When the convoy drivers come home from Iraq, and when the world more comes to know the sweet and coursing water that is Krispy Kreme, the contractadors of Halliburton will pilot the doughnut trucks.

Only then will the glazed fabric of life and dough be safe from the masses rampaging at the roadsides and intersections. The crowds will charge and fire and drool, but the drivers will not be impeded. Neither snow nor rain nor Hell will stop the green-and-red trucks from their appointed rounds; the drivers know there will be safe harbor and a cup of coffee on the other end. Doughnut people treat doughnut people right.

Such high standards have always brought me to doughnut people. Growing up, I'd read about Homer Price and his doughnut machine. There were other aspects to his stories – bizarre ones, like his massive ball of twine or his Levittown troubles – but that machine was what held my attention. It churned out so many doughnuts that the people of the town didn't know what to do with them. Looking back, maybe part of the problem was a lack of glaze. Drawings of these doughnuts showed them to be long and doughy, like spaghetti-os in enlarged and fatty and doughnut form. Who would eat those?

Getting a little older, I found myself falling for doughnut girls. One year in high school, I dated Tim Horton's daughter Sue (yes, Horton rears a Sue) and both of Mister Doughnut's twin teens, Dephelia and Daphne Doughnut. My friends teased me about them a little bit, but I deserved as much for dating into an industry so suggestive. There was a lot to be said for trading grammar for vocabulary. In stickier situations.

But what brought me where I was this morning was a sort of conversion. A slow but evident grasping of steps known and unexpected, all first initiated by outside forces yet then taken, convected and served out to the waiting.

I grew in time to appreciate but be able to resist the doughnut girls. They got all low-carb and crazy, and I felt like I hardly knew them anymore. So I took my filling shooter and sprinkle shaker and headed on down the way was sun was falling.

When the warmth rose again, I was standing at a crossroads. Along came a green-and-red truck flying from the fields and I blocked its path. The driver rolled down his window and I introduced myself as the Devil.

He squinted and I gave him more. I was the Desperate Devil, I told him.

"Desperate Devil," said the driver, "would you like a doughnut?"

"I'm not really the Devil," I told him.

"I figured as much," said the driver. "The desperate need the doughnuts most of all."

Climbing into the cab that day, I knew my life was changing, and in many ways I already knew the changes were for the better. These doughnuts were ones for the asking. They ran as far as they could, and when they ran out you'd never doubt whether they'd return. With so many things in life needing a fight, these doughnuts were a part of life where you could find peace. Not that they wouldn't require a struggle every now and then, of course – all good things do. But they would most times provide for easy consumption, the kind where glaze would drip onto your fingers and you wouldn't worry a thought.

That desire had me on the highway early this morning to Nags Head's lone Krispy Kreme outlet, conveniently adjoining the Grits Grill in the strip mall down the main drag. I ordered the Kiss My Grits special at the Grill ("NO GRITS NO GLORY") – two pancakes with the butter packets melting on top, some strips of bacon, a bowl of grits and some scrambled eggs. I got my grits done with the "gourmet" style they touted in their menu. They melted cheddar cheese on top. They also did up my eggs with the cheddar and apologized, but that was no problem. I'd walked in there carrying the latest issue of the New Yorker among the early-risers; I had no room to criticize.

The extra flavor too helped cover the dishwasher taste of my orange juice. At 6:30 in the morning, accommodations needed to match the rising sun for degrees. All the folks working were pleasant enough where that was easily done. Over by the Krispy Kremes, they were the same. Did early smiling come from not having to leave the beach at the end of the week or weekend? I didn't know, but they were wearing their doughnut gloves and standing by smiling as a family pulled dozens of doughnuts out with bare hands.

I maneuvered around the family, got my dozen and returned to the highway. Half an hour earlier, the green-and-red truck driver from Virginia Beach would have done the same. I imagined where that driver would go next, maybe over to the mainland and Elizabeth City or back north to the Tidewater. As I ate, the driver would be making the appointed rounds, covering the long bridges between the islands and never doubting a person or two would be waiting at the crossroads.

"Desperate Devils," the driver might say, and they would know they had found a gift and not a trade.

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