For Thursday, December 3, 1998 Drummer column, Gibbs, 737 words

Nice nails

Here is how Rochester made it through another Thanksgiving with his family. At first he thought he might just get up that morning, go out into the backyard and shoot himself in the foot with his deer rifle. That might clear him from Christmas duty, as well. But he thought better of it after stubbing his toe upon climbing out of bed and realizing how much that alone hurt.

Instead, he decided to play nicey-nicey again -- smile a lot, eat a lot, nod frequently in affirmation, and avoid all issues dear to his heart. Nicey-nicey wasn't a new invention. Everyone in the family had been playing it for years.

Cousins and uncles who couldn't stand each other would mingle and laugh and pass the potatoes. No talk was too small. The weather got a good thrashing every year.

It's a twisted history. Uncle Charlie doesn't like his brother Rick's wife, Aunt Ruby, because she talks too much about Europe. Aunt Ruby hides but exudes disdain for Spin, Uncle Charlie's kid, because he got his eyebrow pierced years after it was vogue in Liverpool.

Cousin Nancy, Ruby and Rick's kid, is in her 11^th year of college, presently majoring in oceanography. Nancy has antipathy toward Aunt Edith May, Uncle Zool's wife, because Aunt Edith May let it slip once that Nancy needed to get a job.

Except for Thanksgiving, Uncle Zool hasn't talked to his brothers Rick or Charlie in over ten years because he says he's been too busy. The joke is that Uncle Zool calls his parents on their even anniversaries. This leaves grandma upset, and that upsets Grandpa, and no one likes to see Grandpa get upset.

Grandma is also put off with Uncle Charlie and his wife, Aunt Magera, for once again bringing friends of theirs to the family gathering.

Brad and Janet sat quietly in the corner.

Rochester, Charlie and Magera's kid, spent most of the day playing with the younger children, who had less baggage. This year they played The Legend of Zelda right after the high-scoring Cowboys and Vikings football game.

The conversation was neutral and unloaded until Rudy, Ruby and Rick's kid, said about the ball game, "My dad says people from Minnesota are wackos. My mom says the Swiss are upsetting the gold standard. Uncle Zool says people from the North and South Pole and the Equator are slow."

Just then Link died in the tree and Rochester's turn at the Nintendo controls was over. He stood up and moved to the couch next to Brad and Janet. The three had met and talked in the car on the way over. Charlie had met Brad at the unemployment office the day before and invited him to dinner.

Brad's parents were in Iraq looking for chemical weapons. Janet's folks were in quarantine for an upcoming five-year biosphere project in Death Valley. Brad was between jobs. Janet was an oceanographer who had helped map the Philippine Trench.

"Your family seems nice," said Janet as a cordial gesture. The demons rose in Rochester's throat. They clawed at his trachea and his esophagus. They bellowed and roared, fighting to get out. He almost lost it. Then he gulped it down, took a long breath, and said something mildly ambiguous.

"Yes," he said. "They are all good at what they do."

Brad nodded toward the old gentleman in the reclining chair under the ceiling fan. "Is that your grandfather?"

"That's him," said Rochester. Grandpa sensed he was being talked about and looked in their direction. He grinned and gave Rochester a quick wink.

When Rochester and Grandpa were alone together they always had great talks. Grandpa used to say, "Son, when you bend a nail it doesn't get straight again unless you hammer on it."

Nobody bent any nails around grandpa. He wasn't a big fan of nicey-nicey. If things got on Grandpa's last nerve, he would let his demons out. They would jump out, whack certain people upside their heads a few times, bite a few butts, then jump back in again and get swallowed down.

Rick and Charlie and Zool were miffed at their old man for his occasional outbursts of cruel honesty. It wasn't pleasant. It wasn't nice. It made it harder to suffer through family gatherings. It created tension.

Just then, Edith May broke into song. "La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, de, de, de, de, do."