Page 70 of Demon Copperhead

That night, we’d pulled in at the drive-in just ahead of the second feature, as you do.

First is always a Disney thing, second is the slasher.

The idea being let the kiddies have theirs, then put them to sleep in the back seat before the real movie starts.

Fair enough, where else can a family go for fun, but trust me, those kids are not sleeping.

Mom and Stoner used to put me down like that, and the nail-head guy from Hellraiser got burned on my tiny brain for life.

But you can see the screen from all over, so why not hop from this to that tailgate to be sociable.

Fast always came well supplied, just like in the days of our pharm parties.

Or on this night, that I will remember to my grave, it was tequila shots and Pbr chasers.

I took a stroll around on my own and found a couple of teammates, Clay Colwell and Turp Trussell.

Clay had a kid brother in a wheelchair, and drugs of choice coming out Clay’s deadlift-ripped ass.

They were breaking curfew like me. I felt restless.

We found another crew that were second string, not guys we hung out with a lot, but they offered their bong and I took a few hits, to be Christian about it, before moving on.

The weed smoke throughout the establishment was sufficient for a modest buzz.

It was cold for September. Some kids had built a fire at the back end of the gravel lot, where they let you do pretty much anything you can think of.

Past that was the woods, where people brought blankets and did the rest of what you can think of.

I stood shivering in the dark, letting the weed hit, watching the movie, which was Demon Island.

Memorable name, but this movie was dead idiotic.

These rich teenagers on some island vacation, handcuffed together in couples, running around for unknown reasons trying to find underpants hidden in the jungle. Told you.

And there she was, swanning her way between the cars. I swear she glowed in the dark.

“Dori?” Saying her name was like begging, pleasegodplease.

She stopped and turned, the longer side of the silvery hair turning towards me, then away.

Fairy nymph deer fox, if I moved closer she might run away.

“It’s me, Demon,” I said, so quietly, like a baby might be asleep between us.

“We met at your dad’s store. That day you brought him in for the party. ”

She didn’t move.

“Is he doing okay?”

She moved closer, and I could see the little heart shape of her face. The silver eyebrows and pointed chin, the mouth I wanted to suck on. I smelled menthol, or maybe imagined it.

“He’s not ever going to be okay. I left him alone tonight. I shouldn’t be here.”

“Isn’t there anybody else that can help you all out?”

No answer. Her whispery creek had stopped running. Maybe she had no idea who I was. “Sucks,” I said. “I grew up just me and my mom. I had to take care of her a lot.”

“How is she now?”

I wanted to lie. And I didn’t. “Dead. They both are, her and my dad.”

“Shi-it,” she said. “And here I thought the football heroes came from the nicer homes.”

“Even a lowly orphan can be a mighty General,” I said, and God forgive me for what I thought: She knows I’m Eighty-Eight. Girls give it up for that. She shifted her weight, a bird fixing to fly away. I nearly blacked out from how bad I wanted to hold her.

Finally she spoke. “No lie, you’re state property? DSS guardianship and everything.”

I felt more stoned than I was, swimming around in my head for a place to land.

I asked how she knew about that, and she said the DSS had their doubts on her dad raising a girl alone.

He never lost custody, but it was touch-and-go.

She actually knew Old Baggy. I’d forgotten the lady’s name, but she said it.

She knew things I kept locked up. My eyes had made friends with the dark and I could see all of her now: the little white dress and lace-up sandals, the bag of popcorn.

I wanted her to throw it on the ground and run off with me. Not to the woods. Some better place.

“So. I better go find my people,” she said. If people meant person, like a boyfriend, I needed to vaporize him. She stretched her head to one side. “They’ll be wondering.”

“Me though,” I said. “I could be your people. If you want. Like, next time, or whatever.” I was not normally this terrible at asking a girl out. Never, honestly. This was epic.

She laughed. “What in the world is scaring you so bad?”

“That I won’t see you again.”

“Oh, my goodness, Demon. You don’t have any idea, do you?”

I asked her, idea of what. Even in the dark I could see her black eyes finding me out.

“You’re the one all the girls will be writing to in prison. Oh, my Lord. They’ll roll on the ground pulling each other’s hair out to get on your visiting list.”

Then she was gone. And I was a mess. She knows my name. That’s what I was thinking. Not, that was weird, what a righteously fucked-up thing to say, that I’m going to end up in prison. What can I say. Love. It’s an unexcusable train wreck.

For the next while I had weight and occupied space, too shocked to think.

I watched the handcuffed movie couples having their bad day.

This squatty monster thing beat one of the guys with a shovel till his head came off.

Another guy tried to fight, and it ripped off his nuts.

I’m not making any of this up. For about fifteen minutes I’d wanted this night never to end, now I was ready for it to be over.

And then. Here comes Tommy Waddles. Walking along all fretful, balancing a flimsy box of tall cups.

My first thought: Who buys drinks from the concessions, cheaper to bring your own, and my second thought: Damn.

It’s Tommy. How did I know it was him? The hair.

Still too much for his head, standing straight up.

I hollered and he said who’s that, and I told him.

I told him I still had his T-shirt he gave me to sleep in at Creaky’s.

He almost dropped his concessions box. We hadn’t seen each other in close to five years. The Lee County drive-in evidently is a portal to other dimensions.

Tommy was still the best of men. He wanted to know everything.

I told him my living situation now was the type of fosters we never believed existed: good food, nice people, not in it for the money.

He himself was eighteen so out of foster care.

He never did get adopted, but that’s okay, he was living in an apartment with friends.

He had a job and a girlfriend. Tommy goddamn Waddles.

I came with him to meet his roommates, eight in number, all in one Camaro.

At the drive-in you paid per vehicle, which led to any number of pile-in shenanigans.

The concession drinks were because they’d forgotten mixers.

These guys were discussing their plan of buying old horses from farmers and selling them for dog food in Canada.

After my first Jack and Coke I remembered to tell Tommy I was hanging out with Fast Forward now.

I invited him to come say hello, but he said that’s okay, he’d better stay and look after his ever-more-shitfaced roommates.

After my second Jack and Coke I spilled my guts about Dori, that I was in love and everything.

Just talking about her made me want to run off and find her, to settle this people question.

Tommy got it. He’d fallen for his girlfriend over the computer.

His job was at the newspaper, emptying wastepaper baskets and cleaning their coffee room, but they let him have his own account on a computer and that’s how he found this girl.

She was awesome and in Pennsylvania. It sounded like the sex potential was pretty limited there, but probably Tommy was more of a gentleman and not as fixated on that aspect of the girlfriend enterprise.

The movie was winding down, the squatty demon had done about all the damage one movie allows, and I didn’t want to miss my ride home.

The Lariat was easy to spot because of this battery camping lantern he always set up on the tailgate, kind of festive.

Bugs bombing around the light. Fast Forward had his arm around a tall, skinny girl that guys called Car Wash, not to her face.

She had on a silky type dress with her hipbones jutting out like furniture under a sheet.

Fast Forward was ignoring her, arguing with Big Bear and some other ex-Generals over who had the better offensive game, Riverheads or Surry.

Nobody making very good points. To be honest, the tequila shots had won the day, but neither was any man giving an inch.

They were going to die on their hill of Riverheads or Surry.

Fast Forward tried repeatedly to say “onside kick recoveries,” and for the first time ever, I wondered if he was okay to drive.

I could get us to my house, no problem, but getting the keys would be the trick. Unless he passed out first.

And then who should appear but Rose Dartell.

Like I said, a portal. She stomped out of the nowhere darkness into our little circle of light.

Fast Forward with deep feeling was saying words like sourced overtime and legal lorward flateral so he didn’t notice Rose until she chucked down something heavy in a paper bag, on the tailgate.

I felt the clank of the metal in my teeth.

Fast looked at her, wide-eyed, a notch more sober.

She glared back. “I had to drive halfway to fucking Kentucky. BJ’s closed at eleven.”

He shook his head fast, like he’d caught a shiver. “What?”

“You’re welcome.”