Hola
mi Gente
Thanksgiving,
for very personal reasons, is one of my favorite times of the year. I love
ritual of breaking bread together and honoring gratitude -- giving thanks. I’ve
heard it said gratitude and sadness cannot coexist and that’s been my
experience.
But
I love Thanksgiving most of all because all the great childhood memories. The
following, believe it or not, is based on true events…
* * *
Frankenstein’s Turkey
[Note:
an animal was harmed in the making of this post]
It really was too much -- embarrassing to the
nth degree. Everybody on that 60
Wilson Bus was staring at us and the best my uncle could do was laugh that
fuckin infectious, jolly laugh of his. He thought it was hilarious and, sensing
my embarrassment, it made him laugh harder, causing the other passengers to
stare more intently.
There it was again, a movement from the cause of
my embarrassment. You see, in Puerto Rican neighborhoods, it wasn’t uncommon to
purchase live poultry from el vivero -- a marketplace selling live fowl.
Usually that entailed picking or asking for a particular chicken and the
proprietor would take it out of its cage, go to the back, and prepare it for
you.
But this was the day before Thanksgiving
and my mother had insisted I accompany my uncle to the nearest vivero to
buy a live turkey. At the time we were living in the then mostly African
American Brooklyn neighborhood on East New York Avenue (right across the street
from the back entrance of the Pitkin Theater) and the nearest vivero was
a bus ride away. My uncle Onofre, TÃo NofrÃn as we called him, was already in his cups though it was still
early in the day, and he insisted in a live turkey to take home. This
was unusual, I thought at the time, because normally we would tell el
vivero to prepare the bird for us. But my uncle insisted we take the fucker
live, so el vivero, somewhat
peeved, put the turkey in a large brown paper grocery bag and off we
went. No sooner than we sat down on the crowded bus, the turkey, perhaps
sensing this wasn’t going to be his day, began making a fuss and engaged in
repeated and often violent attempts to escape the paper bag. This in turn
caused all the passengers to stare, which made my already slightly inebriated
uncle to laugh out loud.
He obviously thought it was hilarious, the
passengers were alarmed at the tipsy Puerto Rican with a live turkey in a large
brown grocery bag, and I wanted to die from embarrassment. You see, part of
growing up in a society that sees ones
culture as different or alien, is that there’s an internal tension between the
very strong pull to assimilate (and escape the alienation) and the tug of
cultural pride. I was raised to be proud of my Puerto Rican heritage, but I
decided that I drew the line at live turkeys on the 60 Wilson bus.
My uncle NofrÃn, already a happy-type person
sober, became even happier the more he drank. And the happier he got, the more
he laughed. He had this patented
outburst, “Ayyyy Coo-Coo,” an idiomatic expression that didn’t mean anything except
that it usually followed a punch line to a joke/ prank or when something
outlandish happened. For example, if grandma fell on her butt in front of
everyone, you can be sure
Tio NofrÃn would follow that
up with a hearty, “¡Ayyyy Coo-Coo!” and start cracking up. So here I was with
Tio NofrÃn, wrestling with a live turkey on a crowded New York City bus laughing his ass off and yelling out,
“Ayyyy CooCoo!” every time the turkey attempted to break free of the paper
grocery bag. Embarrassing.
But I’ve
been a little unfair to you, my dear reader, and I need to backtrack just a little at this point because I’ve started
this story at the wrong juncture. This particular Thanksgiving actually began
with my sister, Darlene, winning a raffle at the local Catholic Church where we
took our weekly catechism classes. The prize? She won a large truckload of groceries. We were so happy! The fact was that while
I can’t say we starved, there were times that food was scarce. I guess this is what they now call “food
insecurity.” I know all about food insecurity. For example, “wish” sandwiches weren’t
uncommon in the Rosario household and it was rare that we had enough capital to
do food shopping for a whole week. My mother often had to scrape up dinner on a
day-to-day basis. So the prospect of having a whole truckload of
groceries was something my siblings
and I saw, as Martha Stewart would say, “a good thing.”
My mother is a proud woman. Even as a child, I
often marveled at how my mother could walk down the worst ghetto street and
still manage to appear regal. To borrow the South African phrase (used in the
Paul Simon song), my mother walked as if she had diamonds on the soles of her
shoes. She had a way of holding herself, an attitude, so natural it didn’t
offend people. People just assumed she was entitled to that regal bearing.
She walked straight, with perfect posture, and
her manner, though imposing, was unaffected, head held high, her perfectly
sculpted nose, and those cheekbones to die for, adding a sublime beauty to that
imperial pose. When she barked out an order, people listened and though
she was in actuality a petite and small woman, she always seemed taller than
her actual size. And while it was true we were poor, my mother would dress us
in the best clothes -- clothes bought at a fraction of their original price at
used clothing stores and Salvation Army centers located in upscale
neighborhoods. And she taught us to walk in that same way. In fact, to slouch
in front of my mother was sacrilegious.
That's why, perhaps, when my mother saw all
these groceries being carted into our third-floor tenement walk-up, she became
enraged thinking it was charity. She managed to insult the priest and throw the
delivery boys out before we could convince her that Darlene had won all that
food in a raffle.
So what did my mother do? Did she squirrel away
the food, making sure we would have groceries for, like, evah? No! First, she gave away two of the (three) Butterball
Turkeys to neighbors in bad straits and then proceeded to call all of the tribe
for a big, family Thanksgiving dinner.
And that’s when she charged my uncle and me to
“go get a turkey from el vivero.” When we finally arrived with the live
turkey, a great hue and cry ensued. First, my mother wanted to know what had
gotten into my uncle that he would be crazy enough to bring a live turkey to
her house. Her instructions were clear, she enunciated in tones usually
reserved for intellects hovering at the idiot level. I feared she would task us
with returning the damned thing, but then my grandmother insisted that she
could “prepare” the turkey. After all, my grandmother reasoned, she had been
raised in small Puerto Rican town, and slaughtering and preparing food wasn’t
something foreign to her.
A quick, impromptu family meeting was held in
order to decide how to go about preparing the turkey and soon a full-scale
heated debate broke out which culminated in my grandmother rushing out,
grabbing the turkey by the neck, and spinning it violently above her shoulder.
According to my grandmother, this was a sure-fire way of killing the turkey, a
technique apparently used for generations in Salinas, the town she was born and
raised.
Unfortunately for the turkey, this twisting only
resulted in a wicked crook in its neck, which became immediately noticeable as
soon as my grandmother let go and it started running wildly around the
apartment seeking a way out of its predicament. I felt so bad I almost opened
the door for it, but the turkey was doomed, and with his neck now at a right
angle to its body, I doubt it would’ve been able to exploit an escape
opportunity even if it recognized it. By now, half the family was in determined
pursuit of our potential meal and the other, younger half was screaming
traumatized. I'm sure some of my cousins still have nightmares of screaming
turkeys with crooked necks. The only one who was clearly enjoying himself was
TÃo NofrÃn who was yelling out “¡Ayyyy Coo-Coo!” as he joined in the chase for
the wayward turkey.
Eventually, someone caught up to the turkey and
it was then decided that the best, most merciful course of action would be to
slit its throat, an action that my stepfather, Vincent promptly committed. However,
all this accomplished was that the turkey, resuming its valiant quest for life,
ran spraying great splotches of turkey blood everywhere. Eventually, the turkey
was subdued and a large pot of water was set to boiling in order to plunge the
turkey in for the removal of the feathers. No sooner than the turkey was
plunged into the boiling water that it quickly jumped out and again made one
last attempt at life. This time, everyone was traumatized, screaming in
horror. Finally, my grandmother, clearly upset that her fool-proof turkey
killing technique was shown to be ineffective, grabbed the poor fellow, and
with one last pull on its deformed neck, finished him off.
Suffice it to say the turkey no longer gave
anyone trouble and before you knew it, it was de-feathered and prepared in the pavo-chon
Puerto Rican style (a turkey that tastes like a lechon). Soon all the
aunts, all high-strung, creative cooking geniuses, were busy preparing the dishes
they were best known for (and getting on each other's last nerves in the
process) and the rest of the family settled in for fun and games.
You have to understand that I come from a family
of cheaters. For example, my grandmother, bless her soul, was a notorious card
cheat. Mind you, she wasn’t a good or adept card cheat, in fact, she was
quite bad at it. But a card cheat she was, and in our family cheating at games
is actually allowed. What isn’t allowed is being caught at cheating (the sole exception to this rule being my
grandmother). People who marry into our family have a difficult time
understanding our ethics, but I assure you we have our moral standards, they're
just somewhat nuanced and difficult to describe.
We’re also a family comedians and pranksters and
if you happen to commit a gaffe, or do something particularly embarrassing, you
will forever be associated with that action/ event. For example, one friend of
the family had the tenacity to stick her finger into some food an aunt was
preparing and she was quickly chastised with a whack to the head with a large
metal ladle. From then on she was known as La Lambia -- the greedy or
starved one. I have an aunt who’s predisposed to exaggeration (actually she’s
compulsive liar) and part of “family fun” was asking her questions about events
we all knew she would exaggerate and then make fun of her for her exaggerations.
One part of the family, my mother’s sister’s brood, were known for their bad
tempers and were called the “Pissed Offs.” Another part of the clan was called
the “Mini Munchkins” because they were all short.
Individuals were similarly named. For example, I
was affectionately known as mal tiempo, literally translated as
bad time, but is a phrase normally used to describe natural disasters such as
hurricanes and floods. My sister, Darlene, was called La Princesa
because of her pretentious airs. Also, if you were an unfortunate victim of an
accident, that too was fodder for humor. One cousin, who accidentally shot
himself in the foot, was ragged on for that for years. Even something as
mundane as taking a shower during family get-togethers was fraught with danger,
as a cousin would invariably rush in with a Polaroid camera to snap a picture
or a brother or mother would dump a pail of iced water on an unsuspecting
bather.
Suffice it to say that fun and games in my
family was in actuality an excuse to engage in all manner boundary trespassing,
psychological torment, cheating, hysterical and inappropriate demonstrations of
affection and anger, and ridiculing. And you know what? It was hilarious!
As long as you weren’t the butt of the joke, of course. And every year, there would
be a different theme and a different butt of the "holiday joke."
So here it was Thanksgiving Eve and the music
was blaring, the home warm with all the cooking, fogging the windows, and you
could smell all the great food being prepared. Family members were all engaged
in the joyful activities of family holidays when the men decided they would all
venture on a “Boy’s Night Out” outing, much to the expressed dissatisfaction of
the women. One of my earliest lessons as a young man was that one should never
anger the women on my mother’s side of the family, for they are a ferocious
group of women-warriors. In any case, the men went out and they took me along
with them because they wanted to school me in the ways of men. Going out, for
the men, meant going somewhere where there was liquor, loose women, and illegal
gambling. Apparently, being man meant being able to hold your liquor, no matter
how much of it you imbibed, and demonstrating your virility by flirting with/
picking up women my mother would kill for even thinking of looking at
me.
And this particular night, the night before
Thanksgiving, there was a lot of gambling going on. At first, my stepfather,
Vincent, was making a killing, and while sober, Vincent was a model of
stability, inebriated, he lost all self-control. Instead of quitting while he
was ahead, he instead lost all his winnings and his paycheck to boot.
This I knew was bad news, but Vincent was beyond listening to my appeals for
sanity. Eventually, he convinced my uncles to lend him money and in that way
help him win his money back, and he went on another winning streak, only to
commit the same error, managing to lose the money loaned by my uncles.
It was 5 AM in the morning before the men began
to sober up and come to the realization that they would eventually have to go
back home to a group of assuredly angry women waiting for them. So they came up
with the following plan: they decided it was best for me to go upstairs first
in order to scope out the situation. No sooner that I walked into the apartment
that I realized things were worse than even I expected. Most of the women were
sitting at the kitchen table silently seething, waiting for the men to return.
You could actually see the waves of anger emanating off of their bodies, distorting
the air like heat waves.
I went back downstairs and dutifully gave my
status report and most of the men balked at going upstairs, thinking (quite
wisely), discretion was the better part of valor. But Vincent, who seemed to
not have sobered, guffawed, got out of the car, and with a swagger told
everyone else he would show everyone who wore the pants in his home and
proceeded upstairs. I followed, honestly fearing the worst.
There was this long flight of stairs that
reached up to a small foyer-like area to our apartment, and it was here where
my mother confronted a clearly incoherent and inebriated Vincent. Somehow she
surmised he was gambling, had lost his money, and was drunk, and she became so
incensed, she pushed him out of anger. Vincent, still drunk from the huge
amount of rum he had imbibed, didn’t stand a chance and he went down that long
flight of stairs landing in a way that no human body should land, his neck now
at an angle eerily similar to the turkey’s neck the day before.
I turned to my mother, said, “You killed him.”
My mother, “I did not!”
Me, “Ma, I saw you push him. Look at him I think
his neck is broken.”
My mother, “Don’t you say that! I didn’t push
him, he was so drunk, he fell on his own!”
Me, “No he didn’t mom, you pushed him!”
At this point my aunt, the compulsive liar, who
up until now had been asleep, appeared out of nowhere and said, “I saw
everything and Lydia didn’t push him, he fell!”
Before I could continue several of her sisters
and my grandmother came out and all stated, though not one of them had
witnessed anything, that Vincent had fallen of his own accord and they all gave
me this look that clearly indicated it was dangerous to persist in this line of
reasoning.
By this time I realized the whole conversation
was a moot point and went downstairs to check on Vincent. I was certain he
broke his neck, but no sooner that I called his name that he opened his eyes,
smiled, and managed to get up. I guess it’s true that God loves children and
drunks because to this day, I don’t know how he survived that fall.
Right then, I felt rather than saw something fly
over my shoulder and land with a loud crash. My mother, in her anger, had
thrown the turkey, which had been slowly roasting in a low-heated oven for several
hours, down the stairs and it crashed, pan and all, and broke into several
large greasy chunks of turkey parts. Thanksgiving, which had begun on such a
high note, had now been ruined and we didn’t even have a turkey. My mother and
her sisters quickly dressed and left the house, the rest of the men probably
getting similar treatment outside.
My sisters, and some of my younger cousins,
immediately gathered and started an impromtu choir of wailing and crying
because Thanksgiving had devolved into a dysfunctional madness and the turkey
had now died -- yet again. And I was so upset with Vincent that I told him he was responsible for all the crying and for the
ruination of Thanksgiving dinner.
Upon hearing this, Vincent seemed to sober up a
little, pulled himself up, said, “I’ll fix this,” and began picking up the
pieces of the turkey.
I was beyond shocked, “How the hell are you
going to fix this, Vincent, the turkey is gone!”
“You’ll see,” he mumbled as I left to go outside
for a walk, unable to take it anymore.
When I came back, Vincent and my sisters were
busy trying to sew the turkey back together again and it was so funny, I had to
laugh and we all started laughing. I mean, this turkey was all discombobulated,
legs akimbo, stitched all together like some horror story monstrosity. And true
to form, we christened the turkey, “Frankenstein’s Turkey,” and while
attempting to put it together, one of my sisters chuckled and intoned, “It’s
alive! It’s alive!” and we all started really laughing.
Eventually, when the rest of the family finally returned,
my mother saw us all laughing, took one look at the turkey, and she started
cracking up. I mean, it was impossible to look at this thing and not laugh. And
that’s how we spent that Thanksgiving, eating a horribly tortured and
reconstructed turkey. And believe it or not, we often reminisce about that day thankful
that we have these stories to tell.
May you have much to be thankful for… Happy Holidays
My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from
civilization…
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