Thanksgiving is indeed the cruelest holiday, with its twin towers of consumption—gorging and distance-driving—and because of this I generally try to avoid it at all costs. It's true I've never met a turkey I enjoyed, but that's only the half of it. Past T-day encounters have included: giving the Heimlich to grandma, an epic shouting match whose most memorable quote was "Fuck your Football," and an incident I will simply dub The Macaroni Panic Attack. Now, Xmas is generally more ripe with misfortune, but at least the smell of pine needles sets a pleasant backdrop for family strife. The only thing that makes Thanksgiving palatable is the three pounds of coconut-pecan-topped sweet potato souffle that I push into myself ritualistically on that darkest of Thursdays.
This year, I decided to protest, to retreat to the rooftop with my Red Ryder BB gun and shoot any passing revelers or wassailers or bringers of good cheer. Not fatally, of course, but enough to let them know my stance. Now, I had originally planned to hand out smallpox blankets to South Asheville's burgeoning jerk population, to spread dis-ease deep into the cookie cutter subdivisions, but I couldn't source enough virus (or enough anti-virus, for that matter), so I decided to keep it close to home, with raw kale and a couple fingers of local corn liquor.
But after hours alone on that steep roof, something broke in me, and I climbed down through the dormer window and started to bake with a feverish glee. In a short time, I had cookies on the countertop, a lentil loaf in the oven, and a pumpkin consommé on the stove. But I needed garlic for my cheesy quinoa (there being a moratorium on macaroni and all), and so I set out into the still gray afternoon with naive hope, and no small trace of fear. You see, I could imagine the way this evening was headed. At some point I would end up in bed, wrapped in a mass of blankets, eating quinoa by the handful while the latest episode of 30 Rock flashed across my laptop.
So there was a small sense of relief when I found the downtown deserted, papers blowing in the street, every door battened against the next day's mongoloid hordes. I walked from one end of town to the other, and the only humans I saw were a pair of Middle Eastern men who wished me a "Hap Thanksgiving" after I directed their minivan toward the terrors of Tunnel Road. No grocery store was open, and I walked home empty-handed, but by a stroke of luck, I showed up at the perfect time. There was a carful of folks outside the house leaving for Shakistan, a collection of tiny homemade houses tucked away in the woods of Emma. I called off my protest, grabbed the too-wet lentil loaf from inside, and joined their crew.
It's strange and wonderful out there in Emma. Eating stuffing from the wood-fired stove, throwing back a glass of homemade mead in the half-light, taking a shit in the ass-cold outhouse--these all had the effect of placing me in a settler-y mindset. Of course, the gingery Asian beet slaw and the chocolate-fig tart and the rap tape from '95 didn't let my mind stray too far from Asheville, but I let go just enough. And I forgot, for a second, the smallpox blankets and the buffalo, and as I looked around, I believed—if only for a second—that brilliant myth: white folks are alright. Then I took another handful of macaroni into my mouth and laughed through the cheese as Joseph carried a human turd to the compost heap, holding it low to avoid dropping E. Coli on the yard turkey he had slaughtered and dressed only days before.
