At the donut shop, Victor followed the manager Kurt’s instructions and asked his first customer of the day if she had an AARP card. “You get a free donut if you have one.”
The woman hesitated, her eyes widening a little, and she shook her head. “I just want a bagel with butter and a coffee.”
In the car the woman, Janet, looked at herself in the mirror. The Saturday morning sunlight highlighted two grey hairs that had re-sprouted on the right side of her head. “I’m only thirty-five, and I’m old,” she told her husband at home over breakfast. “Oh my God.”
“So what—thirty-five,” he told her. “I’m forty and bald—with dandruff on the side hair. Look at me.…”
“All right,” she sighed.
He took a handful of crackers from a jar on the counter, stuffed them into his mouth, and spit out little cracker pieces when he spoke the “T” words:
“Got a trick knee, too. Bad teeth…tennis elbow, tonsillitis…torn tendons—”
“But you don’t have an AARP card,” she wailed.
“What?” He swallowed. “What the heck.”
She told him about the free donut incident, and sat miserable at the kitchen table while he dug into the jar for more crackers.
***
“You get a free donut if you have an AARP card,”
Victor told thirty-two year old Frank, who looked behind himself and all around.
“What? No, I’ll just take an onion roll.” A week before, Frank’s twenty-five year old girlfriend had dumped him for a guy her own age. Later, Frank called one of his buddies, Tommy, and they played handball against the junior high school’s high brick wall, just like the old days.
“What the hell,” Tommy said after Frank lost a third straight game and threw the ball far up onto the school roof. “I messed up my heel,” Frank said. “I can’t friggin’ walk now.”
“I’ll get you a cane for Christmas,” Tommy said, but Frank fumed past him and limped toward his car.
***
On break, Victor stood in the parking lot and leaned against the light pole and watched the girls go by. He felt good for some reason, although he was sick of asking customers if they had AARP cards. It was a stupid promo because in two hours not one customer had had one. Still, he felt strong. His grandmother and little sister were at home, and he was out working. He was doing his part as the man of the family, even if only for the summer.
His grandmother had never called him stupid, had never judged him, so everything was going to be all right. And three pretty girls had passed by the donut shop in the last thirty seconds. On his way back inside, he glanced at Kurt’s stupid little Camaro, parked in his special manager’s slot, and he revisited his dream of dumping one ton of donuts into Kurt’s back seat. That’s for calling me stupid last week, just because I got an order mixed up, he imagined saying. If you ever call me stupid again… In his mind he punched Kurt’s jaw and watched him fly up near the top of the light pole, then land with a crunch in the garbage bin.
And Victor sneered at the bin and nodded to it with satisfaction before swinging open the donut shop door.
***
“If you have an AARP card,” Victor told Gloria, a young mother of twins, “you get a free donut.”
Gloria searched her wallet. “What about Triple A,” she said.
“I don’t know,” said Victor. “I’ll be right back.”
From his little office, Kurt growled at Victor. “We don’t do Triple A discounts. What are you, stupid? Just offer the AARP discounts. I told you that already.”
Victor wondered briefly if he had time to punch Kurt’s stupid jaw before getting back to the customer. He sulked his way back to the register.
“Sorry, no Triple A. Just the AARP.” “Maybe I’ll apply for one,” said the young mother.
“You should,” said Victor. “I think the deal lasts all month.”
***
Clifford reluctantly followed his wife Amy into the donut shop. At forty-eight, he had given up junk food and thought his wife of thirty-seven should give it up too.
“You’re too heavy,” he told her on the way in. “Stop eating their stupid muffins.”
“I’ll eat what I want,” she told him.
“Well, I’m just having coffee. Black coffee, that’s it. All you eat is high fructose corn syrup.”
“If I worried about every single thing I ate—” “You’d be skinnier, I’ll tell you that.”
“Oh, stop. You make me fat just talking.”
“That makes no sense.”
At the counter Victor was still scowling over Kurt having called him stupid.
“I want a coffee with milk and sugar,” Amy told Victor. “And I want a muffin― chocolate chip—and a bagel with cream cheese.”
Brooding, Victor carefully punched in her order. “Anything else?”
“You want anything?” Amy asked Clifford. “Black coffee, what do you think?”
Victor frowned. “Is that it?”
“Yes,” said Amy.
“Do you have an AARP card? You get a free donut,” Victor said.
Clifford, who’d been looking out the window, snapped to attention. “What did you say to my wife? What did you say?”
“AARP. If you have a card, you get a free donut.”
“What the hell is that? How old do you think she is?”
Victor stared.
“Don’t let him answer,” Amy said.
“He better not answer. I’ll punch his head in.”
Victor turned away and walked into the back room, passing Kurt who was leaning over the shoulder of the new girl at the drive-up window’s register. He tossed his stupid red vest onto some boxes and punched out. “I quit,” said Victor.
“Oh yeah?” Kurt only glanced over.
“That’s right. This ain’t worth it.”
“See ya,” said Kurt, and he pointed out a key on the register that the new girl couldn’t find.
Victor started out, but doubled back and muttered to Kurt. “But I’m coming back for my pay next week, and meanwhile I’ll get my own stinking AARP card, and my own stinking free donut, and I won’t have to put up with all of these stinking customers.”
“You do that,” said Kurt, as Victor stomped away. The new girl turned nervously as one car pulled away and another pulled up.
“Do I have to ask everybody about AARP? Do I ask everyone—”
“No,” Kurt moaned. “Holy crap. Just…no.”
***
When Victor’s grandmother explained patiently what an AARP card was, and even showed Victor her own card, he collapsed into the kitchen chair.
“I’m finished. Eighteen years old and I’m done, Grandma. Now I’m glad Dad left, so he can’t call me stupid anymore. He was calling me stupid when I was five. And maybe it’s lucky for Mom…”
Victor remembered himself as a twelve year old, his mother gone, and he clenched his teeth to stop his trembling jaw. His grandmother sat at the table across from him and leaned forward, trying to get Victor to look at her.
“Everyone makes mistakes. You’ll find your way.”
“No. I’m stupid.”
“Everyone’s stupid about something. Think about it.”
“I can’t think about it, I’m too stupid. Instead…I’m going to wait out in the parking lot tonight for that Kurt creep, and I’m going to kick his goddamn teeth in and throw him in the garbage bin. I swear to God I am, Grandma.”
“No. Pull yourself along by your own bootstraps and look for another job. And then it’s off to college for you, mister. You’ve already been accepted to three colleges, so you can’t be stupid.”
“I guess. You know, maybe I’m just stupid about stupid things nobody ever heard of.”
“Well, there you go. Einstein was like that, I think.”
Victor’s twelve year old sister Maria hurried into the kitchen and opened a cabinet looking for a snack. “I’m reading this great book, Grandma,” she said. Her grandmother beamed.
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about a family that tries to survive a big flood in Galveston, Texas. It’s historical.”
Victor scoffed. “What’s historical about it? It’s not even funny!”
Maria gaped at him. “What?”
“Ooo, people dying in Texas. Wow, a big flood! And you think that’s funny?” He stormed out the back door. Maria watched him go, open-mouthed, and their grandmother sighed and gazed out the kitchen window, examining with great interest a squirrel outside, which paused mid-way up a tree and gripped its bark, legs spread, when Victor thundered pas
Lou Gaglia is the author of Poor Advice and Other Stories (Spring to Mountain Press, 2015), which recently won The New Apple Literary Award for short story fiction. His stories have appeared in Menda City Review, Eclectica, Waccamaw, The Cortland Review, Main Street Rag, and elsewhere. He is a long-time teacher and T’ai Chi Ch’uan practitioner—first in New York City and now in upstate New York. Visit him at lougaglia.com
