Donut Novel

By Refried Bean

This is a short novel about a donut shop that turns into a magical art museum full of imaginary cartoon mice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Refried Bean
• Release date: May 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463811795

Refried Bean

Refried Bean is from Greenville, SC. Refried worked in a bookstore for twelve years and has an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Refried now lives in the Bronx near a Stop and Shop.

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Donut Novel

by Refried Bean

Donut Novel

By Refried Bean

Copyright 2019 by Refried Bean

Distributed by Smashwords, Inc.

a rudimentary book for friends of rodents

Acknowledgements

Thank you, Crystal Wilkinson and Connie May Fowler.

Thank you, Jody Gladding and Jen Bervin and the Visual Poetry Workshop.

Thank you to all my friends and teachers from Converse College and USC.

Thank you Byrnes, Irmo, Greenville Tech, and Eastside.

Thank you Xavier Mission, Middlechurch, and PTS.

Thank you to Linda and friends from Caroline’s Comedy School in NYC.

Thank you Job Path, Colson Patisserie, and NY Common Pantry.

Thanks to Fine Fare, Park View, and CVS.

Thank you New York Presbyterian and Materials for the Arts.

Thanks also to Mental Health America and Youthbase.

This novel is 33333 words.

1

Hi everyone. I hope y’all are doing okay. I am doing okay. I am happy because I am going to take care of my friend’s birds while she is on vacation and I think while I am there I will be able to pour a box of cereal on my head.  I think that will make me feel better about things.

I still don’t have a job yet but I applied to the donut place and I think I have a good chance of working there as long as they don’t call the reference from the high school where I taught.  I taught art there for one year right after I graduated college, and frankly, I think I did pretty good, but some of our guerilla art projects caused a disturbance I guess.  Some people throw around words like vandalism and graffiti a little too freely, I think, but maybe some things just aren’t meant to be.

I think at the donut shop I wouldn’t bother anyone. I think I would just make a lot of donuts and sell them to people.  It is true that I could mess it up..   Running donut making machines actually is a good amount of responsibility.  And it will be hard not to give away donuts.  It will be hard not to tell people they are the one millionth customer and box up all the donuts, give them away, and call it a day.

If I get the job, will I move out of my parents' house?  I don’t know.  I don’t know if I will be able to or not.  It might be good to save money, because there is a secret project that I want to save money for.  It is a project that me and some other guys talked about in college.  But I haven’t talked to them in a while, and I know it is up to me.  But I don’t know how much longer I can live with the bad people.

2

Guess what everyone?  I got the donut job! I don’t get to run the machines yet, but they said I might be able to do that eventually.  Like maybe even overnight shifts someday.  So that would be cool.   For now I am a team member, which means I will mostly be filling orders and working at the front counter. 

Today was my first day.  I got there, wearing a blue shirt, because that is what they told us we had to wear.  Alfred, the training manager, was behind the counter talking to another employee—a girl who had a streak of blue in her hair and looked about my age.  Her blue shirt said Tony’s on it, which was the name of a pizza place down the street.  I thought that was pretty funny.

Hi, I said.

Are you Roger? asked Alfred.  Yes, I said.  But my friends call me Chicken McNugget. 

Well let’s put 'Chicken' on your name tag, Mr. McNugget, said Alfred.  I’ll get you a nametag when you fill out your paperwork.  Right now it’s time for a donut if you want one.

Yeah, definitely, I said.  Chocolate glazed. 

The girl in the Tony’s pizza shirt opened the glass case and said I’ll get it.

Alfred said to me, This is Tonya.  She’s new, too, and she’s getting trained today, too.

Tonya handed me a chocolate glazed donut in a thin paper and said My friends call me Egg McMuffin.

I smiled inside and out and felt happy at my new job.  The whole day was like that. Alfred forced us each to eat three donuts, he taught us how to run the cash register and the slushie machines, and we spent two hours in the breakroom doing paperwork and talking. I think I will like this job.   

I am also taking care of the birds right now.  It is mostly easy, but I have to give one of the birds medicine twice a day with a dropper, and sometimes he tries to fly away.  But just now after I gave him his medicine, he sat on my shoulder instead of flying away, and he is still there as I type this on my laptop. I’m about to eat some cereal, and I don’t think I will be pouring any on my head.           

3

Hi everyone, it's me again. A lot has happened since I last wrote in this journal. I have now been working at the donut shop for a whole week. I am happy because really I think I am good at making donuts. I have a vision for it every day. I want to make yummy donuts and then I do.

Something else good that has happened is that me and Tonya who I told you about have decided to start a union. On my third day there, she said, Have you noticed that we don't get paid in gold coins? And I said I actually didn't notice, but of course some kind of pouch of gold coins would have been great. And she said and did you know they have secret shoppers that check to see if we are doing our jobs right? I said, Yeah, they told me that, and I think it is tricky and wrong and against everything donuts stand for. And then Tonya said have you noticed that sometimes the scraps get wasted? I said, Well at least the donuts don't get wasted, but yeah, scraps are something. Then I said, I like scraps a lot, and then I put some of the scraps in my pocket. You know just like that with no paper or anything, I started putting scraps in my pocket, and Tonya laughed, and put some scraps up her sleeve, and said Let's start a union. And I said Yeah. And then we started passing out scraps and asking people if they wanted to be in our union. We let customers be in our union, and we asked our boss if he wanted to be in our union.  He is the manager of the whole store, and he shook my hand and said, Yeah, I'll be in your union, and you can trust me to the very end. And then he said, But donuts do not have ends. Donuts are forever. There were several customers in the seating area when he said that, and it was very quiet, because everyone knew that it was true. 

4

Today at the donut place, Tonya and I cracked the code on not wasting scraps. We have decided to create a giant donut glob every day and then choose a winner from the customers. We squished up all the scraps and our first winner was a little kid who laughed when he saw it in the bake case, so of course, we told him that he was the winner and we handed the giant scrap glob to his dad. It was a great moment, and I think all of the future winners will be just as happy and just as surprised. The only real risk is how all the customers might want the scrap globs and then we might not be able to sell the donuts. Alfred is okay with our promotion so far and he gave us each a glob of one dollar bills to thank us for caring about doing the best we can.

5

Hi everyone, I am home right now and the bad people are bothering me but I am working on a little project and I am going to see if Tonya wants to help me with it. It is that project I mentioned before, and my idea is to make there be an art museum full of art displays that all look like they are from different artists but really I will make them all myself and create biographies for all the artists, too, and maybe even make some portraits and self portraits of them and then give tours of the museum. I think it will be pretty funny. I have a running list of the art projects I might do. I think I am going to show Tonya the list and see what she thinks. Here it is if you want to see it:

Art Ideas:

Hamster tunnel sculptures

Abstract art with really specific titles

Giant plaids made out of small things, possibly creatures but maybe 3d toys or something

Maybe plaids made out of plaids or patterns like that infinite or something

Food stain exhibit

Diaramas

Something where scale is messed with and small things are made big and they are interacting with big things made small

What about some kind of art with a money theme.

Scenes made out of preschool crafts, giant scenes

Straight jacket exhibit with different straightjackets representing different people

A photography idea think of something

mascot ideas or mascot art

Stuffed animal art

Videos of something from the donut shop donut shop interviews.

Mosaic of photos guess what person did what, or match the news story to the photo contest

Quiz art