text: You can’t choose your family, and I lost the family lottery big time. I doubt anyone ever wins big, not unless they are gifted a very limited number of family members who have mastered the art of not inflicting themselves upon family members. There is supposed to be a compensating strategy to make up for family and it has something to do with friends. Apparently, you can choose your friends, but that all falls down because it’s not like you can form a cadre of friends who you take with you wherever you go to protect you from family and the occasional crafty mugger. You certainly can’t take your friends to the annual assault course which is Thanksgiving. That’s one of the unwritten family rules. The Thanksgiving rules seem to be that you have to be present at all times and you have to take anything and everything that is thrown at you. It seems that my role is as the family punchbag, and punchbags can never hit back. Funny isn’t it? You know how some things will go so you don’t even try them. If I was to defend myself from the insults and injuries that I receive during Thanksgiving, then this would be seen as the worst kind of attack and everyone would suddenly find a way of uniting and pulling together in order to put me back in my place. That’s the only way I could unite my family, a temporary set of uneasy alliances formed to secure my demise. Now, I could endure and survive Thanksgiving if it was atypical of the way my family is for the rest of the year. The truth is that each and every member of my family is broken and the sad truth of it is that the family broke all of them. The Clark Clan has been doing this for a very long time now and they’ve got really good at it. This family is a sausage factory. They mince their young up and squeeze them painfully into the straightjacket of their skin. There’s no defence against something like that, and there’s no stopping it. There’s no stopping it because you don’t know it’s happening to you until it’s already happened and by then it’s too late. The fascinating thing is that my family looks like all the other families. This broken and spiteful set of warring peoples somehow manage to look like a unit. They seem to conform and never do they set any alarms off, nor do red flags get hoisted up the flag pole in the front garden. People see what they want to see though and they keep themselves to themselves. Even the really nosey people. That lot are on the hunt for juicy snippets that accord with their world view and for some strange reason they skip over my family. We’re not invisible, but we are unremarkable. And yet, we’re all weird and we do stand out. I know we do. I can see the reaction we provoke, but somehow we’re passed by each and every time. I watch people you see. I’ve watched them for a long time. Studied them. I think I wanted to know them a little more so I could figure out how to fit in, but somewhere along the path that all changed. Change has happened to me all along the path I have stumbled and hobbled along. It’s happened so relentlessly that I now loathe it. I loathe a lot of things. If I wrote a list I would run out of ink and then I’d run out of paper. Right now, I loathe the prospect of Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is already happening to me. Again. This time I have a different plan. I’ve always had plans, but they never work out. You see, there’s only one me and there are seven of them. The odds have never been in my favour. But this time I’m going to approach it in an entirely different way. “You’re quiet George.” This is my gran and this is her opening gambit. It seems innocuous enough, but to engage gran in any sort of conversation is to open yourself up for a spot of verbal flogging. Her tongue is so sharp that she could flay someone alive in the space of five minutes. To say she is not pleasant is the closest you can get to being complimentary about her. I whisper my reply, “I’m being overwhelmed with the wonderful company at the table.” “Pardon?” she says archly. “I’m sad that Betty couldn’t make it,” I tell her at normal volume. “Yes,” says gran, turning on my father, “where is Betty?” “Dunno,” he says, “she said she was going to come.” And of course she did. We’d all rather remove our eyeballs with rusty spoons than come to gran’s for Thanksgiving, but the consequences of non-attendance don’t bear thinking about, so no one has ever defied gran and not turned up. Until now. “She better have a good excuse,” gran growls. I whisper again, “oh she does.” “You what?” gran growls again, “what is it with you and your whispering you rude girl!” I’m twenty eight and don’t consider myself to be a girl anymore. I doubt I ever was thanks to this awful matriarch, “I’m sure she’s here in spirit, gran.” Gran is not placated. Gran would never allow herself to be placated by another human being. That cannot happen because she is at the top of the pecking order and that is all there is to it. “How’s the new job, George?” this is Aunt Francis. She’s alright on the face of it and that has always bugged me. I don’t see how she can be alright in this toxic environment and so I harbour suspicions that she is the worst of us all. If I have any doubt about Aunt Francis’s bad credentials, all I have to do is look at her two children. They are about as shitty as shitty can be. Spoiled, but in the same way that food spoils when it is not eaten in time. They fizz and they smell and I can’t bear to look at them. “It pays the bills,” I tell her. I hate my job and even saying those four words about it boils my urine and makes me hate her just a little more. “You’re still existing in that backward town then?” asks gran. “Surviving,” I nod. There’s no point in pushing back. She’s looking for that. Anything that will give her more ammunition to wound me with. I glance across at granddad. I think I saw him react to her question, but cannot be sure. I’m never sure when it comes to him. Granddad has been on death’s door for all of my formative life. He barely says a word. Barely does a thing other than breathe. Some of his food will disappear from his plate, but I won’t see him eat it and it’s never enough to fuel a human being. There was a time when I thought gran was poisoning him. The husbands and wives that marry into our family don’t last long. Long enough to make the next generation of losers and then they’re off, ignorant of what they have actually done. Too busy licking their wounds and wondering what the hell happened back there. They never once think about the abandonment of their children. Somehow they don’t see it like that. People see what they want to see. We make our way through the main course, slings and arrows thrown my way, mostly by gran, but father joins in too. Francis’s kids smirk at me, adding to the hostile ambience. I take it. I take it all, just as I always have and I watch them as they eat. A tradition of our Thanksgiving is that we all bring at least one dish. This year, I brought the pigs in blankets. Gran was derogatory as soon as she saw them, but I see she has polished them all off. In fact, my side dish has been quite the hit. The plate is now empty. The empty plate is my cue. “I see you enjoyed the Betty in blankets,” I say to gran. I’ve stopped eating and have my elbows on the table. I make a cradle with my fingers and rest my chin on it. This is guaranteed to rile the old bag. On my plate are all the bacon wrapped sausages I took from the serving plate. I haven’t eaten a single one. Their presence there makes a point. “What did you say?” gran hisses. I hear Francis gasp. “That’s not funny,” father says. I never take my eyes from gran, but in my peripheral vision I can see Francis’s kids and they are not grinning. I don’t think they’ll ever grin again. “I find it amusing,” I say in a dull monotone, “Betty was always a bit of a pig.” “You’re a horrid little girl,” growls gran, “always have been, always will be.” I smile in reply. Then the tension of the present interaction is broken by a far too loud ringtone. Francis blushes bright red as she reaches into her bag for her phone. The ringtone louder as she retrieves it. The tune catchy, but not recognisable. “Hello?” she says into the phone. When her red face goes very pale I know what the call is about. I’d hoped it would play out like this. I smile as an optional part of my plan comes into play. She isn’t on the phone for long, but it’s long enough to see her transformed. Her transformation will not stop there though. Not by a long chalk. “What is it girl?” gran asks bluntly as Francis ends the call. Francis does her best not to cry. Crying in front of gran would not go well, “my house. It’s on fire...” Gran tuts. She tuts like Francis’s house being on fire is an avoidable inconvenience. That tut makes it clear that Francis is misbehaving and that this is not acceptable. Not here and now during Thanksgiving. Francis gets up. “Where do you think you’re going!?” barks gran. “Home!” shouts Francis. And just for a moment, I think I might have got Francis wrong. That moment passes though. They all do. In the face of gran’s chagrin, Francis leaves. She leaves under the darkest of clouds and she takes her two grown up but still childish children with her. They scowl at me as they leave. I also get up. “What do you think you’re doing, girl? ” asks gran. I smile my smile, “seeing them off.” “Sit down right now!” she screams as I turn my back on her and leave the room. I am in time to see Francis reverse at speed from the driveway and I wince at the sight of it. Composing myself, I return to a dispassionate state as Francis accelerates away and disappears down the hill. She didn’t see me in the doorway, but her two smarmy offspring did. They turned to look at me and gave me the bird in a well-choreographed move. Drawing a deep breath in I savour the crisp smell of the approaching Winter. Some smells enliven a person. This is one of them and I am smiling in an approximation of happiness. I flinch just once as I hear the car crash. Francis was driving far too fast. There was no way she was going to stop in time. Not without any brakes she wasn’t. The sight of the fireball warms and emboldens me. I sniff once again at the air and fancy I catch a whiff of an unseasonal barbeque. Smiling once more, I walk back inside, leaving the door open. Another small victory that will annoy gran. My coat is hanging in the hall and from my coat pocket I pull gloves. I am putting them on as I return to the dining room. Gran shakes her head at me, “gloves? You are as odd as they come. A constant disappointment to me and your weak father. It’s his fault. Far too weak. Let you get away with far too much...” No one asks me about the noise of a car crash and explosion. They don’t care. She’s still talking as I pick up the carving knife and carve a second mouth into my father’s neck. The knife is nice and sharp, I sharpened the blade earlier. I can’t help but ignore gran and inspect my handiwork. Father’s eyes are dumb with surprise. He just sits there, but there is a moment of inexplicable beauty as his new mouth gapes open and for the first time ever, he smiles at me. Then the blood comes. I had read about this part, but never experienced it. I had toyed with practicing with Betty, but instead I despatched her in a far less theatrical manner. The Thanksgiving dinner table is painted red, but somehow gran remains her usual granite-like self. I note only three small and disrespectful spots of blood. I grin at the thought of father remaining so scared of his mother that even in his death throes he avoided getting any of his life blood on her. But I’m grinning. I can’t help but grin. This has to be the best Thanksgiving ever! “You bitch!” gran snarls at me, “how dare you ruin Thanksgiving!” That’s what she says to me. They are her words in the aftermath of the slaying of her son, and the death of her daughter and grandchildren. They are her words after I’ve told her that she’s just eaten some of her granddaughter. These are her words as I walk around the table and place the carving knife in her bony little hand. A hand that seems birdlike and too small for such an evil woman and such a huge, dominating presence in all of our lives. She looks at the knife and then at me and for one magical moment, I think she is going to stab me in the guts. I can picture it and almost feel the knife entering my midriff. She would twist it and disembowel me. That is what she would do. That is how she is built. “You’ve made your point love,” granddad is nodding at me, then his eyes go to the door telling me in no uncertain terms that I should leave now. Not wanting gran to end me with that life. Get out. Get out while you can! Why didn’t he say this earlier? Why didn’t he say something when it would have counted? Too little. Too late. “Oh shut up you ridiculous man!” My gran spits these words out even as she turns on him and plunges the point of the wickedly sharp knife through the old and helpless man’s eye. Such is the force of the thrust that the knife goes almost all the way to the handle. I laugh. I can’t help myself but laugh. I’ve just heard the punchline for this year’s Thanksgiving and it’s a humdinger. “Why are you laughing!?” my gran screams. Why are you laughing?! Why are you laughing?! Why are you laughing?! I tell her once I have gotten over my fit of the giggles. I lean in and whisper it in her ear. Then I step back and in a loud voice I pronounce, “Oh gran! What have you done!?” As she looks at me with a contorted expression of shock and rage, I call the police and I play the part of innocent and traumatised granddaughter very well. I play it better than anyone ever could, and I find myself looking forward to being there at gran’s trial. I’ll be there every day and I’ll look her in the eye as she faces the music. I’ll relish the summing up. That part will be delicious. As the judge name calls and she winces with every word that lands. They won’t see it of course. None of them will. Gran will be wearing her very best mask. But I’ll see it. And I’ll know, and that will be enough. That and the prospect of no more Thanksgiving Dinners with that bunch of broken and messed up assholes. Good riddance to bad rubbish as far as I’m concerned.