meat from the turkey, but not a turkey leg:
MICHAEL: The dark meat is on the leg! You donât want a leg! Honest to God, I havenât gotâI havenât got the mind to handle that problem.
MOM: Noraâs, uhâ
MICHAEL ( interrupting ): Youâd have to take a Goddamned file and file it off and shred it!
NORA: Just calm down.
MICHAEL: Itâs the only way you could do it!
DAD: He wanted dark meat, did he?
MICHAEL: Yeah.
DAD ( angrily ): Well, dark meatâs all on that Goddamned leg !
NORA ( to Brian ): Itâs not worth it.
BRIAN: Now heâs, now heâs starting toâ
DAD ( to Brian ): Pick up the leg and chomp the dark meat !
NORA ( to Brian ): Just close your mouth.
BRIAN: Okay. Okay, Nora.
MICHAEL: The only thing we could do is cut it up!
BRIAN ( now exasperated ): All right! All right!
MICHAEL ( surprised ): What happened?
BRIAN: Shut your mouth, Michael! Just shut your mouth and everything will beâ
DAD ( to Brian ): Shut yours , now!
BRIAN ( defensively ): Okay! Okay. Iâll shut mine, too, Dad.
DAD ( trudging off to the kitchen, speaking in a âmentally challengedâ voice ): âI waaants da dark meat . . . Darrrk!â ( Returning to regular voice ) Three-fourths of the world donât have a choice betweenâ
BRIAN ( to Dad, feeling picked-on ): Shhhh! Shhhh!
DAD: âdark meat or white meat.
NORA: Would you shut your mouth , Brian!
MICHAEL: Well, which do they eat, then?
DAD ( nattering on ): Blue meat or green meat.
MICHAEL: Well, which do they eat, then?
(Brian and Marty start to laugh.)
DAD: They donât have any choice of meat at all !
(Dad re-enters the dining room from the kitchen with the exact slices of turkey Brian wanted.)
DAD: Do you want more potatoes, dear?
BRIAN: No thank you, Dad.
MICHAEL: Are you not going to have any turkey, Dad?
DAD ( raising his voice, irritated ): My stomach is so sore right now, dear, if you mention turkey to me, Iâll vomit right on the middle of the table.
(Everyone starts laughing.)
DAD: Now, if I wanted turkey, craved turkey, ate turkey, desired turkeyâ
MICHAEL: I think the question required a yes or no answer.
DAD: But I donât need a kid asking me. I donât need an immature person asking me things.
Some years ago, in the 1990s, I had this tape fully transcribedâit goes on for thirty pagesâand presented a bound copy to each of my siblings. I also used to make my kids, when they were little, read all the parts every Christmas Eve. Iâd always cast my youngest child, Henry, in the Dad role, just so I could hear this sweet little boy saying âDark meatâs all on that Goddamned leg !â
P eople are often surprised to learn Iâm of Irish descent and was raised Catholic; thereâs a widespread misperception that I am Jewish. And I donât think itâs just because Iâm thrifty.
No, this misperception actually makes some sense, because I was pretty much immersed in Jewishness from an early age. Westdale, the neighborhood we lived in, in Hamiltonâs west end, had a large Jewish population. My parentsâ best friends, the Paikins, were Jewish. The best nursery school in the area was the one at Temple Anshe Sholom, so thatâs where I went to nursery school. And the friendships that I made there carried over into the rest of my childhood.
Iâve always been a top-feeder, drawn to the smartest people in the room, and the simple truth was that the smartest kids in the schools I attended were the Jewish ones. We had a teacher in Grade 7, as we Canadians call the seventh grade, Miss Critchmore, who seated her pupils in order of intelligence, a cruel stroke that would never be allowed now: the smartest kids (in her estimation) in the front row, the dumbest in the back. I always strove to be in that first row, where my row-mates were reliably Mitchell Rosenblatt, Shelley Lipton, Rick Levy, Debbie Zack, Alex
Learning to Kill: Stories