By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Cut-Ups
Jennifer Hayes, 30, of Clinton Township faces up to life in prison after a jury six days before Thanksgiving convicted her of stabbing her boyfriend 14 times.
That might seem like overkill, except that her now-ex beau survived. Hayes might instead have made like Lizzie Borden, who per an old nursery rhyme, “took an axe/and gave her mother 40 whacks/When she saw what she had done/she gave her father 41.”
Neither of which was true. Lizzie may have hit her stepmom and dad with a hatchet eight and 11 times respectively Aug. 4, 1892.
But they couldn’t prove it. Lizzie was acquitted and remained living in Fall River, Mass., despite neighbors’ ostracism, till dying 35 years later.
But why spoil a good children’s rhyme? A journalist might rephrase it, “Lizzie Borden/allegedly took a hatchet/hit her stepmom eight times/then to more than match it/whacked her dad 13 times/but was acquitted of all crimes.”
I thought of these things while carving the Thanksgiving turkey. Family relations are sometimes fraught at these celebrations. “Happy families,” wrote Tolstoy, “are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
I gazed at my knife, then then at nephew Chucky, 7, who had overturned the gravy bowl and thrown stuffing at niece Wendy, 5.
“Chucky,” I addressed him, waving the cleaver. “Have you heard the nursery rhyme about Lizzie Borden?”
“I like ‘Ring Around the Rosie” better,” he said. “You know, the one about bubonic plague, stinky rashes, carrying flowers to hide the death stench, dying and being cremated?”
“Very impressive. Know any more?”
“’Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary’ was about Mary Tudor, aka Bloody Mary, whose ‘garden’ was a graveyard, ‘silver bells’ were thumbscrews and ‘cockleshells’ torture instruments attached to male genitals. ‘Pretty maids in a row’ guillotines lined up.”
“England knew how to discipline children back then,” I said.
“’Three Blind Mice,’” he went on, “was about Bloody Mary too. Some legends say she chopped up three noblemen who conspired against her, but apparently she just burned them at the stake.”
“Charming.”
“Wait, there’s more,” Chucky said. “Oranges and Lemons’ has the line, ‘here comes a candle to light you to bed/here comes a chopper to chop off your head …’ Speaking of which, Jack and Jill were in fact King Louis XIV, who was beheaded (i.e. lost his crown). and Marie Antoinette, whose noggin tumbled after …”
“What will you do to clean up your sister?” I asked. “She’s smothered in gravy.”
“Think I should use a hatchet or a knife?” he asked.
“How dare you,” cried Aunt Prunella, “threaten that poor turkey! Kill each other all you want; human brutes deserve it. But innocent animals?”
Uh-oh, I thought. Granted the bird was pre-dead. But the old bat had been guzzling mulled wine since dawn. She was loaded with money too, so we had no choice than invite her.
“At the Gentle Barn in Tennessee,” Aunt Prunella lectured, “people snuggle turkeys. Everyone’s heard of therapy dogs, cats and horses, but none make better cuddle buddies than that bird you’re about to carve.”
“If I don’t Chucky first,” I muttered.
“People misunderstand turkeys as dumb,” she went on, “but in fact they are very intelligent, loving and sensitive. At the Gentle Barn they even give turkeys acupuncture.”
“Like this?” I asked, poking through the bird’s skin to test its temperature.
“You beast!” she shouted, picked the gobbler off the platter and cuddled it. “Next thing you’ll fling a dead octopus at a Red Wings game!”
“They don’t play today,” I said.
Chucky, fed up with not eating yet, walloped her in the face with a pumpkin pie, added a dollop of whipped cream, then garnished her with cranberry sauce. I was warming up to the kid.
“That does it!” Aunt Prunella sputtered. “I’m willing everything to the Gentle Barn!”
“Thanks for giving her the business,” I told Chucky, providing her acupuncture with a meat thermometer.
“I can’t wait for the leftovers,” Chucky said.
