The kids showed up at 7:00 in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, which was good because we were preparing lots of food to be eaten at 4:00pm. But we'd been in telephone contact with them and got progress reports all along their way north from LA, so we were pretty confident that they'd make it in time. They were all in good humor and looked fabulous; still tanned from the Mexican sun, even the faces of our three squatches. It was a lot colder in Washington than they'd been used to down south, so they hurried inside the house. Masnia had driven all night so everyone else had slept and was rested, and she seemed full of energy anyway (she IS a bit superhuman). We'd been in tele-touch most of the trip so we didn't need to ask all the usual questions about their voyage, nor updating them to what had been going on here in Monroe. Pokey parked the bus out of the way, said they'd unload it later. The newly arrived travelers just wanted out of it after being contained inside for so long: almost two months on the road, driven thousands of miles, had several harrowing experiences. So now they were glad to stop. Adam, Melly and Liss went upstairs to their rooms, Pokey and Maki took one of the guest rooms, since it was too cold to stay in their teepee in November. Magga and Masnia went out to the Nokhon camp on the other side of Mother Meadow, the cold doesn't really bother them at all. Elaine and I continued getting ready for Thanksgiving Day. This was going to be pretty big party: besides our kids (all seven of them in the band) we had our extended families coming: Doug, Lissandra's parents Margaret & Ruth, and six other Nokhons from the camp-- including Dambaraggan, who could probably eat like a...well, like a big fat Bigfoot. That's 21 people, including ourselves. We had also invited Maki's parents, whom we had not yet met, but they wrote to us that Japanese Thanksgiving was on the 23rd and they had a duty to their own family. We couldn't tell if that hinted at a criticism of Maki for not being there as an obedient daughter should; the letter was extremely formal and just as inscrutable, you know, just like Orientals are supposed to be. Maki had mentioned several times that her family was demanding and adhered to Japanese traditions. It seemed that they were rather upper-class and displeased that their daughter was in a relationship with a lowly American Indian and hobnobbing with hairy wild Sasquatches. The Yoshidos had not been receptive to the occasions we had tried to include them into our society. But enough about that, for this Thanksgiving Maki was one of our daughters. Of course, having several Nokhontli as guests we had to serve vegetarian food for them. Adam would eat some turkey and stuffing, but he was probably the only one, so we made great portions of potatoes, both sweet and mashed, barely boiled green peas, baked carrots, hot rolls, canberries, and pumpkin pie for desert. No alcohol would be served, but fruit drinks galore. The NokhSo (human) guests were expected to put up with it. We had already explained the historical meaning of Thanksgiving Day to all of the squatches so that we wouldn't have to conduct a class in the middle of dinner. They were looking forward to the feast, some of them were even considering tasting a tiny sample of turkey just for the experience. They would eat fish if hungry enough, but fowl was not generally acceptable to their diet. Rather like how Americans won't eat dog. People started showing up about 2:00 in the afternoon. Doug brought loaves of his home-made bread, Margaret and Ruth came with a ragu pasta casserole that squatches were known to fall for. Uncle Gary and Rhonda came with their now-grown daughters, Johanna and Yvonne. Dave the Hippy Mailman brought boxes of fruit. Even the Sinsleys came: Felix, Sarah and Peter-- the first time we had them as party guests, not so strange considering our history together, but we had agreed to be friends from now on so we had to make the effort. Adam and his fellow adventurers were cornered by everyone who wanted to hear about their ordeal in Mexico. Adam was reluctant to talk about it-- especially about how he might have killed one or several carteleros in his life-or-death battle against them. Pokey was much more effusive about his gratitude to Adam for saving his life from a gangster execution at the last second, and his enthusiasm for the spectacle of seeing Adam go into Superhero mode against the bad guys; tossing them at each other like rag dolls and tipping over their vehicles. Although even Pokey wisely glossed over the subject of a fatality count. Adam had told me about it on the phone from Mexico while he was rather upset-- actually, traumatized --by the incident. With good reason, he had never killed anyone before, always believing that a man with his strength should find a better way to deal with an enemy. But the fact was that if he had not used maximum force Pokey would be dead and perhaps himself as well, so he had no choice. I advised him to keep quiet about it and that's what he was trying to do, but people were after an adventure story. The girls also had heroic adventures to report, and although they had no deaths to gloss over, they demurely avoided bragging about how they had used nudity and sexuality to capture the carteleros. They told a Disney version, giving most of the credit to Magga and Masnia for overpowering those naughty Mexican outlaws. The audience was satisfied: it sounded exciting enough for them. The house was not big enough for so many guests, especially when nine of them are Sasquatches, and it was too cold to eat outside in the snow, so dinner was served over in the Mead Hall, which is as big as a barn. We had just enough tables and chairs for everyone to take a place, but only because squatches would always rather squat than sit. Most of the dinner was Thanksgiving traditional with some extra dishes to accommodate the vegetarian Nokhons. A couple of them actually did try a tiny taste of turkey, either to be polite or to see what it was all about, but for them it was like--well, I already mentioned how we react to the idea of dog meat. But the ragu pasta casserole had no meat in it and they voraciously consumed it all. Mashed potatoes with butter (not turkey gravy) was also a big hit-- although they were accustomed to eating vegetables raw, not even squatches can stand to eat uncooked potatoes. They loved the taste of potatoes boiled, baked, or fried. We non-squatch eaters were thankful the Nokhons didn't want the turkey: more for us. There's probably not much I can write about our Thanksgiving Dinner that all readers have not experienced themselves, most socializing took form of saying, "Mmmmm," and "Please pass the...". People felt the same cozy togetherness one expects when eating delicious food together, agreeing that "Mmmm," says it all. And yet this dinner was quite unique, or rather an historical echo of the very first Thanksgiving feast the Pilgrims shared with American Indians way back in 1621. This time we were NokhSo and Nokhon, but the idea was the same: a bonding of cultures. Doug made a comment on that theme and expressed a hope that our cultures not make the same mistakes our forfathers did.
After dinner we served drinks-- fancy fruit juice drinks and coffee. Not that we had become teetotalers, but alcohol was not on the menu for this particular social event. However, not because we were being uptight, or proper, or killjoys; we were being alternative. Our Nokhon guests had blended up enough khos for everyone to try it. That's Nokhon moonshine; every culture has some way of shifting their consciousness, either for inspiration leading to truths hidden in the subconscious-- or hey, just for mindless fun. Khos is a tea-like blend of herbs found in nature, pounded to a paste, a thick green gummy goo-- not exactly a drug and nothing like alcohol, but it does affect your perceptions in an interesting way. But it tastes AWFUL! Ever tried peyote? Once might be enough. Therefore the sweet fruit drinks to wash it down with. We were trying an experiment: to be socially attuned on Bigfoot boo instead of loosening up with white man's fire water. Shift our perceptions to match theirs. Actually, those of us who'd attended the kha-rats were already familiar with khos, so this was for people with little proximity to Nokhons. It's hardly dangerous, affects you like caffeine or sugar, so you tend to become focused and awake, not confused. But instead of being speeded or put on edge you get very mellow and reflective. Some would not try it, afraid the police would come and bust us all, but we explained that khos was not a controlled substance and therefore no more illegal than coffee or tea. "At least until some publicity-seeking senator decides to make a law against it," Doug stipulated, "so let's keep it secret." It wasn't our intention to push some drug on anyone, but to offer an experience akin to that first Thanksgiving: smoking the peace-pipe with the indigenous natives of America, in this case the Nokhontli. And the discussions that came out of that evening were generally interesting. We video-recorded the room (with everyone's permission) to be studied later. It was a typical after-dinner social scene, no formal theme or structure, just a crowd of people hanging out for a while, making typical small talk. We had enough bilingual people to translate either Nokhontli or English so that the flow of dialogue could spread in many directions. Doug became philosophical, as usual, although unusually positive. He'd been dealing with our group's legal problems and it had been turning him into a grouchy old fart. This evening he not only told jokes but also came up with some brilliant strategies for a couple of the upcoming court cases that had been troubling him. Johanna and Yvonne, my nieces, whom I'd mostly known as teenage airheads, were surprisingly astute in their questions and comments to the four Nokhon women present (Mariiska, Malahma, Masnia and Magga) about women's rights/place in the Nokhon world and our own. Of course they're both in their late 20´s now, so maybe it shouldn't have surprised me so much. Margaret and Ruth, our champions of lesbianism, had their own opinions, which intrigued the Nokhon women, who had never experienced homosexuality in their own culture. Men joined in too: surprisingly enough, even Felix Sinsley had some valid comments about feminism and sexism. No one got upset or arrogant: the discussion went on in a very civilized and friendly tone. And as males tend to do, the men of both races discussed technology: good & evil skesk, mankind vs the machine, the paradoxes of both war and peace, the universality (or not) of sports, macho stuff. But the women joined in anyway with astonishingly valid opinions. As far as after-dinner chats go, it all became quite intellectual in nature. Viva las khos. As a grand finale, Squatch & Friends played a mini concert for us all. Yes, we'd hired a band, paid them with food, everybody was satisfied. Afterwards, we put on dance music and the party went on late until the night. The newer squatches were unsure of how dancing worked but our little dancing firebomb Masnia showed them how.
Now I'd like to comment upon some of our guests from that evening, who can be of special interest to our Document, and to define their relationship to our little squatch-human society: Dabababet was one of the original five squatches to come out of the woods with Adam and get our Nokhon Nation Project started. Since then he had gone back to Aket to take his Sha-haka studies further, but had recently returned to take part in a project with a local filmmaker: a video documentary about a squatch going On The Road in America. They would not start filming until Spring, but Babababet needed to improve his command of English considerably before then and was studying with us once again. He has renamed himself "Bab Ababet" for American consumption.
Gary Forest is my father's youngest brother, only 12 years older than me and the only relative I considered a friend out of the entire Forest clan. Almost all of the others were strict fundamentalist Christians, to a fanatic degree and disturbing to be around. My own father, Randall, had died when I was 22, so Gary took my side in family dealings. He was the "other rebel" in the family; definitely not at all religious; he took me on camping trips, we'd even gotten stoned together sometimes. When Adam showed in our lives, Gary and his wife Rhonda had been the only supportive relatives, while rest of the Forest clan condemned us for housing The Beast of the Apocalypse. They had been baby-bigfoot-sitters many times, as had their two daughters, Johanna and Yvonne, who'd been 8 and 9 years old when Adam was found. Now 27 and 28, those two dark-haired and attractive young women had grown up thinking of Adam as their cousin. They'd always been thrilled to bask in Adam's fame, in their teen years posting selfies of themselves with Adam on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. They'd both been slightly jealous of Melly when she came along and "stole Adam away" (at 3 years old), but then they grew up and went off to college. This was the first time we'd seen them in almost a year, since before Squatch & Friends had exploded into the media world, so they were absolutely star-struck to be here. They were no longer jealous: "Oh My God, Melly and Lissandra, we saw you two in Welcome to Hell, you were both so awesome! We couldn't believe it! So are you doing any more movies?" "Maybe," Melly answered, "hope so, it was fun. But we've had no really tempting offers yet. Besides, we've got to concentrate on a new music album now. Si's really after us to get on it." Stan Zevers, the indie director of that same film had, in fact, expressed interest in doing a Bigfoot movie with the entire S&F band as cast, but Adam wasn't especially thrilled by the stories that had been suggested. Exploitation stuff, Bigfoot monsters, etc.
Dave Morrison (that is, Dave the Hippie Mailman) was divorced a few years back and now lives alone, thus had no local family to spend Thanksgiving with, so we invited him since he's been a friend of our family for over 20 years. Besides that, there is a blossoming flirt going on between him and Mariiska, one of our newest squatch ladies. She is half a foot taller than him but Dave seems to be all right with that. Dave is one of the few locals allowed to be in on our kha-rats so he and Mariiska had sex together at the last one (along with everybody else) so the ice has been broken. I can understand his interest, she is quite lovely in many ways (I'd been with her at the kha-rat too, of course, that's just a way of life here now). Mariiska seems flattered by the attention Dave is showing her, him being semi-fluent enough in Nokhontli to at least tell her sweet nothings. He'll need to improve if they are going to be a couple, but is already taking courses with us, just as she is learning English. At this point in their relationship (if it becomes one) Dave is worried that he can't ever take her home because she's too tall for his cabin and it's far too cold for him to spend the night outside with her. We offered him a guest room for the night, in case he got lucky (which he did). Not that there have been many Nokhon-NokhSo relationships forming. The size difference is daunting; the big hairy bodies are initially unappealing to "humans" (although a kha-rat orgy usually changes that); the language problem; and the vastly different sexual morality generate cultural weirdness both ways. Mixed relationships are not exactly acceptable yet, especially to humans of the redneck variety. Adam and Melly (and Liss) are still not making their love public knowledge, although they assume that as other mixed couples eventually show up they can drop the secrecy. Melly thinks she and Adam should get married, as a statement that love conquers all. Maybe she's right, but now is not the time: there are still some pretty dangerous racists out there. It's obvious that Nokhons can be romantically appealing to NokhSos even beyond the kha-rat, we've seen the reaction that our own cute little Masnia can generate: she is obviously considered sexually desirable by many men of all races. She sings and dances, poses prettily; men go crazy. Some of those men probably just want to have erotic fun with her, as a furry sex-bunny, but she also has a constant cadre of male fans proposing marriage to her. Not that she takes them seriously, but at least it shows that for some people such a union is hardly unthinkable. Masnia proves every day that change will come. But for now we still need to keep our secrets-- especially about the kha-rats themselves.
The Sinsleys: an update on that situation. It has been almost 3 months since Felix Sinsley and I have buried the hatchet after almost 20 years of being each other's Worst Enemies. It's gone well up to now, but it's hard to shrug off everything that's gone before, for both of us. We've discussed it man-to-man, as it were. The creepy thing is I'm starting to like him, but I just don't feel 100% sure I can trust him. We've discussed that too, he's got a practical philosophy about that: "It's probably best not to trust anybody 100%!" Elaine and I discussed the wisdom of inviting them for Thanksgiving-- she wanted Sarah to come, they've become good friends without ever having gone through being enemies, but the conflicts we've had with both Felix and Peter should be too ferocious to forgive. And yet Destiny or Fate has manipulated us to do so. Out of our hands, God speaks, mortals obey. They've been folded into our fold. Besides Doug and Dave, they're the only other humans included in our kha-rats, which is a big thing if you're not sure about trusting someone. If they ever get angry and decide to tell the media we'd be screwed. It gives them a power over us. Felix says, "Yeah, well, we'd be screwing ourselves too, y'know," and that's true. Of course, Doug and Dave have that same power, and so do we over them: we'd ALL be in the spotlight! At least they're fun to have at a kha-rat (especially Sarah!), enthusiastic, not too squeamish, and respectful of the tradition. The Sinsleys have also been helpful on the NNP building projects we've been doing, like the dock and the squatch-sized cabin out at the New Naked Lake. Both Felix and Peter seem glad to put some muscle into the communal service. But they are not all the way into the fold: not yet allowed access to read Our Document. Not so much because they would discover more damaging secrets (Aket, Shamballah, the question of Masnia's age, the threat of Da-starda-hat) than because of what I've written about them as unforgivable villains of our story. It would be embarrassing, for them and for me. But Felix seems to be a grown-up, surprising me after so many years of regarding him as a thoroughly brutal thug (sorry guy!), so it'll probably happen that I let him read the infamous Document some day. Better write some compliments first, though. However, it would have to be even more traumatic for Peter to read what has been written about him: homicidal obsession, insane behavior, deceitful manipulations-- even his own letter "confessing" how crazy he knew he was. I've mentioned before how Peter Sinsley was trying to befriend Adam, which meant accepting that Melly was lost to him, although he gets to be intimate with her at the kha-rat. That has to be confusing for him. We all thought if he wasn't still disturbed that would have to make him crazy all over again. Peter seems to be at peace with himself about his situation, but he had played a false role before while planning rape and murder so we had to wonder. He was only accepted among us because Adam, who can hear when anyone lies, had said, "Peter is speaking the truth." So he was in. At our Thanksgiving dinner he was a perfect gentleman, well-spoken, friendly with everyone. Handsome, charming. There seemed to be no frustration eating away at him, no sinister lurking going on. The truth is, Peter seems to be a walking miracle: if you had seen him three months before-- crippled and deformed, demented, a pathetic wreck --you would not believe it to be the same young man at all. He’s been healed by Sha-haka magic, which has also removed the evil spirit (syssk) that was driving him insane. The Peter Sinsley we know now seems better than he has ever been before: smarter, cooler and much more in control of himself. Almost too good to believe.
By the way, at the party both Johanna and Yvonne flirted with Peter, and he obviously enjoyed their attentions. Which suited Melly and Lissandra just fine, trying to find a balance in their own relationships with him. When the dance music came on they all danced together and had fun. When it was time to go, Peter went home with his parents, so there were no obvious romantic dramas unfolding, as far as I know.
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