Copperhead

by Alexi Zentner

  Jessup watches him drive off and walks to where the mailbox marks the corner of his driveway. It occurs to him that Wyatt wasn’t surprised that Jessup is going to church in the morning despite Jessup’s long absence, but he forgets about it as soon as he turns: he’s got other things to worry about.

  THE LANE

  The porch light is on. The car and the van are both there, but there are also three other vehicles: a truck he recognizes—Uncle Earl’s ruby-red Ford F-150 SuperCrew—a car he doesn’t—a low-slung, black BMW sedan—and a Cortaca Police Department cruiser.

  The lights are on in Jewel’s bedroom, light leaking through the closed curtains, but the curtains are open in the living room, and he can see his stepfather and his mom sitting on the couch, their backs to him.

  There’s a part of him that thinks he should turn around, just keep walking down the road, but he knows he doesn’t have anywhere to go. He pulls out his phone again, looks at the time. It’s half past nine. How can it only be nine thirty, he thinks? Not even twenty-four hours since the truck slid out on him.

  As he walks past the cars, he can’t help but notice the BMW is a 7 series. Fully loaded, it tops a hundred grand. A V-12 puts it past one fifty. People who drive cars like that don’t spend a lot of time in double-wide trailers.

  But really, he thinks, shouldn’t it be the cop car he’s worried about?

  PASSAGE

  They all stop talking when he comes through the door. David John and his mother are on the couch against the wall, the window catching their reflection. Earl is standing by the kitchen counter.

  Jessup doesn’t know if he should be relieved or not to see that the cruiser belongs to Paul Hawkins. He’s still wearing his Cortaca PD uniform, but he’s sitting in the recliner, the chair tilted back, feet up.

  And on the love seat, Brandon Rogers. Usually, when Jessup has seen him, Brandon has been wearing a suit and tie, but tonight, even though he still looks slick, he’s dressed more casually: dark, crisp jeans that look like they’ve been pressed, a pair of black dress shoes with bright blue soles that have to be expensive, a black button-down shirt layered with a black V-neck sweater. Of course, Jessup thinks, the BMW. He’s never known anything but money, so why wouldn’t he drive a good German car that Daddy can buy him?

  Brandon pops to his feet. Sticks out his hand.

  Reflex. Jessup shakes his hand.

  “Why don’t you grab a seat,” Brandon says, as if it’s his house, as if this is some meeting he is running. But maybe it is, Jessup thinks.

  “Give me a second. I’m kind of damp. Let me just go get changed,” he says.

  David John says, “You get a ride home from Wyatt? Thought I saw his truck in the driveway.”

  Brandon chirps up, “Oh, that was for me. I just wanted to have a quick word with Wyatt and he was kind enough to meet me here. He’s a good kid. Does his duty. Understands sacrifice. A real soldier for Christ and the white nation. One of the reasons I was the last one through the door. Well, last one other than our guest of honor.”

  There’s something smug in the way Brandon says all of this. Judgmental. As if he’s deliberately calling Jessup out for being late, for not being committed to the cause. Jessup wonders if Hawkins would arrest him if he punched Brandon in the face. He wonders what any of them would say if he told them he’d gotten a ride home from Coach Diggins, replayed the conversation for them. “No. Got a ride from a friend,” he says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He slides through the room, smiles at his mom and David John—he’s not sure if they see how tight the smile feels—and is down the hallway before anybody can say anything else. He steps into his bedroom, and as the door closes, he can hear the low hum of conversation restarting.

  He closes his eyes and stands there for a moment. Just stands there. Breathes. He can feel a swarm of bees behind his eyes, and he can’t tell if it’s anger at coming home to Earl and Brandon and Hawkins in the living room, or if it’s an overwhelming feeling of helplessness for the exact same reason.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  He hangs his damp hoodie and his long-sleeved T-shirt on a hook on the back of the door and thinks about trying to take a quick shower—he smells like popcorn and condoms and sex—but knows they are out there waiting for him. Knows that would be pushing things. Grabs a clean T-shirt from his drawer and puts that on. Still cold. Pulls out a dry sweatshirt.

  He unlocks his phone, opens his text messages. Still nothing from Deanne. He stares, waiting, as if that act alone will get her to acknowledge him.

  BEDTIME STORIES

  He takes a quick piss, brushes his teeth, splashes water on his face. In the hallway, he stops outside of Jewel’s room. The door is cracked open, and he’s about to knock, but he hears his mother’s voice. Her low hum is soothing, a reminder of every night she tucked him in, of the way she nursed him through fevers and strep throat, of how she used to wake him up by rubbing his back and singing to him.

  “Maybe in the afternoon,” she says. “We can stop at the grocery store on the way home from church and get some then. Do you have any homework?”

  “Nope. All done,” Jewel says.

  “What about the work you missed on Friday?”

  “I did it in the car.”

  “Right.” She laughs. “Why couldn’t Ricky have been like this? I always used to have to chase after him to get to his homework, but both you and Jessup are so serious about school. You make it easy for me, pumpkin.”

  Jessup smiles, lets his knuckles dance on the door. “Hey,” he says, leaning in.

  Jewel sits up in bed. “Jessup!”

  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

  “It’s early,” she says scornfully. What do big brothers know about bedtime? What do big brothers know about being eleven? “And it’s the weekend.”

  “It’s not like you ever sleep in anyway. Latest you ever sleep is eight o’clock.”

  Their mom taps her finger against Jewel’s nose. “She’s going to sleep now, but she’s not a teenager. I’m more worried about you getting up on time, Jessup.”

  “Me?” Jessup feigns being wounded. “I was up before the sun today.”

  “Yeah, but that was to go hunting. You’re a little less eager for church.”

  Unsaid: that he’s refused to go the past four years. Unsaid: that it’s not up for discussion with David John. Unsaid: that she’s not worried about his sleep.

  He comes all the way into Jewel’s room, sits next to his mother. Picks up the book that Jewel has on her lap. It’s the same one from earlier. “Thought you’d finish this by now.”

  Jewel grabs it back, hesitates, then proffers it to him. “Will you read it to me? Just a chapter?”

  Their mom gently pushes the book down. “Not tonight, honey. You need to go to sleep. And we need to have a talk with Jessup.”

  “How about a bedtime story? Just one.”

  “I’ve already told you one,” she says. “Now lie down so I can tuck you in.”

  Jewel complies, but before Jessup can turn off the lamp, she looks at him and asks, “Is everything okay?”

  “Of course,” he says. Realizes he may have just told her another bedtime story. A fantasy. A fiction. Asks himself, what’s one more lie? “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  THE CURVE

  His mom turns and goes into her bedroom, gesturing to Jessup to head back toward the kitchen, but Earl is waiting for him in the hallway. He wraps his hand around Jessup’s right biceps. There’s a bruise there from the football game that Jessup hadn’t been aware of.

  “Keep things straight,” Earl says. His voice is a rough whisper, boot heels scuffed on cement, rats scuttling through drainpipes. “Everything just the way it happened, and when that nigger left the party, you didn’t see him again.”

  Jessup’s angry. Earl using th
at word affirms everything Coach Diggins said. Particularly here, in this house. In Jessup’s house. He tries to match Earl’s volume, spits, “I don’t like this. Why is that cop here? And why is Brandon here?”

  Earl is angry right back, but he keeps his voice low. “Brandon knows what really happened.”

  Jessup goes from angry to livid. “What the hell? What’s wrong with you? Why the—”

  “Shut up.” Earl narrows his eyes, squeezes tighter. “My brother and I are just trying to do right by you,” he says. “Don’t want the same thing happening to you as happened to Ricky. Nobody’s going to believe it was an accident. Brandon understands that, and he’s helping. Hawkins is one of us, but he doesn’t need to know the details. We’re keeping this between you, me, David John, and Brandon. You got that? Now shut up and play your part if you want any hope of stopping your life from going down the toilet.”

  Jessup gives a sour nod. “Yes, sir.”

  The other three men are deep in conversation when Jessup walks into the room. Earl sits down beside David John on the couch, Hawkins and Brandon still in the same places, the recliner and the love seat respectively. Jessup doesn’t want to sit next to Brandon, so he pulls over a kitchen chair.

  Hawkins is in the middle of talking, and he has the floor: “—first thing in the morning. Can’t imagine they’re going to have too much trouble finding a friendly judge. I’m telling you, when the medical examiner called and said he thought it looked suspicious, Harris couldn’t have been happier than if somebody had given him a watermelon and bucket of fried chicken.”

  It’s all Jessup can do not to wince. He can’t pretend he’s never heard that kind of talk before, but it’s not his world anymore. Hasn’t been his world in a long time, and all he can think of is Coach Diggins’s sad voice, how sure he was that the N-word was going to come tripping off Jessup’s tongue. And if he’s honest with himself—he doesn’t want to be honest with himself—he’s not sure that Diggins was wrong.

  “What do you mean ‘suspicious’?” Jessup asks.

  “Looks more like he got hit by a car, not that he was in one,” Hawkins says evenly. “Not much to go on, but they’re head-hunting. They’ll be coming for your truck in the morning. Better hope Corson never touched it. They find DNA from Corson on your truck and they’ll make your life a misery. You said he kicked out your taillight, Jessup, but if I were you, I’d make sure that truck is scrubbed down. Or better yet, disappeared.”

  Earl leans forward, leaning on his knees. He’s wearing a pair of clean, pressed khakis and a white button-down dress shirt. His glasses are too big for his face, but they make him look earnest. He’s got his hair cut short, just a bit longer than a buzz cut, gray working its way up his sideburns. “We owe you one, Paul.”

  “No kidding. But thought you’d want to get ahead of the curve on this.”

  “Damn right,” Brandon says. “If we handle this right, it’s going to play great.”

  Jessup can’t help himself. “What?”

  “You’re the perfect martyr, Jessup. Young. Good-looking. You’re all-American. Good student, right?”

  “Honor roll,” David John says proudly. He looks at Jessup with the same smile you give your son. Jessup doesn’t know where to look. “He wrestles and runs track, too. He’s a good kid.”

  “Exactly.” Brandon Rogers talks with his hands, excited. He talks fast, too. Jessup understands why they love him on television. “I’ve already talked to my dad, and we’ve got lawyers lined up.”

  “Good ones?” David John asks.

  “The best. A couple of Jews from Harvard.” The four men laugh at that, but Brandon notices Jessup isn’t laughing. “Don’t worry,” he says to Jessup. “We’ve got this under control.”

  WAR COUNCIL

  What?” Jessup asks. He tries to keep the edge off his voice. Thinks he wouldn’t mind teeing up on Brandon on a football field, driving his shoulder through him, pinning him to the dirt. “What do you have under control? I don’t understand any of this.”

  Hawkins lowers the footrest, stands up. “I’ve got to take off,” he says. “And, obviously, keep my name out of things.”

  “You working tomorrow?” Earl asks.

  “Not supposed to. But Chief Harris has a hard-on and the mayor’s already involved, so we’ll see. Might be a lot of overtime in the department this weekend.” He shakes Earl’s hand, David John’s, Brandon’s, takes Jessup’s hand in his. Hawkins squeezes hard, a macho handshake meant to show he’s in charge. Jessup’s expecting it, though, gets a better grip first, squeezes harder, torques the underside of Hawkins’s hand so the bones grind, but he lets go quickly. Doesn’t think he can get away with more than that.

  The men are quiet until the door is closed, and Jessup hears Hawkins’s footsteps, the police car’s door open and slam shut, the throaty growl of the cruiser’s engine.

  Brandon speaks first. “The big thing is your truck. I’m sure they’ll find Corson’s DNA on your truck. Even if you scrub it down, it will be there. The science on that is incredible now. It’s basically impossible to get rid of. Crime scene techs have gotten really good at catching it. They find DNA on your truck and everything goes out the window. We’ve got to get rid of the truck.”

  Jessup runs cold. A roller coaster cresting, the feeling of being sent to the principal’s office, his truck fishtailing and the sound of a soda can crushed by a boot stomping down. He realizes he’s breathing fast and shallow. Not sure if he’s going to be sick or not.

  Earl says, “It’s taken care of.”

  Jessup’s sure he must look sick, the roller coaster dropping straight down, everything swirling.

  Brandon doesn’t seem to notice. “It’s just the four of us who know, right? Nobody outside of this room?” He looks at David John, Earl, Jessup, all three of them nodding in turn. “Good. And we aren’t going to talk about it again. Ever. Never, ever speak about what happened. The official story—Corson left the party, Jessup never saw him again, just an accident—is the only story now. You tell the truth and Jessup is going to spend a long time behind bars. They’ll make it out like a deliberate act. But you listen to me, and we’ll come out ahead. If they don’t have the truck and nobody’s stupid enough to say what really happened, they don’t have anything. Worst case a fine, a slap on the wrist for not providing the truck if they come with a warrant. So stick to the official story, that Corson was aggressive, you walked away, no idea how Corson managed to kill himself. This is how we’re going to play it: it’s a witch hunt. Pure and simple. Got it?”

  They all nod again.

  “They want to make an example out of you, Jessup. You caught the part about the warrant?” Jessup nods. He’s tired of nodding. Brandon continues: “They’ll be here early in the morning. They’ll toss the trailer, go through everything. Looking for the clothes you wore last night. They’ll want to impound your truck. You’re sure that’s taken care of, right?” Earl nods. Brandon continues, “they’ll work up everything they find for DNA, going over Corson’s body and car for DNA evidence, too. But I talked to one of the Jew lawyers already, and you’re good with whatever they find on Corson or in his car.”

  “What?” Jessup thinks he might be sweating, which seems hilarious, because he’s freezing.

  “Well, you guys played football against each other last night, and my understanding is you knocked the shit out of him a couple of times, so yeah, of course there’s DNA.”

  “Right,” Jessup says. Thinks of the Mercedes. He was wearing gloves, his coat. Is there DNA? How does that work? What can they find in the car?

  “Look,” Brandon says, as if he’s reading Jessup’s mind, “you don’t have to worry about anything. Any DNA on Corson, any on you or your clothes, even in his car. The only issue is the truck. We’ve got good lawyers, and I’ve seen the video that girl made at the party. That boy was out of control, and nobody in his
right mind would have blamed you for popping him one. And everybody saw him get in the car and drive away. They are going to come in hot and heavy on this; they want to string you up because they can’t get at me.”

  He looks again at Jessup, Earl, and David John in turn, waits for them to nod at him, to acknowledge how important he is, that none of this would be happening if “they” weren’t out to get him. Jessup wants to ask who “they” are, but it doesn’t matter. Brandon means all of them: the mayor, the police chief, the blacks, the Jews, the stupid white liberals who are selling out their own kin. Even though he hasn’t been to church in a couple of years, Jessup’s still been around it, can play Brandon out note for note.

  Brandon shakes his head. “If I’d been here when your brother got jumped by those two boys, things would be different.” He looks truly remorseful. “He’d be sitting right here with us right now. But you don’t have to worry, Jessup. I’m going to take care of all of this. That’s why I’m here. That’s why Earl’s here. But the thing is, Jessup, we’ve got a golden opportunity here. It’s all about the spin.”

  THE SPIN

  Brandon Rogers holds court.

  He’s got a good grasp of things from the game through the party until Corson drove off, tells it clean, and Jessup is taken aback by how well Brandon has it down. He thinks he’s let his personal dislike of Brandon cloud his judgment: Brandon is sharp. Brandon says, “You left the party and went immediately to go be with your girlfriend. She’ll back you up on that, Jessup? Can I speak to her?”

  “No,” Jessup says. “I mean, yeah, she’ll back me up, but you can’t speak to her, okay?”

  He’s panicked, tries not to show it. Deanne. Thinks about what Coach Diggins said. Walk away.

  “She doesn’t know you,” Jessup says. “Besides, she snuck out. Wasn’t supposed to be out, not with me, not at all. She’ll be embarrassed, okay? We went up near the reservoir and parked in my truck.”