PARTISAN REVIEW
369
for the occasion by the festive atmosphere at school, where the teach–
ers kept repeating that Thanksgiving was one of the few holidays
celebrated by every family in the nation, and where he had produced
colorful cutouts of turkeys and pumpkins and cornucopias overflow–
ing with food, several of which he carried beneath
his
shirt as a
surprise for
his
parents. Owen walked into the dining room.
It
was
empty; the table wasn't set. Drawn by the smell of cooking, he
hurried into the kitchen. His father had their dinner dished out on
plates. It was macaroni and cheese. Owen's mother was not at 'the
table.
His
father noticed the expression on his face, and said, "I know.
I'm sorry. We'll make up for it next year."
Owen sat down and stared at
his
plate.
"I even checked the mailbox,"
his
father said, in a poor ap–
proximation of
his
bantering voice. "There wasn't a single turkey
there. Not even a neck. I guess nobody cares about us anymore."
The edges of Owen's plate appeared to melt, they began waver–
ing, and Owen turned and took hold of the back of his chair and
started crying.
"Oh, Owen, what's the matter? Is it the matter with you or
the matter with me? You're supposed to laugh."
"I want Thanksgiving!"
"Okay, then,"
his
father said. "All right. That's all you had to
say. Here we go."
His father squatted down, made wings of
his
arms, and began
to waddle around the kitchen, gobbling like a turkey. In spite of
his
tears and the pain it caused, Owen started to laugh, in spasms at
first, until he realized that this was the first time in a long time
his
father had done anything so preposterous, and then his laughter grew
and became a relief. His father's face turned bright crimson, and
his
eyes, focused straight ahead, were beginning to bulge, but he con–
tinued to waddle around the room, gobbling louder and louder, in a
higher pitched voice, and the kitchen filled with
his
noise. Then
Owen knew something was wrong. His father couldn't stop. Owen
got up from the table and backed toward the doorway. The gobbling
increased in volume, and his father fell prone and covered his face,
making whining animal sounds. Owen turned and ran through the
house and up the stairs, and the chill that pursued
him
now, unlike
