The Turkey’s Citrine Coating

Warren hated going to Thanksgiving dinner. He always ended up with his wife’s family. Every year it was the same food, the same people, the same annoying dog, which he referred to as Satan. The family obviously hated him. He did kick the dog several times and occasionally swore, despite the fact that there were younger ones around. But, hey, who cared? He sure didn’t. And he knew they didn’t care for him one ounce. It seemed the feeling was mutual.

He hated the way they looked at him. He hated the way they didn’t look at him. The family stole occasional glances and usually peered at him with such disgust, such hate, such angst. He did everything he could to look down, avoid eye contact and stare at Satan to make sure it kept its distance.

On Thanksgiving Day, when it came time for them to leave their apartment, Warren usually did everything he could to slow the time. He’d leave his keys in the cushions taking long minutes to try to find them, spend extended times in the bathroom, feign illnesses, tend to the potted plants on the patio, and remake the bed: Anything to prolong the inevitable. Despite all his efforts, his wife Patricia always managed to get him out the door. He even tried getting lost on the way there.

“Oops.” He smirked a little to himself.

“What do you mean “Oops”? I just told you to turn left and you turned right! Next time, I’m driving.” Patricia would always get furious with him and threatened to beat him with his cane.

The only thing that seemed to calm her down was arriving at her family’s home. Patricia’s anger subsided when they’d arrive a full twenty minutes later because of one factor, the one thing she was proud of most in life: her son. Every time she saw him it was like she was seeing him for the first time. There were hugs for long minutes, pinching his cheeks, and the way she looked at him. It was as if no one else existed. It didn’t help that Danny was her only boy, the child that most resembled her first husband and love of her life, Dan.

Because the Milwaukee suburbs were easy to navigate, Warren finally arrived at the house. Exhaling loudly, he rolled his eyes. He parked outside and hastily grabbed the apple pie from the trunk. His body didn’t work the way it used to. His fingers slipped and the pie fell upside down. The tinfoil covering did little to prevent the pie from falling and splattering. He quickly attempted to dish the apple fillings into the dish and he slapped the tinfoil back on. The pie did not appear pleasant, but rather like a slimy mountain.

His feet crawled up the steep driveway, they clearly intended for him to never to get the top of the twenty foot cement slab. The cane did little to help him. Finally overcoming the stone mountain, he reached the closed front door. He stood, hunched with the sloppy apple mess in hands, listened and heard the voices of all the relatives inside saying “hi”, “hello” and “how do you do”. He grinned a half smile, forcing some of his wrinkles to be perky for a moment. And then they fell again when his face slackened. Slapping against his teeth, it made a smacking noise.

“It’s cold out here.” He waited a moment and knocked on the door in a hurry. His breath came out in puffs, and was visible in the cold crisp air. His body began to shiver. After roughly four seconds of no reply, Warren banged his cane on the door.

The door rushed open. Danny was standing there, and his blue eyes skirted from Warren’s face to the pie. His face fell. “What happened to the pie?” Danny grabbed the pie from Warren and walked briskly away towards the kitchen. Another thing Warren hated: yellow. Patricia loved that color like it was God himself. Yellow shirts, yellow ties, yellow shoes, yellow, yellow, yellow. For Warren, it always reminded him of age. He saw it everywhere in his teeth, his eyes, his skin… yellow seemed to be crawling everywhere and was prevalent on his body the more he was aging. He was thankful his eyes were getting worse, he could no longer identify the soft hues of colors, and they all appeared to be the same gray color now. Everything was a receding gray of some kind. But the grays were so beautiful in their own way.

Warren slammed the front door behind him and limped in. He plopped down on the chair near the fireplace and laid back. His trench coat had snow on it from the long trek up the driveway, the place he had practically died. Suddenly, there were blotches of wet on the new chair. He received some angry glances and pointed fingers but he didn’t care. At least he was sitting down. His legs were tired and achy. Something about the cold months did that to him. He just wanted to sit.

Warren closed his eyes to shield them out. The family. He didn’t want to converse. And he didn’t want to draw any attention to himself for fear the dog would try to take his legs again. Somehow Satan always found him.

“Satan,” he said. He didn’t care who heard. The thin grim line of his mouth slid into a slight lopsided smile.

He peeked one of his eyes open and peered around the room. Boom. Satan. The dog was playing catch with one of the stupid grandkids. They were stupid enough to find entertainment in that selfish hairball of Hell. Good, he was glad he didn’t have to mess with it for now.

Aside from the demon dog, Warren also loathed with all his heart the conversation that would take place in a few moments. The speaking of her first husband, Dan. So much history, so much anger. It was obvious even in the way the kids looked at Patricia that they still never fully trusted her. The four of them, all blonde and blue eyed and thin, all looked alike and all felt alike about their mother. They had a reserved love for her. After leaving her children for another man, Patricia lost some of her family’s respect. That didn’t stop Dan from loving her and searching for her. Somehow, despite all that she had done to him, Dan still loved her until the day he died. Every time Dan’s name came up, Warren’s jealousy grew. Why should he have to compete with a dead man?

Just as his mind was wondering, Satan came over and started barking. Warren gave it a kick and it went away. “Scat, devil dog.” The dog whimpered away. Warren returned the half smile on his face and closed his eyes again. The room became quiet. Too quiet.

Warren opened his eyes and peered at the crowd. They were all waiting for him.

“Why’d you have to do that?” Patricia said horrified, with a perplexing look on her face. Silence closed in around him. Light gray faces glared at him. The piercing dead silence beckoned an answer, but no one spoke. All eyes glared his way. He felt no remorse, no guilt for defending himself. He knew no one else would. Warren refused to acknowledge anything about the matter and then his stomach gurgled.

“Is it time to eat?” Warren was starving. No one answered. No ever did. No one seemed to care.

Minutes later, dinner was served. A feast was before him. The family said grace and dove into the prepared food. Hands and mouths were moving fast, eating, chopping, cutting, spitting. This family seemed to have no manners. Even the girls, pretty as they were, would laugh with their mouths wide open with partially eaten food. What could be so funny now? Their high pitched noises were irritating. Then it began. The dreaded, anticipated conversation.

“I miss your dad.” Patricia made eye contact with Danny.

“We all miss him, mom.”

“Well, if he was still alive, I’d tell him he was the best I ever had. He was so special.”

A few of the women sniffed. “Here we go again,” Warren said. Every Thanksgiving Dan came up. Scratch that. Every time she talked to one of her kids Dan came up. Dan, her love. Dan, her first love. Dan, the father of her children. He was her idol, now that he was dead, he was all she could talk about.

The family ate in a hushed, reverent silence. As if in those moments, he would see them and be with them. As if in the silent moments would bring him back. And then the memories.

“Remember when he would take us out on his bike?”

“Remember when he would rip out his arm hair and say, “hey look what I can do?””

Same stories, same laughs, same stupid smiles. The stories were the exact same, told in the same order, the same tears. Warren felt he was in a movie, playing on repeat.

“Remember when he would race us eating corn?”

“Remember when he let me drive his new car when I was nine?”

“Remember when he lit part of your yard on fire?”

“Remember when he helped you move out to California?”

Warren stopped listening and focused on the turkey. There was a tough outer skin to it, some kind of lemon taste, yellow coating. The left side of his face pulled up. At least he found relief in the taste of the turkey. He chomped into the meat. Crunch, crunch, crunch. He’d never heard his chewing be so loud before; it was as if he were chewing on wood. And then it happened. In his half smile, Warren started choking.

Turkey had become wedged in his air pipe. It slowly slid lower and lower and Warren’s face became redder and redder. He couldn’t make noises, he couldn’t speak. Just as he started choking, everyone had begun in loud crowded laugh. What were they saying? Warren hadn’t been paying attention. No one was looking at him, no one could see. Every single one of them was laughing hard, eyes closed and not paying attention.

Then, the room became a blur, and saliva dripped down his face. For a moment he blacked out. His head crashed into the potatoes. All was black.

Minutes later, Warren slowly came awake. He blinked his eyes. Gray bodies were a blur above his head. He squinted his eyes and blinked a few times. His vision wouldn’t focus. Of course, he needed his glasses to see. No one seemed to understand that he couldn’t see. His head was pounding with each moment and his breathing stung. His throat felt raw and scathed, as if someone had taken a wooly sponge and scrubbed the interior.

Warren slowly lifted his head as Danny helped him off the floor and to the chair. The world was spinning. His balance was off, and he felt Satan licking his legs. He had no energy to get it away.

Someone handed him his glasses. He snatched them out of their hands. His saggy wrinkled face peered around the room.

“I’ve had it!” Warren skulked off towards the front door. He snatched his cane and took one last kick at the dog, but this time the dog avoided it. “Lucifer!” Warren’s momentum swung him off balance, this time causing him to slam the wall behind him. He attempted to use his cane for balance, but it snapped in half. Sadie had been chewing on it during dinner, but Warren failed to notice that as he was falling to the floor. His back smacked to the floor and something snapped.

“My back!” he moaned. He couldn’t move. In a haze, he heard someone dial 911, and asked for an ambulance. The dark angel came and hovered over his face, liking his wrinkles. No one helped him. It hurt to talk, it hurt to breathe.

Patricia took no notice of her husband’s fall. Instead, she took three more gulps of the red wine and continued talking about her late husband.

When the ambulance finally came, they carried him out on the stretcher. He smiled a full smile this time. As his body was being strapped into the bed, he realized he was finally free from her family. His lips formed a half moon. His yellowed teeth showed through and there was a barely audible “ah” that escaped from his lips.