I Don't Have Anything But Turkey

A Random Meeting Scores Me Some Doughnuts

When I ran across Brad (at least that’s what his name tag said) I was the only customer at his little deli/gas station in Inlet, NY. Mud season in the Adirondacks is a lot like mud season in the Whites - cold, misty, empty, cheap.

I’d just come down from Bald Mountain, my knee was aching, and I was hungry. Brad’s little deli board listed a very fine number of opportunities - chicken fingers, pizza, burgers.

“Deli running?” I asked.

“Sure is,” Brad said happily, but then added, “course I don’t have anything.” He laughed.

“What?”

“Actually, that’s not true. I have turkey. Want a turkey sub, I can make that.”

“Pizza?”

He shook his head. “Tourist season is still a few weeks away, tough times, tough times right now.”

I picked out a few snacks, and he and I chatted about the weather, the mountains, the trails. The empty shelves. The fact that he only had turkey.

But on my way out, he laughed again for no reason. “Hey, you know what though, you like doughnuts?”

“Do I!”

His little deli received homemade sugar doughnuts from a nearby bakery every morning and he had a few left over being late in the day. “Take ‘em,” he said. “On account of my only having turkey.”

They were, I dare say, some of the finest doughnuts I’d ever eaten.