Copperhead

by Alexi Zentner

WEATHER

  Mercifully, Coach Diggins parks his car behind them and waits while Jessup and Deanne get dressed. They try to stay low in the backseat, to get their clothing on with some modicum of decency, but the headlights are a garish glare, shadows thrown everywhere, eyes squinting against the light.

  Deanne is shaking, but she isn’t crying, and Jessup is grateful for that. She opens the door, gets out, straightening her shirt, zipping up her jacket. Jessup gets out after her. He’s shivering, pulling on his hoodie, the sweatshirt not enough to keep him warm against the chill. The mist is heavier now, more rain than snow, cold, wet, insidious, the kind of weather that brings misery, that works its way under your clothes, through your skin, that settles into your bones. His muscles tense. He can feel the bruises and soreness from the football game the night before.

  He stands a half step behind Deanne, not touching her, but in her orbit. Coach Diggins rolls down the window of his car. It’s a Lexus SUV, the kind with three rows of seats, a big box, tall and menacing. Diggins doesn’t have to get out of his car to have a commanding position.

  Deanne speaks first. She’s still shaking, and it shows in her voice, but Jessup realizes she isn’t frightened. She’s furious. “This is none of your business.”

  He’s expecting Diggins to yell, but the coach’s voice is surprisingly soft, calm. It reminds Jessup of David John’s voice. “You’re my daughter, Deanne. Everything is my business. And, I have to say, I’m disappointed in you. You lied to me.”

  Jessup has his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. His teeth are chattering. The wipers on the Lexus flip back and forth in some undetermined rhythm as the moisture accumulates. He wishes he’d done up the zipper on his sweatshirt, wants to put the hood up for warmth, but he also doesn’t want to move. Doesn’t want to call more attention to himself.

  Deanne’s face tightens, but she gathers herself. It’s actually scary how composed she is for a sixteen-year-old girl who just got caught naked in a parked car with her boyfriend by her football coach father. “You promised that was just in case my phone was lost or something happened. Not to track me.”

  “And you said you were at the State Street Diner with your friends,” Diggins says evenly. “We can have a conversation about this at home.”

  “I’m not going home. I promised Jessup a ride,” she says, but Jessup can hear it in her voice: she’s already used up what bravery she has.

  “Yes, you are going home,” he says. “Jessup?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get in. I’ll drive you home. We can have a little talk.”

  MILEAGE

  Deanne squeezes his hand, and then he walks around and climbs up into the passenger seat of Coach Diggins’s car. Coach leans out the window a bit. “Straight home,” he says. Deanne doesn’t say anything, just storms over to her car.

  Diggins pulls out onto the road, waits for Deanne to back out, and then follows her CRV toward Highland Road. He glances at Jessup. “Where do you live?”

  Jessup tells him, and at the corner, when Deanne turns right, Diggins turns left. He looks over again at Jessup, sees him shivering.

  “There’s a seat warmer,” he says. Pushes a button on the wood-trimmed dashboard. After a few seconds, Jessup can feel the heat radiating through the leather seat.

  “Thank you.”

  Neither one of them speaks for the first mile, Jessup not wanting to break the stillness, Diggins seeming to consider what he wants to say. The windshield wipers move of their own accord; some sort of automatic moisture detection that comes on fancy cars, Jessup realizes.

  When Diggins does speak, it’s not what Jessup expects. “I’m not going to yell at you. Deanne is old enough to make her own decisions. I have to respect those decisions even if I don’t like what she is choosing to do. That being said, you understand, though, don’t you, that it’s different for a girl than it is for a guy? It means more for a girl. What you two were doing—and I don’t want to know the details, don’t really want to talk about it, I’ll leave that for between Deanne and her mom—it’s not something to be taken lightly.”

  He doesn’t seem to want an answer, so Jessup stays quiet. He wonders what Diggins would say if Jessup told him that David John’s brother, Earl, likes to ask why it is that we acknowledge that men and women are different—men are stronger, women better as caregivers—but you can’t say whites and blacks are different. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that the different races might not be the same? He wonders what Diggins would say if Jessup told him that Wyatt calls Deanne an ebony, that Wyatt’s girlfriend thinks Jessup is debasing himself with a black girl.

  Diggins adjusts the temperature a degree. The road hums under the tires, a wet passage, the distance between them and Jessup’s home splitting into infinity.

  “Jessup, I want to believe you didn’t say anything to Kevin Corson.”

  “I didn’t.” He blurts it out. Angry. Scared.

  Diggins shakes his head. They pass under a streetlight. The LED lights have a blue tinge to them, and it makes Diggins’s skin seem to glow.

  “That’s the thing, Jessup,” Diggins says, his voice slow, quiet, sad. “It doesn’t matter what really happened.”

  FORWARD MOTION

  I’m sorry,” Diggins says, “but it’s the truth.”

  Jessup wants to scream. It’s the exact same thing that Hawkins said in the driveway this morning. It doesn’t matter what really happened. None of it matters, Jessup thinks. Not the time in the weight room, sweat dripping off him, his muscles quivering with exhaustion, not the wind sprints, the hours watching film, the willingness to sacrifice his body to stop a ball’s forward motion. It doesn’t matter that he’s always been a good student, not just smart but diligent, up late, up early, keeping his work organized, reading ahead, extra-credit assignments. It doesn’t matter that he’s done everything right, that he’s had no margin for error, that his classmates have Spanish tutors and math tutors, $1,500 SAT prep classes and private instruction for thousands more, science camp and math camp, internships with state representatives because Mom’s sister knows somebody, an entire existence of parenting devoted to ensuring excellence, the American dream not something to aspire to but a birthright. It doesn’t matter what Jessup has done, he knows; it’s never going to be enough. The starting gun went off well before he was born, and no matter how fast he runs, he’ll never win this race.

  “But I didn’t,” Jessup says. “I didn’t call him the N-word.”

  “And it doesn’t matter whether or not I believe you, either. What matters is that kids are talking, and what’s going around is that you used a racial slur,” Diggins says. “Can I ask you a question, Jessup?” He glances at Jessup but then speaks without waiting for an answer. “Do you hate me?”

  “What?”

  “Do you hate me? Simple question.”

  “No,” Jessup says. He thinks of the game ball. Wonders if David John has put it in his bedroom. “Of course not.”

  “What about that church you go to? It’s a white power thing, isn’t it?”

  “I haven’t gone there in years.” Hesitates. Says, “You know about what happened with my brother and my stepdad?”

  Diggins nods.

  “I haven’t gone there since any of that happened.” Doesn’t say that he’s supposed to be going tomorrow with his family.

  “What about that kid up there, the one in the coat and tie, goes to your church?”

  “It’s not my church.”

  Diggins ignores him. “What’s his name? The one who’s on CNN and Fox and always spouting off? Goes to Cortaca University. What is it? Buddy Rogers?”

  “Brandon.”

  “Brandon, then. Does he hate me?”

  “Probably,” Jessup says. The truth is certainly more complicated, Jessup thinks, because if you listen to the way Brandon talks, it’s not hate. It’s not fear,
either. It’s something else. Like Brandon looks at black people and doesn’t even think of them as people. Which is worse.

  “I’ve seen him on the news, and he doesn’t use the N-word. Doesn’t blame the Jews or Mexicans. He does it nice and subtle. A dog whistle. Says ‘urban violence,’ or ‘thug culture,’ but we all know what he means.”

  Jessup can see the lights of the gas station in Tracker’s Corners coming up. From there, it’s a quarter mile until the turn, another quarter mile until his driveway.

  “Why don’t you let me out here,” he says. “I’ll walk.”

  HISTORY ONE

  Diggins pulls into the gas station. He’s off to the side of the pumps, the car running. He puts it in park and the locks click open. Jessup reaches for the door, but Diggins puts his hand on Jessup’s shoulder.

  “Jessup,” he says. “This isn’t about you.”

  “You can say that, sir, but it sure feels like it’s about me.”

  “Look. I wasn’t here when your brother and your dad killed—”

  “He’s not my dad.” Jessup knows he’s too sharp, and even as the words leave his mouth, shame washes over him. Judas. But he’s already said it. “He’s my stepfather.”

  “Okay.” Diggins nods. “Stepfather. I wasn’t here when your brother and stepfather killed those two kids, but people talk. Everybody knows your family is tied into that white power church, and what happened at the party is going to resonate. Even if Corson hadn’t been drinking and driving—stupid, stupid kid—this would still have been a thing. You can’t believe that the other kids at the party wouldn’t talk?”

  “I was eleven,” Jessup says. He’s not angry anymore, not ashamed either. He’s broken and trying not to cry. Trying to be a man. “I was eleven when it happened.”

  “Sure,” Diggins says. “It’s not your fault. But it’s going to follow you around. When a black kid says you called him the N-word, that’s going to stick. There’s no reason not to believe him.”

  HISTORY TWO

  Jessup shakes Diggins’s hand off his shoulder. “Can I go now?”

  “You’re going to stop seeing my daughter.”

  He shouldn’t be shocked, but he is. He turns to look at Diggins, hoping that it’s a joke, knowing that it isn’t. Diggins is steely. No room for compromise.

  “I thought you said she was old enough to make her own choices.”

  “Do the right thing.”

  “But I—”

  Diggins cuts him off. “What? You’re going to tell me you love her? You’re seventeen, Jessup. What’s the end game? Have you had her over to your house yet? Introduced her to your mother? Are you going to introduce her to your stepfather?” His voice is acid. “Hi, guys, this is my girlfriend, Deanne. Hope you don’t notice that she’s a nigger?” He steps hard on the word.

  “I didn’t—”

  “But you will.” Diggins is fierce. In the close space of the car, he’s a beast and Jessup is cowering. He’s bigger than Diggins, but it doesn’t matter. Jessup is backed up against the door.

  Diggins continues, “You’ll say it sooner or later. You’re thinking it right now, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not,” Jessup says. But he is. He wants to tell Coach Diggins to go fuck himself, fuck you, you fucking—

  “Of course you are. And when you’re out with my daughter, it’s always going to be there, too. Doesn’t matter if it’s right on the tip of your tongue or hidden in the depths. You’ve always got that word hidden in you, ‘nigger,’ ready to sneak its way out. American history right there, boy. That swamp isn’t drained. I’ll tell you, growing up in Mississippi, playing ball at Alabama? You know what I liked? People there let me know exactly how they felt. ‘Nigger,’ ‘boy,’ ‘coon,’ I heard it all, right to my face. I had my fists clenched; the only thing that kept me from swinging was knowing what I had to lose. But when I was in the NFL, when I played for the Jets, the Vikings, when I was on the 49ers? When I was dating Melissa, me and this white girl out on the town in San Francisco? I was just guessing, trying to figure out who was thinking it.” He takes a breath, and it’s like a dragon getting ready to breathe more fire, but then, suddenly, for no reason that Jessup can tell, Coach Diggins seems to deflate. He sinks back into his seat, hands on the steering wheel. He’s looking through the windshield now. Watching a Chevy Silverado pickup pull up to the gas pumps.

  Diggins shakes his head. “At least that church you and your family go to has the balls to admit, to come out and say they want a white nation. Not trying to dress it up.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, Jessup, but do you understand what I’m saying here? Do you understand why I don’t want you with my daughter?”

  “I never said it. I didn’t say it to Corson last night. I never . . . I don’t think that when I’m with Deanne. I don’t say that word.”

  “But you will,” Diggins says quietly. His voice is a whisper. He sounds tired. Jessup feels tired with him. “You will,” he says again, louder. “I know all about you and your family. You can deny it, you can say he’s your stepfather instead of your father, but you can’t hide from your history, your heritage.”

  “It’s not my history,” Jessup says.

  “It is.” He looks at Jessup, gathers his thoughts. “Do the right thing, Jessup. Be a man. Walk away from my daughter. You’re still my player, and I’ll stand up for you. If you want that, I’ll do it. I’ll stand up for you. You’ve got to understand, I’m not angry at you. I feel sorry for you, Jessup.”

  PAVEMENT

  Jessup can’t say anything. Diggins feels sorry for him? There’s a part of him that understands that Diggins is fundamentally a good man, in the same way that David John is fundamentally a good man. In some different universe, the two would be friends. But there’s a part of him, too, that is breaking in half. Coach Diggins is telling him to be a man, to do the right thing, but he has no earthly idea how to do either of those things. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to—he can’t—walk away from Deanne. He loves her. He knows that much is true.

  He can’t walk away from Deanne, he thinks, but he can walk away from her father. Jessup gets out of the SUV. He looks back after he’s walked far enough away to be outside the halo of the gas station. Coach Diggins’s car is still there, in the parking lot of the gas station, the lights on.

  Jessup zips up his sweatshirt, pulls the hood over his head. It’s not a mist anymore but a gentle rain mixed with wet snow, the temperature dropping with the night, but it’s not enough to soak him through. Not yet. He realizes he’s crying. Can’t figure out when he started. With the weather, the sky is mostly covered, but there’s just enough moon breaking through that he can see the road. He starts to run.

  He breaks out too fast, and in forty-five seconds he’s breathing hard. He slows down to a steady jog. Not a sprint, but not slow, an eight-minute mile. Figures it will keep him warm. Figures he has to do something, anything. There’s no traffic, and soon enough it’s just his breath and his sneakers against the pavement. He hits the corner and turns. Steps in a puddle, feels the cold seep through his shoe and sock.

  He slows down to a walk again and pulls out his phone. The glow of the screen burns his eyes in the darkness. He checks his texts. He’s got a bunch from guys on the football team, friends from wrestling, all some version of “What’s going on?” the word spreading quickly. Four texts from Wyatt and two from Kaylee, asking if he’s okay, wanting to talk to him.

  Nothing from Deanne. He touches her name, types:

  I lo

  Erases it.

  WYATT

  Jessup is forty, fifty yards from his driveway when the truck pulls out. It turns toward him, brights catching him and pinning him in the darkness before rolling to a stop, the window coming down. Jessup recognizes the truck before he sees Wyatt. It’s a blue Ram crew cab, eight years old, but low miles, in good shape. Having a dad who’s a mechanic doesn
’t hurt. There’s a small Confederate flag sticker in the back window, but nothing else.

  Wyatt doesn’t have his normal smarmy smile. “How come you didn’t text me back?”

  “I was at work,” Jessup says.

  Wyatt blows his cheeks out, looks straight ahead. “Yeah, well. And then out with Deanne?”

  The way he says her name is aggressive. Jessup’s first reaction is anger, but he tries to tamp it down. Wyatt is on his side. Wyatt is his brother. Always has been. Decides to tell him the truth. “Yeah. Actually, parked up by the bird sanctuary. And, uh, Coach Diggins was tracking her phone. Caught us in the backseat.”

  Wyatt’s face transforms, the joy of a friend getting in trouble. “Oh, shit! He must have been pissed.”

  “He wasn’t happy,” Jessup says. Decides not to say anything else. Already knows Wyatt’s reaction if he does. “Were you waiting for me?”

  Wyatt hesitates. Makes Jessup think of the time they were seven and snuck into the church kitchen and literally got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Wyatt’s dad gave him a spanking, but even though Jessup’s mom was embarrassed, David John wouldn’t let her paddle him. Doesn’t believe in corporal punishment.

  “You okay?” Wyatt says.

  “Sure.” Jessup notices that Wyatt didn’t exactly answer the question, but he’s cold, he’s wet, he’s tired, and he doesn’t care. “I’m wiped out, man. I’ll see you at church.”

  “Listen, Jessup,” Wyatt says, “you be careful, okay?”

  Wyatt’s voice is unusually earnest. He’s got a fever glint in his eyes, looks like there’s more he wants to say, but he stops, nods.

  “I will,” Jessup says. “I’m trying.”

  “I’m serious. Be careful.”

  Jessup considers him. Wyatt sounds scared, but he sticks his hand out, taps his knuckles against Jessup’s. “I love you, brother. You stay strong, okay? Stay strong.”