NSFW – Fatback Media

OK kids, back to work time. Thanksgiving was awesome. I spent the holidays up north in Connecticut with my Swedish Cross Country Skier girlfriend, her crazy Swedish family and their cute-as-a-button accents. And by crazy, I mean completely normal. They don’t really deserve to celebrate Thanksgiving though, since they’re foreigners. After all, it was red blooded, American NASCAR fans who created Thanksgiving for God and all the pilgrims and shit, but [my girlfriend's family] are all so pretty and blond that I told them I would make an exception for them. Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for the things that we appreciate in our lives. Unless you’re a dirty foreigner, then you just get to watch, sukkas! So I compiled a little list of the things I am thankful for. I invite you to suck it in the event that you don’t give a shit. I give thanks that:

I give thanks that southern people figured out years ago that anything, anything can be eaten if it is fried properly.I am thankful that I can ram a pound of salt cured bacon up a turkey’s ass and fry it till its golden brown, then eat it served with fried potatoes, fried (green) tomatoes, fried okra, fried pickles, fried fish, fried cheese and a fried human baby (well..just the breast the dark meat is a little game-y)

I am thankful that I will not be eating with my own relatives this year. Why? Well…

A typical Thanksgiving at my house involves any or all of the following:Chainsaw fights, trailer parks, Kool Menthols, corn liquor, black eyes, screaming babies, cigarette burns, paroled felons, post traumatic stress disorder, burned food, burned people, shotgun blasts, divorcees, incest and/or burying a body.

In case you have any doubts, the paragraphs you are about to read actually happened at Thanksgiving when I was in high school and the details are so vivid in my mind that I can write it down without pausing for: One.Single.Second.

For Thanksgiving, when I was in the twelfth grade I went to see my mom and her current husband (number four!) at the mobile home trailer where they lived. Both were divorcees several times over, so they really hit it off when they were partnered together on the local police force. ‘K’, my step dad for the season, had two brothers – twins – who had come back from Vietnam with two bullet wounds each, and nice big cases Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. “Ronny” and “Donny” had really taken to the VA benefits and after an early parole for involuntary manslaughter decided that their efforts were best served by brewing their own corn liquor moonshine on the back-side of the trailer property near the woods.

On Thanksgiving eve, I was introduced to Ronny’s wife Etta and her new black eye. “Fell while cooking”, she said. Etta flagrantly nursed one of her three year old twins while the other screamed bloody murder because the cat had scratched off her gauze eye patch and opened the scab. Jezzie ( that’s right, Jezzie), Donny’s wife quickly came to the rescue of her niece and calmed the child down. She cradled the little tyke in one arm and worked a zippo with the other hand to light a crumpled Kool menthol before offering me one. I refused, but I did ask her about her black eye. I guess these brothers do everything together.

Around the barbeque pit I was reacquainted with Chuck (a cousin, somehow) and his younger brother Steve. Steve had just gotten married to Chuck’s wife Emily’s daughter. To reacap, the bothers were married to a mother and daughter-the younger brother the to former and the older brother, to the latter. In their defense, Emily (the mother) was 40 and Angie (the daughter) was 23.

After 6 hours of kicking back Busch Lights, kept cold in the snow around the fire pit, Ronny decided that Donny had to die. Donny, not ready to give all for God and Country any more, politely asked Donny to go straight to hell.The duel was afoot. Weapon of choice: Husqvarna 22″ chainsaws.

There are no paces or gentlemanly turns in a chainsaw fight. Basically, the first one to get his engine started wins- every time. Both began yanking the starter cords at the same time, but unfortunately for Donny by the time he got two dead pulls, Ronny had flayed him open from tip of his right steel toe boot to the backside of his left ear. Ronny was covered in blood and looked like a demon in the firelight. “I heard him calling out for a medic and a chopper as I ran to call 911. The ambulance arrived right just as “K” my step dad and his mother “granny“, were deciding what to do with the body. The old brick foundry seemed to be the consensus. It took one thousand three hundred and twenty two stitches close Donny up. He was in the hospital for 7 weeks before he transferred permanently to the local VA hospital.

That year, I ate Thanksgiving dinner on the day after Thanksgiving at a Diner off I-95. I had been up for 39 hours between the all night cookout and the hospital waiting room. I had country fried steak, with gravy, mashed potatoes and two shots of Wild Turkey with Denise, my waitress, who incidentally was the sister of my cousin Steve’s wife Angie. Best. Holiday. Ever.