Carl Sanderson pulled into the Mister Donut parking lot, and in an uncharacteristically thoughtful and deliberate manner, he eased the gearshift of his brown and battered 1971 Ford F-100 pickup into park. He kept the engine running, resting one hand on the shifter while drumming the fingers of his other on the steering wheel. He was thinking. He reached into the side pocket of his mechanic’s coat. The metal flask was cold in his hand. Carl was fine with cold. He leaned back in the seat. He twisted off the cap and took a swig. Up until a month ago—with the exception of a few beers with the guys after work on Fridays— Carl had not been a man given to much drinking. But then again, up until a month ago he had been cruising through life just fine.
Until he’d hit a major speed bump. Discoveries had been made. Lies had surfaced. Hence, Carl’s drink of choice—and the frequency of his drinking—had changed. Jess might say it had changed dramatically, but Carl would disagree with that assessment. Jess might also say that Carl himself had changed, and with that assessment Carl would agree. Although, not to get too wrapped up in the semantics of it, Carl didn’t see it as changing. More like…progressing. Progressing in his thinking, after having seen certain…realities come to light in his life. Realities that required a response. Wiping his upper lip with the sleeve of his coat, Carl twisted the cap back on and tucked the flask into his pocket.
Carl was a man of action. When confronted with a choice, it was quite simple what needed to be done: make a decision, act on that decision, and get the job done. Too much thinking only muddled things up and delayed acquiring the desired results. But that didn’t mean that Carl was a reckless fool. The man had his faults like everyone else, and at times he acted impulsively, but he at least had the good sense to know there were times in life when extensive thinking was required before any action could be carried out. His present situation happened to be one of those times. Unlike his job at the garage where he could replace a distributor cap to see if that would fix a stalling problem, and if that didn’t fix it he could try replacing the plug wires, and if that didn’t work he could try something else, this problem didn’t work that way. No room or time for trial and error here.
Carl turned the ignition off and pocketed the keys into his blue work coat. He flinched when his fingers brushed against the cold metal bullets he’d dropped into the pocket before he’d left the house, before his wife had come down to kiss him goodbye for the day. He wasn’t used to feeling such things on his person. Like the drinking, Carl had never been much for guns and shooting. Until recently. Now he had a keen interest in that sort of thing.
He reached over the steering wheel for his wool Patriots hat warming on the dash air vent and pulled it onto his head, his blonde hair curling out from under it. Hopefully the Pats could build on the new-found success of the past few years and make a legitimate run deep into the playoffs this coming season. Carl liked all sports, but he loved his New England Patriots. When all others were casting aspersions on his team during their 3-and-10 and 5-and-9 seasons, Carl stuck by the guys in red, white, and blue. No fair-weather fan he. A true Patriot fan was loyal to the team at all times, through thick and thin, for better for worse, in sickness and in health.
Loyalty. It’s what holds it all together.
Bending forward and reaching under the seat, Carl reassured himself that the gun was still there. Of course, it was, but now he wasn’t sure if he felt comforted or anxious by its presence only six inches under his ass. He yanked on the door lever, got out, and walked around the front of the pickup. It was cold, but Carl didn’t mind. He liked the cold. Made him feel alive. He stepped up and over the snowbank, disappointed that none of the Mister Donut workers had seen fit to shovel a path through it for their loyal customers.
A young woman, who apparently did not enjoy the cold as much as Carl, dashed across the parking lot and got to the door the same time Carl reached for it. He held the door for the woman and she flew right through the opening without even looking at him or offering a thank you. Inside, Carl stepped in line behind her. In front of them was an obnoxious, corpulent hippo-man who evidently thought everyone in Old Wachusett needed to hear what he was ordering.
Standing in line, thinking about the options available to him in his present circumstance, while at the same time trying to decide what donut to get with his coffee, Carl lamented at what he saw happening to this country. To his country. Things like common courtesy were slowly going the way of the Edsel. The fabric of society was fraying at the seams and nobody seemed to give a crap about it. A man holds a door open for a woman, a thank you would be nice. That’s all. A simple thank you. Not a big deal, just a little common courtesy that could go a long way to brightening the day of a fellow citizen. If not a thank you, perhaps a subtle acknowledgement from one human being to another, a slight nod of the head, a motion of the hand, a look that says, ‘Yes, I see you, I acknowledge your presence as a fellow human being.’ Was that too much to ask?
Carl didn’t think so.
It was the seemingly insignificant, mundane niceties in life that served as the oil in the engine of society, keeping it lubed so the whole thing didn’t seize up one day, belch out a final breath of noxious fumes, and die, leaving all of humanity stranded by the roadside. When that happened, AAA wasn’t going to come to the rescue. Carl couldn’t possibly be the only one who knew this, but it sure seemed like it.
A wallet fell to the floor. It made a wet smacking sound as it landed on a slushy patch of brown snow. Nice mopping job, Carl thought. Way to take pride in your job, Mister Donut workers. Carl watched with amusement as hippo-man sighed, grunted, and proceeded to maneuver his body into various positions to somehow lower himself so he could reach down for the wallet. The woman behind him, the ungrateful bitch who had zipped right by Carl, seemed to momentarily consider helping the guy, but, in the end, did not. That moment—the hippo-man’s inability to pick up his own damn wallet, the brown slush on the floor, and the bitch’s lack of compassion—fully encapsulated everything that was wrong with America. Carl could sum it up in a single word: apathy. A man allowing his body to get out of control so badly that he couldn’t bend down. A woman unable to lend a helping hand. A donut worker who couldn’t properly mop a floor. It was all a symptom of the disease of apathy. And the disease was contagious. No one cared for the plight of his fellow man anymore. The rich didn’t care about the poor, the haves couldn’t care less about the have-nots, and the hypocrites in power, or those who perceived themselves to be in positions of power, didn’t give a damn about anyone else.
If you needed examples, there were plenty of them, starting right in Carl’s own backyard in the happy state of Taxachusetts. For instance, Carl couldn’t understand how a guy like Teddy Kennedy could steer his car into a lake, leave that poor girl to drown to death, and get off scot free. How the hell was that even possible in the United States of America? If it had been Carl driving that car he sure as hell would’ve ended up in jail where he’d probably still be today. Instead, rich-boy Teddy gets a free ride and nobody asks two questions about the whole sordid ordeal. How’s that for power not giving a damn.
What this country needed was a reminder of what justice looked like, and how it could be used to even the playing field between the powerful and the powerless.
What this country needed was a man like Carl.
Finally, hippo-man grabbed his wet wallet off the floor and got his extra-large coffee and two cinnamon rolls and a muffin. He waddled past the ungrateful bitch, not once looking up and giving either her or Carl the common courtesy of a look or simple nod. Carl could certainly understand not giving the bitch the time of day, but he hadn’t done anything to deserve such treatment. More evidence of the disease. Carl turned to watch the massive mound of apathetic flesh waddle his way toward the exit, smiling at the prospect of hippo-man getting wedged in the doorway. The guy squeezed through, made it to a car parked in the front-most spot in the lot, and lowered himself just enough to work his flabby flesh in between the steering wheel and the driver’s seat. Carl continued watching as hippo-man set his coffee on the dash, his rolls and muffin on the passenger seat, and started the car. Before he pulled out of the spot, hippo-man glanced up. He appeared to notice Carl watching him, and quickly turned his head away as he backed out of the parking spot. Carl shook his head in disgust. You should turn your head away in shame, mister, thought Carl. I would too after your behavior in here, not to mention the way you’ve let yourself go to hell.
With that thought, Carl grimaced at his cruelty. No…not cruelty. More like cynicism. He’d always been a skeptical man by nature, but lately, even before the thing with Jess and the preacher, he’d found himself turning more and more cynical. More than that, he was becoming downright negative. He’d always been known as the fun-loving guy, the life of the party, the one with the outrageous sense of humor, the one who poked good-natured fun at himself as well as others.
But Carl had changed.
What was the saying? The more things change, the more they stay the same. He’d heard that in a song recently. Carl was changing. He was progressing. The question he now posed to himself was whether or not he was progressing into a person more like his true self, someone he was destined to become. He’d have to ask the preacher what he thought about that. It seemed like a deep thought, one of those philosophical paradoxes religious people like to spout off about. He’d ask the preacher, see what the man of the cloth—more like the man of the three-piece-suit and expensive car—had to say.
Carl turned his attention back toward the front of the store and saw that the ungrateful bitch in front of him had stepped up to the counter. Carl stayed where he was. There was no need to fill in the empty space. Waiting for his turn, he looked out the frost-covered plate glass windows to check on his truck, making sure it was still there and that no one was snooping around it. Of course, it was, and, of course, no one was. Having that gun under the driver’s seat made him more nervous than he thought he’d be.
A black sports car—heck of a car to be driving in winter in New England, Carl thought—pulled into the spot vacated by hippo-man. A couple, probably in their mid-thirties, a few years older than Carl, got out of the car and hurried hand in hand to get inside. Carl smiled at them as they fell in line behind him. They both smiled back.
See? That’s all it took. Perhaps there was hope for America after all.
“May I help you, sir?”
Carl turned toward the counter. The space between him and the counter was empty. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the ungrateful bitch go out the door. Shrugging his shoulders, he faced the woman waiting to take his order.
“Sorry. Yes, you may.” It was such a pleasure to interact with people who understood what the engine of society needed in order to purr like a kitten. Carl smiled at the woman. “Medium regular, and a glazed donut. Please.”
The woman behind the counter smiled, poured his coffee, popped a plastic lid onto the Styrofoam cup, grabbed a donut from the shelf behind her, handed both to Carl, and took his money with a smile.
“Keep the change.” Carl smiled again, nodded, and turned to leave. Common courtesy. That’s all it took. As horrible as Carl’s life had been the past few weeks, and in spite of the plans he had this morning, he still had the presence of mind to show common courtesy to a fellow human being.
“Thanks,” said the woman. “You have yourself a nice day now.”
Carl turned and saluted her with his Styrofoam cup. “I’ll try.” He smiled at the woman, smiled at the sports car couple, and pushed the door open with his backside. “I’ll certainly try.”