“Why doesn’t Bobby have to be anything?”I asked as I fixed my claw-foot-thing.
“Bobby,” Fox said, whipping out a monocle to peer at me and then, apparently, dismissing me as they turned back to fuss with a sheaf of papers, “has a certain quiet dignity.”
“I have a certain quiet dignity,” I said loudly.
The worst part was that Bobby chewed on the strings of his hoodie when he was trying not to laugh, and it just.wasn’t.fair.
“What about Millie?”I asked—mostly, at this point, to keep from drooling over Bobby.“Why is she a can of—what are you a can of?”
“Cranberry sauce,” Millie told me brightly.
“Why does Millie get to be a can of cranberry sauce?”
“To symbolize the blood spilled by capitalism and corporate greed,” Fox said without looking up from their notes.
“Wait, what blood?”But then the flatbed rocked slightly as Keme scrambled up to join us.Like me, he was dressed in an enormous turkey costume.Unlike me, he looked surprisingly content.Probably because he was within fifteen feet of Millie, and his teenager brain calculated that his odds of a sudden, spontaneous kiss had just skyrocketed.“And why is Keme a turkey too?Why do we need two turkeys and a can of cranberry sauce?And isn’t it—” I lowered my voice.“—a little racially insensitive to ask Keme to do this?”
“Keme can still hear you,” Millie said.
That was very clear.Keme was using his hands to tell me what I should go do with myself.
“It’s not racially insensitive,” Fox said.They came over to the flatbed, bent to retrieve something from the warehouse floor, and handed up an axe.“It’s a commentary about our nation’s history.”
“What’s a commentary about our nation’s history?”
“Mostly the part at the end when he chops your head off.”
Again, so many questions—like why one turkey chopping off another turkey’s head would be a commentary on anything, except maybe turkey-on-turkey violence—but then I got a better look, and the only thing that could come out of my mouth was “That’s a real axe.”
“Of course it’s a real axe,” Fox said.“How’s he going to chop off your head with a fake one?”
I mean, part of me knew that I wasn’t really going to get my head chopped off.But this was also Fox we were talking about.And Fox’s artistic endeavors had a way of going…awry.Also, I loved Keme, and Keme loved me (I was pretty sure), but also—like, what if he thought he might get that kiss from Millie if he showed off with the axe a little?And one poor, innocent, still-in-the-bloom-of-his-youth mystery writer just happened to be, uh, part of that showing off?
Keme took the axe and gave a few enthusiastic practice whacks.Bobby was trying so hard not to chuckle or guffaw or cackle (choose your verb) that looked like he was about to cry.
“Okay,” I said, “I think maybe, just possibly, we should reconsider some of this.”
Fox folded their arms.And then, the words stiff, they said, “Sure.Let’s reconsider my artistic vision.Because, of course, this is all a grotesque mockery of an artistic performance, and my art—if that word can be applied to something so ignoble, something so foully misshapen—is nothing but a shambling crap-heap, and nothing I’ve ever done has been meaningful or true or justified my pathetic existence on this mortal coil.”
Bobby looked at me.Millie looked at me.Keme looked at me, and he was holding the axe.
“No, no, no,” I said.“Your artistic vision is, um, a vision.It’s true.It’s meaningful.I was just having cold feet.”
“Perfect!”Fox clapped their hands.“Put your head on the chopping block.The parade is about to start.”
“The parade?”
But Fox trotted around to the cab of the flatbed, and as the engine roared to life, the warehouse’s dock door began to roll up.Light spilled into the dark warehouse, and in the distance, I could hear music.
And then, with a dark look for Bobby—because I blamed him for all of this—I put my head on the chopping block.The truck jolted forward.Bobby gave me two thumbs-up, and I muttered, “Happy Thanksgiving.”
3
It wasstillthe day before Thanksgiving, and somehow—against all odds—I had survived being beheaded approximately fifty times as we did our part in Hastings Rock’s annual parade.And, to Fox’s credit, everyone seemed to love our float.It probably helped that nobody made the symbolic connection between Millie’s canned cranberry sauce and what I suppose ought to have been gouts and gouts of blood from my severed turkey body.And since Keme couldn’t swing the axe effectively (those turkey costumes seriously limited our range of movement), everybody seemed to think he was using it as a can opener.Since I got to lie down, my head on the chopping block and all that, and the rocking motion of the truck was surprisingly soothing, I even drifted off for part of it.I woke to hear one little girl saying, “That turkey is sleeping like grandma does after she takes her medicine.”
Now, as Millie and I drove toward her home for what was apparently a local tradition—the Naught Family Dessert and Game Night—I found myself longing for simpler times, like when I’d fallen asleep in public, dressed in a giant turkey costume, while Keme tried to take my head off.
“And then we’ll play TWISTER!”Millie announced.“Have you ever played Twister?I bet you’re good at it because Keme says your arms look like noodles.Do you like noodles?What’s your favorite food?Oh wait!You told me it was anything but soup!My favorite food is my grandma’s chicken and dumplings.Is that a soup?OH!Or my mom’s potato salad.I told Keme that once, and he said potato salad can’t be your favorite food, but it can, can’t it, Dash?”
