Page 71 of Demon Copperhead

“Oh, where are my manners.” He ashed his cigarette too close to the silky hip of Car Wash. She edged away from him. “I am so thankful, I’ll tolerate your mess of a face and let you ride around in my truck. But just so you know, less hideous girls have done more to get there.”

We all went dead quiet. Rose turned towards the rest of us, her pointy teeth glittering. “Just so you all know? Sterling Ford is the worst mistake his dead whore mother ever made.”

And off she went into the dark. I couldn’t believe what just happened.

We all have our secret stores of poison, but to strike outright, calling a girl hideous to her face?

The other guys seemed to give no shit, they were pulling out round two of Jose Cuervo and poking into the empty bag, with somebody saying “Didn’t you give her a fifty, man?

” Fast Forward saying “That bitch.” And me saying “I’ll go get your change.

” It just came out of me. I went after her.

She was moving fast, headed for the back of the lot, but her frizzed-out hair was catching the light some way.

And then the red glow of whatever it was that she lit up.

She bypassed the campfire circle, a bunch of kids that looked too young to be out here, and disappeared into the trees.

It was a joint she’d lit. I tracked her by the smell of it.

I didn’t want to scare her, so I called out hey.

“Fuck you,” she said. “Who is that?”

“Me, Demon.” I came closer. She held out the joint, but I passed, feeling the need for a clear head. Some bargaining was called for. “Nobody should talk to a girl that way. I’m sorry.”

“Wasn’t you that said it.” She inhaled and blew out, mad, ragged puffs. “Has he been telling you he owns his own place now? Over by Cedar Hill?”

I didn’t answer. I wanted to ask her a lot of things. Her face was a scribble of rage.

“Well, he doesn’t own squat. He feeds the horses and cleans their barn over there. Some dude ranchers that moved here from New York. He lives in what they call their guest house, and you know what? It’s a fucking barn. He is exactly equal to a horse’s ass.”

Then why keep coming around? Rushing the scrimmage, bringing him whatever he wants? I settled on one question I could ask. “Did you know his mom, for real?”

She shook her head, holding her smoke. Then blew out. “Before my time. My mother took her on as a rescue. She died whenever he was real little, and we adopted him.”

I tried to square this with everything else I knew about him. “He’s your adopted brother?”

“Was,” she said. “Until he was nine. They feel guilty over it to this day, but my parents had to unadopt him. Can you believe that?”

“Jesus,” I said. “How come?”

“The safety of their other kids. Sterling tried to kill us, any number of times.”

“Jesus. Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah. We would do anything he said. We idolized him. My youngest brother Ronnie, he liked to of hung himself. Sterling had him up on a chair and the rope around his neck, wanting him to jump off. Tells little Ronnie this is going to be fun, like a swing.”

“Jesus,” I said. Not at my original best.

“He’s the one that gave me this.” She jutted her face at me. “Claw hammer. He threw it at me on purpose and caught me plumb across the mouth. Let me tell you something, cut-open faces bleed like a motherfucker.”

So much madness crowded my brain. Maggot’s mom slicing into Romeo Blevins. Good people, bad people, what does that even mean? Get down to the rock and the hard place, and we’re all just soft flesh and the weapon at hand.

“Sorry,” I said. “But that’s between you and him. He’s still my friend.”

“His new toy, is what you are. And he does not take care of his toys.” She licked her fingers and pinched out what was left of her joint.

Pocketed the roach. I couldn’t see much in the dark, but something told me she was pleased with herself for dropping all this on me.

And that I would not be getting any change back here.

“Here’s what should scare you,” she said.

“After he laid open my face? I told Mama I fell and cut myself on the corner of my Barbie house. Thirty stitches worth of Barbie fucking dream house. He flashes that high-beam smile, and nothing’s going to be his fault.

If you asked him right now, I bet you money that’s what he’d say happened to me. Barbie house.”

And you’re still here, wanting first position.

She had to be lying. Maybe jealous. Even if he did game her family some way, he would have his side of the story.

Fast Forward always outsmarted the people that made it their job to throw kids like me in the trash.

That was truth. He’d showed me how to make good on places with no good in them, like Creaky Farm.

How to survive. For some of us, that’s everything.

“Yo! Eighty-Eight,” somebody was calling through the woods. Big Bear. I heard him fall down, curse, get up again. “Come out come out wherever you are.”

“Over here,” I said, practically running towards him. That keen to get away.

I did not drive anybody home. I got back to the Lariat, the guys passed me Rose’s brown-bag delivery, and I did my best to drown what she’d told me in a deep well of tequila and Pbr chasers.

Nobody seemed to remember about Fast Forward’s change, and in due time I forgot about it too.

That and more. I don’t recall leaving the drive-in or getting into the house.

On my own steam I must have made it halfway up the stairs, because that’s where Angus found me in the morning.

I wanted to die. She used an entire roll of paper towels to mop up piss and vomit.

I was no help, due to how bad it hurt to open my eyes.

She got me out of my nastier clothes and into bed and went downstairs to get me a Coke.

Some remedy thing she swore by, you shake up the bottle to make it go flat.

She came back and put the cold glass in my hand.

I felt her sit on the bottom of the bed, and even that hurt.

“I didn’t see Coach, so he’s not up yet,” she said.

“Thank God.”

“Yeah, God and all his elves. Your ass otherwise would be grass.”

Breaking curfew and rowdy drinking, at all, let alone in public, were grounds for getting benched or even thrown off the team. It was not just about our ability to perform, Coach said. We were Generals. Kids looked up to us. “I can’t drink this,” I said. “I’ll puke it right back up.”

“No, it’s flat. It’ll stay down. I told Mattie Kate you’ve got the flu. But I think she’s onto you. Her kid told her you and some other guys pissed in their fire at the drive-in last night.”

Did we? Oh, Jesus.

“She’s none too pleased, but she won’t rat you out. And U-Haul knows nothing.”

U-Haul was practically at the house 24/7 now. Coach had finally promoted him to a real assistant, salaried, for unknown reasons. Even Coach seemed unhappy about it. Something liquid rolled over in my gut. I groaned and took careful stock of my bowels. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Morning. It’s okay, you’re covered. Find your flu vibe.”

If it had been anybody but Angus seeing me like that, with my puke-stiff hair and dumpster breath, I would have had to die. “You rock,” I told her. “My guarding angel.”

She was quiet a minute. The grasshoppers whining outside sounded like chain saws.

“Listen, Demon? I know you’re in no mood. But can I just say, you’re fucking up here?”

“Called it. Not in the mood.”

“Okay. But some of your angels out there are not guarding. All I’m saying.”

The disaster of me was not on Fast Forward.

I was in charge of myself. If I had too many worries right then, pressure of the game, of being first string, of dying if I couldn’t get Dori—it was my own shit to handle.

U-Haul being out to get me, that also. It was a lot.

I tried opening my eyes a tiny slit, and the brightness hit me loud.

Like light itself was making a sound. I saw the bleary angel of Angus at the bottom of my bed in her white pj’s, and behind her on my desk, that ship she gave me.

Just like me, she’d said. A long way to go, and stuck in the bottle.

I ended up promising her I wouldn’t touch alcohol for the rest of the season. Given my condition, an easy vow to make. For tequila at least, the promise was kept. To this day.