Mrs. Peggot knuckled him again. “In the back seat, here sits the littlest old fellow you ever saw. A grown man, but he’s real small, some way.”

  I knew that man. But didn’t say so. Not wanting a swat.

  “He didn’t get out. Them two stayed down there the whole time smoking their cigarettes. Little sass of a gal, leaning on that big car like she just dared anybody to say a word about it.”

  “But did you . . .” I didn’t even know what I wanted to know.

  “Honey, we had never seen the like of these people. We just waited for that lady to come back out. And then they went on their way.”

  She said Mom got tetchy afterwards and told the neighbors it was none of their business. But Mrs. Peggot got out of her that it was her dead boyfriend’s mother poking around, wanting to take away the baby. Back in summer he’d written her a letter saying he was partially sorry for everything, and going to be a daddy, come November. He asked, did she want to come see her grandbaby then. He and my grandmother were on the verge of making up their twenty-years fight. Then after he wrote her, he died, so. Bad timing. You could see how it would piss her off.

  Maggot sat through all this with his mouth open like a hooked bass. Possibly I did too. It floored me that Mrs. Peggot knew this all along, and never told. It had to be Mom’s fault. They’d fought like crazy over me going or not going to see my dad’s grave in Murder Valley, Mom being dead set against. She didn’t want me knowing about this lady that might take me away from her. No wonder she didn’t put the Woodall name on me. That secret was the only power Mom had. She probably made Mrs. Peggot swear on a whole damn pallet of Walmart Bibles.

  I didn’t know what to say. Except yes, as far as staying for dinner.

  Being back in that house was weird. Knowing every single thing, which stair creaked, what pictures of ancient Peggots hung in their frames crooked. The bathtub that scared the piss out of me whenever I was small. Little owl collection on the windowsill with dust on their tiny heads. It was like I was home, and also a stranger. Maggot and I hung out some in his room, and he was a little standoffy at first. He knew I’d been pretty mad over the Peggots not keeping me there in the family and everything. But I told him I was doing great, living in a castle house, and what the fuck was the deal with his hair. He said it was a “compromise.”

  “Between what and what?” The last I’d seen, it was down to his shoulders with Mr. Peg threatening to take the shears to him while he was asleep. Maggot said he’d agreed to cut it, but his own way. “His way” being dyed black, different lengths all over between short and medium long, all kind of feathery around his face. Not a normal girl or guy haircut, whatsoever.

  “They did that at the barbershop?”

  “No. This chick at school. Martha Coldiron. You remember her.”

  I did. Goth girl. “She’s moved on from cutting herself? I hope she washed her scissors.”

  He made his mouth into a kind of fist and looked out the window towards what used to be my house. Martha was probably his best friend now. “Sorry man,” I said. I didn’t want to know about his new friends or what new shit he was into. It felt like the last bridge that could get me back to Demon had just blown up. I was watching it fall down in slo-mo.

  I asked him how Mrs. Peggot hadn’t killed him yet over the makeup and everything, but he just shrugged. “What are they going to do? Send me back to my mom?”

  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. She was 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.”

  “Not June’s dork boyfriend. Emmy has 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 seal whenever 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 Hammerhead Kelly, 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 to the 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 jeans because 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. “We know better than that now. Pain is the fifth vital sign. We invented the pain score so the patient can give an objective assessment.”

  “I know what you’re worried about, Daddy,” Aunt June said. “But there’s absolutely no chance of you getting dependent on this medication. The company did all kinds of studies. I can show you the package insert.”

  She was in the kitchen which was part of the living room, the whole downstairs being one big room. I watched her down there, shiny Posh Spice hair, tight black shirt tucked into the waist of her jeans, and wondered how pervy was it that I still thought she was hot. That I thought she and her niece-slash-daughter were hot. She’d baked a chicken for our dinner, and a birthday cake. My birthday was the reason of us coming over that day. Fine, I was in love with the lady. Now she was packing up all the leftovers for them to take home. Mrs. Peggot would say no, now y’all keep some of it for yourselves, but June would win. This family was a story I knew.

  Mr. and Mrs. Peggot had sunk together into the couch while Kent wore them down. A Burt Reynolds type, mustache, too dressed up for a Saturday, shoes like nobody from around here. Looking down on him, I could see a pink shine on top of his head with the dark hair pulled across it. Not a full Homer Simpson like Creaky’s, just a little beginner’s hamburger helper up there. But do you trust a guy that cheats on his own head? Aunt June was bottom-feeding.

  Emmy was on the step beside me. My knee touched hers but she didn’t notice. She was eyeing Kent like she wanted the right superpower to vaporize him.

  “We ask the patients to look at the chart and put a number to their pain,” June explained, scooping potato salad into an empty yellow butter tub. “Kent’s company came up with that.”

  “We believe your pain is a fact,” said Kent. “Not just an opinion. That’s all I’m saying.” Definitely not all he was saying. I looked at Emmy and made an oh-brother face.

  “Our mission is to get every suffering patient to zero on that chart,” said Kent.

  Emmy made a finger-pistol and shot herself in the head.

  Mr. Peg ended up accepting a free coupon for Kent’s miracle pain pills, probably to shut him up. Stronger than anything ever made. Not the usual stuff you have to take every four hours, this one lasts around the clock! For the first time in years, you’ll get a good night’s sleep!

  Outside in the truck, he barely got the engine turned over before Mrs. Peggot said, “Give that paper here, old man. If you try bringing them pills to the house, I’m flushing them down the commode.”

  32

  Christmas was coming, and I was nervous of Coach getting done with me. This being the time of year people start noticing who’s family and who’s not. I asked Angus what they usually did for Christmas. She said nothing much. We were up on the roof cleaning the gutters.

  “But what do you do?” I asked. “Like, where do you go cut your tree?”

  She squinted her eyes at me. She’d worn her oldest, stickiest Chucks to climb out on the tin roof, while I stayed on the ladder. “You mean that stupid thing of a tree inside the house?”

  Not even whenever she was little? Not even then. “We’re not religious,” she said, like I was the one being weird. And I was like, Who said religious, this is fucking Christmas we’re discussing. Who ever heard of a kid thinking it’s no big deal?

  Angus was that kid. If she wanted something, Coach always just said go buy it. No need to involve fat guys in fake beards. Another one of these Coach rules that was just normal to Angus, like no pets, always do your homework. She said Christmas was a downer for him due to her mom dying of her cancer right before or after, possibly the day of. She wasn’t sure.

  Normally this guy named Happy would have been cleaning their gutters, but Mattie Kate had called and called. Finally his wife answered and said Happy fell off a barn and broke his back, so call back in a few months. Coach didn’t trust anybody else to work on that house, mainly due to nobody wanting to do it. It was over a hundred years old and had its dicey aspects. Imagine if some handyman screwed up Coach’s house? He’d have to leave the county. But the gutters had gotten so clogged with leaves, the roof was leaking in our TV den. I told Angus I was going up. I asked her not to tell Coach if I screwed something up or, like, fell. She said she was coming too, if we screwed it up, he couldn’t fire us. And I thought, Speak for yourself. Coach was out of town that weekend for the playoffs. I’d thought he might ask me to go with them to help out, but he didn’t, only U-Haul. It was December. My days in that house were numbered. Which is what got me on the subject of Christmas and death.

  “That makes two of us,” I said. “As far as holidays wrecked by dead parents. Not that the Fourth of July is comparable, but that was Mom’s downer. She’d always get moody over my dad being dead, to where she’d put the shuthole on fireworks.”

  Angus gave me a look. Maybe Coach had fireworks rules. That family was hard to figure.

  “I’m saying not even sparklers. Let alone your better class of explosives.”

  “Are you telling me your dad died by exploding?”

  “No, it was water. I never got the particulars, just the place. And the day.”

  “And then she died on your birthday. Fuck a duck, bro. You win.”

  I thought about my last birthday I’d had at Aunt June’s. Mom didn’t really enter into it. I told Angus my mom being dead wasn’t something I pinned exactly on my birthday. “It’s more like this bag of gravel I’m hauling around every day of the year. If somebody else brings it up, honestly, I’m glad of it. Like just for that minute they can help me drag the gravel.”

  “Huh,” she said, raking brown glops of leaves out of the gutter with her bare hands, which was brave. I mean, things could dwell in that shit. Primordial life. My job was holding up the bucket until it got full. Then down the ladder I’d go to dump it on this swamp-stinking pile we’d started, far from the house. What implements Happy used for this job, we had no idea.

  Angus said it was different for her, because she didn’t remember her mom. Not a bag of gravel. “It’s more like this shiny little thing I wear around my neck. Once in a while some lady will lean over and say, ‘Honey, she was so pretty’ or ‘She was a jewel.’ And I just say, ‘Okay, great. Thanks.’ ” Angus slopped more glop in the bucket. “Ignorance is bliss.”

  I’d suggested that smoking pot could make this enterprise more enjoyable. I’d scored some respectable weed from a guy at school as payment for body-part drawings. Angus almost never took my suggestions, especially anything that could bring scandal to the house of Coach, but this time she was extreme. Was I crazy, did I want to fall off my ladder and end up like broke-back Happy? Etc. Turns out she’d never smoked pot in her life. That’s how her innocent mind could fall prey to the whole weed-makes-you-go-insane theory the DARE cops promote at school, and I had to set her straight, explaining how it could make you pay more attention to your work, while not minding the shittier sides. No dice. She couldn’t smoke anything whatsoever, due to asthma. I’d seen her use her inhaler, but never knew that’s why her dad quit smoking and went over to using dip. She said it put her in the hospital a few times as a kid. Any time she got too emotional, good or bad, she’d break out in hives. I’d not seen that in Angus, the hives. Or the emotional.

  So she’d missed out on all the best things in life: pot, having a mom, Christmas. Unbelievable. I told her I couldn’t argue with bad luck as regards death and asthma, but that Christmas was still on the table. She said she didn’t see the point.