Written for Two

Cedar Valley News
May 26, 2026
The Third Stool From the Door
By George Khan

A woman came in this morning at seven and ordered a half sandwich. She has been ordering the half for about a year. She used to order the whole. She paid in singles and a small handful of change and put the change in the jar by the register. She did not count it. I wrapped the sandwich and said the same thing I say every Tuesday and she said the same thing back. She works two part-time jobs now. She used to work one.

I read the news before I opened. I read it standing at the slicer with the lights still off in the front of the deli. Matt Frantzen, the president of UAW Local 1268 in Belvidere, Illinois, has been writing the same update to his members for three years and three months. The Stellantis plant has been silent since February 2023. About a thousand workers were laid off in the final round. In October the company told the union the plant would reopen in 2027. In January Frantzen told his members the date had slipped to mid-2028.

On Thursday in Auburn Hills, Michigan, three hundred miles from Belvidere, the CEO of Stellantis unveiled a strategic plan. Sixty billion euros. Sixty new vehicles. The Belvidere slide said retooling could begin this year.

I started the soup.

The man would have been sitting on the third stool from the door. He would have come in at six forty-five for the breakfast plate, eggs over easy, before his shift started at seven. I have served men like him for thirty-one years. Three of them, in Illinois, have been gone since February 2023. They were never my customers. The stool is the seat in my deli where they would have been if their plant had been mine.

The lunch rush started at eleven thirty. I sliced pastrami. I made change. I wiped down the counter where a man had spilled something. I thought about Frantzen writing the next update tonight or tomorrow or Sunday. He has written it standing at his kitchen counter and sitting at the table and once, I imagine, in the parking lot of the union hall with the truck running. He writes the part where he tells them something has moved. He writes the part where he tells them he does not have an answer. He writes the part where he tells them he is still asking.

A regular came in at twelve fifteen and asked about my grandson, and I told him. The radio was on low. The radio said something about Auburn Hills. The regular did not look up from his plate, and I did not turn the radio up.

After he left, I wrapped a pastrami sandwich for a teenager. I gave him his change. I did not look at the third stool from the door. I knew where it was.

By two o’clock, the room was empty. I sat down on the stool behind the counter, which I do not usually do, and looked across at the third stool from the door. The stool was where I had left it. I have not moved it in three years.

Tonight, tomorrow, or Sunday, Matt Frantzen will write the next update. A man in Belvidere will read it on his phone, standing in his kitchen, with the bills next to him. The chair across from him has been empty for three years, too.

I do not know him. I have never been to Belvidere. What I have is a stool in my deli, I have not moved in three years, a woman who used to order the whole sandwich, and a regular who asked about my grandson today and did not look up when the radio said Auburn Hills.

The deli closed at three. I locked the front. I came back behind the counter and stood there for a while. I walked over to the third stool from the door. I straightened it, though it did not need straightening. Tomorrow morning at six forty-five, the stool will be there. I will be at the slicer. The eggs will be where I keep them. The radio will be off until I turn it on.

Cedar Valley News has a Facebook group. If you have comments and want to join the conversation, you are welcome. Tell us about a seat you have kept open for someone you have never met. https://bit.ly/40p8jKy

This editorial is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series, written by Evan Swensen, Publisher, and Claude Marshall, AI Developmental Editor. While the people and town of Cedar Valley are fictional, Matt Frantzen, UAW Local 1268, Stellantis, the city of Belvidere, Illinois, and the events described in this editorial are real.

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