About a month ago my mother started asking what I was going to do for Thanksgiving. I told her I had a turkey cutlet in my freezer and I intended to spend the day in my pajamas enjoying the first job in my life to pay me for being home on Thanksgiving. This was a bit unsettling for my mother. Something about it just didn't feel right to her. She subtly angled for me to spend Thanksgiving with some nearby relatives, much as I have done since moving to Jersey. In the end, I opted for family good times.
My instinct for Thanksgiving on the sofa remained, however, and on Thanksgiving morning I called my cousin to feign sickness and back out. The conversation did not go well.
"Good morning, Donna, it's Brian."
"Brian? Oh, Brian! Happy Thanksgiving!"
"Happy Thanksgiving to you. Listen, I'm calling because�"
"Hang on a sec, Brian." She held the phone away from her head to speak to some of the children who began clustering around her. She tried to obscure the reception with her hand or something, but I could still hear what was going on.
"Put that back," she said. "Yes, it's Brian on the phone. Yes, I told you he's coming. Oh, I'm sure he'll play with you when he gets here." There were muffled cheers in the background. "I know, I know. It's been a couple of months since he's been here. I know you miss him. Yes, sweetheart. He'll be here soon. Go play, he'll be here soon."
She was back on the line with me. "I tell you, Brian. Ever since we told them you were coming for Thanksgiving, they've been so excited. Alex made you a special place card shaped like a Turkey, and Bryan drew you a picture. I think it's a picture of a zebra or something. Maybe a giraffe. A dog. Something. Anyway, the kids are so psyched you're coming."
So I stammered a bit and then came out with, "well, that's actually why I'm calling." The proverbial cross road lay before me. To one side, the self-indulgent sleep in option, an option rife with the broken hearts of children. On the other, the less appealing family time option, full of fireworks and drizzled with turkey gravy. I took the plunge. "I wanted to see if you needed me to bring anything and to verify the time. Noon-thirty or so, right?"
When I arrived it had already begun. A cousin met me at the door. We'll call her Jenny. She had thick, dark bags under her eyes and when she spoke I could see she had a white film on her tongue. She quickly saddled me with her kids and disappeared into the bathroom to do some blow.
A word about the bathroom. There was a problem with the lock. If you went into the bathroom and did not lock the door, there was no problem. If, however, you went into the bathroom and locked the door, you would become entombed. The unlocking process involved the strength of three men (or one Scanzilla), and various tools.
We learned this when Jenny wanted out. We heard her struggling with the door knob for a while and then we heard the desperate pounding of a caged woman hopped up on coke.
Donna tried to calm her sister. "Hang on, Jenny. I gotta go to the garage and get a screwdriver. Just relax."
I stood outside the door singing a lullaby in a desperate attempt to calm her. She was babbling a hundred miles an hour about how she couldn't take it and she felt like she was on fire and we better get her out of there or she would burn the house down. I tried explaining why that was a bad plan, but she seemed unfazed. In fact, she seemed even more intent on doing it. I could hear her breaking things as she rummaged for matches.
By the time we freed her she had constructed a small pile of kindling from a bowl of boysenberry potpourri and an empty toilet paper roll. Her eyes were wild and we got quite the tongue lashing for taking our own sweet time. "It's about my freedom, Brian," she scolded. "It's about not caging me, not locking me up, not jailing me. I was a prisoner in my own sister's house. You know I'm claustrophobic, you know that! It's about FREEDOM!"
About a half hour later, nearly everyone had arrived and Jenny was clearly crashing. It was at that time that her mother arrived. Jenny took one look at her mother and started screaming at her. "YOU WILL NOT TAKE OVER THIS KITCHEN! Listen to me, mother, just listen to me. I have instructions from Donna. I have instructions about dinner and I'm going to follow them. You have no say here, no say. Do you understand that? Do you understand? Say you understand, mother! Say it! Say it! Why won't you say you understand that I am not going to let you ruin Thanksgiving? Why do you always do this? Every day, day in, day out, day in. You ruin everything, mother! Everything!
"I mean, just look at me, ok? Just look at me! I could have been happy! I could have been happy, but you ruin everything that makes me happy! It's like you want me to be miserable! And now, I'm divorced with two kids and I can only find a part time job, I'm miserable, and it's all your fault, ok? It's your fault and I hate you for it and I never want to see you again, so just get out of the kitchen because you are not going to ruin this too, mother.
"I will stop you from ruining Thanksgiving! I will stop you! I will not let you ruin our nice Thanksgiving, not this time, no way, no how! So just get out of here! Out! Out! Out! Do you understand? Do you? Say it! Say you understand! Say you understand, mother! Say you understand that you have caused all the misery in my life and the lives of all of us here and that it's your fault! Say it! Why won't you say you understand that you're the biggest COCK-SUCKER ever to walk the face of the Earth? Why won't you say that?"
"Oh, go blow your nose, Jenny," my aunt retorted. "You got a little something white on your lip."
Jenny picked up a meat fork and brandished it menacingly. "You don't get to tell me what to do anymore! You don't get to tell me a thing! Now get out of the kitchen, mother, or so help me�"
"You know what? FUCK YOU, Jenny. Ok? FUCK YOU! I'm so sick of it, you know? Get off my back, and start taking a little responsibility."
Jenny was stunned. "What did you say to me?"
"I said, FUCK YOU! And I'll say it again."
Jenny turned back to her chopping board and viciously savaged a block of cheese for the antipasto. "I'm just glad that my children were not around to hear that. I'm just glad they were down stairs and didn't have to hear their grandmother speak to their mother that way. I can't believe you, ma. There are children in this house. I can't believe you."
"Well, believe it, ok? A little swearing isn't going to hurt them any more than having a junky mother."
Jenny swam out of the kitchen and upstairs in a river of crocodile tears. She bellowed for her children to join her. Once they were safely in her arms she slammed a door and the house grew quiet.
My aunt took the opportunity to remove her coat. The rest of us sort of looked sheepishly at the floor or stirred simmering pots or tended to slobbering babies. The tension was very thick, the quiet very heavy. It squeezed our chests and slowed our movements like we were submerged in porridge. I wasn't sure how much longer it could possibly be so quiet.
I took in a breath in preparation for a little joke cracking to ease the tension. I was preparing to speak when the quiet was abruptly shattered by what sounded like the footsteps of Jack's giant.
WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM
Drinks went flying, hands went to chests, spoons fell to the floor.
"What the hell was that?" My cousin Frank asked.
Donna rolled her eyes and asked me to get the screwdriver. It seems that my grandmother managed to lock herself in the bathroom and was using her cane like a battering ram on the door.
We had her freed and at the table shortly. Jenny, who was attempting to punish us by not permitting her children to be with us during the Thanksgiving meal, soon passed out in the master bedroom and her wily children tip-toed out to join us.
Our Thanksgiving table was complete, save the chair reserved for Jenny. "Would you say grace, Brian?"
We bowed our heads. "Dear God," I began. "Thank you for our friends and family. Thank you for the food on this table. Thank you for the crisp autumn air and the loss you will surely deliver to the Dallas Cowboys later this afternoon. But mostly, God, thank you for giving Jenny enough coke to keep her unconscious for the better part of the afternoon. We're so very thankful for the rest."
There was a hearty "Amen" heard around the table as My Uncle Eddie called for the potatoes.
Posted at 11:28 a.m.
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