Highway hypnosis took over the minute I finished the on-ramp to I-94 west. Destination: home. The back end of the van sagged with holiday food which included not one, but two frozen turkeys. I scored a couple of ten-pound weaklings. I felt like kicking sand in their faces, of which they had none. I set the cruise at seventy, pulled the arm rest down, and turned off the Christmas music.

Then I saw something short, white, and moving along the rumble strip on the right near exit sixty-eight. I cancelled the cruise and coasted. It was a bird! It was a rotund bird trotting with the traffic. The left-wing stretched in the air. I tapped the brake and as I got close its tail feathers reached for the sky and spread like a Geisha’s fan.

“It’s a turkey!” I said, “A suicidal turkey!” Come to think of it, a nice fat turkey like that, suicide was a viable option rather than wait for the chopping block. No hope for a pardon from the President. I put on my emergency flashers as I passed him and pulled over the white line. In my mirror I saw him put his wing down and start running for my van. Trotting? I got out and went around the back of my vehicle as this out of breath bird approached.

“Thank goodness! I know there is a trust issue picking up hitch hikers, but, come on, how much harm can I do in my condition?”

I stopped short with my hand to my chin. I’ve heard a lot of people talk turkey, but a talking turkey!? I shook it off.

“Where you headed?”

“That way.” The bird tilted his head westward.

“I can take you as far as Mattawan,” I said.

“Thanks, I was sure I was going be the next entrée on the Road Kill Café menu. I mean really, if people don’t want to give me a ride they should just drive on by! They were honking and swerving and yelling out their windows! Geez, it’s like they’ve never seen a hitch-hiking turkey before.”

“Well I…”

“I’m just trying to get from A to B you know!” His snood flapped from one side of his beak to the other.

“Hey, let’s get in out of this holiday traffic.” I moved up one of the kids’ car seats and positioned it in the middle of the bench behind me and buckled him in. Under forty pounds, must be in a car seat. I got back in and adjusted my mirror so I could see him. He had a long scrawny neck and a not so handsome head attached. His was stubble bald with a three inch orange-red snood draped over his beak. The hanging red caruncles waved back and forth like a dancing double chin every time he turned his head.

“Do you have a name?”

“Tom. That’s Tom with an H, T-H-O-M. I was named after my uncle Thommy.”

I had an Uncle Tommy once. Come to think of it, he’d make a nice turkey on many different levels.

“I’m Jerry with a J. Where are you running off to?”

“I’m heading back to Berrien Springs,” he said as his head bobbed and weaved.

“What’s in Berrien Springs?”

“The free-range turkey ranch I lived at since I was just a wee poult.”

“Why the turn around? Why are you going back?”

“Bad dream. Well, it wasn’t a total bad dream. It was a wake-up call kind of bad dream. I mean it had an epiphany inserted in it. I had an epiphany while I was dreaming. No, no, when I woke up and assessed its meaning–  I was taking a snooze behind a rest stop near Detroit and had a half-sleep non-R.E.M. dream.” He stopped short and took cleansing breath.

“Hey, it’s okay, do you want to tell me about it?” I said as a saw his head down with his snood hanging dead center off his pale-yellow beak.

“Yeah, maybe talking about it will help me process it better.” His choice of the word ‘process’ made me raise an eyebrow.

“Maybe if you start by telling me why you ran away in the first place. I have an idea seeing what time of year it is in America, but I don’t want to assume anything.

“Well,” he said after a gulp, “being from a free-range ranch I had a great childhood. There was lots of freedom, lots of friends, and lots of room to run. I even enjoyed short flights from time to time. I hardly ever got pecked on and when I did, it was my buddies having some good, clean fun. Yeah, we used to stay up late and talk about our adventures, like when we wheel dodged. We saw how close we could strut in front of cars or tractors without getting run over. We had chicken fights in the watering trough. We had snood flapping contests until our gizzards hurt.

My uncle Thommy, in whose honor I was named, would tell us of his days in the PPP, the Poultry Processing Program, and his daring escape aided by some animal rights group. He was like a father to me. He would always find a way to help me appreciate life. I remember the way he puffed out his chest and made eye contact. That was his listen-up-sonny body language.”

Thomm then changed his voice to sound like his old uncle. “You weren’t raised to fly but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.” He smiled, although I didn’t think turkeys could with a solid beak and all. “I will never forget what he said. Then Thom looked out the window and sighed and his wing covered his mouth as he continued…

“About a year ago my uncle Thommy went missing. Here one moment, gone the next. I was so fouled up and sadness accompanied my search for him. I wanted to pull my feathers out as I hopped and flapped over every square yard of the range. I walked the entire perimeter of the property for compromises in security. If there was a sag or a hole in the fence he might have fallen victim to the coyotes.

I never found him but I did find I had grown up through the loss. I wasn’t some little punk of a poult anymore and things were going to be alright. It was me and my buddies now, at least until about a month ago.”

I noticed his face starting to pale. I don’t understand how a turkey could get any paler, but he did.

He continued slowly with a Star Trek Captain Kirk cadence. “They…just…all…started…to vanish!”

“Who did?”

“All my friends. Wing Man, Tommy Boy, Hook Beak, Pencil Neck, Bird Turd.  My whole crew was gone!”

“You say it was about a month ago? Well, I think…”

“I know, I know. At least I know now.” His tone of voice changed to that of resignation. “I was so naïve. I thought that our ranch was different from all those other PPP type places. I had to get out of there. I had to leave on my own terms, so I made a way of escape. Last year, I noticed an area of the fence which hung a tad low. I thought if I could get a running start there might be a possibility. After all, I was the champion wheel dodger. So, from twenty-five yards back I dug my talons in and pushed the throttle to full on, and here I am!”

“Wow. That’s quite a story, even from a turkey, ahem, no offence,” I said.

“Quite all right.”

We approached the Mattawan exit and Thomm sat there. His belly stuck out with his wings folded over it.

“Hey, how ‘bout I give you a ride to Berrien Springs?”

“You don’t have to…”

“It’s a holiday!”  I immediately felt bad knowing which holiday it was and my present company. How could I be so insensitive! “I’m so sorry!”

“No worries, I’ve come to embrace this as a point of destiny, not regret.”

Hmmm, this Thom Thom grew up in a hurry. He fought some major poultry traumatic stress syndrome.

“Help me out here. Why are you going back to the ranch?”

He sat up. “I had a dream. I think what influenced it was the feeling of hopelessness, or rather, I could almost feel meaning and purpose drain out of me as I hitched rides away from home. So, as I dozed off and rode the horizon of R.E.M., I had this dream. My Uncle was in it. He was plucked, stuffed, and golden brown on a platter right next to the cranberry sauce! I gasped in horror! Actually, in my native tongue it would have been an annunciated “blullullla.”

The table was long, and the people were plenty with their heads bowed and hands folded in their lap. Some of the children stared at my uncle like he was Turkish Delight. Then I realized even though Uncle Thommy was missing feet, talons and all, his spindle neck and bald head were attached AND ALIVE! He cricked his neck and looked at me in my eye, my right eye, and began to speak.

“Thom Thom, oh how I’ve missed you! You’re all grown up. Nice beard. I’ve been worried about you. I know there is reason to run, at least it seems a reasonable response to the recent events in your life. But I am here to offer another possibility, so don’t start molting like you’ve seen the ghost of Thanksgiving’s Past. This is only a dream, but the scene is a reality many of us have the privilege to enter. It is our destiny.”

“Destiny! Destiny? Butter basted, extra crispy, stuffed with who knows what, and taken from the free range to the range oven. Just what kind of destiny is that?”

“I know how you feel.”

“Do you now!?”

“Yes. I do, because you are looking at last Thanksgiving at the Smith’s house. For a moment I lay in the middle of a family taking time to reconnect at an annual meal. Mealtime for American’s used to be the time of day, every day, for communication and communion. Eye to eye contact, body language, common courtesy, and a physical reminder of belonging. Now those special times are often reduced to a few meals a year.

When I was your age, an older, wiser, Tom took me aside and gave me ‘the talk.’ The one I never made the opportunity to give to you. I procrastinated, and I saw the chicken scratch writing on the wall but….”  His voice trailed off.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t prepare you. I hope you will find a way beyond this to forgive me.” He then shook his snood and said, “This is my chance, and as weird as it might be to listen to a succulent, organically raised bird speak to you from the dead, I will not pass this up.”

Thom continued to tell of his dream…

His head and neck vanished and a translucent uncle Thommy floated above the Smith family table. He hovered above grandpa’s comb over, Lauren’s pigtails, Kelsey’s cornrows, and grandma’s poofy grey arrangement. He saw the horn of plenty as the expanded double leaf table sagged with calories. In the middle lay his body. The center piece wasn’t the candied yams or the mashed potatoes. It wasn’t the salad, cranberry sauce, or the green bean casserole.  It wasn’t cherry, Mintz, or pumpkin pie. It was the body of a bird raised free.

“Oh Thom. Thom,” he began, “Take a good look. This family is bowing and thanking God for the gifts they are about to receive and I was one of them. I was the one in the middle to be carved and given to each. This is why I was raised. Look at them. Before they sat for prayer I was able to drift around the house and listen to conversations. They have dysfunctions and differences. They have favorites. They have the spoiled last borne. See that little one over there? Her name is Emmy and she took special care of me when I was just fluff. Thank goodness she lost track of who I was!

“It is arrogant to tell you they gathered just because of me. No, it’s their God given desire for connection and the God-image in them. This holiday is just one reason they make efforts to come together. It’s a human thing, we wouldn’t understand. They pray to One bigger than their collective experiences. As Turkeys, we fulfill God’s design for us. We feed, but more than that, our species in America fill thankful bodies, thankful hearts.

“Your destiny is at hand, Thom Thom. You could be in the middle of all sorts of possibilities. Redeeming moments, forgiving moments, loving moments, joyful moments, meaningful moments, all basted in the juices of thankfulness.”

“It was then I woke up, looked west, and rousted my roosting. Time to head home, I said to myself. It is my time to walk through the door of destiny. No more trotting. I figured if I got back soon, I could be a part of someone’s thankful day this year.”

I was without a word. Did a turkey really go there? Nobody’s going to believe this. I don’t believe this. I’m on my way to Berrien Springs. I’m a turkey taxi. There’s a big bird in my baby’s car seat who just gave me a lesson in religion, philosophy, destiny, and the difference between free range and PPP turkey farming. What did eventually pass through by lips was, “Thanks for sharing.”

“Thanks for caring and carrying for that matter!” he responded. “It felt good to tell the story. It was like getting the stuffing scooped out of me. I feel lighter.”

“Hey Thom, I know this is sudden, but why don’t you come to my house for dinner! I mean, I have a couple of punk turkeys in the back. I can give them away to families in need. You’ve got to be twenty pounds dressed. You are what I was looking for earlier, a nice, fat, Thom Thom! We both laughed. If you’ve never heard a turkey laugh before you’ve never split a gizzard.

“I would be honored to be front and center on your Thankful Day. Blullulla!”