Nobody Likes a Turkey
By: Benjamin Davis
Tags: Short Story, Relationships, Fiction, Humor, Family

We’d been at the pre-Thanksgiving breakfast at my aunt’s, catching up and listening to my mother, always prim, and aunt, in her holiday-moo-moo, gossip about how my sister’s husband, Amy’s father, had only just told them he wasn’t coming to dinner when he pawned Amy off early that day. My own husband, Jared, sat next to me taking mental notes — realizing that my family would likely forgive him for anything he ever did so long as he did it with my family. Amy sat beside him, playing with the rings on his fingers. She was odd for a seven-year-old, looked a bit like Orphan Annie, though admittedly more orphan than Annie; she was shy and somehow always dirty. She liked to crawl into dark places and count things — small things, dirt mostly, and dust, sometimes things no one could see.

My aunt and mother tacked their conversation into where to get a turkey this late in the game — they were complaining about all the stores being sold out, when my father cut in, “I know where you can get a turkey.”

We all turned to my father. Amy had placed Jared’s hand over her whole face and was looking out over the webs between the fingers. Then my Grandfather made a noise and we turned toward him — Amy steering Jared’s hand with two of hers wrapped around his wrist. The sound my Grandfather made was: harrumph.

He’d started harrumphing at people a lot in recent years, particularly at my father since the divorce. It was such a silly old man sound that I couldn’t help wondering if he’d read it in some book, like when a child sees someone cool wink on TV and goes around winking at everyone for weeks after. Was there some cool harrumphing Grandpa on the local news infecting the minds of the nation’s elderly men?

Grandfather had floppy, enormous lips so when he did it, there was a noticeable amount of spittle. I wiped a fleck off my arm and turned to Jared’s ear, “If I ever make that sound, kill me, yeah?”

He smiled, “I’ll cut your lips off first.”

Amy peeled Jared’s hand off of her face and started poking the spittle marks. She counted under her breath as she went. I didn’t notice at first, but each place she poked, the spittle seemed to get sucked up into the air and a pinprick of a black spot was left behind instead.

“Where?” my mother asked.

“Six,” Amy muttered.

Mother always talks with her left hand and she lifted it gently as she asked.

“Seven,” Amy continued.

My father said, “At our — I mean my house -”

Harrumph.

“Eight.”

“And, well, there-”

“Nine.”

“-there has been this turkey coming up the driveway every morning-”

Harrumph.

“Ten.”

“Would you stop that!” my mother cried. She batted her hand toward the table as if we were all a swarm of flies; it made a whoosh-whoosh. Someone coughed — maybe it was me. Grandfather sat, tight-lipped. Amy slid her hand off the table and went back to counting Jared’s rings.

Other than that, we all let my father finish the story. He continued, “Right — so there’s this turkey, keeps coming up the driveway and pecking dents in my Mercedes. It circles it like it wants to fuck it, and BAM! it pecks dents BAM! like that! I can hear it from my office — ”

“BAM!” Amy mocked.

“Yes, like that,” my father said.

Harrumph. “Why don’t you just kill it,” Grandfather butted in.

My father said, “I’ve tried — no really I have. I have my shotgun and I go out there as it circles and dings my Mercedes and it just looks at me but doesn’t seem to care. And I shot it. I did! I shot it like three or four times and it just gets annoyed and trots off. Then, sure enough, the next morning it comes back and ding — it goes at my Mercedes and I go out and shoot it again — the shotgun, my pistol, the .22 even.”

My mother sighed from beside the counter and I remembered a conversation we’d had where she said, “The only thing that man will hit with all those guns is the side of his own head.” It was the moment I realized that adults, for the most part, are not so different from children after all.

“So,” my father went on, “if you can figure out how to kill it, cook that baby up!”

Har —

“Don’t!” my mother warned.

“Oh, hush woman! I’ll kill that turkey for you no problem. I’ll do it the way it used to be done. I’ll kill it and I’ll bring the kid to carry it back for dinner.” He waved at me. “And we’ll bring the little one! We’ll show her how it’s done.”

Amy gripped Jared’s other hand, rings and all. She looked up at Grandfather, then to me.

My father crossed his arms and said, “Well, best of luck.”

Grandfather smacked the table, stood, and his knees cracked. “What do you think, kid? Little one? Why don’t you come along and we’ll get this done properly?” He turned and lifted his jacket up off the back of the chair.

I wondered briefly if Grandfather would still call me a kid if I told him my cock didn’t work like it used to and that I ate granola in the morning to stay regular. Jared squeezed my hand. “What do you say, kid?” he nudged. I gave Grandfather one thumb up and said, “Sure.”

Amy crawled under the table and started counting the granules between the tiles.

We gathered our things. Amy held on to me as I dressed her and myself in jackets. Before leaving, I turned for one last look at Jared — he was ready, sitting tall, a captain going down with the ship of my family. I eyed them all; they reminded me of those farm animal children’s toys. The father goes BAM, the Mother goes whoosh-whoosh, the Grandfather goes HARRUMPH.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re coming.” I lifted Amy and started toward the door.