“I’m just worried about you.”

“They ain’t nothing to be worried about. I can quit drinking any time I want.”’

“Now’s as good a time as any.”

“I wish it was.”

We got quiet, and the cicadas filled our silence with their summer chorus. Albermarle Mountain’s radio towers blinked on and shined the way the North Star did for the wise men who searched for Jesus. Mama watched them along with me.

“I talked to your brother yesterday,” she said, looking away from the blinking lights and back at me.

“Yeah? How’s Marshall doing?” The topic of my brother made me want to reach back for the bottle, but I resisted the urge.

“You’d know if you ever called him.”

“He don’t wanna talk to me,” I said, really wanting another drink.

“How long’re you gonna go without talking to him, Mack?”

“Until I’m ready.”

“It’s been months now.”

“And it’ll be a few months more.”

“You two’re just as damn stubborn as your Deddy,” she said. “I’d choke him to death if I could get my hands on him.” Mama wrung her hands together like she had Deddy’s windpipe in her fists now.

Hearing Mama’s idle threats finally sent me back to the bottle. I reached down, grabbed it by the neck, and took a hard pull from it. The bourbon burned going down and brought tears to my eyes. I wasn’t entirely sure if they weren’t just from my depression, and it was the only way they could get released. Mama did speak after I started drinking again. She sat with me until the horizon got dark and then left without saying goodbye.

If I were being honest, I saw my brother’s face every time I reached the bottom of a bottle of Woodford and thought about calling him every time I took another swig of beer. More than once, I found myself standing over the house phone with the receiver in my hand. The dial tone brought me into the present each time, and the phone felt like holding a burning piece of coal. I’d slam it back onto its base and go back to drinking. I didn’t even know what number I’d call. Peanut gave me no way to contact Marshall, and I was too prideful to ask Mama. There was his cell, but I deleted the number.

Nightmares kept me up all hours of the night. Andrea came to me in them, naked but covered in scales and her eyes held the same emptiness as the copperhead. Her words came out a hiss, and her tongue darted between her jagged teeth. Sometimes in the dreams, the preacher would accompany her. He’d be in his Sunday best, carrying his worn leather Bible under his arm. The hole I put in his head shined a blinding light everywhere he cast his eyes. Andy always twisted before him and became a writhing serpent. Randy Jessup took her up to dance. He’d hold her out at arm’s length and twist and spin and shout praises in tongues. I’d jerk awake and reach for an unopened can of beer every time.