Page 94 of Demon Copperhead

I thought to ask her about Mr. Maldo. She said he’d moved away and was at some plant over in Kingsport now, free to clean bathrooms without the menace of adolescent spite.

So that was good. I said I was sorry he got run off, and asked how she and Mr. Armstrong could stand living around gossips like U-Haul and his skank mom.

Mr. Armstrong said Lee County had no corner on the market, because haters were everywhere.

Being a mixed couple, they’d heard it all.

“One time we got yogurt thrown at us from a car in downtown Chicago.”

“Yoplait yogurt!” Miss Annie said, excited, like she’s telling a joke. “That comes in those cute little containers, you know? What kind of a racist eats name-brand strawberry yogurt?”

I said I give up. The Chicago kind? And Mr. Armstrong said technically we don’t know that he was eating it. Maybe he’d only purchased it as a projectile.

Even if it seemed like they were horsing around, something serious was going on here, like also dropping hints.

Miss Annie said they loved what was good about this place, and had each other’s backs for the rest, and that was enough.

“One other person can go a long way towards making your world right,” she said, “but the support has to run both ways.” They ganged up on me then, as regards quitting school and shacking up with Dori.

Ms. Annie said getting this contract was a break that doesn’t come along every day, and if it were her, she’d want to meet the challenge with a clear head.

Aka, I should quit the dope. Easier to do without the dopehead friends.

They were polite, but still. Saying love has to come from a strong place, not just grabbing whatever’s in reach.

You can’t choose your family, but a partner is your shot at a decent do-over.

I sat there fingering a Xanax in my pocket, thinking, What the fuck.

Have you people been looking in my windows.

Maybe I was paranoid, which did happen if my tanks got low.

But then again, they were teachers. As far as kids and families around here, they could write the book.

I left their house feeling so mixed up, I had to pop that Xanax before I started the car.

Getting a good deal from Pinkie Mayhew, great.

But I was also mad as hell. Dori depended on me for everything.

If I abandoned her, she would in all honesty probably cry herself to death and starve.

With Jip lying on her body thinking with me gone, he’d won the war.

This teacher couple with their sly jokes and butt slaps and house full of beautiful things made by steady hands, who wouldn’t want that.

But how do you even get there from the normal place of business?

I’d not known that many happy married people, especially to each other.

Mr. Armstrong and Ms. Annie just gave me more to worry about, putting it in my head that I should break up with Dori.

Because I never could. Good people don’t give up on the ones they love.

I told Tommy all right, let’s do this as a team.

Ms. Annie hardballed Pinkie and got us fifty dollars per strip, with a bonus for every paper that picks it up.

We’d deliver weekly, on a one-year contract.

Tommy and I would split the money down the middle.

These thousand books he’d read had to pay off at some point, he could help with story ideas.

And the art itself. Going over it all in pen is the last step, and takes a steady hand. I told him we’d be mules in harness.

The truth is, I was scared blind to make a promise like that on my own.

I’d been playing head games on how heavy I was using.

Look at me, getting my ass up and out. Nothing out of control here.

Tiptoeing around the morphine. I’d still never injected anything, for the sole reason of needles making my skin crawl, but I told myself that was a line between pastime and hard-core that I was refusing to cross.

Pretending I could still show up on time as a human, even if I’d been fired from Sonic and more places after that.

Not for slacking, I mashed orders double time.

But you’d not have wanted to share space with me and a deep fryer, let’s leave it at that.

Now, though, with Tommy backing me up, I would quit screwing around.

The day we signed those contract things in Pinkie Mayhew’s rat’s-nest office, that’s what I believed.

What I wanted more than anything was to grow up.

Hard to explain, given how I got short-sheeted on the childhood.

Carefree, what is that? If I’d ever known at all, I couldn’t remember.

But I was still stuck outside of full adulthood, blowing smoke under its door, eyeing the windows with a cement block.

It’s all we want, we ragged boys of the world. To live as men.

By the time that contract expired, I’d be close to turning eighteen. I would get the money that was put away for me from Mom’s social security, and start my life of freedom. As a man of work and talents, getting paid for my labors. I would marry Dori. I would get clean.

I went to bed thinking, Okay, Angus. I’ll trust the wild ride, it is looking up.

A few hours later my phone woke me up and it was the last person I wanted to hear from, Rose Dartell.

I had no feelings for this strange girl, and assumed that was mutual.

Wrong, she had feelings. She despised me.

Because of Emmy and Fast Forward. Everybody put this on me, those two hooking up.

Rose said to meet her at the little park above Ewing because she had something to give me, from Emmy.

I told her I could probably get over there tomorrow afternoon. She said nope. Now.

The things you do to be decent. I put on my pants at three fucking a.m. and drove out to a no-name highway pullout to get what was sure to be bad news.

It wasn’t far from the park where Miss Barks took me years ago, the day she dumped me.

Looking up at those white rock cliffs, weird thoughts took over my mind.

Jumping off, flying or falling. Now the moon was hitting the jagged ridge up there.

I sat on a cold cement piling waiting for headlights to come up the road.

Rose got out and stayed by her car, talking low.

I couldn’t really see her. She said Fast Forward had been living in Georgia.

He’d decided to cut out Mouse and deal directly with Mexican traffickers in Atlanta.

She mentioned various technical things, making it sound like Fast Forward was a businessman to be admired, making his smart moves to get promoted.

Part of his business sense involved using Emmy for his lure.

I was tired and shaky, and not hearing every word.

I asked what did she mean, lure. All I could think of was Mr. Peg’s tackle box.

That is what she meant. Bait. Having sex with guys, to attract them into dealing with Fast Forward. I told Rose that was impossible. If you knew Emmy, you could never picture that.

“I’m sure you can’t,” she said. Rose had lit a cigarette, and I watched the orange glow rise and fall. “She could walk up to you tomorrow and you’d not know her.”

“I would know her.”

“Not the mess she is at the moment, no sir you wouldn’t.

I did, and I can tell you, she’s what they call ruint.

Fast Forward got disgusted and left her down there.

” I saw the cigarette drop to the ground.

“So that’s two lives you wrecked, hers and mine.

I would have stuck with him. I’ve got a good head on me. ”

I told Rose she could go to hell. I didn’t believe a word she was telling me.

I heard steps on the gravel and then she was close enough to smell. Pushing a fist at me. Something dropped into my hand that felt slight and wet, like spit.

I watched her truck until it was gone in the dark, then got in my car. I was blinded for one second by the dome light. Opened my hand and looked. Snake bracelet.