Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

Ghost was not a guy you wanted mad at you. That tattoo eye staring at you from his throat, Jesus. I never forgot how I’d drawn him in my mind that first time at Pro’s Pizza, as supervillain Extra Eye that could see your thoughts. Now I was like, What if that’s real? What if he can even see this thought? I didn’t discuss any of this with Miss Barks due to her not knowing about my job at Golly’s Market. After I first started working there, I’d asked enough questions to figure out this was a what-DSS-doesn’t-know-won’t-hurt-me type situation. But now it was just me and Miss Barks in the car having ourselves the biggest time, and I quit caring about Ghost. I was ready for a good day. We took the little winding roads through coal camps where the big blue coal chutes come down the mountainside over the treetops, like waterslides for giants. All the way out to those high white cliffs that run along the Kentucky line. It was one of your April days where you can smell the plowed fields and see the mountains greening up, like it’s the world saying, Hey everybody, I’m not dead yet! We put on the radio and sang all the ones we knew. And I mean loud, windows rolled down, the two of us singing “You’re Still the One” like we’re wanting Shania to hear us over in Nashville.