GK: The holidays are not far off when once again the turkey goes into the oven (SS: It was so overcooked last year----) and the cranberry comes out of the can (SUCKING, SQUORTING, PLOP) and your relatives are staring at you ----Aunt Marcy (KISS) and Aunt Joanne (KISS) and Uncle Stu (KISS) and Grandma M (KISS) and Grandpa M (KISS) who haven't seen you for awhile and though they're very nice---
SS (OLDER): Tyler!!! What a pleasure to see you.
GK: You can see what they're thinking.
SS (OLDER, INTERIOR): He has a tattoo on his neck. What is that? A werewolf? He's joined a cult.
TR (OLDER, INTERIOR): I see the hole in his earlobe where he took out the earring. Clear as day. He's gay. I new it.
TK (INTERIOR): If you ask me the goatee looks ridiculous.
SS (OLDER INTERIOR): He must think we're idiots --- I know what marijuana smells like. That's marijuana.
TR (OLDER INTERIOR): Pretty expensive shirt. Couple hundred bucks is my guess. Where does an 18-year-old get that kind of money?
TK (INTERIOR): His eyes don't quite focus. Weird.
SS (INTERIOR): His poor parents.
TR (OUT LOUD, TEEN): Hey---- how's everybody doing? Good to see you all. (MURMURS)
GK: Thanksgiving is the closest America gets to an Islamic state. Rooms separated by gender. Men in the living room, women in the kitchen. Men bow down to the football game, women bow down to the turkey. You're back from college. It's all so strange to you----
SS (TEEN): Like, where am I sitting?
TR (OLDER): Come sit next to me, Tabitha.
SS (TEEN): Oh. All right.
TR (OLDER): Your mother says you're going to Alaska next summer?
SS (TEEN): Yeah. Like I'm going to live with my boyfriend Jared.
TR (OLDER): You're going to live with ---- Oh.
SS (TEEN): We're going to work on fishing boats. I switched my major from econ to creative writing.
GK: Creative writing---- to you it's a vision of grandeur. (BIG MOVIE THEME)
TR (ANNC): WITH JARED IN ALASKA--..TABITHA WILCOX'S SAGA OF A LOVE SO BIG, IT COULDN'T SURVIVE IN MINNESOTA.
GK: But to your grandpa, creative writing suggests something else--.
TR (OLDER INTERIOR): Unemployment. Alcoholism. Early death.
TK (JOWLY): I had a friend who went to Alaska once. Lived in a bus in a swamp. Thought he was going to pan for gold. Bears came and ate up his supplies. Ate the tires off the bus too. Had to walk fifteen miles into Anchorage. Got a job at a drycleaners (FADES) --..he had to smell all those fumes--..he lost his friggin mind----then he lost his billfold----wound up in a homeless shelter--..something like that----family searched for him for years----finally found him last fall----or was it August? I forget----
GK: Old people. They start telling a story and it wanders all over the map and they never get to the point and you're sitting there, thinking--.
SS (TEEN): Oh my god, it's we're in a freeze frame ---- like time is standing still--
GK: And that's when Jared arrives. (DOORBELL) And suddenly everyone is very quiet. (FOOTSTEPS, SLOW) Jared sort of marches to his own drummer. (FOOTSTEPS STOP)
TR (STONER): Hi. Sorry I'm late. Wow. You guys are all dressed up.
GK: Jared just got out of bed 20 minutes ago. (MURMURS OF GOSSIP) He has bed hair. He's wearing the T-shirt he slept in. You met him in a comparative media studies class and to you he's a soulmate----your hero-----But to your family, he's something else altogether. (GAVEL)
TK: Will the defendant please rise-----
GK: Thanksgiving. It's a day when galaxies collide.
TK (JOWLY): Come on in, Jared. The game just started.
TR (STONER): Game? What game? (COLD CHORD)
TK (JOWLY): What game???? The Vikings.
TR (STONER): You mean football??? (COLD CHORD) Oh, yeah (SUCKS IN AIR THROUGH TEETH) I'm just not that into football. (CHORD)
GK: Faces turn ---- (LOW MURMURS) heads rise ----- it's as if he spat on a crucifix (GASP OF HORROR) ---- it's as if he dropped his trousers and bent over (GASP OF HORROR) ----
SS (OLDER, OFF): Turkey's ready! Everybody sit down!
GK: And then it's time for everybody to sit down and eat, (EATING, PLATES AND FORKS) and eat turkey.
SS (OLDER): Well the doctor says I may have to go in again for a second surgery, you know. Scrape out the extra cart-lige and all. Pass the gravy.
TK (JOWLY): I was in the hospital last week. Chest pains. Went in and sat in the waiting room for an hour and a half. Pass the butter, please.
TR (OLDER): Wasn't radiating down your left arm then, was it-
TK (JOWLY): Hour and a half I sat there. Finally I said the heck with it and I got up and left.
TR (OLDER): Well isn't that something.
GK: The merciful thing about Thanksgiving is that once the tryptophan kicks in, nobody will remember anything of what happened earlier in the day. Kind of like how people who are in car crashes wake up in the hospital and they don't know what happened to them.
TK (JOWLY): Probably just gas pains. Pass the stuffing, will ya?
GK: The young people keep their heads down and wait for an opening in the conversation--- Turkey just clears the slate and makes it possible to keep on going with little to no memory of what has gone before.
SS (OLDER): You know who died then? Erma's sister Louise.
TK (JOWLY): What happened? I just saw her last week-
SS (OLDER): She went to the store and she got her turkey and she came home and she dropped dead. Who wants some more green bean casserole?
GK: And that's how we keep the peace ---- Vikings fans sit down with Packer fans, Jews and Muslims, 18-year-olds and 81-year-olds ---- and that's why we should be thankful for Thanksgiving.
(BAND BUTTON)