Demon Copperhead

Miss Barks […] stuck with a different theory. I needed to be more pushy with them. Did she give up on her dreams? No, she worked hard for what she wanted. Did I expect anybody to look out for Damon if he wouldn’t look out for himself? Life is what you make it! Here’s where Miss Barks didn’t grow up: foster care. She had no clue how people can be living right on the edge of what’s doable. If you push too hard, you can barrel yourself over a damn cliff.

Where does the road to ruin start? That’s the point of getting all this down, I’m told. To get a handle on some choice you made. Or was made for you. By the bullies that curdled your heart’s milk and honey, or the ones before that curdled theirs. Hell, let’s blame the coal guys, or whoever wrote the book of Lee County commandments. Thou shalt forsake all things you might love or study on, books, numbers, a boy’s life made livable in pictures he drew. Leave these ye redneck faithful, to chase the one star left shining on this place: manly bloodthirst. The smell of mauled sod and sweat and pent-up lust and popcorn. The Friday-night lights.

“It’s not natural for boys to lose their minds,” she said. “It happens because they’ve had too many things taken away from them.”

I asked her like what. She got up and walked around the room, upset. No decent schooling, she said. No chance to get good at anything that uses our talents. No future. They took all that away and supplied us with the tools for cooking our brains, hoping we’d kill each other before realizing the real assholes are a thousand miles from here […].

She sat down on the bed again. “The question you have to answer now is, What are you willing to do for yourself? And I won’t lie, it’s going to be harder than anything you’ve done before.”