Lick Your Neighbor (2 page)

“Why would I want to do that?”

“To stimulate the appetite.”

“Honey!” Dale screamed. “I need some help up here!”

“What if I make up a turkey haiku?” Tommy asked. “Then would you eat some?”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Of course not.”

“You’re not making fun of my haiku night class?” Dale asked.

“Haiku and You: Finding Inner Peace through Syllables? I would
never
make fun of something like that.”

“Good. Because if you did I’d—”

Tommy cleared his throat.

Beautiful meat treat.

The tastiest thing ever.

“I’m going to cut your head off with a chainsaw,” Dale interrupted.

Tommy added up the syllables on his fingers.

“That was way too many syllables, Dad. You need to cut a bunch.”

“I wasn’t trying to finish your stupid haiku. I’m really going to kill you.”

Tommy walked over to
Freedom from What?
He pointed at the smirking bald man in the corner of the frame. “What would your old boss, Hank Ferdue say about all this?”

“Nothing. He’s dead.”

“He’d say ‘It takes a strong man to make a tender turkey.’”

“So?”

“So I made this tender turkey. And that means I’m strong.”

“Why are you looking at me like that, Tommy? You look deranged.”

“Strong enough to do things like pry open a stubborn dad’s mouth.”

“Tommy, don’t you dare.”

“Here comes the jaws of life!”

Dale screamed for his life. And for his wife.

“Aaaaandie!”

Downstairs at the kitchen table a women’s hands, smothered in butter, caressed a raw turkey. They glided over the pink skin, leaving behind an oily sheen. Once the skin was completely covered in butter, Andie Alden turned to look at the TV sitting on the kitchen counter. Amril Lagoosee, the celebrity Cajun chef, was on screen, and he also had his slimy hands on a raw turkey.

“
Aw yeah babe. Now that we got our little friend here all lubed up, time to make him happy happy. What you wanna do is massage him, nice and slow. I like to start with the breasts. What do I always say? Da breasts are da best. So start with those. Round and round, back and forth. Give em a good squeeze. But not too hard! Don’t want them to pop off. Okay good. Now, open up those legs and slide your hands inside the hole. That’s right both hands. Don’t be afraid. She can take it.”

Andie followed along diligently
.
With both her hand deep inside the bird, the sounds of Dale screaming bloody murder from upstairs would have to wait.

* * *

The kitchen window behind Andie looked out into the Alden’s backyard, where two Duxbury police officers could be seen slowly approaching the large maple tree. Both had their guns drawn.

A third, much younger officer, stood hunched over a few feet behind the other two. He was vomiting, quite violently.

“Why do we have our guns out?” Officer Truax asked.

“Because there’s a dead body on the scene, that’s why,” Officer Ainsworth replied.

“But it’s a hanging,” Truax said. “Most likely suicide, don’t ya think?”

“I know a suicide when I see one. And that ain’t no suicide. That, partner, is cold blooded murrrrrder.”

“Murrrrrder, eh? How do you know?”

“That old bird was too weak to hoist himself up there like that. Someone strung him up.”

“You think the murrrrrderer is still around?”

Ainsworth turned around and looked at the Alden home. In the upstairs window he caught a glimpse of Dale and Tommy. They were sword fighting. With turkey legs.

“Yes,” Ainsworth said. “Yes I do.”

* * *

Inside, the tea kettle screamed. Dale, now dressed in his usual work attire of a white shirt so starched it could stand on its a own, pressed brown slacks, and a solid blue tie, snatched the kettle from the burner and quickly poured the still-churning water over his tea bag.

“Are you sure you don’t want some of my tea?” Andie asked from the table. “I made a whole pot.”

“Nope.”

“It’s Golden Monkey.”

Andie took a deep whiff of the steam rising from her cup and let out a long ahhhhh.

“Handpicked every spring in the Fujian province of China.”

“Oh yeah? Well this is Lipton,” Dale said. “God knows how it’s picked, where it’s from, or if it’s actually cremated human remains instead of tea leaves. But I know where it’s going. Down the hatch.”

Dale took a big gulp, swishing it around like mouthwash, and swallowed dramatically, finishing with a theatrical sigh of satisfaction.

“Why would you rather drink those powdery dregs?” Andie asked, “And don’t say it’s a slippery slope from drinking fine tea to getting so fat that a deranged serial killer makes you eat so much spaghetti your stomach bursts. I’m so sick of hearing that.”

“Then I won’t say it.” Dale checked his reflection in the microwave window. One hair was sticking up from his now combed hair. Dale licked his finger and plastered the renegade hair down. “But it’s still true.”

Dale opened the fridge and was greeted by the site of a whole salted duck hanging from a rope. The rope was tied around the duck’s breast and fastened to the fridge on a hook. Everything else in the fridge had been packed into the bottom two shelves to make room for the deep purple bird, which rocked slowly back and forth.

Dale sighed. “Something you want to tell me, Andie?”

“What? I’m making duck prosciutto.”

“You’re curing meat in our fridge?”

“Where else am I going to cure it?”

“What about my milk?”

“What about it?”

“It’s going to taste like duck now.”

“And that’s bad because…”

“Because I don’t want fucking Frosted Duckflakes for breakfast!”

Dale slammed the fridge shut. He took a step toward the kitchen table and almost tripped when his foot hit a small metal stand on the floor. “Ow! What the hell is that?”

“Oh, I forgot I put that there. It’s the base for the deep-fryer. It’s for tomorrow.” Andie took a sip of her tea. “You know, for the turkey. This whole oven-roasted bullshit just isn’t working out, no matter how much extra fat I use. The last turkey that came out of the oven was covered in so much pork fat it was practically oinking, and it was
still
dry. I mean the skin was crispy and delicious, but the meat? Blek. Meat should be moist and delicious. Like bacon. Hmmmmm. Maybe I’m going about this backwards. Maybe I should get a pig…and wrap it in turkey skin.”

“A carcass hanging in the fridge. Covering one animal in the skin of a totally different animal. You’re a serial killer aren’t you? Is there a pit in the basement I should know about, Andie? Is that where you’re keeping all these poor ducks, pigs and turkeys? Lowering them basting butter in a basket?”

“Fine. I’ll stick with the fryer.”

“You’re seriously planning on deep-frying our Thanksgiving turkey?”

Doing her best impression of a bobble head, Andie nodded her head enthusiastically.

“No!” Dale slammed his fist on the table, setting off a small tsunami in Andie’s tea cup. “No, no, no. No, damn you!”

“It’s supposed to be delicious.”

“I don’t care. And what is this thing?” Dale held up a syringe the size of a trombone. “Are we supporting an elephant’s drug habit?”

“It’s a flavor injector. For the turkey.”

“What are you going to inject it with?”

“Blue cheese.”

“For the love of Baby Jesus.”

“And maybe some duck fat.”

“Okay you know what,” Dale said, “this is out of control. It’s a foodpocalypse in this house! And what exactly is Tommy eating?”

Andie glanced at her son at the other side of the kitchen table. “A pumpkin spice gingersnap cupcake with maple cream cheese frosting and cinnamon pudding center. Did you have one? They’re
pretty damn good.”

“For
breakfast
, Andie? Why don’t you just get a funnel and shove handfuls of lard directly down our child’s throat? Or why not just deep-fry everything we eat from now on? Don’t you think that cupcake would be better if it was dipped in batter and fried in a pot of grease?”

“Oh don’t be ridicu…you know what, that sounds
good
.”

“I’m serious! Look at our son, Andie. It’s like he’s in a food coma over there. He’s not even blinking!”

“Would you relax? It’s
the holidays, Dale. You’re
supposed
to go into a food coma. Take gluttony out of Thanksgiving and what are you left with?”

“Oh I don’t know, Andie,
the Pilgrims
. You know, the good, decent people who
founded
this country.” Dale walked into the adjoining kitchen and stood in front of a small portrait of a Pilgrim man on the wall. The man had a bushy black beard and wore a tall hat. An etched brass plate on the painting’s frame read ‘John Alden.’

“And that includes my ancestor, the man who founded this very town, John Alden. These strong, wise men and women came to this country, which was nothing more than a vast wilderness filled with thick shrubbery, wild beasts, and half-naked natives, and they turned it into a great nation. With profound courage, wisdom, and industriousness they paved over the shrubbery, they put the beasts in zoos, and they made everyone cover their crotches with cotton.
That
is what Thanksgiving is all about.”

“The Pilgrims, Dale? Seriously? Men with belt buckles on their hats and shoes, women in dreary black and grey dresses, all of them with somber looks on their faces? You call that a holiday? Something to celebrate? I don’t think so. But a mile-high pile of hot delicious food on the table? Now we’re talkin’. Besides, it’s our civic duty to consume as much as we can between now and New Year’s. If we don’t, our economy will tank, people will lose their jobs, crime will go up, and before you know it, people you know and love will end up mugged, raped, and naked in a ditch. All because you wouldn’t eat one measly deep fried pumpkin pudding cupcake. You work for Ferdue, you should know all this.”

“Just because I work in poultry doesn’t mean I think people should gorge themselves on our food. Eat our chicken and turkey products, sure, but do so responsibly. I mean, do you think liquor companies want people to get drunk all the time? Don’t answer that.”

Dale sighed as he walked back to the kitchen. “You know what, I give up. You win. We’ll have deep-fried diabetes with a side of mashed obesity for supper tomorrow. Are you done with the paper?”

“Yep.” Andie pushed The Duxbury Times away from her. “Nothing interesting in there anyway. They didn’t even reprint the Missing poster for my Dad. You just know that if he was a kidnapped perky breasted blonde that his picture would be plastered on the front page for weeks.”

“Yeah well it’s a real shame Silas isn’t a perky breasted blond.”

Andie sighed. “Yeah.”

Dale drummed his fingers on the paper. “So, uh, nothing else interesting in here, eh?”

“Nope.”

“No fascinating articles on the recent discovery of a three-hundred year-old diary that was written by a certain founding father who shares our last name?”

“Oh. Your article.”

“Did you read it?”

Andie quickly looked away from Dale and stared at the tea leaves in the bottom of her cup. “I wish I could read people’s tea leaves. I wonder what mine say? I think they say that this is going to be the bestest Thanksgiving ever.”

Dale crossed his arms. “You didn’t read it, did you?”

“I was saving it for later. Like dessert.”

“Or like death!” Dale snatched the paper from the table. “I don’t ask you to be genuinely interested in the work I do with the Preservation Society. All I ask is that you
pretend
to give a crap about my hobbies and my heritage. That’s all a man needs. The illusion of significance.”

“In that case, I did in fact read your article, honey. And wow. Wow, wow, how now brown cow, holy Mary mother of Christ on a stick, my mind has been blooooown.”

Dale looked at his wife for a moment and then bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “See how easy it is?”

Dale grabbed The Duxbury Times and leaned against the kitchen counter. He flipped to the back of the paper. On the last page, in the left bottom corner, there was a short article with the headline ‘Historical Society Makes Rare Find, by Dale Alden.’

Dale quietly read to himself.

“With Thanksgiving Day arriving tomorrow, your friends at The Duxbury Historical Preservation Society are pleased to announce a momentous discovery. While shifting through the town archives last week, Society President Dr. Theodore “Mayflower” Jenkins found a leather-bound diary at the bottom of a chest that was filled with old shipping records. The diary is that of John Alden, one of the original passengers on the Mayflower, and a founder of Duxbury. As the language and handwriting are both difficult to understand, Dr. Jenkins, who holds a PhD in linguistics, is currently translating the diary into modern English. For example, the unknown Native American word ‘Auwaog’ appears throughout the text, and much research will have to be done to find its meaning. As there are only two other known accounts of the first Plymouth Thanksgiving—both of which are very brief—Alden’s diary promises to offer fascinating insights into what daily life was like for the Pilgrims as they planted the seeds that eventually blossomed into the America we know today. Dr. Jenkins—”