Seconds, anyone?
Christmas Dinner With Liz and Jim
Liz turned off the burner, and carefully poured the soup into the ‘for special’ soup bowls. She laid a circle of cheese over each bowl, then slid the bowls into the microwave and thumbed the "Minute Plus" button. She turned to grab a tray as the querulous voice spoke yet again from the dining room.
"Is that soup almost ready?" Jim asked, for what seemed like the twentieth time. "I’m starving."
"Yep, coming right in," Liz replied, as the microwave beeped. She scooped the bowls onto the tray, the cheese beautifully melted over the top of each serving of onion soup, just like in a fancy restaurant.
Liz carried the tray carefully from the kitchen into the dining room, where Jim sat at the head of the festively decorated Christmas Dinner table. There was a huge turkey, beautifully done to a perfect golden brown. Next to the turkey was a big bowl of stuffing, made with apple bits and raisins the way Jim liked it. There was a dish of cranberries, a bowl of gravy and a loaf of brown bread next to a plate of real butter. There was a bowl of candied yams made with brown sugar, mashed potatoes and green beans.
Liz paused in the doorway, looking at the table laden with the feast she had spent all day cooking. She had worked until two the night before, getting home just before three. Jim hadn’t been home yet, in fact he hadn’t come home for the past six nights. Liz had fallen gratefully into bed, only to be awakened by Jim’s arrival at a quarter to five, dead drunk and demanding a "real man’s breakfast".
Liz had gotten up and started throwing together some pancakes. "No," Jim had whined. "I want a real breakfast. Pancakes and bacon and eggs and potatoes and coffee and orange juice."
Liz had recognized the danger signals, and silently complied. Five in the morning, after working a double shift at the diner until two, and here she was cooking enough breakfast for an army of lumberjacks. Better to be tired than black and blue, though. So she had cooked. Jim had staggered away from the table after downing all of the food, falling into sodden sleep in a diagonal sprawl across the bed. Liz had washed and dried the dishes, put them away, then gone to finish her interrupted sleep on the couch, the alarm set for eight so she could get up in plenty of time to prepare their Christmas feast.
That had been her Christmas Eve, and now it was Christmas Day. Jim had demanded a big traditional Christmas Dinner, telling her to cook enough for his sister and brother-in-law, their three kids, his mother, his father - plus the father’s girlfriend - his brother and his brother’s latest girlfriend. She wasn’t to invite her family, not that she would have anyway. Whenever she thought of her parents seeing the way she was living, she was deeply ashamed.
None of his family had shown up, of course. She had known before starting to cook that none of them were coming. His sister kept her kids as far from their Uncle Jim as she possibly could, there was no way she would have come to their place for dinner, especially a memorable event like Christmas Dinner. Jim’s father was probably dead drunk and fighting with his equally drunk girlfriend. Jim’s mother was probably dead drunk and crying in her beer about the father having a girlfriend. Jim’s brother was doubtless putting it to his latest skank in some roach motel, and the odds were they were dead drunk as well.
I hate him, she suddenly realized, looking at Jim. Clearly seeing, perhaps for the first time, the broken veins and puffy skin that marred his once-handsome face. His mouth, which she had once seen as "drop-dead gorgeous" was turned down at the corners in its usual petulant pout. His once beautiful blue eyes now looked small and piggish, glazed with the remnants of a six-day drunk, bloodshot and dangerous as they shifted about, ready to recognize some excuse, however piss-poor, to go off on her so he could break dance on her face with his fists, then get drunk again because "that bitch is driving me to it".
"Hurry up with that soup, Woman," he demanded, trying to sound jocular and only succeeding in sounding peevish. "Your man is hungry!"
Oh fuck you, Liz thought, as she hurried forward to set his soup down in front of him. Fuck you, choke on it and I hope you die. He smiled at her as he caught sight of the soup, French Onion au Gratin, prepared just as he liked it in the fancy bowls he had stolen from work the last time he had a job. Later, Liz decided that it was the smile that had done it. Just one straw too many for old camel Liz, that smile.
"Here’s your fucking soup, you COCKSUCKER!" she shrieked, and swept her hands forward, hurling both bowls of hot soup into his face. "Here’s your fucking soup and I hope you fucking CHOKE on it!"
Jim roared in pain and rage as both bowls of soup bounced into his lap. He leapt to his feet, his chair clattering to the floor behind him.
"You fucking BITCH!" he yelled. "Have you lost your mind?"
Liz dropped the tray and snatched the coffee pot from the table. Jim always insisted that a pot of coffee be on the table at every meal. Liz hated coffee.
"You forgot your fucking coffee!" she shrieked, and let him have the pot squarely on the bridge of his nose. He was immediately soaked with blood as his nose collapsed, the bone and cartilage - still fragile from being rebuilt after his last bar fight - disintegrating under the metal rim of the pot. Hot coffee sprayed into his face, burning its way quickly down his body.
Liz spun, still holding the pot, and followed her initial blow with a harder one to the side of his head. With a look of stupid surprise he stumbled backwards, and she swung again, this time shattering the metal pot on the top of his head. He sat down with a grunt, missing his chair and falling to the floor.
"Oh you bitch," he growled thickly. "You fucking bitch."
"Here’s your fucking turkey!" Liz screamed. She plucked the bird from the table, holding it up over her head by both legs. "Merry Christmas, you fucking prick!"
She swung the turkey downward with all of her might. There was a thick squishing sound as bird met skull. Skull won the initial round, but, Liz realized, bird won the battle. She stepped back, staring in dumb amazement. Jim’s head was gone, having been swallowed by the enormous bird. The turkey rested on Jim’s shoulders, his head and neck buried inside the former Christmas dinner. The wings flopped on Jim’s shoulders, the legs waved from where the top of Jim’s head bulged inside the bird.
Jim went purely crazy. That was the only way Liz could describe it. He flailed uselessly at the turkey for a moment, then lurched to his feet. He staggered two steps, running into the table and nearly knocking it over. Turning, he ran in the opposite direction, bouncing off of the wall, then turning again and carooming off of the other wall.
Finally, he found the door, racing out into the hall as Liz stared after him, her anger and terror giving way to helpless spasms of almost hysterical laughter. There were several more thumps from the hallway, then a series of loud bangs.
"Guess he found the steps," she said in a shaky voice she hardly recognized as her own. She walked into the living room and picked up the telephone, punching in 911 with trembing fingers.
"I’m going to need an ambulance," she managed to gasp to the operator. She was still giggling helplessly. "My boyfriend appears to have had a wee bit too much Christmas turkey."