Thanksgiving Turkey
Originally published in Oregon Quarterly
Winter 2003
Hunting wild turkeys in a skinny mocha world.
The gun was the easy part.
There. I have wanted to begin a story with a gun since I first read Raymond Chandler, author of the justly famous Philip Marlowe detective novels, whose one brilliant suggestion to writers was: “When the plot lags, bring in a man with a gun.”
And so, this story begins with a gun.
It is a break-barrel, breech-loading twelve-gauge shotgun, and it has a name, “Long Tom,” etched along its walnut stock. The gun was given to my sons by my father-in-law who got it from his uncle who got it from we don’t know where. We thought it might be a classy antique, but the guys at Baron’s Den, a local gun shop, say it’s just a cheap model from the 1920s. Cheap it may be, but it is also big and heavy and carries quite a kick.
I am neither target-shooter nor hunter. I am not now nor have I ever been a card-carrying member of the NRA. But I did learn to shoot at summer camp many years ago, and guns don’t scare me. My oldest son is my teacher this morning. He learned to shoot at Boy Scout camp and takes me out to the meadow in front of the house to show me the ways of Long Tom. He shows me the parts of the gun, shows me the stance, tells me to press the stock hard into my shoulder or the kick of the gun will give me a bruise.