Is This The Thanksgiving We all Die?

When your Mother marries a new man not only do you get yourself a new
"Daddy," but you also inherit a whole new set of relatives. Which can be for better or worse, usually worse, but isn't generally a problem--except around the Holidays. It seems, Ray, my newest stepfather, has an older widowed sister named Iris, whose late husband, rumor has it, died of food-poisoning about a year ago. This little tidbit of info would've, no doubt, met with the same amount of indifference that I extend to all my stepfather's kin, were it not for the fact that we were planning on spending Thanksgiving with Aunt Iris. The culinary culprit, a woman who'd already killed with her kitchen, would be preparing food that I'd be expected to eat a heaping plate of. To quote a line from The Accidental Tourist, "is this the Thanksgiving we all die?"

The details I've managed to gather about her husbands food-related demise came from Boo, my little brother, who talks to my stepfather alot more than I do. According to Boo's version, Iris took the old boy out with her "sloppy joes." I confronted my mother with the issue, but she just smiled her scared little "come on honey, third husbands don't grow on trees" smile and dismissed the matter as nonsense. I could've easily made a scene and got out of going, "I want to have Thanksgiving with my real Dad," bla bla bla you know the drill. But the truth is, my real dad is a real jackass and besides, I'll admit I was a bit intrigued--I enjoy a good murder mystery. I figured unless the "old bat" is some kind of "Hitchcock nutjob," she can't afford to dish out the "Iris virus" to every dinner guest that comes down the pike. If it's true that she escaped justice in the case of her late husband, it'd look bad to have four more dead relatives lying around the dining room. Anyway, curiosity got the best of this kitty, and thus I decided to head on over the river and through the woods to Pahrump, Nevada.

"Most people think that Pahrump was named by the local Paiutes," explained my stepfather as we drove, "but it was actually named after it's most famous resident, 'the little drummer boy' . . . Pahrump ump ump pum." Easy Pops, you're kill'n us. Actually I didn't know anything at all about Aunt Iris or Pahrump, and as the trip wore on I became lost in the twisted landscape of my own imagination. Aunty Iris, hmm . . . dozens of cats probably have the run of the place, her wild gray hair flecked with bits of leafs and twigs, crazy eyes watering from the stench of death and neglected cat-boxes. Perhaps she equates electricity with evil and lives by candlelight, surrounded by Christian knick-knacks, her tonsils prominently enshrined in a jar, and velvet paintings of Jesus and Elvis all over the walls . . .

We made a right turn at Vegas and headed west across the desert, and as I stared out at the tumble weeds and dust devils dancing across the hellish terrain, I couldn't help but get into that festive Thanksgiving mood. I might have been dozing, but as we grew near our destination I was overcome by a stifling sense of paranoia. There was something on fire and the heavy smoke cast a coppery haze over the sun. Ominous clouds arose from a smoldering mass that looked and smelled like sheep, perhaps goats and dozens of buzzards were circling above the foul smoke. I rubbed my eyes and blinked, but in the distance I'm certain I saw a small boy running from a lizard the size of a beagle. What had I got myself into? . . . Aunty Iris, Aunty Iris, there's no place like home . . .

I was aroused from my trance by my little brother's excited screams, "Maddy look, there's a man with one arm." I rubbernecked in time to see a scroungy-looking old man hitchhiking with the only arm he possessed. A spectre that might not have been so disturbing had he not been sporting a fresh bandage where his right arm had once been--suggesting that his dismemberment had transpired recently. Pahrump? A study in cactus and trailer houses where a person evidently stands to lose a limb. "Is this the Thanksgiving we all die?" Right away we pulled into the driveway of a rickety old house, behind a red Chrysler LeBaron that bore the license plate DVL 666. At which point I suggested that we save ourselves and eat at Denny's. "We passed a Denny's--hello . . . "

As I stepped through the threshold into Iris' antiquated abode, I was at once struck by a Thanksgiving aroma so powerful, it stunned me. For some reason I almost cried. Steady Maddy, put on your game face, you've seen Arsenic and Old Lace, enough times to see through this charade. But try as I might to discover any sinister designs this woman might be harboring, she totally charmed me off my feet. Iris had kind of an Earth-Mother "refugee of the 60s, thing about her and her eyes were as sweet and clear as a high school girl. As for cats she only had one, a fat old tabby named Mama Cass. My mother went on and on about how she'd march right down to the DMV and get that 666 license late changed--if it were her. Iris laughed this off and referred to her old car as the "anti-Chrysler" and said she loves it--nobody messes with her.

Any delusions I had about dying as a result of poison pie vanished when her other dinner guests arrived. Her next door neighbor is an older Paiute man whose infirmities were being attended to by his grandson Jack. Be still my fluttering heart, Jack. Jack is a twenty year old, athletically built Paiute specimen, with shoulder length raven hair, who bears a strong resemblance to a young Marlon Brando. I thought I was going to slide off my chair. As they arrived bearing pies and jars of corn relish, I first suspected Iris of purposely staging this "original Thanksgiving" reenactment for effect; but it soon became obvious that these were her dear friends, and we enjoyed a lively Thanksgiving feast that I'll not soon forget.

After dinner as the others dozed around the football game, Jack invited me over to his grandfather's house. Again I was surprised by my emotional response to this humble dwelling, but when Jack showed me into his own room I was gone, fatal, hopeless. Jack's room was far and away the coolest place I'd ever seen. It was wired for "surround sound," he had a giant TV screen and a collection of videos to rival Blockbuster. He let me pick a video and we enjoyed the waning afternoon watching the Holiday classic Pulp Fiction. I asked him about the one armed man, and he told me that the guy lost his arm in a mining accident years ago and nowadays makes a handsome living panhandling in Vegas. The bandages are purely for effect. And as for Iris' late husband, it turns out he actually died from blood poisoning, due to complications following a golf cart accident. "He went down swinging," Iris has been known to joke. Jack told me that his grandfather used to call Iris "Firis" because of her burning spirit, but that now he calls her "Sigh-ris" because of her heavy heart. "She's like a mother to me," Jack mused, "you should get to know her she's a cool lady."

I would've married Jack, bore his children and lived in a Teepee in the snow. Alas, the clan was back in the van and on the road again, and I was staring out across the blue desert of a full moon, clutching a piece of paper with a (702) phone number that I'd already memorized. I felt like a sap, but how could I help myself--he called me "Pilgrim" and even threw in a little John Wayne for effect. "Pilgrim."