The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir (15 page)

Brent handed me the hatchet.

There was no more delaying.

Whack.

Goddammit. I’d practiced for two days chopping kindling until I could finally sever a three-inch-diameter branch with one swoop. But unlike a dead branch, the turkey’s neck was soft and kind of bouncy. My worst fear was realized: I hadn’t made a clean cut.

Whack. Whack.

I swung the hatchet two more times in rapid succession. The bird did struggle after the first unsuccessful chop and, surprisingly, even more so after the last. John held the thrashing body down with his hands, and I was left clutching the hatchet in one hand and the head in the other.

John quickly grabbed the headless bird by her feet and carried her upside down into the garage, wings still flapping. He expertly wrapped a pre-tied slipknot around her talons and hung her from a beam over a trash barrel. The blood first flowed out in a steady stream, but quickly subsided into a steady dripping.

I stared at the dangling bird, wings akimbo, as it emptied. With the drama over, I noticed that the glove on my left hand was torn between the thumb and the forefinger, and that my own hand was throbbing in pain. Taking the glove off, I realized that the reason the first swing of the hatchet didn’t sever the bird’s head was because I’d hit my own hand. I sliced through the glove and rather deeply into my flesh. Brent took a look and, like most of my illnesses and injuries, declared it minor.

John quickly moved on to begin his morning chores, and Brent and I went inside to clean the wound and fix breakfast while we waited for the turkey to drain completely of blood.

When I’d explained to my colleagues at work that I planned on killing my own turkey, most of them were less grossed out by the killing part than the dressing details. “You’re going to pluck it yourself?! What about the guts?!” To me, this was far less daunting than the executioner’s task. We all have blood and guts. And like anyone careening toward forty, I was growing acutely more aware of them as my body began adding its various aches and ailments to its permanent collection.

But also, like anyone smack dab in midlife territory, I was beginning to truly realize that there was some point in time, either just about to happen or just past, when there would be fewer Thanksgiving Days left for me rather than more. Sometime down the line, Brent (who is four years younger than I and far healthier) would probably be sitting down at a Thanksgiving table at which the turkey had been alive more recently than I had.

As the magnitude of dying starts to sink in (or, perhaps more frighteningly, the “minitude”), the plucking and gutting part of dying begins to seem fairly insignificant. It’s the irreversibility of what comes before. I was starting to really understand the existential comfort behind my mother’s explanation for most any unpleasantness in life: what’s done is done.

After breakfast I returned to the garage with several buckets of scalding water to finish what I’d started. It was important, I’d read, to remove the intestines and fecal matter as quickly and cleanly as possible so as not to contaminate the meat. So first I plucked the feathers near the bird’s anus, which was not hard to find considering that she had (like most of us will) made good use of it during her final moments.

Then using a hunting knife borrowed from John, I carved a small hole into her flesh just wide enough for me to insert my clenched fist. Pulling out the viscera proved easier than I thought. Most of it fell out in a clean clump onto the gravel of the driveway. Removing the hen’s internal organs seemed no more stubborn than gutting the fish I used to catch as a boy. Part of me was a little disturbed at the thought of how unattached everyone’s insides must be to our outsides.

Bubby showed up at my side and carefully sniffed around the turkey’s internal organs, deciding which to devour first. At least it would make the cleanup easier.

Once hollow, I dipped the carcass into the hot water to loosen its feathers slightly, and began the arduous and monotonous task of plucking. The repetitive act of finding and pulling each feather was sort of meditative—along the same lines as plucking petals from a daisy. “He’ll taste good…He’ll taste good not…” Soon the turkey began looking less like it did just an hour or so ago, and more like the familiar pale pimply flesh of a supermarket turkey.

Except it seemed smaller than a Butterball.

Much smaller.

More like the size of a small chicken. A very small, very flatchested chicken.

Brent came out to check on my progress.

“That’s
it
?” he asked, inspecting the denuded hen.

“A bit wee, isn’t it,” I said, holding it up with my fist firmly jammed up its ass.

“How many pounds is it?”

Together we found the hanging scale that John used to weigh buckets of milk.

“That can’t be right,” I said, looking at the dial. John came and looked over our shoulders.

“Nope. That looks about right,” he said, chuckling.

We had seven people arriving from the city for an old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner. I did some quick calculations in my head.

“That means we’re going to have less than a quarter pound of turkey apiece,” I said.

Our prize turkey, for which we had paid the exorbitant sum of five dollars earlier in the summer—about three times what a Butterball turkey would have cost us, even more if we factored in feed—weighed only four and a half pounds.

“Why don’t you kill another one?” Brent asked.

I held up my bloody hand in reply.

“Well, maybe some Indians will come by and share their bounty,” Brent joked.

Eight hours later we were clearing the dishes off of the Thanksgiving table. Other than the flour and sugar used in the recipes, every dish served on our Thanksgiving table came completely from the farm. The turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn casserole, squash, pickles, sour cherry sauce, apple cider, homemade cornbread stuffing, and pumpkin pie were all provided courtesy of the ground underneath the Beekman. It probably wasn’t much different from the Thanksgivings that the early Beekmans shared. Our guests were amazed at the bounty. I doubt even Martha could have put together a better spread. Well…

The turkey carcass had been picked clean, of course. Everyone got about two bites, which made up for in flavor what they lacked in size. The meat wasn’t as tender as the flavorless supermarket turkeys, and the breasts were far smaller and leaner, but our turkey had a delicious flavor—almost like roasted grain and nuts, with a hint of yellow apples.

All of our guests enjoyed the running commentary on each dish—the history of the garden and seeds, how everything was harvested, the process of canning and preserving it all. It was different from most Thanksgivings I’d been a part of. It was less about stuffing ourselves to excess, and more about how miraculous it was that there was a full table of food in the first place. I couldn’t help but think that was supposed to be the point of the holiday all along. I also couldn’t help but think that my role as an advertiser contributed to the misperception of food as a commodity whose value was distinguished mainly by calorie count and serving size. Boasting about the size of one’s holiday turkey is really only genuine when one had something to do with feeding it.

After dinner I took the scrap pail out and emptied it onto the compost heap. The still warm scraps that had been scraped from the plates and the small turkey carcass steamed in the chilly late-afternoon air. Even though it was only 4:30 the sun was already beginning to set, and the remaining three turkeys cast long shadows across the barnyard. I noticed that the wishbone was still attached to the carcass. I reached into the compost pile and pulled it free, planning to share a wish duel with Brent later that evening. The bone was tiny of course, and with one hand bandaged it was difficult to get a good grip on it.

Just when I thought I had loosened it enough to break free, it broke. I was left holding the smallest prong.

The turkey won.

But it didn’t matter. This boy from Wisconsin already had most of his wishes come true.

Chapter Fourteen

I’d been dreading the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas ever since I first learned that I’d have to spend most of them in Chicago working on the same damn health insurance project that had been dragging on for almost two years with no progress. Ever since we’d purchased the Beekman I’d had holiday season wet dreams. Ice skating. Hot chocolate. Snow angels. The Beekman Mansion’s fourteen-foot-wide center halls were practically designed for maximum boughs-of-holly decking.

Instead I was stuck in what I’d long considered the most banal big city in the Western Hemisphere. There’d been a sweeping change in marketing management at the health insurance company, and I’d been sent out to help reassure the new executives that I remained just as committed to doing nothing as I had been before. This would involve many expense account dinners and rounds of cocktails paid for by the sicknesses of the company’s membership. “To their health!”

I had a couple of down days between scheduled meetings and the resulting focus groups, and one of my clients had offered me a pair of tickets to an
Oprah
taping. At first I declined. I’d been nursing a slight Oprah grudge for several years, ever since my first book had been released and I’d learned through a friend who worked for Harpo Productions that several of
Oprah
’s producers were reading it and enjoying it. Even though the drag and drug topic seemed a little dark for your average housewife, I believed that maybe it could be the perfect, if unconventional, fit for Oprah’s Book Club—troubled young man struggling to find himself, overcoming obstacles, blah blah blah.

If Oprah had picked my book, I could be on easy street instead of toiling away on Madison Avenue. She was the most powerful force in publishing and an endorsement by her would sell millions. It seemed like a sure thing. I started to believe it was going to happen, especially after my friend forwarded me an e-mail in which her
Oprah
producer friend had described my book as a “good read.”

Instead, Oprah’s next pick was Sidney Poitier’s autobiography. Sure he was an Oscar-winning actor, but had he ever tried performing drunk in seven-inch heels and with live goldfish in his tits?

But even given Oprah’s obviously dubious taste in literature, a few days into my business trip I changed my mind and accepted the tickets. I realized that attending an
Oprah
show taping was still more appealing than sitting in my hotel room watching
Judge Judy
.

Sitting in the audience before the taping began, I was fascinated by the crowd. The studio was packed with women who’d traveled from all over. I knew this because there was a contest led by the audience warm-up host for who traveled the longest distance to come to the show. The winner came from Norway, but the woman next to me (from Indiana) claimed the contest had been unfair. The Norwegian was merely in town visiting family who happened to have an extra
Oprah
ticket. This Scandinavian scoundrel was clearly not a dev-O-tee like the rest of the eager audience.

During the twenty-minute warm-up, the excitement in the air reached a fever pitch. Looking around I realized I was the sole male in my audience section. Each woman seemed to be wearing some bright color or accessory that she believed would surely capture Oprah’s attention. They shouted out messages to the crew members, hoping that someone would pass on the information to Oprah herself. One woman had gone to the same high school as Oprah. Another was married to someone who used to cut Oprah’s hair. Yet another had brought along a copy of her own self-published diet book to pass along to the famous host.

By the time the warm-up host was wrapping up, the entire crowd was shrieking in anticipatory excitement. I was actually a bit frightened by the pack mentality. It was like a rock concert. Oprah was imminent. The lights dimmed, and the director began the countdown…

As the lights flashed on again, the crowd of women rose simultaneously and turned into one giant, screaming, clapping entity of jumping flesh and brightly colored accessories.

Oprah appeared at the studio entrance to my left and waited a moment until the director motioned for her to make her entrance—which she did, immersing herself in the outstretched worship of the audience like one of John’s goats facing into a welcome stiff spring breeze.

I have to admit I wasn’t immune. During the hour-long taping, we were treated to several guests who’d transformed their lives into what Oprah called their “Best Lives.” It seemed to be a mantra of sorts. One woman left her boring corporate job to work with handicapped animals. Another started a small confectionary business that had hit the big time. The audience oohed and aahed at a young man who fled his abusive parents and spent three years helping African tribes dig wells for freshwater.

By the end of the hour of taping, I too had been magically transformed from a cynical ad guy into a full-fledged Oprah banshee. I clapped when the director mimed for us to. I frowned in concerned empathy whenever an audience camera zoomed by my head. I clapped with wild abandon until my palms hurt each time we went into a commercial break.

The stories of personal transformation and triumph of Oprah’s guests buzzed through me the way vodka used to. It was addictive. And no matter how hard I fought it, it was inspiring.

There I was, stuck in Chicago on a business trip while Brent was making goat milk hot chocolate and pulling Christmas ornaments down from the attic. Was
this
my Best Life? I was boring myself to tears watching the same hotel pay-per-view movies each night after spending all day shilling taglines and thirty-second commercials to clients who were more concerned with not making a wrong decision than making any decision at all.

I was nearing forty years old—six years removed from the eighteen-to thirty-four-year-olds that advertisers lusted after. The clients who paid me to come up with ad ideas weren’t even interested in advertising to
me
. I didn’t know of many people who lasted in advertising past forty-five or fifty, no matter how talented they were at doing nothing.