Page 35 of Demon Copperhead
Being no son of his, I said nothing. He stuck his head in the window, checking out my one suitcase on the back seat. “Okay, let’s get ’er done.”
I looked over at Jane Ellen like,Don’t feed me to Snake Man!And she was like,What am I supposed to do?She couldn’t go back to Murder Valley with the boy-cargo still in tow, I knew that. Probably she’d get her education extended by twenty years.
I went, but not without a fight. Jane Ellen marched him over to a pay phone and made him call somebody to vouch. They didn’t get Coach Winfield, but some secretary at the school evidently said, Yes, that sounded right. U-Haul Pyles will get the boy where he needs to go.
That turned out to be a mansion, sitting on a big hill overlooking downtown Jonesville. This place had a lot more going on than a normal house, extra parts jutting out with their own separate roofs and windows. Not a castle but headed that direction. Which stood to reason. If Lee County had a king, he’d be the Generals coach. U-Haul geared down to take the steep driveway, and all I could think was, No way am I going in. Amansion. I wouldn’t know how to act.
“Home sweet home,” he said, in this eat-me tone. He cut the engine and turned a glare on me that scorched. His brown eyes were almost red, like little round windows out of hell, no eyelashes for curtains. How did he look in the mirror with those eyes? He grabbed my suitcase, and with me thinking,Shitshitshit no escape plan as usual, I followed him in the front door.
Inside was a shock. It looked like a regular house, with junk all over the place. Boxes of cleats, resistance bands, rolls of athletic tape, dumbbells, a busted car mirror. An exercise bike in the middle of the room with clothes draped on it. There were certain castle aspects for sure, a gigantic fireplace chimney with the mantel made of a sawed log. And a gigantic dangling light over the gigantic dinner table, where nobody had eaten I’m going to guess since the invention of forks. Amongst the piled-up papers and magazines I counted three pairs of sunglasses, more dip cans than you want to know about, and one Nike Air Max. On the table. It made me miss Mom.
U-Haul said Coach would be down in a minute and to excuse him because he had things to do in Coach’s office. He shook my hand in a sneak attack, then slithered off towards the back of the house. I felt slimed. I wished for a bathroom where I could wash my hands. There was a big staircase with the curved railing like in a movie. I wondered ifit was the same pigsty all over, or just concentrated here in the end zone around the front door. The one tidy spot was the mantel with a photo of a girl, or lady actually. Young. Sad-looking, apart from having the hair explosion thing from the eighties going on, which no girl would be caught dead in now. So, she probably was. Dead. The tragic wife raised up by my grandmother and taken young. Just a guess.
I turned around and freaked out, due to a kid looking at me with the exact same face, the photo come to life. Scrawny though, almost my height but skinnier, wearing one of those dweeb flat caps that would instantly get a guy poundcaked at school, if not for the badass leather jacket and Doc Martins. Those things cost, meaning there’s backup somewhere, so watch who you’re punching. This kid looked sad, a little soft, a little scary. All of those, at the same time.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m Angus.”
“Angus like the cattle?”
His eyes shot sideways, and back.“Exactly like that.”
“So, I guess I’m supposed to be staying here a while. With Coach Winfield.”
“Yeah, I know. He’s my dad.”
Oh, the little orphan baby. Reset. I asked him what grade he was, and he said eighth.
“So you’re on the JV squad?”
He looked me over with his big gray eyes like he’s reading the instruction manual of me. With the plan of taking me apart or putting me back together, I had no idea. I started thinking over my options on who to call if they kicked me out of here before dark.
“No,” he said finally. “Tragedy of tragedies. Not on the JV team.”
Coach Winfield came down the stairway like something dumped out of a bucket, making a big man’s racket, talking before he’s even in the room. “Hey buddy, great to see you, sorry, practice ran long, we’ve got the Vikings Friday so you know what that means, Betsy said you’re a Lee County boy, is that right? So you know the territory...”
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, checking me out. He was big and broad, paunchy in that certain way of guys that start out all musclebefore the beer takes over. Red cap, big black eyebrows. I couldn’t honestly say if I recognized him from the games, or just recognized the red windbreaker. “How old are you, young man?”
I was so used to lying, I actually had to think. “Twelve next month.”
He let out a long whistle.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Not a problem. That’s what she told me, starting middle school. I was expecting a different make and model. You look like a linebacker, son.”
“Yes sir,” I said, with my stomach doing a littlehell-yesdance. God in his heaven kicking a field goal and the angels doing cartwheels in their twirly skirts. Home sweet home.
We didn’t eat at the giant table piled with crap, thanks to the Winfields having another table in the kitchen where it was a lot tidier on the whole. A lady named Mattie Kate set out the meat loaf and coleslaw and finished wiping down everything in sight with the tail of her apron, then said good night and left the three of us to eat our supper.
They didn’t say any blessing, just dug in. With Angus still wearing that hat at the table, and Coach in his, so this was not going to be one of those houses with rules. Maybe different ones, though. Too soon to relax. I fed my face, probably too much, too fast. The windows were open and I could hear a tractor and smell the hay that somebody was cutting outside. I was glad it wouldn’t be me putting it up in the barn. I wondered if I’d get sent to a farm again, after here. Probably yes. I’d started to see how being big for your age is a trap. They send you to wherever they need a grown-up body that can’t fight back.
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, liketoobig, 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 goingso 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.
