Veterans Day Special
Guy Choate
I try to stay away from doughnuts now that I’m 36 years old and my metabolism has all but abandoned me, but I’m a veteran and it’s Veterans Day and if certain doughnut chains are patriotic enough to give me a free doughnut, I feel like I should be patriotic enough to show up and eat it. A doughnut—much like freedom—generally isn’t free. But it is today. So, I put my 17-month-old son Gus in his carseat and we drive 15 miles across town to the closest Krispy Kreme. There are multiple doughnut-selling establishments much closer to our house, but part of the modern day veteran experience is about not paying for the doughnut, even if the gas required to get me there retails for more than the doughnut itself. I don’t know the psychology behind it, but I know the feeling to be true.
A young woman stands over the see-through doughnut display case. She asks what she can get for us.
“Do you guys have a Veterans Day special?” I ask. But of course, I know they do. I looked it up before leaving the house. I’ve been planning it all week, if not since last year. USA Today and a dozen other media outlets publish an annual list of the national food chains that give freebies to veterans on Veterans Day.
“Veterans get a doughnut of their choice and a small coffee,” the Krispy Kreme clerk says. I imagine this is exactly the language her manager used in her explanation earlier this morning. “Are you a veteran?” she asks.
“I am.”
I am ready to pull out my wallet to show her my Arkansas driver’s license, which says VETERAN in all caps on it. That’s a new thing. I had to show them my original DD 214—the document that categorizes my military service—at the DMV in order to get that label on my license, which was kind of a hassle, but it beats carrying around the printed sheet of paper I used to carry with me on Veterans Day that was a picture of me in uniform deployed to Bosnia in 2003, as a 21-year-old. I printed it straight from Facebook, which degraded the quality of the image so I kind of looked like a blob of green camouflage with a face.
The woman at Krispy Kreme doesn’t ask me for identification. She goes straight to asking me which doughnut I’d like.
“I can get any doughnut I want?” My surprise strikes doubt in the young woman, who looks to her coworker behind the cash register for confirmation.
He nods.
I choose the Bavarian crème-filled long john and waive the coffee. She puts my doughnut in a white paper sack, then throws in a few doughnut holes for Gus, despite his not having served the country. He seems to be enamored with the whole experience on a pretty basic level. The commercial transaction itself captivates him.
These strangers have given us food in a bag in exchange for something I did 14 years before his birth. He probably thinks we are in this woman’s home. We are sitting at her table—without her—and putting on her novelty vintage-style paper hats.
As I loaded him into my truck this morning, I worried about Gus ingesting fried dough glazed with sugar—it’s not exactly food that encourages healthy growth—but the boy only shows mild interest in the pinches I give him anyway. He is still plagued with trying to understand the functional attributes of restaurant commerce. At one point, I turn his high chair completely away from the table so he can more easily watch the people coming in and out of the store and their interactions with the Krispy Kreme staff. I’m blown away that he’s ignoring the doughnuts. At school they call him Gus the Hungry Bus because he will eat until he bursts at every meal.
Since he isn’t even looking at them, I quickly pop a couple of his doughnut holes into my mouth, but stop short of eating them all because Dunkin’ Donuts is just a couple of miles away and they have a Veterans Day special too.
When we get there, I carry Gus in and set him on the counter while I survey the doughnuts. They have the same options that Krispy Kreme offered, but they call them different things. I tell myself I will take this new doughnut to Liz, because I don’t need the calories or sugar or something, but I’m unsure of her favorite flavor. We don’t eat doughnuts together ever since we stopped working in the same office, and even then, someone just brought a dozen glazed, so I know she likes those. But I’m not going to waste a Veterans Day choice on a plain doughnut—I didn’t give six years of my life for a simple, glazed doughnut. I go with the Boston Crème, then carry Gus back out to the truck, where we sit for a moment. I’m behind the wheel and he’s in the back in his carseat. I text Liz, who is studying at her mother’s house for an upcoming nursing school exam. I ask her if I can bring her the doughnut. I think it might be romantic. She texts back and says she doesn’t like cream-filled doughnuts. I am blown away at how little I know about the woman I married. We share a child.
Not far from where we are parked, a homeless man and woman rest against a tree. I consider giving them the brown bag with the doughnut in it, but when they suddenly erupt into an argument that seems to have the potential to get violent, I decide to go surprise friends with the doughnut instead. I want to share what I have earned—my sacrifice—with someone. But they are out of town, so I drive to my sister’s house, where I discover her family has apparently already gone to church. And so Gus and I take the doughnut home with us. I recommit to myself that I will not eat the doughnut. We have a long day of eating ahead of us and the problem of what food industry executives refer to as “the fixed stomach,” and economists call “inelastic demand,” is very real.
*
Gus is still taking his nap at 11am when I’d like to be sitting down at BJ’s Brewhouse, eating a free Veterans Day lunch. My plan was to eat an early lunch at BJ’s, then a late one at Chili’s, but as his nap creeps closer and closer to noon, I realize I’m going to have to abandon the plan I’ve had set more or less since last November.
By the time Liz and I click Gus into his carseat, it’s well after noon and the parking lot at BJ’s is already packed with vehicles displaying military license plates and decals—combat ribbon stickers, oversized unit patches, scaled outlines of C-130s. One jacked-up truck showcases that crude sticker of Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes fame) pissing on the word ISIS—the juxtaposition appears to be homemade. Inside the restaurant, the room is full of men and women who move with that unmistakable military confidence. Lower enlisted families with young children are scattered throughout the restaurant. They mostly wear t-shirts that feature some distorted version of the American flag. That distortion has become the symbol of the modern patriotic movement. The image suggests these patriots are in the midst of a revolution and not sitting safely in a restaurant in self-proclaimed God’s country where they are literally getting a free lunch. It feels like the intent of these variations on our country’s flag is to celebrate the countless battlefield stars and stripes that combat has repeatedly threatened, but never conquered on a large scale. These t-shirt images are meant to pay homage to the American flags raised at Iwo Jima or the ones still standing after Pickett’s Charge. But the artist has drastically missed the mark. These new flags appear too synthetic to have an actual appreciation or even a vague understanding of American history. They are the auto-tuned version of the Star-Spangled Banner and if you ask me, our veterans deserve better from those responsible for mass-marketing to us. No one has ever asked, though, and the successful proliferation of the adulterated flag within military communities makes me think no one will ever have a desire to. The new patriotism is selling well.
The hostess tells us the wait will be 35 minutes. Liz gives me a look that says trying to keep our son happy for that long before we even get to the table might be too much for us to endure, but I tell the hostess we’ll wait. These colors don’t run, I whisper to Gus.
“I’d hate to get Gus loaded back up and we drive somewhere else and find out the wait will be just as long,” I say to Liz. “Maybe something will come open sooner.” Nevermind that we’re at fucking BJ’s Brewhouse and could go to a local establishment without a wait that we would enjoy more anyway—it’s not about that. Today is about something bigger. It’s about validation of the choice I made as a teenager to put my life at risk in exchange for a $3,000 signing bonus spaced out into three payments over six years. And then taxed. Or something like that.
This is our third Veterans Day together. The day before our first, I sent Liz my agenda.
Bar Louie to split an entrée for lunch or dinner today.
IHOP for breakfast in the morning at 7, before the lines form.
Cantina Laredo to split an entrée for lunch at 11:30.
Swing by Great Clips to pick up the free haircut card after lunch.
Late afternoon, swing by Sport Clips for a free haircut.
Hit Meineke for the free oil change.
Hit Splash for the free car wash.
Then it’s your call on dinner. I know you favor Golden Corral—for good reason—but in years past the lines have been crazy long, so maybe BJ’s Brewhouse? Or we run back the Bar Louie situation? I dunno.
(Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt for after-dinner free yogurt is something to think about.)
If you want to try and 4th meal…I’m not saying it’s off the table.
GET HYPED.
That was before we had Gus, before we were married. We were still beginning to learn each other and we “got hyped” about doing anything together. In regard to item #8 on the agenda, Liz had only been to Golden Corral once before, when I took her. I think she described it as “Not as bad as I thought it would be.”
I’ve made an agenda in my head for this Veterans Day, but I don’t share it with her because her potential for getting hyped about spending an entire day dropping into local nationwide food franchises where she would rather not see people with whom she graduated high school doesn’t appeal to her as much as it did when we first started dating. Understandably, she would rather pay full price for a good meal than have to wait 35 minutes to get a fair meal at a discounted price. But we’re married, and she loves me, and she knows Veterans Day means something weird to me. So she waits without complaint.
Our table is ready in five minutes, despite the promised wait.
“Do you have a Veterans Day special?” I ask the waiter. Asking is a formality, of course, but it adds a level of humility that doesn’t exist when I simply tell them, “I’m here to eat for free,” which they interpret as, “I won’t be tipping.” (For the record, I tip appropriately, based on the pre-discounted check.)
“You get a free entrée up to $12.95,” the server explains.
I do my best to look genuinely engaged. Like I’m interested in the “new” information he has given me.
“Or if you want something more expensive, we’ll just put $12.95 against the cost of that entrée.”
“Oh!” I say. “That’s nice.”
I order the Fire-Roasted Barbacoa Chicken, which is exactly $12.95, which is exactly why I am ordering it, to maximize the monetary value of my payoff.
While we wait for our food, we do our best to entertain Gus in his high chair. The server brings him crayons and a colorless, kids-themed BJ’s Brewhouse advertisement to draw on. As each crayon inevitably hits the floor, Liz hides it.
“These floors are filthy,” she says.
It feels good to be out and about as a family on this Sunday afternoon. In fact, it feels for a moment like one of the real holidays, albeit one that none of our extended family celebrates. Or our neighbors. It’s just a day that our little family of three and a range of commercial establishments share, but it feels for a moment like that’s enough. Neither Liz nor I have work or school to run off to. We want to prolong the day. To keep spending time with each other the way people should on holidays.
“We should go do something fun when we leave here,” Liz says. “I wish it wasn’t so cold so we could go to the park.”
“Yeah, we should go do something,” I say. “Until we’re hungry again.”
The decline of the traditional suburban shopping mall has forced mall property owners to get creative with their real estate, which is why you see restaurants like BJ’s Brewhouse cropping up in unused mall parking lots. Liz and I haven’t been to the mall down the street from our house together more than a handful of times. We decide we’ll be able to treat it like an indoor park, a safe place for Gus to run around.
Liz gets excited about looking at shoes. We make a brief dip into Dillard’s, but otherwise avoid actually entering any stores so as to minimize the possibility of our son breaking something we will be forced to buy. He likes walking the wide hallways of the mall and when he shows an interest, we put him in a coin-operated Flintstone Car kiddie ride. He has so much fun turning the steering wheel back and forth that we see no reason to insert coins. I’m reminded of my own frugal childhood. During the few times when I remember my parents ponying up the quarter to make the ride actually turn on, it did nothing much more than disappoint with its lack of capabilities.
When we ask Gus if he’s ready to go home, he shakes his head violently, but eventually we pull him from the ride and we walk to my truck.
“We have to go home so we can get hungry again,” I tell him.
*
Liz is reluctant to take our toddler to an establishment with the word bar in its name, but she relaxes a little when the hostess tells us they indeed have high chairs available, meaning that at least one parent somewhere in the past has thought that Bar Louie is not an altogether inappropriate place for a one-year-old. It’s not that we’re uncomfortable drinking alcohol around Gus, but we’ve both been bar frequenters way longer than we’ve been parents, so we’re still figuring out what is socially acceptable behavior on this side of the divide.
“Do you have a Veterans Day special?” I ask our server, who is so far removed from children that she asks if Gus—who has only been walking for a few months—needs a menu. As much as Liz and I love Gus, we agree it would be nice to be taken back to a time in our lives when we too might’ve not known the difference between a one-year-old wearing a bib and a five-year-old toting a copy of Green Eggs and Ham. Even for just a day.
“I’m thinking about getting a bloody mary,” I say.
“YAAASSSSSS,” Liz says.
We sip at our savory vodka drinks and try to keep Gus engaged by sliding his clear plastic pacifier case around the table. When it hits the floor, Liz makes a groaning noise—grrrrrr—and slyly tucks the case into Gus’s diaper bag.
He reaches for a straw. We are out of other options, so we give him the straw, but keep him on a short leash with it. We don’t know what he is capable of with this new choking device.
My Veterans Day discount has gotten us a Thai Chicken Flatbread to split—yes, drill sergeant! But whoever made it went crazy with the peanut sauce, and the flatbread is nearly too salty to eat. I want another cocktail, but Gus has lost interest in the straw and it won’t be long until we’re out of plain flatbread crust to give him, so I ask for the check.
Maybe a change of venue will give him the forbearance he needs to be our chaperone. This day is the closest thing Liz and I have had to a date in months.
We make the two-minute drive across the avenue to Chili’s, where there is a line at the host stand. The hostess says it could be 45 minutes before we get a table, and we wouldn’t wait, but there’s a Barnes & Noble next door and the hostess says she’ll text me when our table’s ready.
At the bookstore, I follow Liz and Gus to the children’s section, where they peel stickers from a sheet that’s been laid out—free for the taking, regardless of service to the country—on one of the tables. Gus puts the stickers on his mother’s face and laughs. He finds the act more and more funny the more he repeats it. He picks up stuffed animals and carries them around until something else draws his attention. He runs to my arms and I pick him up. When I do, I catch the unmistakable smell of what we in our house refer to as “poo-poo.”
I work better under pressure in strange diaper-changing environments than Liz, so I carry him to the men’s restroom, and let down the Koala Kare changing table, which looks to be on its last leg. I don’t feel comfortable putting Gus on it. He’s kicking at the very idea of it. We forgot to put wipes in the bag. Nothing is going as it should. I carry him back to the sales floor without changing his diaper.
“Let’s just take him home,” I tell Liz.
When I get the automated text from Chili’s, I respond that we won’t be needing the table they’ve reserved us. Liz can tell that altering my Veterans Day plan again has deflated me. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it is. I don’t exactly know why. Maybe it has something to do with my inability to enjoy the benefits of what I’ve earned. If this is a country in the midst of a misguided patriotic resurgence, I want the baby back ribs I am due. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just tired of not being able to come and go as I please because I have a kid now. I went 35 years without one, so it’s reasonable that there should be a transition period for my new lifestyle, just like the Army told me there would be a transition period for my return home after deployment. There’s always a transition period.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to enjoy all your Veterans Day meals,” Liz says.
“It’s okay,” I tell myself as much as I’m telling her. Because it should be okay. I know that.
We sit for a few moments in silence as we drive down the road, away from the slew of chain restaurants who want to give me their mediocre food in exchange for the times I left my family for training over and over again, and the time I left to go try not to step on landmines, or get blown up when my drunken Russian counterparts rolled a bomb off the back of a truck into a hole where I stood, or the time I wondered if I should shoot the local civilian emphatically spouting a language as he rushed my battle buddy the first time we ventured outside the wire, or the times my heart broke when I visited the orphanages full of children whose parents had been slaughtered as part of a mass genocide.
“How about we go to Mom’s, give him a bath, and then after we put him down, if you still want to go do your Veterans Day thing, you can.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Of course,” Liz says. “I know how much it means to you.”
“Thank you,” I say. I reach across the console and place my hand on her leg.
Army Public Affairs Veteran Guy Choate has published essays in War, Literature, & the Arts, Hobart, and Cream City Review, among other places. He earned his MFA from The University of New Orleans, but now he directs the Argenta Reading Series in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he lives with his wife and their sons. Guy wrote “Veterans Day Special” to help him reconcile how he perceives his role in the country’s military with how the country perceives that role—viewpoints that often vary. You can find him and his book GAS! GAS! GAS! online at guychoate.com.