by DBC Pierre
Gurie lifts her eyebrow. 'Your honor, this new information, you know…'
'No, I do not know. What I know ain't a whole lot so far.'
The typist and Gurie exchange a glance. They sigh. The ole court officer immediately turns to frown my way. 'She ain't seen it yet,' the guard behind me says under his breath. Everybody tightens their lips.
'What is going on here?' asks the judge. 'Has this court slipped into a parallel universe? Have I been left behind?'
'Ma'am, some new facts came to light – we're following them up right now.'
'Then I'm going to release your suspect until you can show me some particulars. I also expect you to apologize for all this trouble.'
A high-voltage tremor cracks through me, of hope, excitement, and ass-naked fear. You think I'm going to stick around for the so-called justice system to get its shit together? Am I fuck. Buses leave Martirio every two hours for Austin or San Antonio. The automatic teller machine with fifty-two dollars in it, from Nana's lawnmowing fund, is a block from the Greyhound station. Which is five blocks from here.
The typist sighs, and tightens her lips some more. Then she leans up to the bench and cups a hand to the judge's ear. Judge Gurie listens, frowning. She puts on her glasses and looks at me. Then at the typist.
'When's the next report? Lunch time?'
The typist nods; one righteous eye darts to Vaine. The judge reaches for her hammer. 'Court is adjourned until two o'clock.'
'Bam.'
'All-a rise,' says the guard.
Men hardened by the friction of learning, steel men of savvy quietly applied, crusty ole boys of rough-hewn glory, probably smoke a lonely cigarette in their cells during lunch breaks from court. They probably don't have to talk to their moms.
'Well Vernon, what I mean is, do you have your own room, or did they put you with other – you know, other men…?'
Barry stands leering by the phone, eyes puckered into goats' cunts. It seems Eileena's eyebrows perch high this lunchtime too, as far as her wooden hair allows. I don't know about where you live, but around here we take the moral high ground with our eyebrows.
'Well you know,' says Mom, 'you hear about the nice boys, the clean boys, always getting – you know, you hear about bigger men, hardened criminals, always getting the nice boys and…'
After God-knows-how-many years of life in this free country she doesn't have the tools to just say, 'Have you been taken up the ass yet by some lifer?' That's how pathetic things are. Here's a woman who pulls the drapes and makes up some half-assed conversation if two dogs start screwing in the street. Yet, for all I know she probably takes a fucken fire-hydrant up the ass every night, just for kicks. Boy, I tell you.
Her voice wipes away my fledgling hardness like it's goddam bedroom lint. What kind of fucken life is this? Light through the window calls me, sings of melted ice-cream on the sidewalk outside, the ghost of little tears nearby. Summer dresses full of fresh air, Mexico down the way. But not for me. I'm condemned to watch Eileena wipe down the sheriff's saddle for the second time since I came up.
I find myself wondering if the sheriff's saddle usually gets so much attention, and if it does, why it ain't worn away to nothing. Then I see the room has a TV. Eileena's eye snaps to it.
It's the lunchtime news. You hear the fanfare of trumpets and drums, then the face of an asshole appears in the far distance, staring through the back window of a departing Smith County Sheriff's truck.
' Vernon, I have some bones to pick with you,' says Mom.
'I have to go now.'
'Well Vernon…'
'Click.'
My eyes latch onto the screen. A breeze rustles cellophane on the Lechugas' teddy farm, then snags a wire of Lally's hair and floats it off his head. The pumpjack squeaks rhythmically under his voice. 'This proud community takes a decisive step from the shadow of Tuesday's devastation, with the arrest of a new player in the deadly web of cause and effect that has brought the once-peaceful town to its knees.'
'Ain't see me on my fuckin knees,' says Barry, straddling a chair.
'To his neighbors, Vernon Gregory Little seemed a normal, if somewhat awkward teenager, a boy who wouldn't attract attention walking any downtown street. That is – until today.'
Lush pictures fill the screen, of crime-scene tape dancing under a blackened sky, body-bags punctuating drag-marks of blood, moist ladies howling pizza-cheese bungees of spit. Then a school photo of me, grinning.
'I definitely saw changes in the boy,' says George Porkorney. You can see her cigarettes hidden behind the fruit-salad plant on the breakfast bar at home. 'His shoes got more aggressive, he insisted on one of those skinhead haircuts…'
'I know,' says Betty in back.
Cut to Leona Dunt. Her handbag needs to be a yard taller for how big the word Gucci is written on it. 'Wow, but he seemed like such a regular kid.'
Black, disordered xylophone music joins the soundtrack as the camera bumps up the hallway to my room. Lally stops by my bed to face the camera. ' Vernon Little was described to me as something of a loner; a boy with few close friends, given more to playing on his computer – and reading.' The camera takes a vicious dive into the laundry pile by the bed. Out comes the lingerie catalog. 'But we find no Steinbeck, no Hemingway in Vernon Little's private library – in fact, his literary tastes run only to this…' Pages flap across the screen, sassy torsos cut me that once tugged chains of shameful sap through my veins. Then we hit page 67. Flapping stops. 'An innocent prop,' asks Lally, 'or a chilling link to the confused sexuality implied by Tuesday's crimes?' Twisted violins join the xylophone. The shot pans over my computer screen to the file marked 'Homework'. 'Click.' Cue the amputee sex pictures I saved for ole Silas Benn.
'Well golly,' says Mom. 'I had no idea.'
Lally sits beside her on my bed, cranking his brow into a sympathetic A-frame. 'As Vernon 's mother, would it now be fair to number you among the victims of this tragedy?'
'Well, I guess I am a victim. I really guess so.'
'Yet you maintain Vernon 's innocence?'
'Oh God, a child is always innocent to his mother – well even murderers are loved by their families you know.'
Some fucken powerdime shift. Lally lets it sit there. Even Barry Gurie knows it's all over, he just sighs out of his chair and says, 'Time to go down.' He steadies me to the door, but I turn for the blow I know is coming. Things could've been different if I'd learned to spell earlier, if I'd just been a smarter, more regular kid. But as things turned out, I was almost seven before I could spell The Alamo. So there's no title at all on the finger-painting I gave Mom when I was five. Just a bunch of stick-corpses and a shitload of red.
'Well, you can see he was just a normal little boy, in almost every way.'
'All-a rise.' The court officer detours around my computer, and a boxload of other shit that turned up on the courtroom floor. Mom's panty catalog has a table all to itself. Even my ole finger-painting is here, but they don't seem to have bothered with my Nike box. The ozone in court has a new, unhealthy crunch to it.
'Mr Abdini,' says the judge, 'I trust your client understands he is being arraigned – I draw your attention to the various issues of waiver that might apply.'
Abdini cocks his head. 'Your honor?'
'The matter will proceed to indictment, sir. Might be time for you to act.'
'Ma'am,' I say, 'this whole thing can be cleared up with a call to my witnesses, my teacher and all…'
'Shhh,' hisses Abdini.
'Counsel, please inform your client that he's not on trial here. Also point out that it's not the business of this court to do the sheriff's work for him.' She sits back for a moment, then turns to Vaine.
'Deputy – you have checked alibi witnesses?'
'I'm afraid the last witness, Miss Lori-Bethlehem Conner, passed away this morning, Judge.'
'I see. What about the boy's teacher?'
'Marion Nuckles didn't mention the suspect's whereabouts at the time of the
tragedy.'
'He didn't mention, or you didn't ask?'
'His doctors say he won't be able to talk until the end of March next year. We couldn't get more than a few words, ma'am.'
'Well dammit Vaine. What were those words about?'
'Another firearm.'
'Oh good Lord.'
Vaine nods, tightening her lips. She can't fucken stop herself glancing at me as she does it.
'We apply bail your honor,' says Abdini.
'Is that right,' says Gurie. 'Judge, the boy has a history of absconding, from before he was even in trouble…'
Abdini throws out his arms. 'But little man is part of family home, with plenty things in the house – why he won't stay?'
'It's a single-parent family, Judge. I don't see how a woman on her own can override the will of a teenage boy.' She ain't seen the fucken knife in my back.
'It's nothing short of tragic,' says the judge. 'Every child needs a man's hand. Is there no way to contact the father?'
'Gh – he's presumed deceased, Judge.'
'Oh my. And the boy's mother couldn't make it to court today?'
'No, ma'am – her car is under repair.'
'Well,' says Judge Gurie. 'Well, well, well.' She leans back into her throne and makes a church with her fingers. Then she turns to me. 'Vernon Gregory Little, I'm not going to turn down your application for bail at this time. But neither am I going to release you. In light of the facts here presented, and commensurate with my responsibility to this community, I am remanding you in custody pending a psychiatric report. With reference to any recommendations in that report, I may consider your application at a later date.'
'Bam,' goes the hammer.
'All-a rise,' says the officer.
Muzak plays near the cells tonight. It fucken lays me out and buries me alongside my friends. It goes: 'I beg your par-den, I never promised you a rose gar-den.' Hot weather always brings these fucked ole tunes, always in the background, in fucken mono. Fate. Like, notice how whenever something happens in your life, like you fall in love or something, a tune gets attached. Fate tunes. Watch out for that shit.
I lay on the bunk and imagine this tune playing at a Greyhound terminal. In the TV-movie of my life, I'd be the crusty, mixed-up kid, all rugged and lonely, older than my years; dragging long shadows to hop a bus out of town, a bus with Mexico written on it. 'Pssschhh,' the crusty ole driver opens the door of his motor-coach, and smiles like he has a secret, that everything turns out fine. The kid's boot steps out of the dirt. His guitar swings low. A cowgirl with blond hair and Levi's sits alone, halfway down the aisle, probably wearing blue cotton panties under. Bikinis, or tangas. Probably bikinis. Nothing crusty about her. See what I mean? It's this kind of strategic vision that separates us from the animals.
My ole lady calls, but I can't make my imagination deal with her. I have until fucken Wednesday to do a little dreaming. That's when the shrink can see me. I survive two and a half days with Jesus' leaden soul in the shadows, and three rubber nights a-twanging with soundbites of his death. In the end, I pass the time practicing faces for the psychiatrist. I don't know if it's better to act crazy, or regular, or what. If the shrinks on TV are anything to go by, it'll be fucken hard to find out, because they just repeat every damn thing you say. If you say, 'I'm devastated,' they go, 'I hear you saying you're devastated.' How do you deal with that? All I know is what I learned last week, that a healthy life should feel spongy, like a burrito. This Tuesday night, the first-week anniversary of the shootings, my life feels like a fucken corn chip.
I hear Barry's keychain swinging up the corridor, clink-a-clink. He stops by the grille of my door, out of sight, just breathing and clinking. He knows I'm waiting for him to say I have a call. But he starts to walk away, then shuffles back again. See?
'Little?' he finally says.
'Yeah, Barry?'
'That's Officer Gurie to you. You ain't porkin the preacher in there are ya? You ain't tossin the ham javelin all night long, thinkin of your Meskin boy? Grr-hrr-hrr.'
Fuck him to death. He walks me upstairs to the phone, and I fantasize about ramming his baton up his goddam ass. Not that he'd probably even feel it.
The weeping sax from the TV weather plays in the office, just to cheer me up. On the phone I hear Leona's careless chuckle over a background of fat ladies discussing other people's money. The weather plays at their end too. I get it in fucken stereo. Then comes the skidmark of my ole lady's voice.
' Vernon, are you all right?'
Her sniffling feels like she physically has her tongue in my ear, like an anteater or something. Makes me want to puke and bawl at the same time, go fucken figure. Here's why she's going for gold, let me tell you: it's because now I'm not only in jail, but I might be fucken crazy as well. What a bonanza for her if I'm fucken crazy as well. Then her problem would be that she already spent her best whimpery moves; like, she'd have to shred a tit or something, just to keep up with the Unfolding Tragedy of Her Fucken Life. Out of kindness, I absorb the maximum number of sniffles before speaking.
'How could you do that to me, Ma?'
'Well I only told the truth, Vernon. Anyway young man, how could you do all this to me?'
'I didn't do anything.'
'Well, famous actors put toothpaste under their eyes to help them cry. Did you know that?'
'Say what?
'I'm just telling you for court, in case you look too impassive. You know how impassive you can look.'
'Ma – just don't talk to Lally anymore, okay?'
'Hold on,' she takes her mouth from the phone, 'it's all right Leona, it's the fridge people.' You hear questioning noises in back, about the time of night, then Mom comes on the line again. 'Well it's ridiculous – I've waited days for you people!'
'Goodnight, Ma.'
'Wait!' She presses her mouth to the phone, whispering. ' Vernon – it's probably best not to mention anything about the, er…'
'Gun?'
'Well yes, probably best to keep it between us, you know?'
My daddy's gun. If only my ole lady had let me keep it at home. But no. The fucken gun gave her the tremors. I had to stash it far from the house, way out in the public domain. Nuckles must know it's there. Jesus must've used it as a wild card, must've mentioned it to stop him following, to make him think there was an arsenal stashed away. But then Jesus died. Took the information, the context, all our innocent boyhood times with him. Took the truth with him.
Just my gun's left behind, with all the wrong fingerprints on it. Left behind, just waiting.
Act II How I spent my summer vacation
seven
The sign on the shrink's door says: 'Dr Goosens.' What a crack. Goosens. Whoever invented the Cold Light of Day sure went to fucken town on it, boy. On the ride over here I had a truckload of ideas about how to act crazy, maybe pull some Kicked Dog, some Spooked Deer and all, like Mom does. I even thought I could maybe drop a load in my pants or something, as a last resort. It's a slimy secret, I know it. I even loosened my asshole in case it came to that. But now, in the cold light of day, I just hope I flossed enough.
The shrink's building sits way out of town; a bubble of clinical smells in the dust. A receptionist with spiky teeth, and a voicebox made from bees trapped in tracing paper, sits behind a desk in the waiting room. She gives me the fucken shiver, but the jail guards don't seem to notice her at all. I have an urge to ask her name, but I don't. I can imagine her saying, 'Why, I'm Graunley Stelt,' or 'Achtung Beed,' or something way fucken bent. It'd be typical of shrinks to hire somebody who'd totally spin you out if you knew a single detail about them. If you weren't edgy when you came in, you would be after you met the fucken receptionist.
'Bloop,' an intercom hoots behind her desk.
'Didn't you get my email?' asks a man.
'No, Doctor,' says the receptionist.
'Please monitor the systems, there's no point upgrading our technology if you don't monitor the systems. I emailed you thr
ee minutes ago for the next patient.'
'Yes, Doctor.' She taps at her keyboard, scowls at the monitor, then looks at me. 'The doctor will see you now.'
My Nikes chirp over black and green linoleum, through a door, and into a room with supermarket lighting. Two armchairs sit by a window; an ole stereo rests beside one of them, with a notebook computer on top. At the back of the room stands a hospital bunk on wheels, with a towel over it. And there's Dr Goosens; round, soft, butt-heavy, and as smug as a Disney worm. He smiles sympathetically, and waves me to an armchair.
'Cindy, bring the client's file, please.'
Check my fucken face now. Cindy! It slays me. Now I'm just waiting for her to say, 'Groovy, Wayne,' and bounce through the door in a little tennis skirt or something. She doesn't though, not in the cold light of day. She trudges past in socks and sandals, and hands a file to Goosens. He thumbs through the pages and waits for her to leave the room.
' Vernon Gregory Little, how are you today?'
'Okay, I guess.' My Nikes tap each other.
'Alrighty. What can you tell me about why you're here?'
'The judge must think I'm crazy, or something.'
'And are you?' He gets ready to chuckle, like it's obvious I ain't. It might help if the judge thought I was bananas, but looking at Ole Mother Goosens just makes me want to tell him how I really feel, which is that everybody backed me into a nasty corner with their crashy fucken powerdimes.
'I guess it ain't up to me to say,' I tell him. It doesn't seem enough though; he stares and waits for more. As I catch his eye, I feel the past wheeze up my throat in a raft of bitter words. 'See, first everybody dissed me because my buddy was Mexican, then because he was weird, but I stood by him, I thought friendship was a sacred thing – then it all went to hell, and now I'm being punished for it, they're twisting every regular little fact to fit my guilt…'
Goosens raises a hand, and smiles gently. 'Alrighty, let's see what we can discover. Please continue to be candid – if you open yourself up to this process, in good faith, we won't have a problem at all. Now, tell me – how do you feel about what's happened?'
