Turkey Boy

Last Thursday, a ragtag bunch of career graduate students, professorial misfits, homeless grandparents, and dotty neighbors converged for a Romanesque evening of overindulgence. The turkey weighed in at 17.6 pounds. So did Cosmico. We were happy there was no confusion.

Most of us crapped out at about 11, too booze addled and turkey bludgeoned to care anymore. But Zoogle, still at the top of his game, urged us to stay, his beautiful bug-eyes bulging with excitement. Quiet, attentive, he took in everything: weather-carved faces, strange accents, candles flickering against crystal, glorious cornucopias, a strangely lethargic cat, the smell of cinnamon, Gillian Welch's ripping guitar accompanist. He was neither vocal nor demonstrative, just very interested and extremely focused, observing with what seemed the sustained concentration of a first class mind. He sat high in the purple sling and let himself be carried, from the kitchen to the table to the rocking chair and back, and as he went, he stared, all night, sans cesse, like a little sociologist micro-pasha, issuing no directives, knowing his will would be known, letting the world pass through him. He sat and he soaked it up and when he saw that we were truly beat he said 'wah' and took us home.