Page 41 of Demon Copperhead
The news there was not good. He said she’d come up for parole but got denied for lipping off to a guard, which was totally unfair because this aggro bitch guard had singled her out. Writing her up as off the count even if she wasn’t, calling her gay for the stay and all such shit, till one day there was no more shit she could take and she blew. The curse of Mariah Peggot.
At supper we got on the happier subject of star daughter June. Shewas a nurse practicer now at the Pennington Gap clinic, living in a house that was the craziest thing you ever saw. A geographic dome, Mr. Peg said. Like a boat turned upside down, Maggot said. But with windows and an upstairs. Emmy supposedly thought it was the cutest thing ever. Mrs. Peggot said they’d have to take me over there to visit. June and Emmy asked about me all the time.
“She has a boyfriend now,” Maggot announced.
“That Kent fellow,” Mr. Peggot said. “He’s been courting her a good long while.”
“NotJune’sdork boyfriend.Emmyhas one,” Maggot said, looking at me. The makeup made it hard to tell exactly what expression he was making.
“Duh,” I said. “Why wouldn’t she? She’s a babe.”
“He’s still based over in Knoxville but he travels a right smart,” Mrs. Peggot said. “He’s over here to see June all the time. He does the business with the pharmacy medicines.”
“Kent sells drugs,” Maggot said. Wide, black-ringed eyes. Clown of the dead.
For the first time all evening, I thought of U-Haul outside waiting. My creepster ticket home. I lost interest in eating for about ten seconds, but got over it. I mean. Pot roast.
“He does real well,” Mr. Peg said. “I expect here any day he’ll pop the question.”
“I’m going out for JV football,” I said. I wasn’t old enough. But nobody was listening.
They kept their promise and I got to see it all: upside-down geographic boat house, Emmy the eighth-grade babe, drug-seller boyfriend of Aunt June. We went upstairs to Emmy’s room and she told us her secrets, just like old times. But not in a closet. Geographic dome boat houses are short on closet space. The whole ceiling or wall or whatever is a bunch of triangles that make a curve. Not really explainable, you’d have to see it. We sat on Emmy’s bed.
Long story short, she despised Kent. She said he barked like a sealwhenever he and June were doing the nasty. He pretended to sleep on the fold-out couch downstairs on his stay-overs, waiting till they thought Emmy was asleep. I hated the idea of Aunt June stooping to monkeyshines. Maggot was putting on his whole act of Nothing-shocks-me-I’ve-got-lip-earrings-y’all. But I could tell he was. No surprise on Kent being a loud one, even upstairs with the door closed we could hear him talking to the Peggots in a TV voice, like they’re watching Home Shopping Channel and he’s the product. Maggot suggested Emmy could put something in his coffee like pee or Drano. He got off the bed and went to poke around in Emmy’s makeup.
“You gank my Max Factor and you’re busted, Mattress. That stuff costs a fortune.”
“Okey dokey. Where’s your lubricant for the stick up your ass?”
Emmy being dead gorgeous, I expected. But she seemed ten years older than us. She’d gone from Disney Chick towards the Madonna cowgirl end of things, ruffle skirt, jean jacket, dark blue tights. We were sitting on her bed. I wanted to touch her feet for being perfect, like little blue doves. She still had my silver snake bracelet on her ankle, over the tights. I wondered if she wore it all the time. She seemed cool as a creek, discussing June-and-Kent action with no embarrassment whatsoever. Like she didn’t remember the two of us going thirty minutes past first base and a quarter till heart attacks ourselves, once upon a time. Never happened. She was perfectly nice to me but, meh. I was just some kid.
I tried not to remember it either, including the fruit smell she still had.
Maggot brought up the subject of Emmy’s boyfriend, several times. I think it was overtime revenge, to show me he’d been wise to our Knoxville shenanigans. This hurtful side to him made no sense, the old Maggot wouldn’t have hurt a fly. Except obviously to pull its wings off, which is just kid crap. Emmy refused to take the bait, saying she and Hammer were not dating, just friends. I kept thinking,Hammer? Flop-haired HammerheadKelly, the super-polite cousin-not-cousin that seemed too tenderhearted for this world, even while he was gutting a deer carcass with a Bowie knife? But Emmy just kept steering us back tothe boyfriend situation downstairs. I said I didn’t get it. Aunt June was no fool, plus had already turned down half the guys in the county. This Kent person must have had something on offer.
Sex, was Maggot’s theory. Giant pork sword.
Emmy said no, it was all the free stuff. This guy was Santa Claus Junior in a Ford Explorer, coming around to throw presents on all the receptions and nurses. Candy for the fat ones, coupons for Hair Affair if they were on diets. It was like Kent had spy elves telling him what they’d all want. The doctors got actual free vacations to Hawaii and such. Golf trips.
“Mother H. Fuck,” said Maggot. “Get me Hawaii.”
“You have to be a doctor or nurse practitioner. It’s your prize for prescribing his pills.”
“Okay, whenever Aunt June gets her Hawaii, make her take us. I don’t care if we have to hear barking-man boning her all night, I’ll still go.” Maggot was putting Emmy’s hair clips in his whiskery hair so it stuck out like tentacles. And navy-blue lipstick. He turned to show his work.
“Me too,” I said. Not really expecting to get invited, but Jesus. The ocean.
Emmy said Aunt June couldn’t earn rewards from him due to Kent being her boyfriend. She was just getting off on how popular he was. “Mom says if anybody on God’s green earth needs a Hawaii vacation, it’s a doctor in Lee County.”
We reminded her about Knoxville. Gut-stabbed pregnant lady, baby inside. Emmy shook her head like the little did we know. “She doesn’t regret moving back. But she says medicalwise, Lee County is the doorway to hell, with too many patients and Medicaid forms to ever get through it. The nurses and doctors she used to know have all moved to the city to make a buck.”
The weather was brutal that day, otherwise we might have gone outside to do our dissing of our elders. Or not, because Maggot was having too much fun with Emmy’s things. He had on her sparkly Madonna vest, no shirt, and these giant swishy pants he’d pulled on over his jeansbecause he was that freaking skinny. After a while we heard somebody calling for us.
“Shhh,” Emmy said. Maggot stopped, dropped, and rolled while she went to the door.
It was Aunt June hollering up the stairs. The Peggots were wanting to get home. The rain pounding the roof now sounded like evil tree gnomes throwing rocks. This is a dome type house, so if I say “roof” we’re discussing the whole banana. Maybe sleet out there, soon to get dark, with Mr. Peg’s eyes so bad he meandered like the slowest drunk driver on the planet. Mrs. Peggot got her old eagle eyes back after the cataract surgery, but she didn’t drive.
We stalled long enough for Maggot to undisgrace himself, and then went and sat on the stairs, because nobody was going anywhere till Kent finished his damn talk show on the medical establishment not taking pain seriously. “Weknowbetter than that now. Pain is the fifth vitalsign. We invented the pain score so the patient can give an objectiveassessment.”
