Ted Burke LIKE IT OR NOT

Nothing but the usual crap, standard knives and forks arranged around white plates that sit on top of red tasseled
place mats, on which slices of turkey and mash potatoes steam upward and fog the glasses any codger trying to catch a closer whiff of the aroma of cooked food.

"I ain't eatin none of this shit" I said, and Mom came over and handed me a napkin. She smiled and messed up my hair. My sister was across the table, her eyes peering over the edge, looking over the height of her plate her food.
I could tell she was smiling for reasons I never understood.

"I'm not hungry" I said.
"Go ahead and eat, because the Flintstones will be on in a half hour" she replied. Dad came into the dining room and sat at the table, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He'd been singing in the hallway, his voice echoing about Paris in the rain as he walked up the wood beam floor.

"Hello there, Julie Belle" he said to my sister, who was crawling up on a phone book for a better view of her turkey and mash potatoes

"The Flintsones are on tonight, but we have to eat this wonddddddddddderful meal your darling mother has made for us".

Mom was smoking in the kitchen before she came to sit at the table, and I could smell the burnt odor of Winstons on her.

"Let's eat" she said, "Flinstones and apple pie after we eat."

Julie was already picking at her food, a tiny finger in the mash potatoes.

"Say grace, Ted" Dad said.

Shit, I wasn't hungry. Everything in the world of the God I was praying to undermined each assertion of self will.

"Bless oh lord, for these thy gifts..."

Julie took another fingertip of mash potato from her plate.