I figured on having to wait with her till the others came back, then hearing about the Gatlinburg fucking Shark Tunnel from Maggot for the rest of my natural life. But for whatever reason Emmy said okay, let’s do it. I had to hold her hand. She kept her eyes closed.
It was true about Aunt June keeping track. Which was not true of my mom in any way, shape, or form. So that was me promising Emmy that life is to be trusted. I knew better. I should have let her go with her gut: Never get back on the horse, because it’s going to throw you every damn chance it gets. Then maybe she’d have been wise to the shit that came for her later on, and maybe it would have turned out better. Which is me saying too much, for now. Sorry.
Aunt June gave us all five dollars to spend in the gift shop. Maggot bought a plastic hammerhead shark, Emmy got rock candy, and everybody was waiting. On snap decision I bought this thing for Emmy, a little silver bracelet with a snake as part of it. The package said moray eel, whatever. I gave it to her while we were walking to the car. I said probably she hated snakes, but it was like her bravery badge. She just said thanks. Then on the drive home she mentioned she was in love with me and we would get married whenever we got old enough. Okay, I said. I was pretty much used to the chain of command by then. But to tell the truth, kind of shocked. I asked her, Why me? Why not Maggot? And she said, Duh. Matty’s my cousin.
That gave me the usual sting of not having my own cousins. But I hadn’t considered there being a plus side, like Emmy eligible to be in love with me. I told her I didn’t know how. She said no worries, it was easy, she did it all the time with boys at school and the Popsicle stick place.
Maggot said that just proved she was a slut. I think he was feeling left out.
The day we packed up to go home, Emmy pounced with all these instructions. I was to talk Mom into letting me call her. This being the nineties, no Facebook, no texting. Emmy said if I didn’t call, she’d drop me and be in love with somebody else. Might as well learn that one early, I’m going to say. But I hadn’t thought much about Mom since we left. Even though she was all, Don’t forget me, which I thought was stupid. Who forgets his mom? But yet I had.
I made up for it by thinking about her a lot on the way home. It’s two hours, but we stopped for gas and Cokes at Cumberland Gap, and at the park where they have the bison. Mr. Peg was the slowest driver imaginable. Finally we chugged up the driveway at a mind-shattering five miles an hour, and I was ready to open the door and roll out before he got to a stop. But Mrs. Peggot turned around and laid a hand on my arm while the others got out. She said she had something she was supposed to tell me. She was nervous, which I didn’t like one bit.
“Well, you’re not going to tell me she’s dead, because I can see her,” I said. Mom must have heard the truck because she’d come outside. She was up there waiting on the deck.
“No, nobody’s dead. It’s good news,” Mrs. Peggot said. “You’ve got a daddy.”
“And he’s dead,” I said. Even though trying to be respectful.
“Well, no, he isn’t. Not the one I’m telling you about.”
I thought about the grave where he was buried, which had been much discussed as regards my seeing it, and I blurted out, “Lazarus isn’t real!”
She gave me a funny look. “No, not him. A new one. Now I’ve told you, so go on.”
I didn’t understand, even after I was up on the deck getting attacked by Mom’s hugs and kisses. Then Stoner came out of the house. For a split second I wondered what he would think of me having a new dad, and then I got it.
5
In the two weeks I was gone, Mom did these things:
Got married to Stoner.
Took off work for a weekend honeymoon to Luray Caverns.
Moved the furniture around.
My bedroom was the bigger one, and now according to Mom we had to swap, because it was her and Stoner versus one of me. She said we’d get a better house pretty soon because Stoner made a good living. I walked around my house that wasn’t my house while Stoner with his boots up on the coffee table paged through his American Iron, not even in a shirt, just his wifebeater. Like it’s his kingdom now and he’s got nobody to impress.
In my room that wasn’t my room, the bed was under the window where I hated it, and my action heroes were put on their shelf in the stupidest way imaginable, the reds together, greens with greens, nothing to do with their actual alliances or powers. It looked like some brainless ghost kid had been locked in here while I was gone, lining up his stuff in meaningless ways.
Also, Maggot’s and my fort had a dog in it now. Like Vandal Savage’s beard, huge and black, with hate in its eyes. It barked and flung itself at the chain link any time you got close.
School was starting in a few weeks, and for the first time ever I wanted summer over with. Who knew that was possible? Meantime, I spent all hours over at Maggot’s, telling him how lucky he was not to have parents he had to live with, Maggot being in total agreement. From his room upstairs we’d watch Stoner at the dog pen having his “sessions” with Satan. In case you thought I was being a crybaby, asshole names his dog Satan. Trains it to the path of murder using raw steak: shaking it, yanking it away, dog is going full apeshit. Stoner getting off on that.
“Mother H. Fuck, you better stay over here till that dog rips out the master’s lungs,” was Maggot’s advice, not at all needed. That was my plan for the rest of the summer. After that, my time there would be limited to the after-school hours. I assumed the Peggots would be on board.
Who was not on board was Mom. She started asking questions. Were the Peggots trying to turn me against Stoner? No trying needed, job well done by the man himself, I told Mom. She smacked me for having a smart mouth. But that was by no means the end of it. She acted like the neighbors’ opinions of her new husband mattered more than mine. Or hers either.
Finally I got mad and told her what Mrs. Peggot had said one time, about Stoner not caring if I fell off the back of his Harley and busted my brains. Mom got this wide-eyed look, and said I was not to go back over there the rest of the week. Mom was a small person, tiny really, which according to Mrs. Peggot was from Mom having me before she was done growing herself. The upshot of this being, by age ten I was catching up to her, heightwise, and had started on certain occasions to tell her, “Try and stop me.” This was one of those occasions.
This time her answer was maybe she couldn’t, but Stoner sure as hell could. And maybe that’s what she needed a husband for, if I was wondering.
We were in other words turning into a domestic shit show. I was too mad to care, but I think Mom was having her doubts. With Stoner always grilling her on why she dressed like a whore, who was she flirting with at work, where did she go afterwards, which was nowhere. He didn’t even like her going to her AA and NA meetings because it was mostly men. He passed up no occasion to remind her she was married now, so there’d be no more playing the field.