My Trouble with Turkeys

a GUEST POST from Jonathan Bock!

Nov 21, 2024

The following tale is from my good friend, Jon Bock! He’s an integral part of my little friend group and our misfit corner of the storytelling subculture. He is kind enough to supply us all with this hilarious, layered, rich and timely tale.

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m grateful for YOU in my life!

Jonathan Bock is a writer, producer, and performer living in Brooklyn, NY. Outside of theatre, Jonathan works in communications and issue advocacy. He enjoys being super intense about Bob Dylan.

I was having lunch with my friend. He was distraught. His girlfriend had left him — and now he wouldn’t shut up about Paul Simon.

“I’m just like that line in Graceland,” he said.

I looked at him.

“Like the window? Where your heart’s blown open like the window?”

“Ah,” I nodded. “Right.”

“I’m just like that window,” he said.

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“She’s just a bad person,” he said. Then he looked at me.

Here, what I was supposed to do was obvious. Agree. Say yes, totally, she was. Pile on, tell him that she wasn’t just bad, she was horrible. Order more coffee, call her more names, switch from coffee to beer, repeat from the top.

And she was horrible, to be clear. I’d never liked her much, even before she had left him. But I couldn’t bring myself to say any of that. All I could think about was his ability to blame her in such a clear, straightforward way, to find fault in the obvious villain. It was so easy for him to point the finger away from himself. I was impressed, and a little jealous.

But mostly, I was annoyed. Because this attitude was in almost direct opposition to how he spoke to me whenever I was dealing with a conflict and came to him for support. When the roles were reversed, this friend — the same one waiting eagerly for me to affirm that his ex was devoid of human goodness — seemed to always find a way to blame me, and only me, for my troubles, to demand all the ways I needed to look at my role in whatever conflict.

It’s your fault you didn’t want to see the truth, he would say. It’s your fault for trusting someone who was so clearly untrustworthy. You’re the one who reached out, started the conversation – you must have known they were too immature for that to go well? You must have known they would get petulant and defensive? They may be deficient, but it is on you for not seeing the deficiencies more clearly, isn’t it?

And every time, it worked. I’d start to wonder, was he right, was it really on me? Maybe I should have known better. Someone showed me who they were, but I wasn’t listening closely enough. I didn’t want to see what was obvious until it was too late – and by then I’d lost control of the situation and had been taken to the cleaners.

Because he had a point, didn’t he? Any conflict involving me was my fault. To some degree, at least. Wasn’t it? Because they might have been the scorpion, but I was the frog, now wasn’t I? But they were the Scorpion, weren’t they? No matter what excuse they gave – they were the scorpion, whether they wanted to admit it or not.

I watched as he fidgeted with his unused straw. He kept expanding and collapsing the ribbed neck. Each time he looked up, at the wall of photos behind me, he seemed to consider his predicament anew. He looked like a puppy that was surprised to have been shocked by his electric collar. I kept trying to stab the grapes next to my chicken salad, but they kept rolling away.

With every failed stabbing, the thought of my friend’s hypocrisy grew. I was becoming less impressed by his ability to take no responsibility for his relationship ending. Misreading the self-help guides with certainty must feel so liberating, I thought. He’ll quote Brené Brown to me any minute now.

She had left him, and that was not his fault. But now I was mad, and I found myself wanting to blame him anyway, just a little bit, just the way he’d always done to me. I wanted to break that bubble, make him taste his own medicine. I wanted to tell him that there had been warning signs. He had buried his head in the sand. That there was a constant, low level absence to his ex. A feeling that she was always somewhere else. Not to mention, she would often lose her temper and fly off the handle. Rumor has it she once yelled at a party guest for sitting incorrectly on her red velvet sofa and messing up the grain. She stormed into the room, pointing her finger. "You'll make it pill!" she screamed.

But I didn’t say any of that. I shoved it all aside, and instead I said:

“Did I ever tell you about the time I was attacked by a turkey?”

He looked at me blankly. “No,” he said.

So then I told him about the time I was attacked by a turkey.

One summer, before junior year of college, my dad had rented a house in Long Island, and my friend Sarah swung by to pick me up and drive us back into the city. On the way, we were going to stop by her childhood home, so I could see where she grew up and meet her mom. Sarah had a boyfriend, and I wondered what I was doing in her car. But I was in love, so I tried not to ask too many questions.

I had never been so excited to drive onto the Long Island Expressway. I prayed for traffic. Miles and miles of red tail lights. I prayed for a car accident up ahead that would grind us to a halt. I prayed for rain. I prayed for a storm that was so severe it would scare us just a little, just enough to bond over an adventure, just enough so that we would have to put on the hazards. I prayed just in case someone up there had taken an interest in my future with Sarah, the curly haired brunette with an infectious laugh, who wore tight jeans and leather boots. But there were no such delays, no answers to my prayers, just a lot of fidgeting.

When we got to her house, she took me out back by the pool, where her mom was reclining in the shade on a lounge chair. We introduced ourselves, both a bit perplexed. It was clear that Sarah had not warned her mom that she’d be bringing me by. “Who was this?” her mom seemed to wonder. You could see her sussing out the situation. Was I just a friend? Was I gay? Was Sarah cheating on Jake?

Jake. Skinny little indie rocker who had a band and a fledgling record label. Even though he was only 20, he fancied himself a music producer who could discover obscurity. Bring bands to prominence. But I knew better than to fall for his cool kid act. No matter how grungy he looked, no matter how many showers he didn’t take, this bitch grew up on Park Avenue and went to fucking Vassar. Of course, I went to Vassar, too, which was a disappointment.

Sarah said she would be right back and then she disappeared inside the house. I was left staring at the ripples in the pool, while her mom looked on.

I could feel her gaze as I boiled under the summer sun. It was a blistering hot day. I was dressed in jeans and a brown, long-sleeve American Apparel polo. This was my power outfit. Heat be damned, this was 2005, and I was on the cutting edge of fashion. I wore my black sunglasses. They were wrap-around, like the kind that elderly people wear after cataract surgery. But I felt closer to Lou Reed.

Her mom sucked on her straw as she eyed me with a smile. “Have a seat,” she said. I sat down on the edge of the chair next to her, already desperate for Sarah to return.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, at the other end of the pool, clucking around, gobbling about, there appeared a turkey. It was the first time I had seen a living turkey up-close in person – and I was shocked. A disgusting, hideous, grotesque, and offensive animal. Best encountered dead, underneath a slice of cheese and in between two pieces of bread.

“Oh, this is Charlie,” she said. “Our turkey.”

“He’s really cute,” I said.

Charlie eyed me from the other end of the pool. He seemed to take an interest in me, the red balls dangling from his stupid turkey neck. He squared up and stared at me out of those vacuous and dead but somehow still alive turkey eyes. “Who was this?” Charlie seemed to wonder. You could see him sussing out the situation. Was I just a friend? Was I gay? Was Sarah cheating on Jake, the Park Avenue Vassar boyfriend?

And then there was a change. A sudden shift in his purpose. Slowly but surely, Charlie began to approach me — step by step, inch by inch, angry and determined, on a military march to war.

There was no mistaking it, Charlie was not on a leisurely stroll. This turkey was coming for me – and for me alone. I was threatening his mother, or his girlfriend, or both, depending on whatever went down in that household. He was defending his territory, determined to serve and protect. I moved back onto the chair as he got closer, calming myself with the conviction that of course Sarah’s mom would wave him off, if he got too close. And yet, the closer Charlie got, the clearer it became that she was either unconcerned or unaware. She made no acknowledgment, and no move to ward off the impending collision.

Charlie was getting closer, speeding up now, heading straight for me as I tried to carry on a conversation about the stifling heat. He flapped his wings and jutted his neck forward, sizing me up, staggering forward on his stupid little brown twig legs. I gripped the chair as Sarah’s mom tried to calm me down. “Oh, don’t worry about him,” she said, “he's friendly.”

And wasn’t this exactly right? Placing the focus on me, as if it was my anxiety that was creating his hostility. Trying to control my reaction instead of controlling the aggressor. That I was the problem, that it was my response that needed to be adjusted. And it was just at that moment, just when she was trying to convince me that this butterball was nice, that he meant well, just when she was trying to tell me that it was my anxiety that was unnecessary, that I was, in fact, overreacting, that gobble gobble made his first move.

Charlie leapt forward and began to peck at me with ferocity, nipping at my legs with a sustained fury. I flailed my legs and arms, dodging his attacks. Left, right, up, down, I was dodging punches on the ropes. Charlie was undeterred, though increasingly frustrated, as he kept missing me. I jumped out of the chair and backed away, hoping the increased distance would calm him.

He turned to face me and stopped. We were in an old-school Western, now. I saw the tumbleweeds roll by. I heard Ennio Morricone’s score. I stepped back. Charlie stepped forward. I took another step back. He took another step forward. I quickly turned and walked away, swiftly circling the pool. Charlie followed. I sped up. He sped up. I was doing everything I could to speed walk without running (“Never run near a pool, Jonathan,” I heard my mom’s voice in my head), but his turkey legs were closing the distance. I broke into a semi-run, disregarding all motherly childhood warnings about running around pools. I was beginning to get really worried now.

“Uh, uh, uh… I think the turkey is attacking me,” I yelled, fully panicking but trying to keep my Lou Reed cool. The predator was still stalking me, sizing me up, determining when to strike. I looked down at my feet. The pool called to me. One wrong step and down I’d go.

I was desperately trying to project confidence and impress Sarah’s mom. I looked back at her on her lounge chair, reclining there as she took in the scene. I felt her gaze boring into me. I was stuck. There were no good choices, no way to handle the situation with maturity and masculinity. Stop running and I’d be pecked to death. Run faster and I’d look ridiculous. Fight the turkey and I’d lose.

“Don’t worry!” I thought of yelling. “I’m a real man. You don’t need to worry!” But I did want her to worry. I wanted her to worry a great deal. But I was in the gladiator ring and I was losing. Why wasn’t she saying anything? Why wasn’t she stopping this? Why wasn’t she getting control of her turkey?

Take a stand, I pleaded with myself. Help me, I pleaded silently with Sarah’s mom.

I was desperate for the inner strength to stand up to this lunatic foe, and I was desperate for Sarah, or her mom, or anyone, to come save me, protect me, defend me. Or at least validate that a crazy thing was happening.

But why did I want to be saved? Why did I need to be defended? And why did I need to be validated? The more I yearned for an intervention, the clearer it became that none would come.

And then Sarah’s mom began to laugh, harder and harder, cackling hysterically, her laugh filling up the back patio. She was laughing and laughing and laughing.

Charlie charged again. Sarah’s mom slapped her leg in hysterics.

“Oh, you like my daughter, huh?” I felt her saying to me. “You wanna sleep with my daughter, do you? Not so fast, gotta get through my turkey first, you little bitch!”

It was true, and I was failing. “Yes, yes, it’s true, I’m in love with Sarah, okay? I admit it! I love her. I’m obsessed with her! And I’m here to steal her away from Park Avenue and kiss her all over her body and have sex with her over and over and over and over again and then marry her and spend the rest of my life with her and live happily ever after with her – but this Turkey motherfucker is IN THE WAY, and it is fucking up my JAM, in fact this hideous gobble gobble is RUINING me, so could you please, please, PLEASE do something and control it because this mother FUCKER thinks I’m invading his territory, which I guess I am, but it’s winning and emasculating me and ruining my dreams, so can you please DO something?”

But instead I just said, “Does he always do this, or is it me?”

Was it just me?

And just at that moment, Sarah came out of the house. “Charlie,” she screamed, “Go away!” And then she kicked him, gently, in the side. Charlie froze, turned, and ran.

I stood there, exhausted. Sarah looked at me. I looked back at her, breathing heavily. She turned away. “Come on,” she said. “We should get going.”

And that was it. We got back into the car and Sarah drove me home. We sat quietly in traffic as we got back onto the expressway. There was nothing left to say. And this time, I really did pray for rain.

My friend was staring at me across the diner table.

“That’s your story?” he said.

“Yeah, that’s my story,” I said.

“That’s crazy,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“But I mean…” then he paused. “That was a little bit your fault. Wasn’t it?”