THE TURKEY WHO ESCAPED THANKSGIVING

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The Turkey Who Escaped Thanksgiving

1

Tomlin Griggs—everybody called him “Turkey”—stood hunched over the little gas stove, coaxing the blue flame to catch. The kettle wheezed but didn’t boil. On the floor beside him, his dog Cranberry—part mutt, part saint—watched with big brown eyes, tail thumping.

“Yeah, I know,” Turkey said. “Ain’t nothin’ left but crusts.” He set half a heel of bread on a saucer, poured hot water over it, called it stew. Placed the saucer on the floor and Cranberry licked it clean.

The small basement room on West 132nd Street smelled of rain, coal and dog. Footsteps echoed overhead. He heard doors opening and closing, and the occasional voice in the corridor.

The scents of Thanksgiving came down the air shaft: sweet potatoes baking, greens simmering, and, if his nose was right, somebody was already working on their bird.

He glanced up at the room’s one window. It was small and set high in the wall. Barred. He knew the bars were for his own safety—or rather, the building’s. But they reminded him of a jail cell. So different from the field and sky he’d grown up with.

It was early evening. What light there was came from the streetlamps, a few thin stripes through the bars. Wasn’t much of a view, either. New York from the knees down. Shoes, mostly, and the weather they were dressed for. A man’s rubbers pulled over good shoes. A woman’s galoshes beside them, keeping step. A kid’s buckled boots splashing through every puddle on purpose. A shopping bag swinging low enough to show collard greens poking out the top. Now and then two pairs stopped toe to toe, and he’d hear a greeting. He could tell a lot about folks from their feet. Who could afford rubbers. Who couldn’t, and walked wet. But he seldom saw their faces.

And they never saw his.

Somewhere out there, a woman laughed.

For a moment, Turkey felt like he was the only man on the planet. The scents of Thanksgiving made it worse. Made him remember how things used to be, when he was a kid, sitting at his mama and daddy’s table. They were both gone now. He didn’t miss his father all that much. But his mama? That was a different story. The only things left were the memories—and the wish to taste her food again, or at least something like it.

When the room got to be too close, he’d sometimes head over to the Hudson. The Harlem River was closer. But he preferred the Hudson. He didn’t know why. He just did. He’d stand near the water and listen to the freights, their whistles long and lonesome. He’d come up on one of those, years back, with everything he owned in a flour sack. Some nights he lay awake and thought about riding one out again. Not back South. Never back there. Chicago, maybe.

Tomorrow was Thanksgiving, and he had nothing but the name for it.

Well. The name, and a dog called Cranberry.

He’d been washing dishes at a lunch counter on 125th Street, his first job up North, when a stray started hanging around the back door. Turkey noticed him while taking out the garbage. The dog was skinny, dirty and hungry. Turkey began slipping him scraps when he could. Pretty soon, the mutt was waiting for him every evening.

One freezing sleet-filled night, Turkey finished work and headed home. The mutt trotted after him. Turkey tried sending him away, but the dog kept coming. When Turkey reached his building, the dog sat down outside the door, shivering.

What was Turkey supposed to do?

He let him in.

And that was that.

He came home the next day and stopped stock-still in his doorway. The mutt had wreaked havoc. Sheets pulled to the floor. Shoes tossed. A bottle of milk turned over. Worse, the rascal had knocked Turkey’s last jar of cranberry sauce from the shelf and licked up every drop.

Now, Turkey loved cranberry sauce. It was his favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner and one of his mama’s specialties. He’d brought three jars of her cranberry sauce with him. They were the last of her preserves. She was gone by then. There’d be no more.

He’d been careful with those jars. A spoonful here, a spoonful there, perhaps on Sundays or when he was homesick. Finally, he was down to that last jar. He’d been saving it for so long that he’d practically stopped eating from it. As long as he had it, he still had something his mother had made with her own hands.

Now it was gone. Disappeared down the gullet of this mutt he’d let in off the street.

There it was, looking so happy to see him—with a goofy grin, tail wagging double-time.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Turkey said. “You know you done wrong. You know it.”

The dog cocked its head. Such a look of innocence. Never mind the crime scene smeared all over its snout.

Turkey should’ve been angry. He should’ve been furious. He should, he thought, put that mutt right back out on the street.

But he couldn’t. He saw that ridiculous face and another thought hit him. This dog, he realized, had loved his mama’s sauce as much as he did. She would’ve been pleased. She would’ve laughed. Instead of kicking the dog out, he dropped to one knee and hugged him.

“Cranberry,” he said. “That’s it. You’re my cranberry.”

He’d lost plenty since then. The job. Most of his hopes. But not the dog.

Cranberry nuzzled his hand, as if he knew exactly what Turkey was thinking.

Turkey smiled and bent down. “Yeah, boy. I know. And I thank God for you.”

The dog pressed close.

That’s when the knock came—three hard knocks that rattled the plates on the shelf. Turkey’s heart thudded at the sound. Dear Lord, he hoped it wasn’t the landlord. He was two weeks behind in the rent. He’d told the man he’d have it by the end of the week. At the time, that had seemed far away. But now the end of the week was the day after tomorrow, and he still didn’t have any idea where he’d get that kind of dough. What would he do if Mr. Man put him and Cranberry out on the street?

But it wasn’t the landlord.

It was someone worse.

Excerpted from The Turkey Who Escaped Thanksgiving by Persia Walker. Copyright © 2026 by Persia Walker. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.