The Finishers: Overnight at Sweetwater's Donut Mill | Rough Draft

     A single bell chimes, reverberating through the empty shop. Ceramic coffee mugs, 30th anniversary travel thermoses and plush bears with dopey faces look down from their perches, sitting high above the glistening glazed donuts. 

     At 3:12am, a magenta truck pulls up to the drive-thru.  His face obscured by shadow, a forty-something wearing a trucker hat nudges his scruffy chin out the window, his voice full of sleep. 

     “Gimme two Bostons.”

     Mary Schwarts knows this regular. He’s part of the night-time crowd, the ones just ending their days closer to dawn than dusk. Three or four times a week she works the night shift, 10am-6am, filling 170 dozen boxes of donuts for the morning pick-up, re-stocking over fifty flavors all while working the counter and the drive-thru. She’s gotten good at it after working at eight different donut places, but she says Sweetwater’s is the best of them all. 

     She climbs a salmon-colored step-stool covered in crumbs—donut carnage—and reaches for the Boston creams on the top shelf. 

     “Hey hon, I’m sorry” truck man said, “I forgot my wallet. Gonna go.”

     Mary doesn’t hesitate. She stuffs the donuts into a single waxy bag. 

     “You can pay tomorrow. We know you’re good for it.” 

     Sweetwater’s Donut Mill opened in Kalamazoo in 1983 on Stadium drive and quickly added two additional locations over the next six years. They’re known for their classic treats, both yeast and cake varieties, but they also have famous apple fritters, Piña Colada muffins, a pistachio muffin that looks like the Hulk is bursting forth from it’s neon-batter insides, cherry cordials and hundreds of donut holes. While their local ingredient, all-from scratch recipes attract the masses, their 24 hour service keeps the place breathing while the rest of the city sleeps. 

     During the day, the donut mill fills with flocks of hungry visitors.  But overnight, a select group makes their way to the haven of fried goods and cheap coffee.  Late night custodial workers, truckers, pizza and Jimmy Johns delivery guys, pregnant women, Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College students, high kids from Menna’s next door and regulars who come in every night for a quick chat and a long-john mill in and out, and Mary knows all of them. 

     “I don’t know why, but I know when to say good morning to someone and good night to another person. You learn how to read people.”

     At 2:12am, a guy walks in wearing a “You Mad, Bro?” T-shirt, camo shorts and a Detroit Tigers hat, followed by a larger guy with a buzz cut and baggy jeans and a sweatshirt that says “Roll me a fatty” on the small of his back.  The first orders a grasshopper, a new flavor, neon-mint colored and flavored frosting with a coating of chocolate chips and chocolate drizzle atop a chocolate cake donut. The second, two sugar raised. 

     They sit on the park bench seats next to the windows for a second before deciding to take the donuts to go. 

     Mary wipes her hands on the front of her Sweetwater’s Western shirt. She got it as a gift last year from the shop so that she could promote both the University and the donut mill.  She tucks her dark hair back into a bun with a thick black head-band keeping her bangs back.  Her shimmery purple eye shadow glimmers like the four diamond studs on her ears. The thick stitching on her jeans matches the powdered sugar donuts. 

     “I’ve been wanting to try this one.”

     Mary grabs a raspberry jelly frosted with white fluff, rips it in half and bites into the filling. 

     “It’s just okay,” she said, taking one small second bite from the cake before throwing both halves in the trash.  

     Mary says working alone at night gets exhausting. Between 10pm and 6am she’s the only one working the front of the house. There are usually two or three people working in the back, a cleaner and a fryer.  The finishers, the ones who glaze, frost, sprinkle and stuff the donuts don’t get in until later, around fiver or six in the morning. 

     She also works at Tim Hortons and attends Western as a full-time student studying to be a teacher in Family and Consumer Science—the updated version of Home Economics.  Her favorite donut had been the chocolate cloud, a yeast donut filled with white fluff and a chocolate glaze, but has recently been replaced by the s’more, a chocolate cake donut topped with marshmallow fluff and a graham cracker sprinkle. 

Ron, the cleaning guy wears a weight bearing belt to help his crooked back. His handle bar mustache and pony-tail dangle over the sink. He’s pissed someone left mop water in the back and yells something to Mary, but she just shrugs. 

“Everyone is really great, but midnights bring out a lot of creeps.” 

Mary usually feels safe, and emphasizes that she’s never felt vulnerable at the store, but sometimes she feels uncomfortable.  

“This one guy, I think he watches girls on his computer while he’s in here, but I’m not sure.  People are nice but they leave and you’re like holy crap, this guy could abduct me.”

     Mary doesn’t want to talk about it, but she does think the sexual attention she gets in the store gets really old.  A customer who comes in playing with an orange lanyard asks her teasingly  if she likes bananas.  She has a consistent defense, a quick eye roll and then asks if they’d like coffee. 

     “I take advantage of being the only girl so much.”

     Ron comes back out from the back. No one has entered the store for awhile, but the door chime still hums slightly. Ron walks over to the sink next to the ‘90s cappuccino machine. 

     “Whatcha doing? Washing your hands?”

     Ron shrugs and dries his hands on a brown paper towel. 

     “We don’t do that kind of thing here” Mary said before turning around to refill the buttermilks. 

     “But I’m kidding of course.”

Word Count: 1016

Intended Publication: Second Waves or a Kalamazoo branch of Maggie Kane's overnight radio series.