I flew out to Oklahoma to spend Thanksgiving with my father, his wife and my sister. It was the first time we attempted spending any holiday together in years and, with my dad having recently had a heart attack, I figured I should cut the crap and try to spend time with him.
On the flight over I made friends with a woman sitting next to me. She initiated the conversation, asking me about where I was going and such. I tried to be polite and engaging but one of the stewards on board was an incredibly beautiful Filipino guy, and it was hard to concentrate. I knew he was Filipino because when he talked, all his Fs sounded like Ps and, well, I just knew. After a few minutes, the gal sitting beside me pulled out a handful of drink tickets and offered to get me drunk. Once we got buzzed, she told me about this being her first visit home for Thanksgiving since her brother died three years ago. Her eyes teared up and she looked down at her drink on the little tray. Usually after one drink, I know just what to say, this time I drew a blank. Looking back on it now, I don’t think she was looking for someone to talk to, just someone who’d listen.
I arrived in Tulsa and my father and sister were standing there waiting for me. My sister has looked the same since we were kids — my dad, not so much. The heart attack had obviously taken its toll on him. He was stooped over a little and his face looked like FDR’s before he died: deep wrinkles, and dark circles around his eyes. It broke my heart. But as he saw me walk up, he brightened up and walked toward me with his arms open. He was really happy to see me. It made me feel like an ass for never returning his calls. We all hugged, got into his pickup and went to his place. Soon after we got home, we settled in, exchanged minor chit-chat and went off to bed. It was late and I was still a little drunk. His wife showed me to my room. I got undressed and tried to get some sleep.
About an hour later, I woke up. I was wound-up from the cheap drinks on the plane and so, in order to relieve some of the stress, I decided to masturbate. I’m not proud of my compulsions but I’ve realized that, at some point, you have to make peace with who and what you are. So I lay there, handling myself in Dad’s house, fantasizing about having sex with that Filipino steward I saw on the plane: We were in a hotel on one of those hard, cheap beds. I was kissing him and telling him how much I loved him. He kept smiling and saying “I know, Kurt. I lubb you too, but it’s just not meant to be.” I imagined that he smelled like honey-roasted peanuts. We were in love.
Once I came, I looked for something to clean up with. There weren’t any tissues, so I reached down and picked up one of my socks and used it. I tossed it back to the floor, turned over and held one of the pillows close to me — I imagined spooning the steward after we’d had sex. I guess I’m a romantic.
My sister’s kids woke me up early the next morning. She has two little girls, 4 and 6-years-old and we always have lots of fun whenever I visit. We spent all morning watching Sponge Bob, building a fort out of a coffee table and eating waffles. Eventually, my dad and his wife woke up and sat at the kitchen table watching us and laughing. Later, my dad and I drank coffee and discussed why I still didn’t have a boyfriend. “Boy, it’s good to see you son,” he told me. The visit was going far better than I thought. It was really nice.
After chasing my nieces around the rest of the afternoon, I needed to take a nap. I went to my room to lie down and noticed it had been tidied-up. I immediately thought of my soiled socks and started to panic — had dad’s wife picked them up? Did she make us breakfast with my DNA on her hands? I looked in my bags, under the bed and in the drawers. They were gone. My dad heard me rustling around the room and called me out to the kitchen. I froze. “Oh God,” I thought. “His wife found the socks and, being a good Christian, she turned me in to her husband to set me straight.” Of course, I knew this couldn’t be possible, so I casually walked out to the kitchen to see what he wanted.
“So, what exactly do you think Obama is going to do?” He asked me. “NBC and the media refuse to dig into any of the claims he’s made about how he’s going to fix things! That’s why I watch FOX. I just want the news. I don’t care what Barbra Streisand or some nigger-basketball player thinks …” Usually I would be embarrassed and upset at my father’s comments, but I needed to find out what happened to those socks. “Yeah, I hear ya. Say, did you guys see any white socks lying around? I seem to have lost a pair.” My dad’s wife spoke up, “Oh! Those are yours? The girls got them out back. They’re hitting each other with them. I’ll get them for you.” I bolted to the kitchen window to see what was going on. They each had a sock and were smacking each other in the face with them. Soon my dad’s wife was outside, trying to wrestle the socks out of their hands.
As I watched all of this go down, I thought of the woman on the plane. She poured her heart out to a man who watches his nieces play with his semen-coated tube socks. My sister ran out and soon all four were laughing and playing; tugging and slapping each other with them. Behind me, my father talked about our new president; and I could smell the turkey in the oven, hear the cartoons on the television and watched as all the girls were playing with my crunchy socks out in the cold, gray backyard. It was Thanksgiving with my family. And they were happy – Because I was there.
Posts
