-
Chapter Thirteen. Carolyn and Sarah, Brooklyn, Thanksgiving 1986
- University of Missouri Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Chapter Thirteen Carolyn and Sarah brooklyn, thanksgiving 1986 i had been looking forward to thanksgiving for weeks. My afterschool teaching job was driving me crazy, and sarah remained unhappy about spending her afternoons with the babysitter. i was doing my best to keep a positive attitude, but the truth was i needed a break. and not just any break. i needed to see my aunt Marjory. aunt Marjory was actually my great-aunt, but everyone, friends and relatives alike, called her aunt Marj. at the age of eighty-two, she was our family’s reigning matriarch. every year at her home in brooklyn, she hosted a massive thanksgiving dinner for her family, friends, and neighbors. like me,aunt Marj was a musician who played the piano and sang. and like me, aunt Marj was divorced. she rarely spoke about the breakup, but according to family legend, aunt Marj got divorced after her husband, upset with the amount of time she spent practicing her music every night, chopped her grand piano to bits with an axe. aunt Marj had lived in the bedford stuyvesant section of brooklyn for over fifty years. although cocaine pushers had recently taken to hanging out in front of her brownstone, aunt Marj had no intention of moving. Her one concession to the changing times was to install an iron gate at the front door and burglar bars on all the windows. she was standing on the front porch waiting when sarah and i arrived. “Here you are, at last!” aunt Marj raised her four-foot-ten-inch frame on tiptoe and planted a kiss on my cheek. “sarah, come give your aunt Marjory a hug.” My daughter sucked her thumb and regarded this strangely vibrant old lady with a skeptical eye. “Go on, sarah,” i said, nudging her forward. Unfazed by sarah’s shyness, aunt Marj took her by the hand. “How about a nice glass of orange Kool-aid and a twinkie. Would you like that?” Won over by the prospect of consuming two forbidden foods at once, sarah allowed herself to be led inside. Within minutes she and aunt Marj were sitting in the kitchen helping Uncle Charley prepare the thanksgiving feast. 67 68 Chapter Thirteen every year, Uncle Charley made the twenty-five-mile drive from yonkers to cook thanksgiving dinner for aunt Marj and her friends. He always wore a white coat, starched white pants, and a tall white chef’s hat while he prepared the food. there was always turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, and macaroni and cheese served out of industrial-sized pots and pans in heart-stopping quantities. as the rest of us sat down to eat, Charley remained in the kitchen, whipping up the next course and supervising as his two young children ferried steaming platters of food out to the table. When all the food was served, Charley emerged from the kitchen and took a grand formal bow, doffing his chef’s hat and promising to work his culinary magic again the following year. though no one ever said anything, Charley’s cooking, perhaps due to the fact that his day job involved cooking at the county jail, was truly terrible. the turkey was dry, the mac and cheese sopping, and the mashed potatoes tasted a bit like elmer’s Glue. but none of that really mattered. thanksgiving at aunt Marj’s was not about food—it was about family. as the ovation for Uncle Charley died down, aunt Marj, all dolled up in a form-fitting evening gown shimmering with red sequins, pushed away her plate of sweet potato pie, took a sip of black coffee, and nodded in my direction. “What’s this i hear about you turning into a jazz musician?” she winked and stood up from the table.“Come over to the piano and let me hear you play something.” any invitation from aunt Marj was less a request than a command. several of her former students had gone on to careers in the music business. Janet Moody, an operatic coloratura with the new york City opera had been aunt Marj’s student, as was ben vereen, the actor who’d starred in the hit broadway musical Pippin. • • • “Well, aunt Marj, i’m a bit out of practice,” i began, preparing my excuse in advance. “nonsense, Carolyn. Music isn’t about practicing. Music is about communicating . stop your whining and play me something.”aunt Marj sat down on the bench of the small...