Go Tell It on the Mountain

by James Baldwin

Sometimes it occurred to him to do the Saturday shopping on his way home, so that she would not have to do it; in which case he would buy a turkey, the biggest and most expensive he could find, and several pounds of coffee, it being his belief that there was never enough in the house, and enough breakfast cereal to feed an army for a month. Such foresight always filled him with such a sense of his own virtue that, as a kind of reward, he would also buy himself a bottle of whisky; and—lest she should think that he was drinking too much—invite some ruffian home to share it with him. Then they would sit all afternoon in her parlor, playing cards and telling indecent jokes, and making the air foul with whisky and smoke. She would sit in the kitchen, cold with rage and staring at the turkey, which, since Frank always bought them unplucked and with the head on, would cost her hours of exasperating, bloody labor.