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Editor's Note: This piece was previously published in the pacific REVIEW from San Diego State University Press. You can hear the author read it in this video. In New York, you’re always looking at two levels: ahead and below. Ahead so you don’t bump into a human or a kabob cart or a building and below so you don’t step in dog shit. The Monday before Thanksgiving, I was hustling to work, hopping over dog shit, used condoms, and spilled Jamaican takeout on my way to the subway. I was late again, but at least I was wearing sneakers. I was also wearing my typical aspiring novelist attire, and probably appeared a little hungry because of it. “Miss, do you want a turkey?” The question came from a middle-aged black woman with a burgundy wig and a charcoal pea coat. Black and white police officers flanked her. This is worth noting because I live in a mostly black neighborhood. Cops always stand out and their races are always noted. Three more cops stood in the back of an unmarked truck parked on the sidewalk next to a Baptist church. The pastor, a black man with rose-colored eyeglasses, stood with them. I was used to seeing cars parked on that sidewalk on Sunday, but never a moving truck. It was bursting with frozen turkeys. The team was handing out turkeys to passersby like me. The cops passed the turkeys one at a time to the pastor and the pastor passed the turkeys to the woman talking to me. I shrugged and said, “Okay.” The woman smiled. Then she signaled at a wiry, white cop with a buzz cut and before I knew it, I was holding a 14-pound turkey. An NYPD photographer jumped in front of me to snap a photo. It happened so quickly that I didn’t even register the face behind the camera. My eyes spun from the flash. Since I couldn’t take a turkey to work, I turned around and headed back to my apartment. Now I would be really late for work. I tried to pick up the pace, but I had the weak arms of an overly zealous library dweller. When I approached a couple of kids, I shouted, “Go grab a turkey for your mama at Holy Redeemer. There’s a big truck.” “They from the police?” asked a boy about 10 years old. His voice had a suspicious tone. “Yeah, so?” Of course I knew why he asked it like that. Police were not beloved or trusted in our zip code. Yet I suspected his family needed free food as much as mine did. “Yeah, I heard about the police doing that.” “I’ll get one for Mama,” squeaked the girl, who seemed a few years younger than the boy. “You can’t carry it by yourself, stupid,” said the boy. “See how big it is?” He pointed at the bulge gradually slipping from my hands. “Well, the two of you can do it together,” I groaned as I hoisted up the turkey. “But you better act fast. I gotta go to work.” I kept walking and didn’t look back to see what the children decided. Luckily, the front door to my building was always unlocked. That made it easier for folks to access the drug dealer’s apartment on the ground floor. I ignored the junkies hanging out in the lobby like usual, except for one I recognized. Most nights, he slept in the lobby. He held my packages for me if the mail carrier came by while I was at work. He also gave me local tips you’d never find in any newspaper. He never asked me for money, but sometimes he asked for food. “Holy Redeemer and the police are handing out free turkeys,” I said when I made eye contact with the man. I didn’t stop to provide details and was already halfway up the first flight of stairs when he replied, “I’m good. I don’t have nowhere to cook it, anyway.” I nodded and walked up four flights of stairs. Since I couldn’t fish my keys or phone from my pocket while also holding the turkey, I body slammed my apartment door. My husband answered with a look of surprise. I dropped the turkey in his hands as I exclaimed “Free turkey!” and ran down the stairs. I sprinted all the way to the subway, not resting until I had a seat on the train. After I had the chance to breath, I pulled out my phone. My husband had texted, Where did you get the turkey? I texted back and then searched local news sites for coverage of this press stunt. Nada. There wasn’t even anything on the NYPD website, though I imagined my photo would pop up in a gallery there at some point. After my shift, I came home to the smell of turkey roasting in the oven. That was how hungry my husband had been. It would be another week until my next paycheck and two more for his. “How’d you know what to do with it?” I asked after kissing him hello. “Google.” “You paid the Internet bill?” “It was already paid.” “At least one thing is,” I muttered. We scoured the World Wide Web for the photo the NYPD had taken of me, but even a week later, nothing came up. Only one Brooklyn news site wrote about the outreach effort thinly disguised as gold-hearted charity. Since my husband, toddler daughter, and I went to my mother’s apartment for Thanksgiving, we still had most of the NYPD turkey left over after the holiday. We ate mountains of turkey enchiladas, turkey tacos, and turkey sandwiches for days. “I’m going to grow feathers, Mommy,” said my three-year-old as I prepared her yet another turkey sandwich for lunch. “Well, that’s good because then you can fly,” I chuckled. As we sat down to our final bit of turkey leftovers a week after Thanksgiving, I turned on the 6 o’clock news. We didn’t normally watch TV at dinner, but it had been an especially long day. Even our daughter seemed tired. I didn’t pay much attention to the screen until the anchor mentioned an address seven blocks from us. The police had shot another unarmed civilian in our neighborhood.
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