The Art of Eating In - Cathy Erway [45]
The bright neon storefront was still open. Late-night customers streamed in and out with coffee cups and crumpled white bags bearing the chain’s pink-and-orange logo. just outside, a small cluster of black garbage bags had already been laid on the curb. I was amazed at how invisible we seemed to passersby just then. The whole time we had been scavenging the trash at the gourmet grocery, I’d notice passersby glance our way every now and then. It was nearing ten o’clock, and many people looked like they were dressed up to go out for drinks or dinner. (By comparison, we looked more like bums, toting around a granny cart filled with trash, getting twisted in our plastic bags.) I didn’t see a single person stop to look at us for longer than a second before walking on by, their culture barely brushing against that of the freegans.
The first bag we opened was filled with doughnuts and muffins. Most were sticking together in an unsightly fashion—a lot of the doughnuts were frosted—but the plentiful munchkins inside the bag looked just as intact as they would have on the store’s racks. Two of the girls on the tour began collecting these. They’d be good as dessert for tomorrow’s dinner, someone suggested. I thought about taking a few to pop in my lunch bag for tomorrow. Sure, the glazed ones wouldn’t have quite the same chewiness as they had today, and the cake doughnuts would dry out to hardened nuggets. I watched the girls handpick the munchkins and drop them one by one into clear plastic bags. I declined taking one for the moment, lost suddenly in a sharp memory.
The summer between my junior and senior years in high school, my three best girlfriends and I made three remarkable discoveries. The first was that we could pull back and crawl underneath the wire mesh fence of the town swimming pool for a clandestine midnight dip. Second, we possessed a feminine attraction that could turn older guys into our minions for almost anything—giving us rides, getting us beer, and other shenanigans. My best friend, for instance, was five and a half feet of Indian American diva, with extra-long wavy hair that framed her curvy features. Our nights were filled with adventure. In something of an antecedent to number two, our third discovery that summer was that the Dunkin’ Donuts in downtown South Orange gave away free doughnuts just before closing at eleven P.M.
I remember the first night we walked into the Dunkin’ Donuts store a minute before eleven oclock. We had gone in only to use the pay phone, which the lone store attendant had kindly let us use even after he explained he was about to close the shop, taking the cash drawers out of the registers. After one of us had finished the call, we turned to face the glowing, fluorescent racks of doughnuts. Collectively, we seemed to be wondering, “Are you going to eat that?” as we stared longingly at the treats. The store attendant in the white paper Dunkin’ Donuts hat followed our stare for a moment and smiled.
“Lemon filled, blueberry cake, chocolate frosted,” we began calling out.
“Boston cream, a French cruller, apple streudel.” We didn’t really want all that many doughnuts, I guessed, but the idea that he was giving them to us completely free was somewhat thrilling.
The attendant snapped open one small white paper bag after another, filling them with our picks. We pointed and deliberated behind the counter. By the time we were finished choosing, he’d given us at least one of every single type of doughnut left on the shelf. We’d cleared the racks down to the last dozen pastries. The attendant seemed to have somewhat limited English skills, but we left that night carrying several bags filled to the brim with doughnuts, and it wouldn’t be the last time.