The man sits alone at the small table in Juan’s donut shop. Facing the front door, he concentrates on the plain buttermilk donut, dunking it into a burnt-brown ceramic mug of steaming black coffee. His gold-framed Ben Franklin reading glasses rest precariously on the flange of his nose which juts forward like a protective overhanging eave above his upper lip. His eyes focus on the front page of the morning paper in the casual manner of one accustomed to absorbing the lead paragraph and, if interested, quickly scans down the column.

No one knows his age, nor has it ever occurred to anybody to ask. Some days he looks sixty. Other times he might be perceived as forty-five. About him there is the aura of a chameleon. Blending into any conversation, he quickly becomes part of a group he’s barely met.

Each time the bell above the door tinkles to announce a new arrival, he looks up. Sometimes he merely smiles or nods, but more often greets the newcomer in his deep, vibrant baritone, as he does on this particular morning, warming to the arrival of an auburn-haired thirtyish looking woman.

"How’s it goin’?" he asks.

"Fine. How about yourself?" Serious age lines are beginning to form around the corners of Nina’s mouth and eyes.

"Never better. How’s your dad?" Nina’s father is convalescing from a recent stroke.

She expels a heavy sigh. "The doctor says he’s going to have to learn to form words all over again. Strokes do that to folks sometimes, you know. It’s not easy for me. I mean, being the only child and all ..." She inhales slowly before continuing. "... and having my own family to take care of. I do the best I can." She sniffles and opens her purse to look for a tissue. "I think I’m coming down with a cold. God, I hope it don’t turn into the flu."

Lester nods and dunks his roll into the coffee again. "Know what you mean. Get your coffee." He motions to the empty chair across the table. "Sit down here with me. We’ll talk."

She returns to the table with a Styrofoam cup, empties a small waxed container of what looks like half and half, and begins to stir with a slender flat piece of wood resembling a popsicle stick. They engage in quiet trivial conversation. From time to time Lester nods understanding. She shrugs her shoulders, more as a sign of resignation than of despair."Maybe I can be of some help," he says.

She sighs again, brushing back a wisp of wilted hair from her face. Of course, she would be most grateful. He reaches across the table and pats the back of her hand. "Don’t worry so much. I’ll bet he’s going to be just fine. He’s a strong man with an iron will. I know a little something about these things, and I know your father."

"That’s very kind of you, Lester." She hesitates, seeking the right response. "He does like you. I know that. ... but are you sure? He’s a handful. Got a lot of personal pride. I just don’t know if he would ..."

"Sure, I’m sure. What is it? Three or four hours a week?" He chuckles. "I spend that much time just daydreamin’ about tomorrow," he says, his smile still warm and reassuring. The gentle man has once again reached out to somebody, which is his habit ... his nature.

She shakes her head, smiling. "It never ceases to amaze me, Lester ..."

He interrupts. "A busy man always has time for something else. Didn’t anybody ever tell you that? Besides, my grandma used to say that good and bad deeds always come back three times. I can do without the bad." He winks over his reading glasses.

Juan, the owner of the donut shop, a recently naturalized American citizen, doesn’t understand why Lester is so interested in other people, or how he finds the time. Always doing things for total strangers. Juan’s days are fully taken up with business and his own family. He has no spare time. When customers sometimes ask him about Lester, wanting to know what he does for a living, he merely gestures with open palms. "He never talk about that. I don’t ask. Not good for business to ask personal questions."

Lester’s routine is always the same except on Saturday mornings when he comes in, takes a table in the front corner of the donut shop, by the full plate glass window overlooking the small shopping mall, where he waits. He is soon joined by a young blonde man in his early twenties with the build of an athlete.
Their order never varies. Coffee in the burnt-brown ceramic mugs and donuts for the two of them. Plain buttermilk for Lester, glazed for the younger man. For perhaps an hour they engage one another in subdued conversation. On occasion they have disagreements and Lester, contrary to his gentle nature will raise his voice in anger. Yet, they always leave together without so much as a word of goodbye to anyone.

"I think the kid’s his son," says Harry. "A druggie for sure. Runs out of money for dope and who does he hit up? His old man. Who else?"
"How you know that?" asks Juan.

"Simple. Got one just like him." says Harry. "Never see him ‘cept when he runs out of cash for his dope. Drives his mother crazy. I give him a few bucks and he disappears until next time. Dopers. They’re all alike. Know what I mean?"

Juan’s expression reflects his confusion. He does not know what Harry means. He has no such problems. His thirteen year old son, Ricardo wouldn’t do drugs. It never occurs to him that he would.
                                        ***
Lester enters the donut shop at exactly seven-thirty a.m. every day with the morning paper under his arm. On this particular morning Harry, Jenny and Alice, three of Juan’s regulars, sit huddled around a small circular table in animated conversation, all but ignoring their coffee and pastries.
The threesome, discussing last night’s school board meeting, do not look up when the bell above the door signals Lester’s arrival. He nods just the same and goes up to the counter where Juan already has a tray, napkin and buttermilk bar and is busy pouring the steaming coffee into a ceramic mug.

The trio’s voices rise, reflecting their obvious anger.

"I don’t believe it," says Jenny, a frail old lady whose thinness borders on emaciation. "They’ll all be voted out come next election. You can count on that!" Her beak of a nose slices through the air as she bobs her head up and down, satisfied with her profound prediction.

Harry and Alice nod aggressively. At the previous evening’s meeting the board appointed a black woman to fill an open seat. The district has lacked one member since the unexpected sudden death of Jim Saunders from a heart attack last summer. Saunders collapsed at the podium during a heated debate over the virtues of prayer in school. Jim, as he always did, favored prayer. "It’s God’s way," he said. "Man ought to get out of the way!" He had spoken his last words.

Usually someone in the back of the chamber could be relied on to say "Amen" when Jim finished his oration. His debates were always one-sided sermons, since he shouted down his opposition. No "amens" were heard the night Jim Saunders died - at least not out loud.

"I’ll tell you something else," Alice says. "Ain’t no kid of mine goin’ to any school run by a nigger ... and you can take that to the bank!"

"Amen," Harry says, ignoring the obvious fact that Alice is at least thirty years beyond having children in any school. "But we don’t need to bother about that. To tell the truth, I doubt she’ll ever sit through one meeting. For chrissakes, this ain’t no jig-a-boo town. Never has been. Never will be."

"Humph," Jenny grunts, "I don’t know if either one of you’ve been lookin’ further than the end of your noses. They’re crawlin’ in from Los Angeles like cockroaches." She expels a blast of what was supposed to be laughter, but comes out sounding more like a strangling cackle. When her bulging torso ceases to quake, she continues. "I saw one today at the super market. Had a whole litter in tow. Musta been six little black walnuts with her. Couldn’t tell one from tuther."

"I’m not blind," Harry says. "I see ‘em, too."

"And," Jenny continues, "ploppin’ out them food stamps like she owned the United States Govermint."

"Got that many kids," says Alice, "and you got lots of food stamps. Bet they’re eatin’ high on the hog, to boot!"

Jenny throwing her head back, lapses back into another convulsive explosion, tears streaming down her fat jowls, says, "Didn’t get that close to them sweetie," her massive body now rumbling with side splitting laughter, rattling the cups on the table. "I got a sensitive nose."

The three of them break into rolling gales of laughter. Juan, behind the counter, frowns but says nothing. Lester’s head is buried in the morning newspaper. He studies the new school board member’s face on the front page.

Except for Juan’s look of displeasure, the rollicking threesome might just as well be all alone in the donut shop.