This worked perfectly until the morning when I ducked inside the school lobby a little too sluggishly, and Jenkins blithely followed me in, gobbling to himself and looking both clueless and vaguely threatening. Two other turkeys followed behind Jenkins. I quickly ran into my classroom as the turkeys wandered aimlessly into the library. I sighed in relief that no one had noticed the turkey expedition, until an hour later, when we all heard a lot of screaming and squawking, and we discovered that the principal and librarian had found the turkeys, who had somehow made their way to the cafeteria. They had also managed to shit everywhere. It was actually a little bit impressive, and also horribly revolting. The principal had seen the turkeys follow us to school before (as had most of my classmates, who’d just been too embarrassed for me to point out that they knew I was the turkey-magnet the whole time), so he called my father and demanded that he come to the school to clean up the mess that his turkeys had made. My father explained to the principal that he must be mistaken, because he was raising jumbo quail, but the principal wasn’t buying it.
A half-hour later, when my class lined up to go to PE, I found my father on his knees, cleaning up poop in the lobby. He was unsuccessfully attempting to shoo the turkeys away, quietly but forcefully yelling, “GO HOME, JENKINS.” I froze and tried to blend into the wallpaper, but it was too late. Jenkins recognized me immediately and ran up to me, gobbling with excited recognition like, “OH MY GOD, ISN’T THIS AWESOME? WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS?” and for the first time I didn’t run screaming from him. Instead I sighed and waved weakly, mumbling dejectedly, “Hey, Jenkins,” as my classmates stared at me in amazement. But not the good kind of amazement, like when your uncles show up at your school in a limo to invite you to live with them, and they’re Michael Jackson and John Stamos, but you never mentioned it before because you didn’t want to brag, and everyone feels really bad for not inviting you to their slumber parties when they had the chance. It was more of the bad kind of amazement. Like when you realize that not having the right kind of leg warmers is really small potatoes compared to being assaulted by an overexcited turkey named Jenkins, who is being scolded by your shit-covered father in front of your entire school. I think this was the point when I realized that I was kind of fucked when it came to ever becoming the most popular kid in the class, and so I just nodded to Jenkins and my father (both equally oblivious to the damage they’d done to my reputation), and I held my head up high as I walked down the hall and tried not to slip in the feces.
All the rest of that day I waited for the taunting to come, but it never did. Probably because no one even knew where to begin. Or possibly because they were intimidated by Jenkins, who I later heard had screamed threateningly at the kindergarteners as he was forcibly evicted from the premises. My sister tried to be blasé and pretended as if this sort of thing was commonplace. She refused to let it affect her social standing, and so it didn’t. This same confidence came in handy a few years later, when she was attacked by a pig on the playground. (That story’s in the next book. You should start saving up for it now.)
I, on the other hand, gave up completely at ever trying to fit in again.
When other girls had tea parties on the playground, I brought out my secondhand Ouija board and attempted to raise the dead. While my classmates gave book reports on The Wind in the Willows or Charlotte’s Web, I did mine on tattered, paperback copies of Stephen King novels that I’d borrowed from my grandmother. Instead of Sweet Valley High, I read books about zombies and vampires. Eventually, my third-grade teacher called my mother in to discuss her growing concerns over my behavior, and my mom nodded blithely, but failed to see what the problem was. When Mrs. Johnson handed her my recent book report on Pet Sematary, my mom wrinkled her forehead with concern and disapproval. “Oh, I see,” she said disappointedly, as she turned to me. “You spelled ‘cemetery’ wrong.” Then I explained that Stephen King had spelled it that way on purpose, and she nodded, saying, “Ah. Well, good enough for me.” My teacher seemed a bit flustered, but eventually the principal reminded her that my family had been the ones responsible for the Great Turkey Shit-off of 1983, and she seemed to realize that her intervention was futile, and gave up without feeling too guilty, because it was pretty obvious there was no way of turning me into a “normal” third-grader. And I felt relieved for her.
And actually? A little relieved for me too. Because it was the first time in my life that I gave myself permission to be me. I was still shy and self-conscious and terrified of people, but Jenkins had essentially freed me of the bonds of having to try to fit in. It was a lesson I should have been happy to learn at such a young age, if it weren’t for the fact that it was a teaching moment centering on a public turkey attack witnessed by all of the same kids that I would graduate from high school with.
Soon afterward, Jenkins and the other turkeys disappeared from our lives, but the lessons I learned from them still remain: Turkeys make terrible pets, you should never trust your father to identify poultry, and you should accept who you are, flaws and all, because if you try to be someone you aren’t, then eventually some turkey is going to shit all over your well-crafted fa?ade, so you might as well save yourself the effort and enjoy your zombie books. And so I guess, in a way, I owe Jenkins a debt of gratitude, because (even if it was entirely unintentional) he was a brilliant teacher.
And also? Totally delicious.
If You Need an Arm Condom, It Might Be Time to Reevaluate Some of Your Life Choices