Gold Beach Thanksgiving (Part 4)
“Nice morning,” said a voice behind the Reverend. He reeled around and beheld a man in his 50s wearing mismatched clothes and tennis shoes. He was holding a paper cup presumably full of coffee because its contents were steaming.
“Yes it is,” said the Reverend. “Looks like it was quite the celebration here last night. I could hear some of it on the beach.”
“Yeah we had a good time. You staying there?”
“Yeah, for a few days anyway. I don't know for sure. I'm on my own.”
“Happy Thanksgiving!”
“You too.”
The man introduced himself as Max and said he lived in a tent on a sliver of forested property owned by the Port of Gold Beach. He pointed toward it. A couple other guys lived there, too. Max had lived there for a year, the other guys longer. The cops generally left them alone if they didn't leave garbage around, which they didn't.
Max took a sip of coffee and stared at the ocean. The Reverend was curious how these men had become homeless and ended up camping near the ocean in Gold Beach, but he held back his curiosity, which in these encounters one should not because that is the only way we can learn the stories of homelessness and survival.
“You down to the Coast for Thanksgiving?” said Max
“Not really. I just got a divorce and really have nothing left,” said the Reverend.
“You got the Pacific right in front of you! Could be worse.”
“Yes, it could.”
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Probably a TV dinner in the room and football.”
“Fuck that and fuck football! Come join us down here at the forts if it doesn't rain or back at the tents if it does. We got a few canopies set up.”
The Reverend didn't answer right away. He was considering the invitation. Such a unique offer might not come along in two lifetimes.
“I'm going to make my garbage-can barbecue turkey right here on the beach,” said Max.
“Your what?” said the Reverend.
“I dig a hole, start a fire at the bottom, let it burn into coals. I get a huge turkey, toothpick about 50 small strips of bacon to it, stuff potatoes and vegetables inside, then place the turkey inside a small metal garbage can, put the lid on, and then it goes down into the hole. I shovel coals on the lid, then walk away and come back in a few hours. It doesn't last that long when it's ready, I can tell you that. People smell it cooking for miles around. I share it with the camp. I've made it for years since I've lived outdoors.”
There was no way the Reverend was missing that. Fuck football indeed!
“What should I bring?” he said.
“Whatever you want. We'll probably have ten or so people.”
“What time?”
“I'll probably start the coals around noon. Takes a couple of hours.”
“Okay, I'll be there. My name's Dave, by the way, Reverend Dave.”
“Nice to meet you Dave. You really a reverend?”
“Not anymore.”
What a relief it was to announce that.
Dave made a nice morning of it touring Gold Beach. The town had a history museum, tennis courts, two grocery stores, two food carts, a fudge shop, an animal rescue center, the Rogue River, a jetty, beaches galore, an incredible library, and a couple of dive bars, one of which advertised a Thanksgiving potluck.
Just before noon, Dave entered one of the grocery stores. What does one bring to a Thanksgiving dinner at a homeless encampment? How the hell would Dave know? He'd just have to wing it. Thirty minutes later he left the store after spending $35. His items:
Two jugs of Carlo Rossi rotgut red
A tub of potato salad
A jar of pickled sausages
Two boxes of Ding Dongs
A can of creamed corn
Jello parfait salad
Pocahontas and the Pilgrims wept.
Dave returned to the motel and took a nap. He woke up to the smell of barbecuing turkey. Max was right about its olfactory properties. He checked the time and it was now after 3:00. He was starving and hadn't eaten anything but a maple bar all day.
Time for a new kind of Thanksgiving dinner. Dave carried his groceries out of the motel and down to the forts on the beach. A couple of campfires were already blazing and Dave estimated a gathering of 15 people and three pitbulls. As he came closer, he heard the sound of Aerosmith's “Walk This Way.” He saw two portable speakers plugged into a phone resting on a log and blasting the rock anthem into the air. It sounded mighty incongruous juxtaposed against the steady antediluvian ocean roar, but Dave dug it. If he'd been eating with Kari and her friends in a fancy restaurant, he'd be listening to some computerized soft jazz while people talked about the latest hot streaming shows.
Max noticed Dave's approach, called out, and waved him over. Dave headed that direction and soon found himself standing around the barbecuing turkey with other men all roughly Max's age and several younger women whose faces were scarred by meth. Malt liquor was the preferred drink of choice but Dave noticed a couple half pints of Fireball. A few of the assembled vaped weed and smoked cigarettes as they drank. One man just vaped. The dogs were utterly stoic.
Max introduced Dave as the Reverend and said, “He just got divorced and ended up in Gold Beach. Just like us.”
There were profane hosannas all around.
Dave asked Max where he should set the boxes down. Max wanted them over by the music. That's where they would stage the feast.
Dave extricated each item from the box and held them up for inspection. The crowd reaction went like this:
Two jugs of Carlo Rossi rotgut red (HELL YES! CRACK ONE OPEN!)
A tub of potato salad (Right on! Right on! Right on!)
A jar of pickled sausages (I saw a man choke to death on one of those in a bar one night.)
Two boxes of Ding Dongs (Toss me one Dave!)
A can of creamed corn (BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Throw that shit in the fire!)
Jello parfait salad (Just like grandma used to make it!)
Dave put the items back in the box (except for the wine) and carried the box to the log. He returned to the barbecue pit and someone handed him a glass of the rotgut red. More Aerosmith played.
The feast was dished up and dished out at around 5:00. Max carved the turkey with a Bowie knife. Darkness descend. The revelers heaped their food onto paper plates and gathered around a bonfire. They sat down on rounds and logs. The dogs joined them. One of the women gathered rosemary and threw it into the flames. It immediately crackled and sparked. She quietly chanted a spell as the sweet smoke curled around the gathering.
Dave thought Max might ask him to give a blessing. Thankfully he did not. The ocean was doing the blessing anyway.
Aerosmith gave way to Metallica. Everyone began to eat, drink and smoke.
They also talked. Dave listened to stories of outrageous debauchery, hunting and fishing exploits, and the greatest concerts attended (e.g. Garth Brooks and Red Hot Chili Peppers). All the men seemed to have once held decent jobs in a trade and had intact families. At Dave's prompting, several of the men mentioned that times got really tough a couple years after the Great Recession of 2008-09. No one talked about ending their current life.
There was a brief fight but Max smoothed it over. One man fell into edges of the fire but somehow escaped injury. Another man approached the gathering and wanted to join but was denied for some prior offense. He backed away without saying a word.
Night reigned. Cloud cover rolled in. The music died. The crowd was drunk and stoned but mellowing out as the digested turkey made its way into their systems. A few nodded off with the dogs.
Dave knew he'd have a hangover in the morning. So what? It was damn well worth it. He figured Kari was with her new boyfriend drinking a $200 bottle of Chianti in a Palermo villa at the same moment he was drinking jug wine with homeless people around an Oregon Coast beach fire. He chuckled at the absurdity of the comparison.
What would Dave do the day after Thanksgiving? He considered staying in Gold Beach, in the motel, negotiating a cheaper month-long rate, and getting a job. HELP WANTED signs were plastered all over town. None of the jobs required any experience.
Maybe some construction outfit would take him on even though he'd never worked construction in his life. A memory care facility was paying $20 an hour. A sawmill in Brookings was paying $30 an hour! Every motel in town was hiring. Several were even offering a free room. The animal shelter needed an overnight attendant. An RV park was looking for an assistant manager, whatever that entailed. They offered free rent in an onsite trailer. The county bus wanted a driver and the view along the Highway 101 route was probably the most spectacular in North America. That gig even had health insurance!
Something might turn up if Dave put himself out there. You never know who you'll meet if you go to work and then work hard. People still notice that ethic in action and want to help you.
Dave lost track of time. Fog continued to roll in and started thickening. They could no longer see the ocean and its sound dissipated to a whisper.
At one point, one of the women said to Dave, “Are you really a reverend, a preacher?”
“I was.”
“How about telling us a story from the Bible?”
“Here? On Thanksgiving?”
A round of FUCK YEAHS! exploded around the fire.
Dave hesitated for a second, then said, “Okay, well Max and you guys have been so friendly. Why not?”
A round of cheers went up.
Dave took a swig from the jug. He petted one of the dogs. “Anyone know who Jonah was?” he said.
The woman's hand shot up. The fire popped.
“It's a story about trying to run away from your problems and finding out you can't. It goes like this...”