“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.