Two Thanksgivings

We had two Thanksgivings last year.

Because Stan had just passed away, no one felt like Thanksgiving.  Tommy and Dud were exhausted from the death watch, the funeral and post death details.  Eva in her black fury was not easy to be around.  At the last minute, Tommy invited us all to the Hyatt, which advertised a special Thanksgiving buffet for expats.

We met in the lobby waterfall bar and drank Cosmos.  Small groups of gay men passed us on their way into the dining room.  "Why is everyone looking at us?" Dud said.  He always felt he was being studied.  Why was he so suspect of gay men and so critical of them and their lifestyles.

I have never liked the Hyatt dining room, it looked like cafeteria with dark wood.  And on this evening it was especially depressing with its clatter of silverware, mulling of people around the food stations and a live band playing cruise ship music.   No one in the audience knew that the lead singer, a woman in sparkly gown, big hair, too much makeup, was in fact a tranny.   The buffet was populated with large and small tables of gay men and redneck couples in casual wear.

I don't like buffets.  Why go out and have to get up to serve yourself?  I'm could care less about "all you can eat"  (all you can eat is one plate anyway) and then there's the constant coming and going at the table and the, "What'd you get?"  and "Ooh, I didn't see that."  The cold food was warm.  The hot food was cold.  All, tasteless.  The desserts looked fanciful but tasted of raw flour, bitter baking soda and flavorless gelatin.  We ate, numbed, pretending happy and  thankfulness, but felt nothing.  It was a chore being at this meal in this room with this food and these people.

"I can't believe it," Dud said when he sat down with a plate of salad.  "That young guy cruised me.  How disgusting is that, being cruised at the salad bar at Thanksgiving."  He pointed to a table of eight older gay gringos with their young Mexican boy toys.  "Now that is appalling," he said.  "Doesn't anyone ever say anything about that?  I can't believe it is accepted."

On Saturday after Thanksgiving I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner at my house to erase the horrible meal.  Tommy, Dud, Uncle Ron, Eva and me.  It was the best Thanksgiving they will ever eat in their lives.  My silver sparkly white formal table, flower poseys alternating with flickering votives.  My Mother's Tiffany sterling and Spode plates.  Elegant to make us feel special, warm to make us feel embraced.  I poured Prosecco.  Thanksgiving was had.

I remember I lifted my glass and said, "Where were you last year at this time?"  Of course, dissembling about being with some cousin or parent in some mumbled midwestern place.  I didn't know they were evil yet.  I thought about Thanksgivings past and how each year brings change and new people to the table.

I called Eva in Miami this morning and reminded her about our Thanksgiving last year.  She refuses to feel an ounce of anything.   She has willed herself to forget, to not give the scum anymore soul space. In one year, she closed everything up and moved back to Miami to start a new life as a single woman.   But I'm still here, in my empty house on Thanksgiving.  I didn't get invited anywhere, and I don't want to cook for anyone.  And although I shouldn't care a rat's ass about you anymore, I do wonder, where you are this year?  Is some expat in some forgotten Central American town cooking for you?   A year, a year and the pain is still fresh.