Page 59 of Demon Copperhead
She looked back at me. Lord, those eyes. “What the hell are you so scared of?”
Dori had asked the same question. Clearly I needed to shore up some leaks. “You don’t know what it’s like to be me, is all I’m saying. To be sidelined, with no family or anything.”
Her eyes changed color, I swear. Light gray to darker. Didn’t say a word, but I knew what she thought. Coach was trying to give me things I refused to take. Maybe family was one of them. That and the silver money card she flew around on. I leaned over and grabbed the little orange pill bottle I’d hardly taken my eyes off of in the last half hour. Press-screwed the cap, gulped down my Lortabs and Gatorade. Closed my eyes, breathed. The pill itself tasted of rescue. I opened my eyes to the stare of Angus. She was weirdly patient, in a manner that could wreck you.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said. “Coach is great and everything. Because I’m the best tight end he’s had coming up in a lot of seasons. That’s the reason I’m here.”
“Youreallythink that’s all.”
“Christ, Angus. He put me through tryouts, right after I came here. He checked me for speed and ball handling and I did pretty good, or I guess more than pretty good, and he told me I could stay. You didn’t know that? It was right after Christmas, down in his office. Deal struck.”
She didn’t know that, it was plain to see.
“Don’t act shocked. The man’s got his job to do. And right now, my speed and ball handling are for shit. Not a great position to be in.”
She started picking a loose thread in the sheet, really pulling at it.She would maim the sheet if she kept that up. The type of thing that kids get smacked for in certain homes, starved for in others. Punishments vary widely among households. “I’ve always expected to pull my weight here,” I told her. “That’s all I want. I’m not one to ask for handouts.” Maybe I sounded like an old man. Mr. Peg, former miner, hillbilly pure. Why wouldn’t I.
“For God’s sake, Demon. You’re akid.”
“Am I, though?”
She shook her head, small and fast again. I wasn’t trying to be difficult, just straight. It’s all I knew how to be, with Angus. “He’s not going to kick you out because you got injured, playinghisgame,” she said. “Give my father some credit.”
I’d not known her to call him “my father” before, ever. He was Coach. I told her I didn’t think he’d give up on me, because I was important to the team. I planned on finishing out the season, with two years left to make my name as a General. I didn’t spell out to Angus what she couldn’t understand: that without football I’d be nobody again. That the loser Demon was still right there under the surface, and if I lost the shine, I was nothing. I’d never get Dori.
Somehow Angus decided she’d cheered me up. She went back to her list of my rumored sorry fates. “On the good side, you’re rocking the vote for homecoming court.”
“Bullshit, I’m only a sophomore.”
“I’m just the messenger here. You, sire, are headed for coronation.”
“Not happening. Anyway, I don’t want the pity vote. If I win, it’s got to be for my ripped physique and shallow personality.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I see that. But you’d better take what you can get. It’s not a pity vote if you’re injured in the line of duty. Like that soldier thing. Purple cross.”
“Purpleheart,” I said. “Shit for brains.”
She smacked the flat bib of her overalls. “Dope!”
Her clowning was known to pull me out of a mood, but in this case it was the Lortabs. I was nodding off to happyland. Should take a piss first. Bedwetting was an ever-present danger on this regimen. You aimfor that brief window where the pain is tamped down to bearable, but you’re not yet too dopeshit to haul ass out of bed. She watched me tilt and lever myself off the mattress, knifing in loud breaths until I was upright.
“Aw jeez, Demon. You gotta update the under wardrobe.”
She wasn’t wrong. The old cottonbottoms had lost all hope of whitey or tighty.
June must have got it through the school pipeline via Emmy, so there’s no telling what injury she thought I had. But I woke up and there she was, staring at my pill bottle. Straight from work, in her white coat with the plastic name tag. Under the coat, a black sweater and pants. The sexy way she bent forward straight-backed, like a hinge from her narrow waist, put Dori into my head. If not for the pain I could have pitched a tent right there.
“Hey!” I said, sounding hoarse and groggy. I might have double-doubled up the Lortabs. Doing the same thing day in, day out, you can forget if something happened an hour ago or yesterday.
“How long have you been taking these?”
I thought about it. “What day is today?”
She blew out a puff of air and swiveled around. Coach was in the doorway, red hat, lanyard and whistle around his neck, looking like any minute here he might make June run suicides. “Who put him on these?”
“I think the boy’s in good hands,” Coach said. “Watts has been a doctor since you were cheerleadin’ in your little skirt and bobby socks.”
She turned back to me. “Demon. Would you like me to have a look at that leg?”
