Eddie Arnold – Cattle Call
“Seriously, Dude, if you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to have to kill you.”
Undaunted, Patrick launched into the opening bars of Eddy Arnold’s 1948 country hit Anytime for what must’ve been the 400th time that weekend. There was a groan around the table, and Patrick grinned sheepishly, unable to stop the tape loop running in his head from dribbling off his tongue and splashing all over the rest of us.
We had decided to spend Thanksgiving in the one city that represented the values of family and tradition the most, Las Vegas. We were a motley crew, me and my new wife G (she still had that wonderful new wife smell), Geoff, a friend and former apartment-mate of ours who had recently joined us on the west coast, Russell, a friend of Patrick’s who helped me get my first job in LA, as an unpaid apprentice editor, and the aforementioned Patrick.
Patrick was the younger brother of Eric, my longtime roommate and best friend from high school. I met him ten years earlier on that very same occasion, Thanksgiving. Eric, who had just become my dorm roommate a few weeks before that, invited me to spend the Thanksgiving holidays at his house in Troy, a suburb of Detroit, about four hours by car from Interlochen.
For those of you who are football fans, you may know that the mighty Detroit Lions have a tradition of playing a home football game on Thanksgiving, and Eric’s extended family was going to gather at the game to kick off (sorry) the festivities. We got in the night before, and I got the chance to meet Eric’s mom and dad, and his brother Patrick. His older brother, high school football star Vince, was expected back the next day. Eric came from an open-minded arm of a pretty traditional family. I don’t know if he went through any grief deciding to ditch the local high school and its sports program for the rarified environment of Interlochen and a major in dance – my sense is that his parents were cool with it, and his brothers and friends were mostly cool, but a little wary. Male dancers have a reputation superceded only by hair dressers and fashion designers, and I think they were all concerned he’d turn into a flighty, shrieking dance fag, and so they were also very curious and wary about meeting his new roommate, who, on some level, represented a side of Eric that they really didn’t understand.
Like most people who came to Interlochen, Eric followed a different drummer than those he left behind. It takes a pretty strong drive to make you leave home alone in high school and face the slings and arrows of an arts education in the face of a community and/or family (or, frankly, country) that views such a thing with a mixture of curiosity and concern (or, in the saddest and most extreme cases, derision and scorn – although for obvious reasons not many of those students make it up to the sanctuary and social security of the north woods). Now the prodigal son was returning home with his roommate, and, although nothing was said, I could see everybody sizing me up as they met me, shaking my hand with a firm grip, and trying to determine whether I was a bad influence on their little boy.
After a good dinner and pleasant small talk, we went upstairs to bed. Since Vince wasn’t expected back until the next day, Eric told me it would be alright if I slept in his bed. Tired, and facing a busy Thanksgiving Day, I shed my clothes, jumped into bed, and turned out the light.
Imagine my surprise when, a couple of hours later, I felt somebody slip into the bed with me. And imagine Vince’s surprise finding his brother’s probably gay roommate lying naked in his bed. It was not the best circumstances under which to meet, but after I apologized and explained the mix-up and after Vince went to go wake Eric and beat him up, everything worked itself out.
The football game was awful. Until the very end. A moderate fan of the game, I didn’t give a hoot for the Lions. When I do watch sports, I want to see a good game – I don’t usually care who wins or loses, I just want to see a close, exciting game. And, with the Lions up early by two touchdowns, and the score locked that way for almost all of the rest of the game, it was not what I considered a good game. But, I kept my mouth shut, because I knew I was in the Lion’s den, and Eric’s family was all true blue Detroit guys (go Tigers! yea Red Wings!). So I munched on popcorn and waited it out. Then, at the very end of the fourth quarter, the other team (Green Bay?) suddenly scored two touchdowns, tying the game as the clock expired. Then, moments into the overtime, they scored again, completing an exciting and improbable comeback win. I was happy – what a game! – but, again, knew enough to keep my mouth shut.
After the game, we all went back to the house, and there the rest of the family convened. Poor Eric was put in the unenviable position of having to introduce me to his extended family, made all the worse because he couldn’t remember what anybody’s name was. Although Eric can be a bit flighty sometimes, I can’t really blame him for his forgetfulness – there are a lot of aunts and uncles in his family and I go through the same kind of name paralysis whenever the larger circle of my extended family gathers together in Seattle. He largely dealt with this difficulty by running away and leaving me standing there in the kitchen, the smiling stranger. The dinner was good – as good as Thanksgiving dinner can be (which isn’t very, if you ask me – it’s far too heavy and beige). Afterwards, the suggestion was made that we all clear a space in the basement and Eric and I could dance for the family, to show them what he’d been learning in this fancy pants private boarding school. Fortunately, Eric was able to talk them out of it, but it is an ignominy visited upon many Interlochen students. At another Thanksgiving dinner at my friend Dave’s house, I got to watch my host sweat his way through a solo violin concerto while his bored family looked on. And the next year, Bob made me dance for his friends when I visited him at Thanksgiving (moral – eat Thanksgiving dinner alone).
And then we all went out and played racquetball. I don’t know whose perverse idea it is to go play racquetball after Thanksgiving dinner (I guess the courts aren’t very crowded), but the only two times I’ve ever played racquetball have been when I’ve been visiting somebody for Thanksgiving, right after dinner. Weird.
Patrick and I got along well, although he was still under the considerable shadow of his two older brothers (there was a strong family tradition in that household – after dinner, Vince would beat Eric up, then Eric would beat Patrick up, and then Patrick would go kick the dog). We discovered a common fondness for Queen, which helped break the ice, and one evening, when Eric was out, Patrick put me on the phone with Pinky, his girlfriend (yes, Pinky). She and I talked for what turned into a couple of hours, while Patrick looked on flummoxed, wondering if I was moving in on his girl. To both of our chagins, she wanted to meet me the next night. I think Patrick was worried I was cutting in, but I knew how it was all going to play out. Pinky liked my voice, and liked the things I said, but I was (am) not by any stretch of the imagination a cute guy. Since she had never met me, she could imagine that I looked just like Shawn Cassidy, or whomever, but those romantic notions would be smashed when she laid eyes on me. Which is precisely what happened.
It’s a phenomenon which has happened more than once. When I was working as a proofreader at Price Waterhouse, I used to get frequent calls from within the company. I’d pick up the receiver, say “hello” in my best smooth Barry White phone voice (said: “hello”, heard: “hey baby, why don’t you take those panties off”) and then hear stammering giggling on the other end, as one of the secretaries excused herself for calling the wrong extension and hung up. The next day, the same thing would happen, but from a different secretary. The things you have to do to keep yourself occupied in a corporate veal-fattening pen.
The rest of the Thanksgiving weekend was much more relaxed and fun, and I got to know the family pretty well, to the point where I sometimes considered myself the fourth brother. And now, ten years later, I was enjoying a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at Denny’s with my “brother” Patrick.