Late Night Donuts in a Small town

 Warm, dimmed lights bounced off flat speckled pavement, runway markers for the final leg of our journey. 

We never planned it, but this had been our destination since setting out, hours earlier, on this familiar course. 

There had been some event. At this point, who can remember what. That was dusk; now it was after midnight. The event was not important to our time together; it never was. It was the excuse we used to stay out late, to be around one another. The event was the social expectation and invitation to walk shoulder to shoulder along winding campus brick paths and valley dips. 

We never planned to meet like this. It always happened all its own. A night or two a week, we all found each other. Always without ever looking. Without searching. 

Most nights there were six of us or seven. Some nights more or less.

On the most special nights, it’s just us two or three. 

And we wandered. No one led. We all followed. Someone wanted to go to one of the dorms and pick up a book or the jacket they loaned to, oh, what’s her name again? 

Still, we walked by the dorm hall three times and never stopped our wandering or collected on any loan. 

Our three hour meander led us to cross the imaginary line. The border. The rubicon that separated campus from the rest of the world. We had no real reason to cross the line. Well, there’s one reason. Unspoken, of course, but agreed upon by all parties. If you cross the line, it’s simply implied, we all know where we’re going and you’re up for the trip. 

It’s two blocks or so until we reach the asphalt wilderness. All that remains is a well-timed jaunt across its four-lanes. Our direction? A beat up, faded-paint sign older than any of us.

There’s a pitch to the road one only remembers when making this journey. The road curves up to its midpoint and then back down, leading down into the gully whose refuge and nourishment we so seek.

The parking lot was once a solid chunk of asphalt, I suppose. Now it’s half chunk, half gravel. They painted the pole sticking out of the parking lot that holds up the rectangular chipped plastic sign. What’s the point of a freshly painted pole under a weathered sign? Let it all fade, I argue. Keep it true. 

The door opens with the tinny chime of the well-worn brass bell. A welcome song to all bleary-eyed college students relieved to have arrived and fixated on the illuminated menu board and baskets of hot sweets steps away—seconds from their hands. 

If heaven exists, and I pray every morning and night that it does, I hope it has a little brass bell on the front door. I hope every head turns when that bell rings and we get to make eye contact with a few familiar faces before heading to the front counter, like the one in this donut shop. I hope. 

This night, the bell rings and we all cram through the vestibule, not pushing but not wanting to get stuck standing in line outside the main door. A freshman mistake. 

We’re far from those days now. 

None of us knows it, but this is it. This is our last excursion as a group. We’ll all make our way back here at some point, maybe even before we box up our young lives and head off for a coast or cornfield or cityscape. But it won’t be like this again. Not all of us. 

Maybe we do know it. Maybe that’s why this time is just a little quieter than the others. Maybe that’s why we made the trip after a long weekend and a late night. Maybe that’s why I open my wallet and offer “it’s on me, guys” to the gang. A thank you. A fried dough substitute for a kiss on the cheek and squeeze around their necks. We’re not ready for those. 

We are ready for donuts. 

Three for less than two bucks. Add an almost-cold chocolate milk for another ninety cents per head. Or a coffee for the more bitter-tongued members of our crew. 

No matter what we get, there’s powdered sugar on each of our treats. Jelly in some. Custard. Glaze on mine. Sprinkles too. Simple. 

We sit at the elbow-worn diner bar and notice classmates and apartment neighbors, that one couple who is always holding hands or being a little too comfortable with each other. Think they’ll make it? Maybe. Maybe not. Who cares. They’re in love right now and that’s all they have. It’s all any of us has. 

“Hey, Bobby,” someone leans over to get my attention. The story behind my nickname is silly and special and I hate it. But I love that it made me feel accepted into this group four years earlier. “Remember when…”

A heartbeat or two later and the counter erupts in obnoxious laughter. Obnoxious to our fellow patrons. Healing to us. Restorative. 

“Yeah, and then when…”

A smaller laugh followed by a vulgar joke and the hardest laugh of the night. 

Two more groups file in. Two tables throw their napkins and bottles in the garbage as they walk by the new group and make room for them. It’s their turn.  The bell welcomes in and waves goodbye just the same. Somehow the tables and bar stay full without ever overflowing. No one is asked to leave. A natural rhythm has formed. How long has it been like this? Before our first time, surely. We simply became part of it. We fell into the flow. It continues with us and will go on without. 

A few more stories and jokes are batted around. Groups mingle and change composition. Our group of five becomes a group of three. 

My favorite three. 

Another group is making its way across the mounded grey desert, longing for the promise only a donut shop can bring. 

It’s time for us to leave. 

We hold the door for the girls walking in as the bell dings either for them or for us. Who knows. Both?

The crunch of gravel, a few paused steps before jogging a little faster this time onto a familiar block. We reach the border and one of us peels away. 

Now two remain. 

“Wanna cut across the parking lot to save some time?” I ask, being efficient with our steps for the first time all night. A nod moves me across the street and through freshly dewed grass. I can see home through a break in the trees. 

Though I’m in no hurry, it approaches faster still. 

If heaven exists, I hope it has a brass bell on the front door. 

And gosh, I hope it has donuts.

-AT

Adam Tidrow is a serial entrepreneur, expert in American business and economic history, and scholar whose work focuses primarily on local economic development in the American Rust Belt.