I Guess It Was Turkeys

He climbed on the bus and stood there with his fucking crazy eyes. Out of breath, he gasped, "You guys see those turkeys?"

No one replied. It was six in the morning. Turkeys could have been out there riding tandem bicycles and no one would have cared. The man was still standing when the bus started back up. He lurched forward and had to catch himself on the rail. He was still looking around. Everyone turned away from him, pretending to play with their phones, or searching for interesting sights out the windows. No one wanted to hear about turkeys.

He eventually found a seat near the back, across from me. He had a plastic grocery bag with a small lunch all wrapped up tight. I know this guy, or at least I've seen him before on the bus. He is a regular. Nearly everyday he has some kind of weird story. One time, he told a guy about a terrible accident he was in. He showed his leg to the guy; it looked like a chunk of strange meat, colored red-brown like liver, and stapled to the place where his calf muscle should be. This other time, he had a cooler filled with porkchops from the store. He bought too many and was trying to sell off the excess on his way to work. The week before, he wouldn't shut up about how he was being chased by ghost, sleeping in a ditch to escape them. That day, I guess it was turkeys.

It was hard to place his age. He carried himself in a perpetual cloud of dust with his mussy, off-blonde hair down around his ears. He had bright, youthful eyes and an excitable demeanor, coupled with the hard lines and wrinkles of a rough lived life, he could have been anywhere between twenty and forty.

"I mean it was amazing," he told me, "I was waiting for the bus and they just came up to me,"

I nodded. There was a part of me that wanted to hear his story, but the rest of me was wrapped in the vast apathy of way-too-early. I wasn't feeling very talkative, but I resolved to humor him with an audience. I can be very patronizing when I'm tired.

"I'm out there, and I have a coffee from 7-11," he demonstrated, holding out an imaginary styrofoam cup.

I settled in with a little smile.

"And then I look up and there's, like maybe twenty big ass turkeys just standing in the road. I didn't see them walk around or climb out of the woods or whatever. They just stood there like they were supposed to stand there,"

He took a sip from his imaginary coffee. I swear he even blew on it to cool it down.

"And some of them were looking at me," He waved his head back and forth as if overcome with some strange energy, "And I knew I just had to protect them. There was a car coming so I ran out and held up my arms. The guy stopped and he didn't honk or anything. And there was another guy who stopped and he didn't honk or anything either. It was like we all just knew that these turkeys had to do whatever they were doing,"

He locked eyes with me. Those last few words he spoke very slowly, making sure he conveyed the proper gravity of such a revelation.

"So I walk back to the bus stop and stand there. The turkeys all follow me off the road. The cars wait and eventually they can drive around the... I guess it's a flock, no wait, a gaggle, right? And so we're all just standing there. Me and like twenty fucking big ass turkeys all waiting for the bus. And I have this coffee and the biggest turkey, like King Turkey or whatever, he is all sniffing around the cup,"

He held the imaginary cup lower, staring down at his empty hand in awe.

"And the big one pecks at it with his beak. He's taking a sip. And he starts..." The guy tried to come up with a word, "I don't know, he's making some crazy noise and then all the turkeys are going for the cup. I had to drop it or get my hands all pecked up,"

He dropped the pretend coffee and snatched his hand back. He scootched away from his seat on the bus, as if distancing himself from the phantom gaggle.

"Those turkeys fucking loved that coffee, man. They were crazy for it. They were licking it off the sidewalk and tearing the cup apart. Then, boom, they all run off together, back into the woods. I look up and the bus is right there,"

He leaned into the aisle and checked the bus driver. He looked out the window at the passing trees.

"That was, like, just now," He hopped around in his seat, excited. He wanted to keep talking about it, but ran out of things to say.

I nodded again and offered a "That's pretty crazy," because it was and the awake part of me enjoyed the story.

He was silent for a moment as the bus rounds a wide corner, passing a Newport Creamery and a small donut shop.

"Is there..." Again, he looked for words, "Something you can do with turkeys? Like a job?"

I didn't really have anything helpful to say.

He continued, "I just feel like something changed in me. Like I want to go work with turkeys now. Like my life is changed,"

He wasn't really talking to me anymore, just directing questions to the universe.

"That happens in stories. Someone sees something crazy and everything's different,"

I nodded and looked away. His stop is coming up and mine is ten minutes after. Maybe enough for a nap.

His eyes strayed back to the spot on the dirty bus floor where he spilled his imaginary cup of coffee and all twenty of the pretend turkeys crowd around.