Thanksgiving Wenches, Get It? by Meg Tuite
My sister and I are frantic for some kind of thrill every Thanksgiving afternoon when our cousins finally arrive from the "southside of shallow" as my sister likes to call their neighborhood.
"Listen to me," my sister says. "Get one of the cousins alone. Apart from the rest, get it? I've got a plan." I nod and notice that my sister says, “get it”, all the time after watching some old gangster flicks with our Dad after I’ve been sent to bed. I pick out the most sedate of the group, Tina, who dislikes my sister and I for good reason. I know we inject fear into Aunt Betty, who watches us closely, with a sort of sneer transpiring in the lower regions of her sagging cheeks, as my sister and I say "We're going to go upstairs," and we grab Tina's sweaty hands.
Our Mother shakes her finger at us, but we just smile and wave. "Come on, Tina." We climb the stairs slowly, and push the door open to the attic. Tina looks pale, but her reflexes keep her moving forward. My sister checks down the hall before closing the door, to make sure no one is following. She tells Tina to sit down. We form a circle on the rug in this musty, prison-like room. My sister reaches behind the couch and pulls out a bottle of Jagermeister. She stole the bottle from Dad’s “shop” as he likes to call it. That’s where he keeps his liquor supply, hidden inside his power tool cabinet in the basement where he sits and gets soused at night.
One by one, my sister lines up three tall glasses filled up to the length of a new pencil. She measures them to show us that each glass has the exact same amount. "Okay now, focus both of you." She stares at Tina and smiles. "This will happen only once, get it?" There’s that “get it” again.
"This is the method, Tina," my sister continues. "Us three are going to chug down a glass of this when I say go, and the one who sucks it down the fastest is going to get a huge surprise!” She never shares what that surprise might be, but it doesn’t matter. Tina is ready to follow us anywhere.
“It's also good practice for the minors, get it?" Tina looks wary, but nods her head. My sister had already set up the glasses earlier. She filled two of the glasses with coke and a shot of Jager, but the final glass that sat in front of Tina was straight up Jagermeister. I was getting sick just thinking about shooting back that black lagoon.
"On the count of three we all go for it. One.” Tina picks up her glass. “Two.” Her mouth is starting to pucker up. “Three, and down the hatch!”
Our heads tilt and we start to empty our glasses. Burning bubbles start burping out of me, but I am intently watching Tina's face. As she swallows down the deadly liquid her skin turns into a rainbow of color, moving from red to an enchanted sort of dead-body blue. When we finally set our glasses down Tina's eyes are like that roller coaster ride I took last summer at the carnival. They are careening wheels rolling around in her head. I can make out laughing and chattering voices downstairs. My sister and I look at each other. We also hear footsteps slowly making their way up the stairs.
"Oh, shit," I screech as Tina suddenly projectiles vomit on to her shoes, her new dress and the white couch that now showcases a brown Jagermeister, spider-stain on it. That noxious creak of the door spits it open, and my sister and I look up into Aunt Betty’s ominous eyes as her daughter wretches in front of us, on her hands and knees.
Meg Tuite's writing has appeared in 34th Parallel, Calliope, San Francisco Bay Press, The Santa Fe Literary Review, Fast Forward Press, Monkeybicycle, Sententia Magazine, SLAB Magazine, Molotov Cocktail, Gloom Cupboard, Boston Literary Magazine and many others. She is the fiction editor of The Santa Fe Literary Review. Her collection "Domestic Apparition" is forthcoming in April 2011 through San Francisco Bay Press.
"Listen to me," my sister says. "Get one of the cousins alone. Apart from the rest, get it? I've got a plan." I nod and notice that my sister says, “get it”, all the time after watching some old gangster flicks with our Dad after I’ve been sent to bed. I pick out the most sedate of the group, Tina, who dislikes my sister and I for good reason. I know we inject fear into Aunt Betty, who watches us closely, with a sort of sneer transpiring in the lower regions of her sagging cheeks, as my sister and I say "We're going to go upstairs," and we grab Tina's sweaty hands.
Our Mother shakes her finger at us, but we just smile and wave. "Come on, Tina." We climb the stairs slowly, and push the door open to the attic. Tina looks pale, but her reflexes keep her moving forward. My sister checks down the hall before closing the door, to make sure no one is following. She tells Tina to sit down. We form a circle on the rug in this musty, prison-like room. My sister reaches behind the couch and pulls out a bottle of Jagermeister. She stole the bottle from Dad’s “shop” as he likes to call it. That’s where he keeps his liquor supply, hidden inside his power tool cabinet in the basement where he sits and gets soused at night.
One by one, my sister lines up three tall glasses filled up to the length of a new pencil. She measures them to show us that each glass has the exact same amount. "Okay now, focus both of you." She stares at Tina and smiles. "This will happen only once, get it?" There’s that “get it” again.
"This is the method, Tina," my sister continues. "Us three are going to chug down a glass of this when I say go, and the one who sucks it down the fastest is going to get a huge surprise!” She never shares what that surprise might be, but it doesn’t matter. Tina is ready to follow us anywhere.
“It's also good practice for the minors, get it?" Tina looks wary, but nods her head. My sister had already set up the glasses earlier. She filled two of the glasses with coke and a shot of Jager, but the final glass that sat in front of Tina was straight up Jagermeister. I was getting sick just thinking about shooting back that black lagoon.
"On the count of three we all go for it. One.” Tina picks up her glass. “Two.” Her mouth is starting to pucker up. “Three, and down the hatch!”
Our heads tilt and we start to empty our glasses. Burning bubbles start burping out of me, but I am intently watching Tina's face. As she swallows down the deadly liquid her skin turns into a rainbow of color, moving from red to an enchanted sort of dead-body blue. When we finally set our glasses down Tina's eyes are like that roller coaster ride I took last summer at the carnival. They are careening wheels rolling around in her head. I can make out laughing and chattering voices downstairs. My sister and I look at each other. We also hear footsteps slowly making their way up the stairs.
"Oh, shit," I screech as Tina suddenly projectiles vomit on to her shoes, her new dress and the white couch that now showcases a brown Jagermeister, spider-stain on it. That noxious creak of the door spits it open, and my sister and I look up into Aunt Betty’s ominous eyes as her daughter wretches in front of us, on her hands and knees.
Meg Tuite's writing has appeared in 34th Parallel, Calliope, San Francisco Bay Press, The Santa Fe Literary Review, Fast Forward Press, Monkeybicycle, Sententia Magazine, SLAB Magazine, Molotov Cocktail, Gloom Cupboard, Boston Literary Magazine and many others. She is the fiction editor of The Santa Fe Literary Review. Her collection "Domestic Apparition" is forthcoming in April 2011 through San Francisco Bay Press.