Thanksgiving with Boyer.
I recently saw a request from a Facebook friend soliciting unusual Thanksgiving experiences. Indeed, this is dangerous territory.
Thanksgiving, of course, is a horribly conflicted holiday. Certainly there are those people who are born into nurturing families that revel in the company of kith and kin. Their handshakes are firm, their gaze is level, and their teeth gleam when they smile. And, as we all know, these people are mostly fictitious. For many Americans it’s not nearly so good. Countless folks reluctantly travel great distances to sit around crowded tables and eat like gluttons while simultaneously wishing they were hundreds of miles away. The best you can do is grin and bear it, accepting the hand that you have been dealt.
So I got to thinking about my most peculiar Thanksgiving experience. Although there were some strong contenders, in the end it was really a foregone conclusion.
In November of 1996 I was living in Socorro, New Mexico, eking out a marginal existence as an impoverished graduate student at the New Mexico School of Mining and Technology, far from my Mom and Dad in Virginia. I had arranged to fly back east to see the folks for Christmas and that plane ticket had sucked up all of my cash, so for Thanksgiving I decided to take the bus to Los Angeles and hook up with Chris Boyer, my old buddy and neighbor on the alley back in the fabled Federal Street days. Inadvertently, I was plunging into the underbelly of Hollywood, and when it comes to reminiscencing about Thanksgiving I surely will never be the same. Little did I know when I drove up to Albuquerque and parked my car at Susan’s place, what lay before me.
* * *
I spent the night at Susan’s. The next morning she drove me to the bus station and we kissed goodbye. I was about to experience a great contrast to warm and snuggly.
Anyone who has ever ridden Trailways or Greyhound knows that bus stations are among the most forlorn and neglected public places imaginable — drab, litter-strewn, and generally unsanitary — the sad recourse for people who can’t afford a plane or a train, and don’t own a reliable car. It’s how the underclass moves around.
The bus is late. When I get on, I instinctively head to the back, like when I was in high school. Unfortunately, this turns out to be a huge mistake. There is a guy in the farthest back seat, “the big seat,” and he is holding court — loudly and interminably. “I’ve ridden every goddamn bus they got. Every goddamn one! From Barstow to Amarillo! I know all the goddamn driver’s names. Except this goddamn guy here. I think he’s new.” Etc., etc. As I struggle to drift off to sleep, I dream that there is an identical blowhard in the back seat of every Trailways bus burrowing though the western night. If I remember correctly, the King of the Road failed to get back on the bus after our night stop in Barstow. I seem to remember seeing him frantically emerge from the bathroom as we pulled away, having trouble yanking up his zipper.
* * *
Boyer picks me up at the L.A. bus station. Man-oh-man, I am pleased to see him. After considerable glad-handing, hugging, and back-slapping, we hit the freeway in his decaying 1964 Ford Fairlane. The situation soon becomes terrifying. Boyer is literally standing on the gas pedal. Through the rusted holes in the floorboards I can see the concrete hurtling madly past my feet. We are going at least 85 MPH in this piece of junk.
I scream, “SLOW DOWN!”
“SLOW DOWN?” he yells over the highway noise, “WE’D BE OVERWHELMED!”
Indeed, when I look around I quickly understand. Left and right, cars and semi-trucks are hurtling past us — furiously, recklessly, insanely — as if in a race for death. It’s like we are riding a go-cart in the midst of the Indianapolis 500.
* * *
Suffice it to say, it is a great relief to arrive at Boyer’s place in one piece. And speaking of relief (as in topography), this is one of those prevalent middle-class Los Angeles houses built on a steep hillside. It has since been divided into two domiciles, upstairs and downstairs with a central stairway linking the two. The upstairs, the main floor, faces onto a small front yard and the street. This is where Linda Miller lives. More about her later.
Boyer lives on the lower floor, i.e. the basement. His place reminds me of a ship. His bedroom is like a nautical cabin, with a low ceiling and tiny little windows at the top of the walls. His kitchen is tight and efficient like a galley. His bathroom is snug like a ship’s head. From his small-but-functional living room a sliding door opens into a terraced back yard, and there the nautical metaphor ends. The landscape falls away with a fantastic view of Silver Lake with Griffith Park in the background. Nice place.
Boyer and I sit out back, pop open a couple of beers, and we catch up. And here, at this juncture of my narrative, I should supply some background concerning Boyer. His first name is Chris, or Christopher, but nobody I’ve ever known called him that, except for his ex-wife. Everybody calls him Boyer, even his mother. For several years Boyer and I lived cheek-by-jowl in a wonderfully dilapidated neighborhood in Harrisonburg, Virginia, a small town in the bucolic Shenandoah Valley, and there, as “curly-headed children of the crooked road,” we experienced many of our life-defining moments. But our little Bohemian paradise eventually unraveled. Real estate developers appeared — even one from within our own ranks. Boyer split from Harrisonburg in 1991 — the year after I left for New Mexico and the same year that his wife left him. He was determined to prove to everyone that she made a tragic mistake, so he headed to Hollywood to become a star.
Well, so far, okay. For the last five years Boyer has somehow finagled a living as an actor. Other than his first few months in LA, he’s survived with acting as his only paycheck. The occasional TV commercial picks up the freight — Dr. Pepper, Holliday Inn, The Cheese Council, etc. — and sometimes he scores a “guest appearance” with a TV series such as NYPD Blue or Grey’s Anatomy. Among mutual friends back in Virginia these are called “Boyer sightings.” He also managed second billing (behind Jack Elam) in perhaps the worst movie ever made. If you think I’m being hyperbolic, watch “Uninvited” and tell me that I’m wrong.
Boyer, of course, is an authentically affable fellow and here in L.A. he has established a cohort of friends in the business. Not many big stars — actually no big stars — but a lot of assistants, gaffers, best boys, and make-up artists. We toast to the little people. With great pride Boyer pulls out his wallet and shows me his SAG card — Screen Actors Guild. Then he talks disparagingly about his current agent … and his previous agent … then he rambles on about the rigors of auditioning … and the roles that he almost landed… and how he’d change the Industry if he were in charge…. Eventually I glaze over.
Inevitably we find our way back to the glory-days in the ‘Burg, and we dutifully embellish our desultory tales from our past. We wax sentimental about pristine winters when snowball fights raged through the crystalline back yards of our magical neighborhood. We recount past summers while imagining those steamy nights of skinny-dipping out in the National Forrest with all those beautiful naked women. Hubba-hubba. I can almost smell the honeysuckle. We reminisce about after-hours beers at the Little Grill, on the wrong side of tracks, late at night when the blue-collar world was sleeping and the drunken poets were discoursing. And, of course, we talk about his ex-wife - - - but then it’s time to crash. We have a big day tomorrow. We’re going to Wojo’s.
Wojo, more properly Michael Wojciechowski, is Boyer’s most successful friend in the movie industry. He’s a Director of Photography, one of those names in the opening credits of movies. He’s a big dog but you would never know it if you met him. Great guy. Tomorrow we are going to his house, and Boyer and I are going to whip up the Thanksgiving dinner.
* * *
The following morning, before heading off to Wojo’s, we go upstairs and I meet Linda Miller. She is alluring in an indeterminate way. For instance, she has an obvious fascination with Holstein cows. Almost everything in her house is white with black blotches — and not just coffee cups, ashtrays, or picture frames, but also drapes, upholstery, and throw pillows. I’m intrigued. She is having a party tonight, and I’d just as soon stay here, but Boyer and I already have big plans.
We head out. We drive this way and that, and that way and this. I must say that I’ve spent a considerable portion of my adulthood as a truck driver, then a cabbie, then a field geologist, then a cartographer, and as such I’ve negotiated a lifetime of unfamiliar turf — from urban interstates or forgotten alleys in small towns to overgrown game trails in remote wilderness. I don’t get disoriented. But at this particular moment, I am completely lost. Everything looks the same. I’ve never seen so much indistinct architecture. And in this haze I can’t tell where the sun is in the sky.
Boyer pulls into the parking lot of a grocery store. He has a list — the turkey, the spuds, the beans — and he heads inside. I’d just as soon take in the ambiance of an L.A. street scene, so I hang outside.
Well, it turns out that I’m standing near a panhandler. I once spent a summer at the beach panhandling, so I ask him, “How’s business?” “Brisk,” he says. He traces a circle on the concrete with his foot. “As a professional beggar, this is my spot. Quite lucrative.” I nod. I understand. “On my days off,” he says, “I volunteer at the Soup.”
Boyer comes out of the grocery and he rolls his eyes at me. We climb into the Fairlane. We’ve got the goodies and are heading to Wojo’s place. Soon the streetscape changes dramatically. We are now tooling down a splendid boulevard with a broad, impeccably manicured median that is graced with towering palm-trees swaying in the breeze. Tucked back from the boulevard are impressive Spanish-mission-style mansions with terra cotta roofs and expansive landscaped lawns featuring beautifully orchestrated clusters of brilliant flowering shrubbery. This is the neighborhood where Wojo lives.
* * *
When we get to Wojo’s place, we motor up the lengthy driveway and park the Fairlane in the back near a neglected tennis court overgrown with weeds and vines. We find Wojo and five other guys all dressed in various Hawaiian shirts lounging on deck chairs beside a swimming pool littered with a rotting mat of floating leaves. Introductions are made. After a long silence, Wojo claps his hands and proclaims that we probably need some drinks. We stroll into the house.
And what a strange house it is! Other than a surprisingly well-provisioned kitchen and a TV room furnished with comfy couches and an improvised bar, it appears that this sprawling mansion is completely empty. I wander around. Room after room, upstairs and downstairs, there is nary a stick of furniture, not even a wastebasket. No artwork on the walls. Nothing.
Wojo and the Hawaiian-shirt-guys have settled onto the couches in the TV room and are captivated by the wide screen. The announcers are hyping the big Thanksgiving Day football game — the mighty Dallas Cowboys versus their struggling rival, the Washington Redskins who have lost three of their last four. Boyer and I are the only two Redskins fans within a thousand miles. We head for the kitchen.
There we get down to business. We scrub up the bird and plop it into the big roasting pan that Boyer brought with us. We stick it into the oven. We unpack the rest of the groceries and distribute them on the counter to assess the situation. A sack of potatoes, a bag of string beans, a loaf of French bread, a bunch of celery, two onions, a jar of shucked oysters, a package of sliced almonds, a carton of cranberries, and a jar of honey. We concur that we are in excellent shape.
We poke our heads into the TV room. However, things are not looking good for the ‘Skins, so we head back to the kitchen. There, quite serendipitously, while searching cabinets for a steamer pot, we find a neglected bottle of tequila. And, to double our good fortune, while scrounging for butter we discover two bottles of champagne in the back of the refrigerator.
Boyer and I toast each other with shots of tequila. Then we toast some bread, which we break into small chunks. We chop onions and celery for the stuffing, which we fry up along with the oysters. We remove the now-sizzling bird from the oven and stuff it. We stuff it good. Then we shove it back into the oven.
We drink another round of shots, celebrating our great accomplishment. Then we peel potatoes. This takes longer than it should because we get to swapping stories and we are distracted from the task at hand. Eventually, we set the pot of spuds to boiling and toss in some sprigs of rosemary that Boyer had snipped from a plant on his patio and brought along.
We drink another round of shots. Then we snap the beans and pull off the strings. Kinda. We’re getting sloppy. We put the beans in the steamer. Boyer tosses in some almonds and a big chunk of butter. I crush up the cranberries in a large bowl and mix in a big glop of honey. At each milestone we toast with shots of tequila, liberally chased with champagne.
Meanwhile, reports from the TV room are discouraging. Apparently the Redskins are not only getting beaten, they are being humiliated. Boyer and I are now really drunk. As we attempt to extract the sizzling turkey from the oven, we are startled by a commotion from the TV room — the nefarious Dallas Cowboys have scored again! — and we almost drop the prize on the floor. RUMORS THAT WE DID ARE FALSE! After managing to stabilize the bird on a flat, level countertop surface, Boyer and I glance at each other and simultaneously realize the inescapable truth: It is we who are toast. It is instantly imperative that we exit while at least one of us can still marginally operate a motor vehicle.
But how to best skedaddle? We have no idea. We haphazardly distribute the pots of boiled potatoes and steamed beans and crushed cranberries to any available flat surface. I somehow, without dropping any, barely manage set out a stack of plates that I find in a cupboard. Boyer yanks out a drawer full of silverware and plops it on the counter. I poke a carving knife into the bird. Boyer stabs it with a big fork. I grab the bottle of tequila. He grabs a bottle of champagne. We take one last look around. But then, just as we’re on the verge of a clean get-away, a boisterous horde of women explodes through the back door and spills into the kitchen. Damn!!
At the forefront of this mob is a statuesque gal who is clearly doing her utmost to project the image of lower-east-side-second-hand-store-glamor, what could be called down-snobbing. Despite her trappings she is obviously older than the rest. And she is carrying a pie.
The Queen of Shabby imperiously presents the pie to her nearest sycophant, who ceremoniously and with exaggerated fanfare places it on the counter. Then she regally sweeps her entourage into the TV room, completely ignoring Boyer and me like we were invisible. Like we were the hired help.
We can hear the raucous throng overwhelm the TV room and the Hawaiian-shirt guys. God help them. Boyer looks at me. I look at him. He grabs the pie and we bolt. Don’t ask me why he took the pie. I have no explanation. I’m just reporting the facts. You draw your own conclusions. “Did you see her shoes?” Boyer asks on the way out to the Fairlane. “TACKY!”
It turns out that she is an up-and-coming producer who Wojo has been banging. And she has baked a pie for the first time in her life.
* * *
I’m not sure who drove. God only knows how we got back to Boyer’s place and upstairs to Linda Miller’s party. The pie was a big hit. That’s about all that I remember. Well, not everything. I certainly remember that after the party had dwindled down to just Linda and me, we sat around her dining room table and drained that bottle of tequila. And I know that the next morning I woke up in a strange bed.
* * *
I hear voices from downstairs, arguing. I hear Linda yelling, “And your stupid friend just wouldn’t shut up!” I hear doors slam. Then I hear a car start up and squeal away. Then I hear the Fairlane fitfully crank up and putter off. I roll over and go back to sleep. I’m hung-over and disoriented. There is no other alternative.
I awaken to the sound of the Fairlane’s squealing brakes. I tumble out of bed and struggle to my feet. I slowly realize that I am in Miller’s bedroom. Holy fuck! I grab whatever clothes that I think belong to me and beat a hasty retreat. I scramble downstairs.
Boyer is sitting next to the phone. I’m standing there, naked. He says, “You’re not going to believe this.”
I’ve known Boyer a long time and this is a phrase that he has worn thin. However, on this particular occasion it looks like he earnestly believes what he is saying. He hits the voice-recording button on the phone and I hear, “Hey you little fuck! You and your friend with your stupid hats! You stole my pie! You little fucks! I know who you are and I will ruin you! RUIN YOU!!!” Click.
Now I’m getting pissed off. Bitch, leave my hat out of this! So, standing there, naked, I ask, “Where did you just go?”
​
Boyer leans back in his chair, puts his feet up on the coffee table, and takes a toke off his pipe. “I wake up, hit messages on the phone, and I’m confronted with her histrionics. And, as you and I both know, larceny is legally defined as the theft with the intent to permanently deprive, so I take the pie — what was left of it — back to Wojo’s. I park on the boulevard and sneak up the driveway. So I’m thinking about where to stash said pie where it would be conveniently discovered. About this time I hear someone stirring upstairs, and I see her shoes at the base of the stairs. So I get the hell out of there.” He takes another hit off his pipe.
​
The phone rings. Boyer picks it up. He says, “Yes, Wojo… hey bro… yeah… yes, she did call here… yeah, she left a message… yeah, well, no problem… people make mistakes… not that big a deal… so give me her number… we can straighten this out… yeah thanks… see you on Friday.
Boyer punches in the numbers. He taps his fingers, humming softly to himself. Then abruptly he barks into the phone: “Hey lady, do us both a favor and get your facts straight before you start making threats! Do you know what libel is? Do you? Do you? I’ve got you on tape! I could ruin you!” He hangs up.
“What did she have to say?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says. “It was her answering machine. By the way, Miller has a bone to pick with you.”
* * *
On the bus back to Albuquerque, I pretty much slept all the way. Since then, whenever I think of Thanksgiving, this is the Thanksgiving that comes to mind. And I am quite thankful. How could it have been any better? And it was great to see Susan again. I had a fabulous story to tell her.
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