Page 46 of Demon Copperhead

We did more eating than talking, with Angus keeping the big gray eyes on me at all times.

Giant eyes like a manga comic. Coach for his part had giant teeth, like too big, some way.

Too flat across, too white. He didn’t smile much, and it looked like those teeth would hurt his lips if he tried.

He asked the awkward things adults do if they’re making the effort, like what was my favorite subject in school.

I told him lunch, which wasn’t a joke, but he laughed.

I asked how the season was going so far, since I’d missed the first games.

What I wondered was, How in hell is your son not doing JV football?

It seemed like that would be a given. I mean, yes, I noticed the small hands and skinny shoulders, but still.

It’s only JV. They’ll let anybody sit on a bench.

Afterward we piled up the dishes for Mattie Kate to do in the morning and Coach told Angus to get me settled in my room, which surprised me.

My own room. I figured we’d be bunking together, but no.

We went up the stairs and then more stairs and down a hall to a room that was one of the castle-type parts of the house, rounder than it was square.

Six walls, painted dark green, white window trims. Three of the walls had huge windows.

“You can use that dresser,” Angus said. “Mattie Kate was supposed to clear it out if she had time. If you find anything in there, just throw it in the hall and she’ll get it tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said, which I wouldn’t. Throwing things on the floor for somebody else to deal with, seriously?

Whatever else might be said about me, I was housebroke.

There’s no tooth fairy living here, so pick up your damn shit, being basically the motto of foster care.

How Mom got through it, and still the way she was? One of God’s mysteries.

Angus started dragging open the big windows, saying it was stuffy in there, but I didn’t care.

The smell reminded me of the Peggots’ attic.

In back of the house the view was hills and hayfields as far as I could see.

The guy was still down there on his tractor, working up and down his field in the yellow light of day’s end.

The middle window looked down the driveway, and the front one looked across the top of Jonesville to a big hill behind it.

I could see why they built houses like this, back in the day.

Whoever launched an attack, you’d see them coming.

It was the best room I’d ever been in, and also the best house. I said so, but Angus just shrugged. “It’s too much house for us.”

“I didn’t think there was any such thing. Like too much money or too much food.”

“A person can eat too much. Obviously. People die of it.”

“Sign me up,” I said.

Again the big sad eyes, puddles on a sidewalk.

“Kidding,” I said. “Sorry. I won’t eat you all out of house and home or anything.”

“I don’t think you’ll get a choice. Dad likes the look of your frame, so he’s going to bulk you up like his new prime steer.”

“Snap,” I said. “Next comes the slaughter.”

He almost smiled. “That’s one word for the game. Said you, not me, for the record.”

“For the record, I never heard of anybody that died of being a linebacker. Maybe just fang-banged into a coma by horny cheerleaders.”

His half smile yanked back in so fast, like a slug if you touch his little horns.

All pulled back inside the pissed-off black leather and the blank eyes.

Shit. I was piling stupid on stupid here, but didn’t know how else to go.

As far as I’d seen, the basis of friendship for guys past the age of bedwetting is trash talk.

Throw “fuck” into any sentence and you’re dead hilarious.

“Tell your dad thanks for the bed,” I said. All else fails, try kissing up. “The last place I was living, I got the floor of the laundry room.”

“At Miss Woodall’s? She made you sleep on the floor?”

“No, not there. You know her? My grandmother?”

My grandmother. It felt like casually pulling a hundred bucks out of my pocket. I saw something move behind the eyes of Angus, like, Damn, dude. One hundred bucks.

“My mother used to take me to see her,” he said. “But I was too little to remember.”

Right. Before all the cancer and the death.

Angus showed me a bathroom that was for me and nobody else. Shower-tub combo. I’d find a way. His room and his dad’s were one floor down. I asked how many rooms were in the house total, which he didn’t know. Unbelievable. Counting is the first thing I’d do. I asked did they ever switch around.

“Why? You don’t like the room you’re in?”

“No, I mean you or your dad. Like if you got bored and moved into another one.”

He stared at me.

“Just every so often trying out different windows. I mean, it’s all here, so why not?”

“I might not be able to find him, is why not.”

“He’s a pretty big person to lose track of,” I said.

“You’d be surprised.”

We were in the bathroom, both facing the mirror. I tried out his same medicine, staring him in the eyes. “I guess you could, in that holy hash of mess downstairs.”

I saw him light up with a little bit of fight. Barely, but seeable. Underneath the screw-you was a kid that wanted to protect his dad. Maybe more than he got protected back.

He went downstairs to get towels and things for me, which took so long I forgot about it.

I unpacked the clothes out of the suitcase and put them in the drawers.

Empty. Go Mattie Kate. Shoved the suitcase under the bed, looked out all three windows: the guy still mowing hay, streetlights on in Jonesville.

Put on a clean T-shirt and got in the bed.

I was beat up. Almost asleep before Angus knocked on the door and came back in to say he’d left my stuff in the bathroom.

I sat up spooked, like in the days of little Haillie popping up out of nowhere.

“Okay. Thanks.”

Angus was altered. Ready for bed, out of the jacket and the hat, in some kind of white stretch outfit that showed the build, skinnier even than I’d thought and small through the waist. A lot of curly, sort of moppy blond hair. What I am saying is, girl hair. A girl build.

We stared at each other, then the door shut and Angus was gone, leaving me to stuff my blown-out brain back in my head and remember what all I’d stupidly said to him, to her.

I couldn’t. There was too much. Other than, was she on the JV football squad, pretty memorable.

Fang-banging cheerleaders. Had I said I thought we’d be sharing the same room?

I couldn’t fall asleep for wondering how I was so stupid.

I guess I’d not been around girls much lately, especially not in those boots.

But still. The second I knew, it was plain as daylight.

And my mind couldn’t stop running back over every single asshole thing I’d said to Angus, the girl. Starting with, “Like the cattle.”