suspicious for what was a simple trade, Isaac noted and gave a mental shrug. This was far from the strangest behavior he's gotten from a client.
"We didn't know how much to bring for our first time, so we picked out the best." Dre took the loot from his guys and spread them out on the counter and gave Isaac a searching look. "If the sell is good enough then we'll bring the rest and you'll get yourself some new custos. Feel me?"
The bravado Isaac was used to. Good. It meant easily manageable. He'd been bored out of his mind that he'd been half-hoping that they were here to rob him. Well, he'll take a trade over attempted robbery any day.
"Let's see what we got here."
A wooden ornately-carved ring box, a Cuban link, diamond-studded earrings, a pair of shoes, two rose gold watches, two pairs of glasses, a phone and a modified gun — it was quite the array of items.
Did it paint a certain picture? Isaac didn't really care. You'd be surprised by the stories behind the history of some things. He was a Merchant. Adhering to stereotypes and social profiling is just bad business.
"Yeah, yeah. Check out this stain." Dre laughed, looking extremely pleased as he laid out the items. "Over to you, brah. Do your magic."
The three friends looked excited, showing all the visual cues – smirking, chuckling, rubbing hands, licking lips etc. –, as they waited (im)patiently for Isaac to run up the numbers.
"$27,300." Isaac looked up after a few seconds. He could tell the value of mundane items like these with a glance, but he made a show of appraising it because… well, know your customers. No way they would believe him if he called out the price the moment they laid it out.
Was that not stereotyping and social profiling? Eh, technicalities. He wasn't judging them by any metric but was instead trying to sell trust. Appearance, after all, was a hard currency.
The two behind Dre whistled, while the man himself looked curiously at the spread and scratched his beard thoughtfully.
"Say, Isaac, which one cost more?"
Isaac pointed at the three things that Dre already suspected; the watches and the chain.
"The chain is a little over $9k. It's got solid enough gold." He tapped on the two watches, inwardly pleased with how attentive they were. "Male watches tend to cost more even if they're from the same brand. This one barely skims over $8k and the female one is locked at $5.5k. As for the others, the custom mod is around $2k and everything else is a couple hundred or more."
He picked up the gun, his showmanship spirit revving up for a few seconds, and the two behind Dre flinched but he paid no mind to them as he slid out the magazine with a cock and swift click. He checked the rounds and the chamber, hummed approvingly, before sliding the magazine back in.
He put down the gun and looked at them and asked the most important question(to him). "Will that be all, gentlemen, or do you need something else?"
They smiled, and once again Dre leaned over to whisper in a voice that was more 'inside joke' than secretive.
"And here I was thinking you'd never ask." He smacked his lips as if the main dessert of the night was rolled out in front of him and was also finding out that it was an all-you-can-eat buffet. "Since you asked, well, me and my boys need some 'insurance'. Something that insists that 'domestic' is optional. Feel me?"
Flowing rapport was easier to build with friendlier customers and it was never a bad idea to entertain their whimsy to a point. Isaac nodded with a slight smirk of his own, "I feel ya."
What followed was a show and tell where Isaac displayed some of his 'normal' guns with the flair and confidence of a renowned gunsmith(which he was not) and sufficiently wowed his present customer base of 3.
Dre also ended up buying up three sets of Nomex-Kevlar Hybrid bulletproof vests which ended up bottoming their bank more than the guns did.
They were a passionate sort, Isaac noted, as they left in higher spirits than they came in with. It put a content smile on his face that the things he sold could bring people joy.
That trade alone was enough for him for the day. He would sleep better at night from the memory of their excited mutterings as they left his shop.
He was still in that same glow an hour later when his bell rang again as another group of people entered his shop. A group of peppy teenagers to be exact.
"Why are we in a pawnshop, Flash?" a soft voice holding a tinge of irritation called out. "They gave us four assignments if you've forgotten. I don't want to be awake at midnight trying to finish them."
"Chill out, Liz," a more boisterous voice responded. "And besides, we're not submitting them tomorrow. So it doesn't matt— Whoa, that is so sick!"
"Flash! Don't just start touching things!" Liz cried out in a mix of frustration and anger. "What if you break them?"
"Chill out, Liz." Flash remarked, sounding confidently unrepentant. "It is probably an art store or something. And besides, we've got Harry here. He'll foot the bill if we break anything."
"I'm not your caution-free wallet, idiot. Break it and you pay it." A new voice, Harry, replied in complete disinterest.
Isaac said nothing even as they spent a few minutes parading around the shop before one of them, a girl, finally caught sight of him and gave an awkward wave/greeting as she turned red in embarrassment.
"Damn, this place is dope!" Flash cried out once again, proving once more that he was ignorant of the concept of public voice. "Is that a freaking lightsaber?"
"Idiot, it's obviously a prop." Harry mocked.
"Shut it, Hairy." Flash snapped once more. "Of course I know it's a prop. I'm just saying it's as detailed as the real thing."
The episode seemed to end there as three other teenagers converged with the awkwardly embarrassed redhead and froze at the sight of a patiently waiting Isaac.
"…"
"…"
"..."
"What up man!" Once again, Flash was ignorant and oblivious to public and social cues as he strode over to counter. "You've got some sick shit."
"Well thank you, kid." Isaac chuckled at the enthusiastic teenager. "See anything you like?"
"Fuck yeah. The blaster and the lightsaber look legit as fuck. And who designed that staff? Shit looks cold as hell."
Isaac chuckled again at the sincerity of the compliments. "What can I say? They are as real as they look. So what can I help you kids with today?"
Before Flash could open his mouth, the dark blonde(or was it brunette?) among them stepped forward and shoved Flash behind her.
"Sorry about our friend. He wasn't trying to be rude." Liz offered but Isaac waved it off, not at all bothered by it.
"I don't mind. He's passionate, there's nothing wrong with that."
"Hear that, Liz?" Flash pushed his way to the front looking smug at Liz. "Like I said, Liz, you gotta—"
"If you say 'chill out' one more time, I'll kill you." Liz warned, and Flash, boisterously oblivious as he was, actually shut up. There was hope for him after all.
He turned to Isaac, all smirk, looking very different from the brash and cocky jock he was at school.
"So you sell comic stuff and shit?"
"And junk." Isaac corrected. "I sell anything I can get my hand on. From merch to the real deal."
More than a few brows rose from his last statement but Flash wasn't one of them, as he just smiled. "Sick. So you got like some Spider-Man merch?"
Snorts came from behind him which made Flash frown. "What?"
"Nothing. It's just that you're seriously asking for Spider-Man merch." Mj, the formerly embarrassed redhead, chuckled.
Flash turned towards her and folded his hands over his chest, looking slightly confrontational. "And what's wrong with that? I don't jack you girls when you yap about Black Widow or Invisible Woman."
He ignored the girls and turned back to Isaac, frowning but still partially invested.
"I got some. The cheap ones, the budget ones, the original ones. Which one do you want?"
"What do you mean original?"
Isaac grinned widely. "I'm talking about the real deal." With a flourish, he reached for something under the counter and set it on the counter.
The group of teens initially looked unimpressed and uninterested as they saw the weird contraption he placed on the table, but that slowly changed as their eyes kept getting drawn to it.
"N-no way."
"That's clearly fake."
"I-is that what I think it is?"
"T-that t-that…"
Isaac smirked. Did his boredom have any hand in him bragging off to kids? Yes, yes it did.
"It's busted so I got it for cheap, but that doesn't matter."
Liz and Mj raised their heads in confusion and asked "Why?" but it was Flash and Harry who replied for Isaac, both of them staring at the tiny piece of tech in front of them.
"Someone will buy it anyway."
"They'll pay for it like they would an antique." Harry clarified, looking accusingly suspicious at Isaac before adding, "as long as it's real."
"Oh, it's real." Feeling a bit entertained, Isaac decided to humor them. "Watch."
He picked up the webshooter and pointed it at the wall to his left and pressed a button. Under the gobsmacked faces of the group, a soft 'thwip' sounded as a thin web strand shot out from the shooter and stuck instantly to the wall.
"Holy! Hahaha, holy hell!" Flash exclaimed. "I'll buy it. How much?"
Isaac shook his head. "Not this one kid. I want it to marinate for some years before I sell it." He saw the frown on Flash's face and added. "Or I can give it to you for 10 grand."
"What?!" Flash recoiled as if the words burned him, while the two girls behind him scoffed derisively.
"Who in their right mind will buy that piece of junk for 10 thousand dollars?" Liz asked incredulously.
Isaac replied succinctly. "The same type of people who bought the Mona Lisa."
"What?" Mj blinked, not at all expecting that answer.
"It's a hero's hardware. An athlete's signed jersey goes for a lot, what makes you think a hero's will go any less. The only reason it's this low right now is because our neighborhood hero is still new on the scene. Give it a few years and I could probably sell this for $500k or more."
While Isaac patiently explained the value of hero hardware to Flash, Liz and Mj who could not stop listening with stark disbelief, Harry kept looking at the webshooter as an idea came to him.
'Maybe his father would find it useful. Or maybe he would reengineer it and use it in his projects.' Harry couldn't help but grow exceedingly hopeful as the thoughts bloomed. 'Maybe his father would like it. Especially if he gave it to him like a gift or something since his birthday was coming up.'
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