Thanksgiving morning Beth met Val and Melissa at Allen and Julius’s apartment, several blocks from the main campus. Julius’s girlfriend, Rita, was there. She wore her stringy dishwater blonde hair pulled back from her pimply face with a rubber band. From the way she went back and forth to Julius’s bedroom for various articles of clothing, Beth assumed she had slept over the previous night.

Allen and Julius had gone shopping the day before and the kitchen counters and fridge were festooned with food.

“It’s like a goddam cornucopia,” Allen said, surveying the produce. Beth loved his sense of humor.

“Now I guess we’d better make something out of it,” Val said.

“Yeah, but what?” Carl shouted. He had just entered the apartment.

“Cooking the turkey would probably be good for starters,” Melissa said. “Who knows how to do it?”

“I think my mother puts it in for six hours and bastes it every hour,” Julius said, starting to unwrap the turkey.

Rita peered over his shoulder. “Before you screw things up, Julius,” Carl said, “why don’t we just leave it to the womenfolk? Let’s go into the living room, there’s something else I’d like to see us cook up.”

Beth didn’t have a clue how to cook the bird. After Carl ushered Allen and Julius out, she asked, “What do you think?”

“Julius’s idea sounds good to me,” Val said.

“Aren’t you supposed to stuff it first?” Rita said, wiping a hand across her pimpled forehead.

“Of course, of course,” Val muttered.

“Bread, where’s the bread?” She rummaged among the items on the counter, found the white bread, crumbled several pieces into a bowl and moistened them with water. They located other stuff they thought should go in the stuffing: eggs, celery, salt, pepper.

“What else?” Beth asked.

Rita edged toward the door, lured Beth knew, by the intellectual conversation going on in the living room.

“Shit! I wish we had thought about what we needed before they went shopping,” Melissa said.

Rita finally faded into the living room, mumbling that she’d be right back. Beth doubted it.

“How about a little wine?” Val said, opening a bottle of red, “they seem to have gotten plenty of that.”

“Perfect!” Beth said, taking a swig. It was dry the way she liked it. She spilled some into the stuffing mixture.

“Needs more bread now,” Melissa said, tearing some up and smooshing it in her fingers before throwing it in.

Val took a swig of the wine and passed it to her. Melissa took her swig and licked it sensuously off her lips, rolling her eyes. “Hey, how about some of this?” Val waved a can of mixed nuts. “Very good.

Open it,” Melissa said. “Hey, how about this?” She held up a can of maraschino cherries. “Ugh. Goes awful with the celery,” Beth said.

“Then let’s put it in,” Val said, taking another swig.

Laughing, they dumped the cherries in. They opened the cabinets and found Rice Krispies, canned tomatoes and olives.

“The olives and the Rice Krispies,” Melissa said, “leave the tomatoes.” They roared as they threw the secret ingredients into the concoction.

“I think that should do it,” Beth said. . . . . “Do we sew it up now or what?” Beth asked.

“I think we’re going to have to nail it shut,” Val said, pushing some of the escaping stuffing back in.

“Seriously, do you know?” Beth asked, “I seem to remember my mother sewing it.”

“Sounds good to me,” Val said. “Why don’t you go see if they have a needle and thread.”

Beth went into the living room where Carl, Allen, Julius and Rita sat on the pillowed floor, plotting. “We need a needle and thread,” Beth said.

“I have that,” Julius said, getting up.

“Gee, I didn’t know you sewed,” Carl said, sarcastically. “I’ll have to bring some of my holey socks over.”. . . . “Rita, don’t you think you should go help them?”. . . . .

Rita stood up.

“That’s okay,” Beth said. “We have everything under control.” But Rita followed her back into the kitchen.

“I really wasn’t adding much to the discussion,” she said. “I could hardly get a word in.”

Beth threaded the needle.

“Matches the olives in the stuffing,” Val said as Beth pushed the needle through turkey flesh.

“Turn on the oven,” Melissa instructed.

“To what temperature?” asked Val.

“My mother always roasts everything at 350,” Rita said.

Val turned the dial to 350.

“Think we ought to put some butter on the outside so it doesn’t dry out?” Beth suggested.

“Why not?” Val said, and began buttering the bird as if it were bread. Val’s technique struck them all funny and they began howling again as the wine bottle went around one more time, now to Rita too.

“To the turkey,” each said as she swigged. And then, with a final pat on its slippery breast, they put the bird in to cook.

At dinner they were joined by nine others. . . . some of whom Beth recognized as the weirder members of her art classes. One brought an oil canvas he had just finished and placed in against the wall for all to view. Beth thought it was terrible, but she didn’t say anything. It was simply splotches of color—beiges and light peaches against white, bisected vertically by a giant gash of black and horizontally by a giant gash of red—an angry, self-indulgent painting. Beth filled her plate with the turkey, which came out surprisingly good—even the stuffing—and with the food other people had brought: sweet potato pie (which drew jokes about the South), tossed salad, three bean salad, applesauce, cranberry sauce, and the inevitable Jell-O mold—but this one had M&Ms in it instead of fruit—brought by a divorced professor. They sat in a circle stuffing themselves and gulping down wine while discussing the lunch counter sit-ins and picketing of Woolworth’s down South, and the bus rides into the South that were planned for next summer.

“And what are we going to do here?” Carl said, opening another bottle of wine and refilling everyone’s paper cups.

“We could picket Woolworth’s too,” Julius said.

“Yeah. We could,” Allen said, drinking and grinning. “Or, you could go get your hair cut,” he said, raising his cup towards Julius.

“Yeah. I have been meaning to get a haircut,” Julius winked. Rita ran her hand over his hair and Julius put his arm around Rita, pulling her close. “What do you think?” he asked Rita.

“Are you ready for the confrontation?” she asked. “Sure I am! What about everybody else, though?”

“We’ll back you up, Julius,” Allen said. “Here’s how it’ll go. Give the students time to settle in after Thanksgiving break. Then next Tuesday you go to the barber’s with a few of your friends. Say everyone who’s here now. We’ll wait outside while you go in. If the barber refuses to cut your hair, we’ll be ready with placards that Beth is going to help us with. We’ll picket every day during business hours until he cuts your goddam hair.”

“It might get pretty long,” Julius said, smiling and squeezing Rita.

“Then it will become a symbol,” Carl said. “Your long hair will be a visible symbol of discriminatory policies!”

“To Julius’s hair,” Allen said, raising his paper cup of wine. And they all drank. Drank until they were all silly drunk. Then some of the silly drunk ones left, including Melissa who said she had a date with Ricardo, a Brazilian graduate student. Val was now cuddling with Carl, and Julius was with Rita, and Allen was making out with a girl with straight brown hair down to the middle of her back. Beth tried not to watch. She just shut her eyes as she sprawled out on the floor with the rest of them, whacked out from the food and wine and talk. Allen had put some jazz on the record player, Modern Jazz Quartet, Brubeck, Charlie Parker. Beth rested her head on a pillow that had appeared—or had it been there all the time? She didn’t care. She was tired. She dozed, woke, saw Julius and Rita kissing, soon they’d be going off to his room. She stared at the ceiling, painted dayglo green to spite the landlord who had complained about their pro-integration and anti-war posters the last time he had stopped in. Beth stared, blinked, and laughed when she thought about what her parents would think of this scene. Her mother, of course, would be horrified. She sat up and was surprised to see Julius attempting to straighten up the room although Rita lay completely zonked out in middle of the floor. “How you doing down there?” Julius asked Beth as he picked up some paper plates containing the turkey remains. “Okay,” Beth said. She tried to get to her feet but fell back down on her rear again. . . . .

“Quiet, you two,” Carl groaned from beside Val, “some of us are trying to sleep.”

Julius laughed.

In the middle of the living room Rita stirred, sat up, and slowly extricated her hair from the rubber band in which it had become wadded. Unbound, it floated thinly about her shoulders, colorless in the shadows. She stood up and steadied herself. Then she started following Julius around, attempting to improve on his straightening efforts. Beth left, thanking them for a good Thanksgiving. She went back through the quiet campus streets to her dorm. She wanted to start planning a good cartoon to go on the picket signs. But the wine had left her in a headachy stupor, and she collapsed onto her bed fully clothed and fell immediately into a dreamless sleep.