More Than You Can Chew

by Marnelle Tokio

  Rhonda steps away from the freezer. She has narrowed it down to five candidates. It is up to us to make the final selection as to who will be Miss Thanksgiving.

  The debate begins.

  “This one’s 18.23,” Victoria says.

  “But it’s butter basted,” Rose whines.

  “I didn’t see that,” Victoria protests.

  “Yeah, right,” Rose responds.

  “Screw you,” Victoria finishes.

  Turkey number 18.23 is not a contender because she has too much fat.

  “This one is 18.17. Nonbasted.” Katherine takes the floor.

  “It’s stuffed,” Jamie states.

  “So? Then we won’t have to make stuffing,” Katherine argues.

  “Ready-made stuffing has a shit load of sodium. Bloat factor is too high,” Jamie expounds.

  “That’s not good,” Katherine agrees.

  Contestant number 18.17 is out for retaining too much water.

  “Here. No butter. No stuffing. 18.11,” Nancy says like she thinks she’s found the winner.

  “I read in the paper that this company uses hormones to make their turkeys grow faster,” Elizabeth informs.

  18.11 is immediately disqualified and should be sent for drug testing.

  Catwoman picks up a bird and stares at it. She carries it to the freezer with the boxes of chicken nuggets and drops it in.

  Lily goes over to see. “18.06, but it’s a goose.”

  18.06 is ineligible for pretending to be something it’s not.

  Bonnie says, “You pick, Marty. It’s your meal.”

  I choose an organic free-range Cornish hen. It weighs.18 pounds. I’m dyslexic. Everyone votes for the Cornish girl.

  “For Christ’s sake, Marty!” Rhonda says, and picks the last one of the five. We have our winner. 18.03. But she is not the crowd favorite.

  The Cornish hen is still number one in our hearts. I bowl her down the freezer into the pile of runner-ups. She takes a bounce and ends up on top anyways. Bonnie crowns her with a can of tuna.

  Next stop on the tour–sour cream.

  We bring the bird home. I’m last out of the bus, so I have to carry it inside. The bird is double bagged, but with the cheap plastic bags that look like rice paper. So I carry it from the bottom. And along the bottom of the bags, I run my ragged nails. I’ve chewed them so much they are serrated like steak knives. As we approach the entrance, they cut through the bags like magic. The bags release the bird into the world. It’s a rough start. The turkey bounces down seventeen stairs, hits the walkway, leaps onto the tarmac, and slides across the parking lot till it stops right under the bus’s bum. The bus looks like it has laid an egg.

  “I think it wants a ride back to the store,” I say to Rhonda.

  “Drop it again and I’ll go get some ducks for dinner.”

  Ducks are about 210% fat. I used to eat duck. I still like it. I just won’t eat it.

  I go and pull the turkey out from under the bus and carry it to the unit kitchen. Carefully.

  DAY 133

  OCTOBER 24

  Friday, 9:00 A.M.

  “You pull it out,” Rose says.

  “You pull it out,” I say.

  “I’ll pull it out,” Lily says.

  “That’s okay, Lil, I’ll get it out. It weighs more than you do,” I say.

  Lily opens the door to the fridge. On the bottom shelf lies the turkey. I slide it out on its silver tray like a body from the morgue.

  “Now what do we do?” asks Lily.

  “I don’t know.” And I don’t. Mom’s never let me touch one.

  “I do,” Jamie says from the doorway. She walks to the counter and talks at the bird. “My mom loves Thanksgiving. She always cooks two birds and two pots of everything. She could never figure out where the leftovers went. Until she found them undigested in the toilet I clogged up.” Jamie turns to me. “It’s supposed to go tits up.”

  “It already did that,” I say.

  “In the oven, idiot,” Jamie says.

  “I don’t see any boobs on this bird,” I say.

  “Maybe it’s flat-chested,” Lily says, and looks down at her shirt.

  Jamie turns the bird over a couple of times and says, “This side up.”

  The top of the turkey is dented and its skin is split. I had almost given it a mastectomy when I dropped it down the stairs.

  “Now you have to grease it up,” instructs Chef Jamie.

  We play rock, paper, scissors to see who has to give the bird a butter massage.

  Rose loses. She does the fastest lube job in the history of cooking.

  I turn the oven to 500 degrees because that is as high as it will go. “Lily, get away from the stove; it’s going to get very hot.” I start to shove the bird in the oven and realize too late that the rack is too high. The tray goes in, but the top of the oven stops the turkey. It squirts through my arms, hits the oven door, and shoots through my legs like a puck through a goalie’s five hole.

  “How many times are you going to send that turkey for a ride?” Jamie smiles.

  “Shut up, Jamie…where did it go?”

  “It flew past me. I think it’s out in the hall,” Lily says.

  I look from the oven to the kitchen doorway. The flight path is clearly marked by a dull trail of butter along the glossy floor. Lily is right. The turkey must have set a land-speed record on linoleum before it hit the hall. The carpet stopped it cold. If the bird had a neck, it would have gotten whiplash.

  I try to pick up the turkey, but it’s like trying to grab a greased pig. “Would somebody help me…please?”

  Jamie comes over. She is still smirking. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Help me lift this thing….Rose, you bring the tray over.” Rose gets the potholders and retrieves the preheated tray from the oven. “Okay, Jamie and I are going to lift the turkey and you slide the tray underneath it…just like in those hospital emergency shows. On my count, ready? One, two, three!”

  Lily walks beside the body as we transport it to the counter. She examines it closely and reports, “There’s dirt and carpet fuzz on it.”

  “Don’t worry, Lil, it’ll burn off. Nobody is going to eat the skin anyway.” I move the oven rack down and load the turkey. “Rhonda said it has to cook for about six hours, so I won’t have to look at it again till 3:30.”

  “Who’s going to baste it?” Jamie asks.

  “Don’t know and don’t care,” I say, washing my hands of butter and bird juice while Jamie licks her fingers clean. “Aren’t you worried about getting sick?”

  “So I throw up and have diarrhea for three days? Big deal. It’d be just like old times,” Jamie says and smiles.

  I want out of this kitchen. It’s hot and close. And ever since the chip thing at the store, Jamie keeps throwing more-than-I-want-to-know curveballs at me. And they are starting to hit home.

  Does she know I used to throw up too? That I’m not a pure A? That I’m a combination A and B? I’m a mutt. And you know what they do with mutts, Marty They put them down.

  I need an excuse to leave. “Come on, Lily, let’s go draw a turkey centerpiece.”

  We leave Rose and Jamie to guard the bird to make sure it doesn’t get away. Again.

  Rhonda comes into the staff “cottage” that the alchies and druggies use, across the yard. The cottage looks like someone converted a garage into one big kitchen and dining room. She looks over Lily’s shoulder. “That’s nice, Lily. It’ll look pretty on the table.”

  “It was Marty’s idea.”

  “Really?” Rhonda says, and up goes her left eye brow.

  “Yes, really,” I say. “I thought something festive for the table might be nice to go with the pilgrim hats and straight jackets.”

  Rhonda pretends she doesn’t hear me. “Did you get the turkey in the oven?”

  “Yes.” But it took a little side trip first.

  “What did you do with the gizzards?” Rhonda looks around.

/>   “Lizards?” Lily makes a face.

  “Not lizards, Lily, gizzards…where are they?”

  “Where are they supposed to be?” I say.

  “What are gizzards?” Lily asks.

  “The kidneys, liver, and heart of the turkey. Some people use them to make the gravy. You did take them out, didn’t you?”

  “Out of where?”

  “Marty, the turkey. That’s what’s in the little bag inside it.”

  “How the fuck was I supposed to know the stupid bird had carry-on luggage?” I stomp back to the kitchen. “Fuck.” This is beginning to feel like a real Thanksgiving.

  Six girls in the kitchen cooking. Five girls bitching. Catwoman uncans the cranberry sauce in silence.

  Rhonda comes in for the eighth time. “How’s it going, girls?”

  “Hey, Rhonda, how many anorexics does it take to stuff a turkey?” I ask.

  Rhonda gives me the look. “Okay, how many?”

  “I figure we could fit about three in this one,” I say as I carry the turkey to her.

  Rhonda carves the bird. None of us are allowed to play with knives.

  We go to the dining room and sit down to dinner in silence.

  “Let’s say grace,” Nurse Brown commands from the head of the table.

  We bow our heads.

  “Grace,” Rhonda says from the other end.

  They don’t make us say grace. They can’t force God down our throats, only food.

  The B’s gobble the turkey down.

  The A’s pick at it.

  Rose gags on a piece. “It’s too dry,” she coughs.

  Rhonda looks ready to blow. “Eat it, or I’ll order pizza with double sausage and triple cheese.”

  The B’s look sorry they ate theirs.

  The A’s eat faster.

  Dinner is finished.

  DAY 153

  NOVEMBER 13

  I’m on my bed. Mom breezes in.

  “Hi, Marty.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Then nothing. Always the same. We go through the hi’s and then we hit the lows. This dance we do so well.

  “Zack has been asking again if he can come see you. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but it’s up to you.”

  Nothing is ever up to me. Seventeen seconds into the visit and already something that concerns me isn’t a good idea.

  “Did you hear me, Marty?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I think calling him would be alright. I’ll call him when I get home and let him know you are going to do that. Okay? OKAY, Marty?”

  “YES, Mom. Whatever you want to do.”

  “It’s not whatever I want to do. It just seems you’re paralyzed and I’m doing this to help you…get you moving again. Zack is a terrific guy. It’s too bad you two couldn’t have met five years from now. You’re so young, and sometimes I think you loved each other too much. You can love someone too hard you know.”

  Or not hard enough.

  “Well, Marty, if you’re not going to talk to me, then I guess I’ll leave. I love you.”

  I love you, but I’m leaving and it’s your fault.

  “Good-bye, Marty.”

  Bye, Mom. I have a million words I need to say to you. So many they have dammed up my mouth. Lodged so tight, I’d need to spring a leak to speak.

  I stay sitting on the bed, head down, eyes focused on my hands. On the scars left by all those words I couldn’t say–the ones that had thrown themselves through windows and taken my fist with them.

  Sticks and stones and broken glass can never hurt you…as much as words.

  “Marty, your father is on the phone,” Katherine says and throws herself on my bed and bounces me off like some weird circus act.

  Someone else to help me get moving.

  “Did he say where he’s calling from?” Maybe…maybe.

  “Canada.”

  Maybe not.

  I walk quickly past the nurses’ station to the patients’ phone. The suspense is over. Canada is a long way from California.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Marty.”

  “Katherine said you’re in Canada.”

  “Yes, but there’s no snow.”

  “None here either.”

  “Ah, yeah. I guess there wouldn’t be. I was just thinking about the last time we were here together. To see your grandmother at Christmas–there was a ton of snow then.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” But not much else, except a lot of food I wanted to eat so bad but didn’t. Being so tired and brain starved, I kept lighting the wrong ends of cigarettes. Grandma’s sad face when she looked into mine. “We had a great time.”

  “Well, maybe we could do it again this coming Christmas. Your grandmother would love that.”

  “Sure, Dad.” I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow, but Christmas is covered.

  “Look, Marty, I called to say hi and let you know that I talked to your mother this morning and she said Zack has been asking to see you.”

  Suddenly it’s a lot colder on the other end of the phone.

  “Mom was just here. She told me…”

  “I don’t want you seeing him, Marty. I don’t even want you to talk to him.”

  I don’t make a sound. Can’t afford to. If he hears or smells tears, he’ll think I’m weak. Accuse me of crying to get out of something. I hold the receiver to my ear, but away from my mouth, so the salt water from my eyes and nose can splash onto my shoes. I can’t breathe through my nose, can’t snort the stuff back up it. So I breathe through my mouth. Saliva collects inside my cheeks, slides over my lips. I’m like a three stream fountain–a very quiet fountain.

  All is quiet in Canada too. Two minutes go by. Four. And finally the dial tone.

  I’ve been summoned to Jackie’s office.

  “Okay, Jackie, what did I do now?” I say, picking at the bald spot on the arm of the chair.

  “Why do you think you did something, Marty?” Jackie says, leaning forward.

  “Because you called me down and my next appointment isn’t until Thursday.”

  “You didn’t do anything.”

  “Well, somebody did, or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Your mother called,” Jackie says, and leans back.

  “Bingo.” I raise my arms above my head.

  “And your father.”

  “Bonus bingo.”

  “And Zack, but I didn’t talk to him.”

  I drop my arms and bang my elbow. “Fucking jackpot.” Why is Zack calling Jackie? How does he know about her? And how did he get her number?

  “Marty? You with me?” Jackie opens a drawer and pulls out a pad of paper.

  “Yeah. I know what my parents called about. You going to tell me what to do about Zack?”

  “No, I’m asking what you would like to do.”

  “That’s a novel idea.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what, Jackie? It doesn’t matter what I want to do. They never ask me. They just tell me what to do. It’s easier on everyone if I just do it.”

  “You’re talking about your parents?” Jackie makes a note.

  “No. The gods of Mount Olympus. Did Zack leave a message?”

  “Does Zack tell you what to do?”

  “Everyone does. That’s just life.”

  “It’s not my life.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Do you love Zack?” Jackie asks, putting down her pen.

  Jackie’s question is like the pop fly ball you stand in the middle of a big field to catch. You hear the ball leave the bat. It goes up till it disappears, but you know it’s still there. You have to get underneath it just right. Because then it rockets down, and if you screw up, it will smash you in the face. Saving face has nothing to do with honor–it’s the prize you get for catching those pop fly questions.

  “Yes…” I think so. I catch the ball, but then let it roll out of the
glove. I don’t want to lie to Jackie. But it’s hard to tell the truth when you’re not sure what the truth is.

  “Did you make love with him?”

  “It was my decision…” Sort of. Make love–what a stupid phrase. They should call it Trying to Get a Grip or See If You Can Do This and Breathe.

  That night with him. My body was screaming yes, acting like an octopus–exploring, sliding, gushing, wet. Never trust a body.

  “Marty, making love is something people decide together.”

  “I’ve already had sex education, Jackie.”

  “And sex.”

  “So.”

  “So?”

  “I’ve slept with more than one guy, you know.” There. Get it out. Give Jackie a nice grisly piece of meat to chew on.

  “And?” Jackie says. Swallows my guts whole and doesn’t even make a face.

  “And so, what do you think of me now?” I cross my arms.

  “What do you think of yourself?” she throws back.

  “Are you going to answer any of my questions?”

  “Your answers are more important. But I’ll give you mine. After. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “So what do you think of you having sex with more than one guy?” Jackie looks at me.

  “I think that makes me a slut.” I look away.

  “Why?”

  “Because it does. If you have sex before you’re eigh teen, or before you’re married, then you’re a slut.” How the hell did we get here?

  “According to who?”

  “My mother.” And how do I get out?

  “Your mom says you don’t listen to anything she says, so why listen about sex?”

  “Because if she knew she’d kill me.”

  “I can safely say she wouldn’t kill you, Marty. She might be angry or upset, but I know your mother’s situation. She just doesn’t want you to make the same mistake she feels she made.”

  “That mistake being me. And if she hadn’t had me, maybe she wouldn’t have become an alcoholic.” I cross my legs and kick the desk.