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A Thanksgiving Story
by C!.S!.Scotkin



The Thanksgiving I was eleven was a nightmare that lasted two solid days, when it was over I knew my calling in life!.

It was as cold as it can get in New England in November!. Gray, snowy, Mom with red eyes that plainly screamed, “No questions”!.
My sister and I were getting more and more worried…we had learned way before then not to ask anything when Dad came home drunk every night forgetting stuff, like groceries!. I think we had learned that in the womb!. There was nothing in the ice box except a bottle of milk for the baby!. On a lower shelf, half a jar of mayonnaise and about four slices of bread!.

Now, we knew we’d be going to Grandma’s for dinner, that wasn’t the point!. The point was that my Mother wouldn’t ask for help in her shame!. To ask for help was to be defeated, there was no greater sin than to be on welfare!. If you had the choice between welfare and killing yourself and your kids you didn’t choose welfare!. But she always stocked up on macaroni and margarine!. Grandmother would send canned vegetables once in a while!.

Well, Dad came home at eight, drunker than Cooter Brown, barely able to walk, tracking in snow and beer stench, carrying a 35 pound turkey, twice the size of the baby sleeping in the old crib and three times too big to put in the oven!. When he shoved the turkey at Mom, she snapped into slow motion, totally silent insanity!. Took the bird, chucked it through the closed kitchen window!. That crash was not silent, nor were Dad’s curses!. Mom went to her bedroom, dressed in all the clothes she could layer on!. She went out to the car, got in, curled into herself on the backseat, didn’t come out till the next morning!. The old man passed out on the kitchen floor!.

My sister and I looked at each other!. Now what!? More food on the lawn than we had seen in weeks!. We went out, brought it in, really butchered it, but we got it in the ice box without butchering ourselves!. Got all the pieces of wood we could find in the cellar even though my sister was afraid of monsters under the stairs!. I was more afraid of the ones upstairs!. I nailed the wood over the window, smashing my thumb, raising a blood blister, but I would not cry!. I threw a blanket over the old man, who never woke up once!. We took the baby into bed with us, piled up blankets, coats, prayers for morning, mourning prayers, and prayers to wake up anywhere but there!.

When we woke up the baby was gone!. Went into the kitchen where Dad was fixing the window, there was hot oatmeal on the stove, Mom rocking the baby!.

“Hurry up and eat, so we can get to Grandma’s and help”!. !.

Then I knew my calling!.

To be sane, that’s all, just be sane!.

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