“Well, what kind of gal is ever going to have him like that? If he keeps on?”
I said maybe he was just having his wild oaks and would come around in time. Or else he’d find somebody. I reminded Mr. Peg of that thing people always say: There’s a shoe out there for every foot. Mr. Peg said he used to think that, but now he wasn’t sure if Maggot even wanted to find any shoe to fit him. And I didn’t say so, but I kind of agreed on that. Or if he did, because honestly don’t we all, probably Maggot’s kind of shoe hadn’t been invented yet. Or if so, they didn’t stock it in Lee County.
Weirdly, I kept thinking of Fast Forward, how he could look at us and name the true person inside us. Even if we were pathetic losers for the most part. Fast Forward was proof that a kid could keep his head up and survive, no matter how shitty the waters. He’d called me a diamond. I don’t know what I thought he could do for Maggot. It just seemed like this was a situation for Fast Man.
37
What never changed was U-Haul Pyles despising me. Staring me down at practices, lurking around the house making sure I knew my place. I gave as good as I got. I hated him touching our mouth guards, and being the one to tape or ice us if we got hurt. I hated him going with us to Longwood for the playoffs, which is how far we got that year. State semifinals. I got more playing time than Collins, which I felt bad about because it was his last game. He was a junior, quitting school after the season ended due to his girlfriend having a baby. The other teams had the usual things of their cheerleaders making up special Trailer Trash cheers against us and the fans throwing cow manure on the field, which we were used to, any time we played outside our region. But we kicked ass pretty decently. Semifinals would have been the highlight of my young life, if not for the Hellboy eyes burning me from the sidelines. And then later that night, U-Haul coming around to our motel rooms lecturing us about no partying, like we’re infants, putting Scotch tape on the outside of our doors so he could check in the morning to see if we’d been out. The man could leave a layer of scum on any good thing.
Sometimes he’d make me go with him on nonsense errands, like running over to the machine shop to help him load up the tackle sled they repaired. Asking in front of Coach, so I wouldn’t share my true feelings on where he could put his tackle sled. Sometimes he’d stop by his mom’s over at Heeltown, which wasn’t a single-wide but one of those built houses from the old days, small, front porch with the steps falling apart. So much crap on that porch, my Lord. Sofas and chairs stacked one on top of another, upside down and sideways. Cats crawling all over and through the piles like head lice. While U-Haul went in and did whatever he did, I would sit in the car and count the louse cats. As far as going inside, you couldn’t pay me.
Mrs. Pyles would want us to drop her off at Foodland or Walmart. She was heavier set, not a skeleton like him, but had the same red eyes and weird bad manners, old-person version: Honey, I’m just a little old nobody, now scooch ’at seat forwards and give me some room. She had a creepy way of getting intel out of me. On the McCobbs for instance, that were back from Ohio, living in Pennington Gap. Honey, is it true what I heert about her a-pawning off solit gold jewry, ain’t nobody can figure how she come honest by them kind of things. I was dumb enough to tell her about Mrs. McCobb’s rich parents spoiling the grandkids, before it dawned on me what she was actually trying to find out: were the McCobbs trading in stolen goods.
Another couple she wanted to discuss was Ms. Annie and Mr. Armstrong. What made him think he deserved that beautiful woman for his wife. They’s a world a people a-wondering on that. Why she’d stoop to lowerin’ herself thataway. “Beautiful” in this instance meaning white, I wasn’t stupid. Ms. Annie was a tattooed hippie. If she’d married any other guy in Lee County, they’d be asking why he had lowered himself. A kid of my raisings is not going to tell an older person flat-out, Lady, get the hell out of my face. But I came close.
Finally one day I told U-Haul that on errands involving his mom, he could count me out. He drilled those red eyes into me and said maybe he wasn’t a Gifted, but he knew things. Who I talked to on the phone. Where I hid my weed. How he knew, I can’t guess. But if I mentioned to Coach about us going to his mom’s house, he said, I’d be looking for a new place to live.
After the season ended, I had time on my hands. The Peggots sometimes would pick me up on a Saturday to go see June and Emmy. No more Kent. That show was over, and according to Emmy not just a breakup but World War III. Kent was a con man, June was a paranoid bitch, take it from there. I hated to think about it, but Maggot wanted details, what weapons were drawn, etc. Probably from living with grandparents he was action-deprived. This was a Saturday in February, cold as tits, and still the adults sent us outside to mess around in the woods. Probably so they could have this same conversation inside. We made a pitiful little band: Maggot freezing because he refused to wear the camo hunting coat the Peggots bought him. Emmy in her puffy coat that was black-and-white-printed like a cow, seriously. We dragged our feet through leaf slop, kicking up the smell of acorns. There was an old wrecked cabin on the property, logs and a fallen-down chimney but no roof. We would have called it a fort if we were kids, but now it was nothing. A stupid place we were forced to hang out because we couldn’t yet drive.