For those of you not in the know, here's a little history. Thanksgiving is a uniquely North American holiday. If you live on any other continent, or in Mexico, you may not have even heard of it.
Even though Mexico is part of North America, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving there. It isn't because they don't have plenty to give thanks about. Every last one of them could all give thanks, every single morning, that the drug cartels didn’t burn down their village, after skinning every man, woman, and child alive. But stuff like this isn’t what Thanksgiving is all about.
Here's how it works. This isn’t a holiday about giving thanks for the things you have in your life today. It’s about giving thanks that your ancestors did well in the past, and that you can ride on their coattails today. Essentially, it's being thankful for being white.
You see, a long time ago, a superior culture met and shared their European cuisine with an inferior culture. Soon after, the superior culture nearly exterminated the inferior culture and subjugated the tiny remainder. Today, the descendants of that superior culture have inherited nearly unlimited opportunity, to squander or otherwise, and the remnants of that inferior culture continue their bannock making traditions. This is the foundation on which both Canada, and the USA, were established.
Meanwhile, In Mexico, instead of going to war, the two races sort of blended together into a new, but impure, race of mongrels. The worst qualities from both emerged to dominate. That's nothing to be thankful for, and it’s certainly nothing to be celebrated. Nevertheless this is how things are allowed to remain, even to this very day.
Let us speak no more of Mexico, lest we all be sickened further.
In Canada, it is part of Thanksgiving tradition to spend it with family. Sometimes you might find four or five generations gathered together under one roof for the holiday feast. I suspect the older generations are to blame for these happy affairs. Young people are always trying to avoid the elderly, so the old people grasp at any opportunity to not slip away into their deserved irrelevance.
In my family, the word “family” is what we say when we mean “people we don’t want to talk to”. In that spirit, I haven’t seen, or even spoken to, anyone in my family for over seven years. That may seem strange to you, but it makes perfect sense to me. I mean, is genetic similarity really a meaningful basis for your personal relationships?
The only exception I’ve made to this is my Dad, who I haven’t seen or spoken to in a mere seven months. Even that is only because he lives in a halfway house just three blocks from my home. Additionally, my relationship with my father is has nothing to do with the fact that I am one half “him”. We’ve had some honestly good times. I have some genuinely positive memories of him as I grew up.
Also, he and I are not genetically similar at all. Haven’t I told you this already? All right, then. I’m telling you now.
I am adopted.
I have no idea who my real parents are. Nor have I ever tried to find out. I have white skin and brown hair, which means they weren’t Indian, East Indian, African or Asian. That’s all I need to know to be happy.
The only thing I’ve ever known about my biological parents is that my mother was sixteen when I was born. Which means if they’d kept me, I’d probably have grown up to be a drug dealer. In that case, I’d be writing to you now about how much I hate the pigs, how I’d probably been with fifty-two of society’s most vulnerable women, about how many skull and/or teardrop tattoos I have. I’d probably be writing to you about how I’ve been to jail eight times, and all the sodomy, gang initiations, and Johnny Cash concerts I’ve been subjected to there.
Luckily, instead of all that, I’m going to tell you about the nice time I had with my father on Thanksgiving, just as it happened, only a few hours ago.
I arrived unannounced at the halfway house around four thirty in the afternoon.
“Well, Son, I wasn’t expecting you.” my father said.
“Surprise!” I replied.
“Yeah. Well, since you’re here, you might as well come inside. It is Thanksgiving. We’ll have a ‘family’ dinner.”
I sat at the Formica table, while Jamie Jr. slaved over the stove. Ten minutes later, we enjoyed grilled cheese sandwiches and a couple of Four Loko.
Happy Thanksgiving
“They say this stuff is supposed to be like cocaine in a can.” said my Dad about the Four Loko. “Let me tell you, this is not like cocaine in a can.”
Then, in observance of our family’s traditions, we ate in silence. When the sandwiches were gone, we drank more Four Loko. It wasn’t until after his third Four Loko that my Father spoke again.
“You might as well meet your Stepfather.”
“I don‘t follow.” I said.
“Vito! Come here a sec!” My Dad bellowed.
Vito entered the kitchen.
“You bellowed?” Vito said.
I knew Vito. I had seen him here, at the halfway house, during earlier visits. We had never spoken much, because he always weirded me out. I swear he looked just how I would look in fifteen years, if I shaved my head.
“I did.” said my Father. “Your Stepson is here.”
“Hi, Jamie. We’ve met before, haven’t we?” said Vito. He extended his fist towards me for a bump. He didn’t get it.
“I don’t… I don’t follow.” I said.
“Does this make it clear enough for you, idiot?” Dad said, as he threw his arms around Vito, and they inserted their tongues into each other’s mouths for almost a minute.
“Get it? Moron?” Jamie Jr. said to me.
“Get. Get what?”
“Dumb. Fuck. We. Are both. Your Dad.” said my Dad. Well, as my adopted father, he is technically my second Dad.
“Maybe I should go.” said my third Dad.
“Yeah. Get out of here. I saw a butterfly over by the chrysanthemums. You‘ll want to kill it for your collection.”
Vito looked hurt by the comment, but he went outside anyway.
Silence reigned after that. But only briefly.
“That’s right. We’re married. That’s legal, now. Or haven’t you been paying attention?” my Father said.
“Seen any good movies lately?” I responded.
Jamie Jr. pounded back his forth Loko.
“You know, you’re lucky you didn’t stay with your birth parents. Or else it might have been you who ended up in here with me. And then who might I have married?” he said, and he smiled at me until tears had soaked my face.
“Ah. Buck up, Son.”
“Who’s my Daddy?” was all I could say.
“I can see how this all might seem a bit confusing for you.”
“At least I now know why you adopted.” I said.
My father looked at the wall behind him, and then at the ceiling, and then the floor.
“You are not adopted.” he said.
“I don’t follow,” I said.
“You. You. Are not. Adopted.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, You are not.”
“But you told me I was.”
“I know.”
"I cannot remember a time in my whole life, not even in my earliest memories, that I did not think that I was adopted.”
“I know.”
“So? Why? Why did you tell me I was adopted?”
“I don’t remember.”
“And all these years. You. And Mom. Why did you never tell me the truth?”
“Well, because. Besides, you seemed so proud of the fact. And, you know. Once you say something like that, and then try to take it back? It kind of makes you look like a liar.”
“But you are a liar!”
“I know.” he said. He made a face at me as he said it. A face like he was trying to express an emotion. I’d never seen him try to make this expression before, and I didn’t know what it was supposed to be. I don’t think he knew, either.
“So this is how you wanted me to find out? This is how you want to drop a bomb like that?” I said.
“Hey, don’t blame me. Blame the Four Loko. It was as much to blame then, as it is now.” my Father said.
“Really? Because I don't feel like blaming some 'thing'. I want to blame somebody. It’s a bit too big of a deal to blame on a thing.” I said.
“I can see how, from your perspective, it might seem that way.” my Father said.
“You know what? You want to know what? I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. It’s going to take more than another seven months before I can cope with you again.” I said.
“Yeah, well. If that’s what helps you deal with this. So, Merry Christmas, then. And also Happy Birthday.”
I’d heard enough. I stormed out of there, and said nothing as I left. Vito was in the garden, and I would have went past him without a word, too. But, for some reason, I stopped.
“Are you guys really married, or is that just what he told you?” I asked him.
“The whole thing seemed pretty official, but then I don’t get married that often. So I guess I don’t really know.” said Vito.
Instantly, I got the impression that Vito was less a hardened criminal and mostly just gullible, and dumb. Just the sort of person that find themselves victimized by my father.
“Vito. Watch out.” I said.
“Watch out for what?” he asked.
I thought about it. I wasn't sure what to tell him.
"Everything." I replied. It was the perfect response. Something both he and I could live by.
“Could you be more specific?” Vito asked.
“Not really.” I admitted, reluctantly.
“Gosh, thanks. That’s the calibre of advice that got me in here in the first place.”
Suddenly, I didn't feel so good about my perfect response. Worse, I didn't have any better ideas.
“I guess I’ll be joining you in here real soon, then.” I said.
If I gave a flying fuck about anything in this doomed and damned world, I'd be a bit offended by some of the remarks you made about Four Loko.
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