For a moment, Jessup thinks she must be joking. But she’s not joking, and after a minute or two, he and David John go inside. He sits down on the couch and David John calls Jessup’s mom in, explains everything to her and Jewel. His mom is upset, angry, but David John calms her down. Jewel is excited at first, on her knees on the couch and looking out the window, waving to the fat cop until he waves back.
After a while, Jessup’s mom turns the television back on, walks outside, and asks the two police officers if they want some coffee. They don’t, and Jessup’s mom comes back, sits on the love seat with David John. The four of them watch football highlights and then the first half hour of Sunday Night Football.
Around nine, with the Eagles down a field goal, she sends Jewel off to brush her teeth, to get ready for bed. Jessup doesn’t have a bedtime—he hasn’t had an official bedtime in years—but after his stepfather and mother tuck in Jewel, he goes into her room, kisses her, and then gets himself ready for bed all the same.
REPRESENT
He thinks about checking the news, but he can’t stand it. Can’t read about it anymore. He knows what he’ll find: an avalanche of hate and blame directed at Brandon, at the church, at David John and Earl, and even though he hasn’t been named, not explicitly, not yet, he won’t be able to read it knowing that some of it is directed at him.
He’s about to try texting Deanne again when he gets a text from Wyatt:
my mom says you’ve got police parked outside
bomb threat at school. mentioned me. they’re on like a security detail or something. just to be safe
whoa
yeah
everybody okay?
I guess. mom’s pretty upset
think there’s school tomorrow?
cop in driveway said she thinks so
you going?
Jessup pauses. He hasn’t thought about it. Hasn’t gone that far ahead. Friday night, when he’d thought about school on Monday, he’d thought about returning triumphant. A playoff win. That hit on Corson and the fumble recovery, six points and putting the game out of reach, Jessup with the game ball. But too much had changed. Going back would be something different. People looking away, conversations stopping, teachers hesitant. And Deanne. He’ll see her in the cafeteria, in the hallway. And practice. Coach Diggins. Would he even be allowed at practice?
don’t know
yeah. you hear about the rally?
for football?
wait. really?
no. jk.
haha.
you mean brandon’s rally, right?
libtards have counterrally planned against us
No, Jessup thinks. Not us. There will be a rally downtown, but he can’t think of it as us. But he doesn’t type that. Doesn’t reply. After a minute or two, Wyatt sends another text:
Brandon gave an interview from the hospital
he’s okay?
got released earlier. didn’t even need surgery. he’s crowing about it. assassination attempt. says it’s a war wound. war to save white identity. says the radical left trying to stop him. says they fired the first shot and if they think whites are scared of standing up for what’s theirs they’ve got another thing coming. he’s calling the rally tomorrow night a unite the movement kind of moment. watershed. he’s all over the news. been on like everything. fox and nbc and cnn and everywhere. message boards going nuts. got people flying in from all over and driving up. people already driving in from Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia. Probably two hundred people already said they are coming to represent, plus whoever comes from church.
seriously?
going to be huge. you going?
to school?
no, dumbass. the rally. represent. pride, man. pride.
THE DEAD
He texts Deanne again:
can we just talk.
please.
give me a chance. I love you
He waits an hour, hour and a half, but there’s no response from Deanne. Finally, he gives up, turns off his phone, goes to sleep.
Or he tries to sleep. There’s the soft gurgle of the television, blue light leaking under the door of his room. Then the shift and step of David John and his mother going to bed. Past that, silence. Or something above silence: the sweep of snow carpeting upstate New York in a gentle but steady flow, dirt and grass disappearing with something less than urgency, the asphalt outside of the Blessed Church of the White America snow-coated, the spilled blood covered with white, the world around him covered entirely with white, cold and fresh, snow gliding from the heavens in an unhurried cadence, enough to keep the plows working through the night, but not enough to remake everything in the image of God.
Brody Ellis on his back. His face a pit of despair, gone. The protester—who was it? was it somebody he knew? Mrs. Howard? who?—unmoving. The glass falling over him, calling for his sister. She’s still because she’s scared. She’s still because she’s dead. Snow falls over all of them, covering bodies, covering blood, crosses in graveyards catching the snow, houses in Cortaca with roofs made pale and strange, the university campus inverted, the snow licking the surface of the lake, snow turning into dark, cold waters.
Snow covering Corson’s body, the sound of the truck hitting Corson’s body, Corson’s body, Corson’s body, don’t think about Corson’s body, Corson’s body, don’t think about Corson’s body, don’t think about Corson, don’t think about Corson.
Don’t.
The blankets are twisted around him, hot, his underwear damp from sweat, his hair slicked, the air around him cooling as the fire in the woodstove goes low, but he can feel himself burning. He can feel himself ready to ignite.
But somewhere, in all of that, he does sleep, because it’s morning.
THE LIVING
The first thing Jessup does is look out the window. In the ghostly morning light, he can see a Cortaca Police Department cruiser still in the driveway, but the cops in there are different from the night before. Two men. He thinks he recognizes both of them from yesterday at the compound. The cruiser is running, wisps coming from the exhaust, the two cops cozy in their car.
It’s still snowing, but only barely. There are three or four inches on the ground, and he thinks how excited he would have been as a child to have snow like this so early in November. The possibilities piling up, sledding and snowballs, walking through the forest with Wyatt and a pair of shotguns, duck hunting, the snow a blank slate, the ducks calling for mercy as they launch into the sky, snow not yet an obligation, even shoveling seeming like a joy to a child.
Now the snowfall is weak, fluttering, but the sky is dark, the promise of more to come.
He turns his phone back on, and while it chugs to life he goes into the bathroom, relieves himself, brushes his teeth. He’s about to turn on the shower when his phone buzzes. He thinks, Deanne, but there’s a blizzard of texts, more than two hundred. Emails, too. A dozen voicemails. He doesn’t know where to start.
It’s the rally.
Wyatt wasn’t kidding when he said it was going to be big. Everything that happened at the compound, the rally Brandon has called for tonight, the counterrally, it’s the focus of everything. Front page of the New York Times website, the Washington Post website. The cable news channels losing their minds. Television trucks, network and cable alike, parked along the side of the pedestrian mall in a long row, six of them, more coming, waiting for the show. Counterprotesters already showing up on the pedestrian mall, twelve hours early, a feverish energy, ready to stand united against hate. Wyatt’s texted a link to the TakeBack website, the news organization bankrolled by Brandon Rogers’s father, and the main page is simply a black screen with “Day of Rage” scrawled in red, “Stand Up, Fight Back, TakeBack! Rally tonight in Cortaca, NY!” beneath it. Jessup clicks through, sees a call to action, a call to arms. Wyatt says he figures three hundred, even four hundred people coming to stand tall, an incredible number for s
uch a last-minute event, white pride, baby, white power, the call going wide, every single white man who believes in a future for white children and who lives within five hundred miles on his way.
His other friends, guys from the team, a few girls, they text, too, but they don’t know what to say, what to ask. Lots of what the hell? and are you okay? and what’s going on? But many more texting fuck you, and go fuck yourself, and Nazi piece of shit.
But nothing from Deanne.
He showers, the rash on his neck from the glass stinging in the hot water, the ache from Friday’s game carefully stretched out, shampoo, conditioner, soap, but he’s in and out and pulls on underwear, a pair of jeans. Walks to his bedroom shirtless and sockless, a drip of water cold down his back. He goes to knock on Jewel’s door to wake her up, their routine since David John went away, but the door’s open and she’s already up and dressed.
“Dad’s making pancakes,” she says.
As if it’s just another day.
TEN
He puts on a white collared shirt, reconsiders, replaces it with a dark blue T-shirt, the color of dusk, tops it with a red Cortaca High School sweatshirt. He shovels his books and binders into his backpack, heads to the kitchen.
Jewel is at the table eating pancakes. She looks happy. Her hair is a mess—she hasn’t brushed it at all—but she’s wearing a pair of black leggings and a black sweater over a black T-shirt. Jessup smiles. “Looking pretty goth this morning, kiddo.”
She grins, a gross, deliberately openmouthed grin, bits of pancake showing.
“Ugh,” he says.
David John slides a plate onto the table. “Here you go,” he says. “Syrup’s on the table, cut-up melon in the bowl. No bacon or sausages. Sorry. You want an egg or something, too?”
“No. Thanks. I’m good. Where’s Mom?”
“Sleeping,” David John says. “She doesn’t feel well. Going to take the day off.”
Jessup takes a bite of the pancakes. Chews. Lets it sit. He can’t think of the last time his mom missed work. She gets sick sometimes, a cold, a cough, but nothing serious, nothing that would make her miss a paycheck.
As if David John can read his mind, his stepfather puts a glass of water down in front of Jessup and says, “Don’t worry. She’s fine. Just tired, I think. She deserves a day off. Been busting her ass since I went to prison. I told her she needs to quit her job at Target. It’s too much.”
“We need the money,” Jessup says.
David John’s eyes go tight. “No,” he says. “We don’t. That’s not what I care about right now.” But he softens immediately. “I’m sorry. We’ve got a cop car camped outside. I’m worried. On edge.”
“Me too,” Jessup says.
David John rubs his head. His hair is bristly. Shorter than Jessup remembers him keeping it, though maybe that’s because it’s shot through with silver, though he doesn’t really look any older. A wonder, Jessup thinks, after four years in prison. He knows the same won’t be true of Ricky. Four years without seeing his brother. Is he going to go another sixteen without a visit?
While he’s thinking, David John drops a set of keys on the table. “Take your mom’s car,” he says. “Can you get Jewel to school okay? I’ve got two jobs lined up this morning.”
Jewel jumps up, says to Jessup, “I’m going to brush my teeth, and then can you do my hair, please?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. Just zips out of the room. Jessup picks up the keys, mutters, “Wish I had my truck.”
“Get over it, Jessup. It’s gone.” He tries for a joke, pops his fingers together and says, “Poof. Gone, like magic.” It falls flat. “What did you expect? Earl found somebody to get rid of it, no questions asked, nothing to come back to you. With that gone, you’re good. All you got to do is stay quiet. Nothing to tie you to nothing.”
Nothing, Jessup thinks, but the guilt. He’ll always have that sound, the thump, Corson’s body. That will never disappear.
David John reaches down and pushes the keys closer to Jessup. “You okay?”
Jessup isn’t, but he nods.
He’s thinking of what David John said the night before, about how David John has to take responsibility for his own part in Ricky’s actions, about how he has to own not just Ricky’s wasted life but Jermane Holmes’s and Blake Liveson’s lives as well. David John might have taken care of the truck, but as much as he’d do anything to protect Jessup, David John can’t take care of this, can’t ease the burden of guilt.
That’s something that both Jessup and David John know to be true.
NINE
He lets Jewel put on country top-forty radio, even lets her crank it up loud while they drive to school. He brushed her hair for her, put it in a simple ponytail, and he thinks how beautiful she is. Fragile in some ways, but in other ways not. She’s done well with everything that happened while David John was gone. The question, Jessup thinks, is if she’ll do well now that he’s back.
When he pulls into the drop-off zone at the middle school, he’s struck with a bolt of anxiety. There are two police cars parked out front. But even though the cops are out of their cars, they are standing together tightly, looking like they are chatting rather than on high alert. A rote response to yesterday’s bomb threat at the high school. None of the middle school students seem to care. They walk in crowds and individually, carrying backpacks and musical instruments in black cases, scooping up snow and throwing it into the sky. Somebody’s built an anemic snowman on the grass by the front door.
It’s the same at the high school: a casual acceptance that there’s nothing to really worry about. As he turns into the lot, he sees a Cortaca police SUV parked next to a cruiser, three cops near the entrance. Buses are starting to unload, so there’s a sea of students rolling off in waves.
He parks, grabs his bag, and shuffles through the cars. He has to work at keeping his head up. Knows that if he bows his head it’s an admission of sorts, that it will be read as an acceptance of guilt. He also knows, though, that he’s screwed either way. That to keep his head up, to look people in the eye could also be interpreted as pride, as a gleeful ownership of the violence over the weekend, of the rally planned for tonight, of everything that has happened or might happen.
He doesn’t see Wyatt’s truck in the parking lot. Could be he’s missed it, but he hopes not. He knows it’s selfish, but he doesn’t want Wyatt here. Doesn’t want anything else reminding people of his affiliations. Wyatt won’t keep his head down, and while Wyatt won’t spout off, he won’t back down, either. Jessup knows that now. Wyatt’s a different animal than he used to be. Metamorphosis. Wyatt isn’t joking about a racial holy war, and he’s willing to stand proud. But not Jessup. What he wants is a time machine. What he wants is a different life. What he wants is to be invisible.
But he can’t be invisible. Not here. Not now. Maybe if he were smaller, but he stands out, his size, part of what makes him invincible, is part of what keeps him from being invisible. He sees students staring, groups of boys and girls recognizing him, somebody pointing. Hears somebody call out the word “racist,” hears worse, but he doesn’t look.
He hears footsteps, someone running, turns just in time to catch a glimpse of a familiar face, a teammate, Steve Silver, but he’s not coming with a greeting. He’s coming with a fist. He catches Jessup on the side of the head, on the temple.
Jessup goes down.
EIGHT
There’s a lot of yelling. Two of the cops take Steve down, pin him to the ground, his face pressed against a patch of snow. The third cop stands over Jessup. Jessup can’t tell if the cop is checking to make sure he’s okay or ready to stop him from retaliating.
But he’s not thinking about retaliating. The truth is that he’s stunned. Steve’s a senior, too. They’ve played together at Cortaca High School for four years. Were on teams together a couple of times through Pop Warner. H
ad he ever, even once, said anything, done anything to Steve?
He takes a second to sit back up. It hurts like hell where Steve nailed him. But when he sits up, he realizes there’s a huge circle of students around them. Mostly they are gawking, but a few of them have looks on their faces that Jessup recognizes: hatred. Directed toward him.
“I didn’t do anything,” Jessup says. “He just hit me.”
He looks around for a friend. The first person he sees that he knows is Alyssa Robinson. She meets his eyes, says calmly, loudly, evenly, “Go fuck yourself, you fucking Nazi.”
The cop standing by Jessup yells, “Hey! All of you! Get to class. Now!”
The students start to disperse, but they aren’t quiet. Alyssa isn’t the only one to say something. The two cops have Steve cuffed now. He’s lying on his stomach, looking at Jessup. Jessup knows that if Steve weren’t cuffed, he’d try to hit Jessup again. He wants to rub at the spot where he was punched, but he doesn’t want to give Steve the satisfaction. Instead he just stays seated, looks away. After a couple of minutes most of the students are gone. There’s a steady trickle of kids getting dropped off or parking their cars, but mostly they just give curious looks and walk by. One kid stops to take a picture with his phone.
The cop standing over Jessup gives him a sharp look. “You okay?”
Jessup nods.
Copperhead Page 27