Vernon God Little (4 page)

'Bertram? Vaine's on TV.'

After a second, Gurie's phone rings in her pocket. 'Sheriff? No sir, I swear to God. Bandera Road? About two blocks from here. Dogs? Yes sir, right away.'

Ledesma folds up his camera and watches Vaine shuffle to her car, defeated. Then, as a crack of thunder chases the last shine from the pumpjack, he turns to me and winks in slow-motion. It has to be slo-mo for how fucken fast it is. I try not to smile. Or drop a load the size of fucken Texas.

'You owe me a story,' he mouths silently, pointing a short, puffy finger. I just nod, and follow my ole lady onto the porch with Leona, George, and Betty. She ushers them inside, then hangs back at the screen to see if ole Mrs Porter, childless Mrs Porter, out-of-the-spotlight Mrs Porter, is still watching from her doorway. She is, but she's pretending not to. Kurt the dog's watching, though. He don't care to pretend.

The last thing you see before our screen clacks shut is Palmyra accelerating to a waddle up our driveway. She passes Gurie, and jabs a finger at the stain around her badge.

'Uh-oh, Vaine - barbecue sauce.'

In a black and white world, everything in my room is fucken evidence against me. A haze of socks and underwear riddled with secret dreams. My computer has history to wipe from the drive, like the amputee sex pictures I printed for ole Silas. He doesn't have a computer, see. Silas is a sick ole puppy - don't even go there, really. He trades stuff with us kids in return for pictures, if you know what I mean. I make a note to wipe the computer, or 'Perform some Virtual Hygiene,' as Mr Nuckles would say. My eyes crawl around the rest of the room. Last week's laundry sits in a pile by my bed, Mom's lingerie catalog is under it; I have to return it to her room. And hope like hell she never tries to open page 67 or 68. You know how it is. Then there's my closet, with the Nike box in back. Inside are two joints, and two hits of LSD. Don't get me wrong, I'm only holding them for Taylor Figueroa.

Muddy light breaks through the gloom outside my window. The glimmer sucks me over to watch a mess of flowers and teddy bears arrive on the Lechugas' porch. Now it looks like Princess Debbie's place, or whoever the princess was who died. It's all just in a pile, still wrapped. So you know the Lechugas paid for it. Nobody else sent flowers for Max, that's the sadness of the thing. Pathetic, really.

I'm studying this whole tragedy routine, in back of my jellified brain. The Lechugas have to send themselves teddy bears, for instance. Know why? Because Max was an asshole. Saw-teeth of damnation I feel just thinking it, waiting for fiery hounds to unleash mastications and puke my fucken soul to hell. But at the same time, here's me with water in my eyes, for Max, for all my classmates. The truth is a corrosive thing. It's like everybody who used to cuss the dead is now lining up to say what perfect angels of God they were. What I'm learning is the world laughs through its ass every day, then just lies double-time when shit goes down. It's like we're on a Pritikin diet of fucken lies. I mean - what kind of fucken life is this?

I drag the crusty edge of a T-shirt over my eyes, and try to get over things. I should clean up my mess, seeing as everybody's so antsy, but I feel like smeared shit. Then a learning jumps to mind, that once you plan to do something, and figure how long it'll take, that's exactly how long Fate gives you before the next thing comes along to do.

'Vern?' Mom hollers from the kitchen. 'Ver-non!'

four

'Ver-non?'

'Do what?' I yell. Mom doesn't fucken answer. A typical mother thing, they just monitor the notes of your voice. If you ask them later what you said, they don't even fucken know. Just the noises have to sound right, like, dorky enough.

'Ver-non.'

I close my closet door, and step down the hall to the kitchen, where a familiar scene plays around the breakfast bar. Leona's in the kitchen with Mom, who's messing with the oven. Brad Pritchard is on the rug in the living room, pretending you can't see his finger up his ass. Everybody pretends they can't see it. See the way folks are? They don't want to smutten their Wint-O-Green lives by saying, 'Brad, get your fucken finger out of your goddam anus,' so they just pretend it ain't there.

Same way they try and avoid the sting of mourning around this ole town. They can't, though, you know it. Their ribs are pressed tight with the weight of grief. The only hopeful sight is Pam, beached on dad's ole sofa at the dark end of the room. A Snickers bar appears from the folds of her moo-moo.

I go to the kitchen side of the bar, where Leona's still working up to her brags; she has to empty Mom out first, so her voice slithers up and down, 'Oh how neat, wow, Doris, oh great,' like a foam sireen. Then, when Mom's all boosted up, she trumps her.

'Hey, did I tell you I'm getting a maid?'

Mom's mouth crinkles. 'Oh - hey.'

Hold your breath for the second thing. George blows ultra-slim cigarette smoke over Betty as they pretend to watch TV; their ultra-mild smiles come from knowing how many things there are. Mom just frets over the oven. Gives her somewhere to stick her fucken head if no more things turn up. A bug of sweat crawls down her nose, Thk,' onto the brown linoleum.

'Yeah,' says Leona, 'she starts when I get back from Hawaii.'

The house sags with relief. 'Well gosh, another vacation?' asks Mom.

Leona flicks back her hair. 'Todd would've wanted me to do nice things, you know - while I'm young.' Like: yeah, right.

'Hell, but I can't believe today,' says George from the living room. That signals the end of the brags.

'I know, I know,' says Betty.

'You think things have gone as far as they can go, then - boom!'

'Oh golly, I know.'

'Six pounds if it's an ounce, and I only saw her last week. Six pounds in a week!' George weaves a trumpet of smoke around the words. Betty waves them away with her hand.

'It's that diet, all those carbs,' says Leona.

Pam grunts darkly in back.

'I know,' says Betty. 'Why didn't she stick to Weight Watchers?'

'Honey,' says George, 'Vaine Gurie's lucky to stick to the seat of her damn shorts. I don't know why she tries.'

'Barry threatened her,' says Pam. 'She has a month to ditch her flab, or he's gone.'

George points her mouth into the air, so the words will fly over her head to Pam. 'Then forget Pritikin - she needs the Wilmer Plan.'

'But Georgette,' says Mom from the kitchen, 'the Wilmer didn't work for me - not yet, anyway.'

Leona and Betty level eyes at each other. George coughs quietly. 'I don't think you quite got the hang of it, Doris.'

'Well, I guess I'm still trying it out, you know … Anyway, did I tell you I ordered the side-by-side fridge?'

'Wow,' says Leona, 'the Special Edition? What color?'

Mom's eyes fall to the floor. 'Well - almond on almond.'

Look at her: flushed and shiny with sweat, hunched under her brown ole hair, in her brown ole kitchen. Deep inside, her organs pump double-time, trying to turn bile into strawberry milk. Outside, her brown ole life festers uselessly around the jokey red bow on her dress.

I prompt her from the laundry end. 'Ma?'

'Well there you are - go ask that TV man if he'd like a Coke, it must be ninety degrees outside.'

'The one dressed like Ricardo Moltenbomb?'

'Well he's much younger than Ricardo Montalban - isn't he, girls? And better-looking …'

'Hnf,' says Pam.

George leans out of her chair to catch Mom's eye. 'You're going to ask a total stranger inside, just like that?'

'Well Georgette, we Martirians are known for our hospitality …'

'Uh-huh,' snorts George. 'I didn't see many of those cheerleaders up here, after their bus broke down that time.'

'Well but this is different.'

All the girls except for Pam exchange lip-tightenings. George clears her throat a little.

Brad Pritchard finishes with his ass. Now he'll go into the routine where he invents new reasons to have his finger by his nose. As I slip through the kitchen door, I catch his eye, point to my ass, then suck my finger.

'M-om,' he squeals.

Beulah Drive is spongy with heat. I wander over to a lemonade stand some kids have set up on number twelve's driveway; they ask fifty cents for information about the reporter, so I wander back, and check the red van under the Lechugas' willow. My nose flattens to the rear glass. You can see a lunchbox behind the seat, with half a brown apple in it. Some wires on the floor. A chewed-up ole book titled 'Make It In Media'. Then you see Ledesma's head rested on a pair of ole boots. He splays naked across a canvas mat inside, eyes closed, muscles heavy and slick. He jackrabbits when I spot him.

'Shit!' He jerks up onto an elbow, rubbing his eyes. 'Big man - come round to the door.'

I tap a stray teddy onto the Lechugas' lawn, and move around to the side. A blast of sweat hits me when the door opens. The guy's face is waxy. Definitely over thirty. I can tell my ole lady likes him, but I ain't so sure.

'You live in the van?' I ask.

'Tch - the motel's full. Anyway, it gives my corporate Amex a break.' A bunch of glass phials tumble across the floor as he grabs his clothes.

'Mom says you can come up for a Coke.'

'I could sure use your bathroom. And maybe a bite to eat.'

'We have joy cakes.'

'Joy cakes?'

'Don't ask.'

Ledesma grabs a handful of the tiny bottles from the floor, stuffing them into a pocket as he stretches into his overalls. He studies me through quick, black eyes. 'Your mom's stressed today.'

'This is one of her better days.'

He gives a laugh like asthma, 'Hururrr, hrrr,' and slaps me on the arm. Kind of slap my dad used to give me, when he was feeling friendly. We move back over the road and up the driveway, but Ledesma stops by the wishing bench to adjust his balls. Then he shakes his head, and looks at me.

'Vern - you're innocent, right?'

'Uh-huh.'

'I don't know why it gets to me, tch. All this shit raining down on you, I can't help thinking -

what kind of fucking life is this?'

'Tell me about it.'

He puts a hand on my shoulder. 'I'd be prepared to help.'

I just stare at my New Jacks. To be honest, intimate moments aren't my scene at all, especially when you just saw a guy naked. Next thing you know you're in a fucken TV-movie, quivering all over the place. I guess he senses it. He takes his hand away, tweaks his crotch again, and leans against the wishing bench, which sharply tilts away.

'Shit,' he says, pulling back. 'Can't you stand this somewhere flat?'

'Yeah, like - back at the store.'

He laughs. 'You should tell your story, little big man, clear your name - the world loves an underdog.'

'What about the spot we just did, with Deputy Gurie?'

'Tch - camera wasn't running.'

'Get outta town.'

'Call it a favor - between underdogs.'

'You're an underdog?' Mrs Porter's door opens as I say it; Kurt's nose snuffles out.

'Only underdogs and psychos in this world,' says Ledesma. 'Psychos like that fat-assed deputy.

Think about it.'

I don't think long. You have to quiver on TV, it's a fucken law of nature. You have to quiver and be fucken devastated all the time. I know it for sure, and you'd know it too if you saw Mom watching Court TV. 'See how impassive he is, he chopped up ten people and ate their bowels but he doesn't show a care in the world.' I personally don't see the logic in having to quiver if you're innocent.

If you ask me, people who don't eat your bowels are more likely to be impassive. But no, one learning I made is that juries watch the same shows as my ole lady. If you don't quiver, you're fucken guilty.

'I don't know,' I say, turning to the porch.

Ledesma hangs back. 'Don't underestimate your general public, Vern - they want to see justice being done. I say give them what they want.'

'But, like - I didn't do anything.'

'Tch, and who knows it? People decide with or without the facts - if you don't get out there and paint your paradigm, someone'll paint it for you.'

'My what?'

'Pa-ra-dime. You never heard of the paradigm shift? Example: you see a man with his hand up your granny's ass. What do you think?'

'Bastard.'

'Right. Then you learn a deadly bug crawled up there, and the man has in fact put aside his disgust to save Granny. What do you think now?'

'Hero.' You can tell he ain't met my nana.

'There you go, a paradigm shift. The action doesn't change - the information you use to judge it does. You were ready to crucify the guy because you didn't have the facts. Now you want to shake his hand.'

'I don't think so.'

'I mean figuratively, asshole,' he laughs, punching out six of my ribs. 'Facts may seem black and white by the time they hit your TV screen, but professional teams sift through mountains of gray to get them there. You need positioning, like a product in the market - the jails are full of people who didn't manage their positions.'

'Wait up, I have a witness, you know.'

Ledesma heads up the porch steps. 'Yeah, and Deputy Lard-ass is so interested. Public opinion will go with the first psycho who points a finger. You're butt-naked, big man.'

We creak through the screen into the cool of the kitchen. Mom's here, all wiped dry with her frog mitt, a smudge of joy cake on one cheek. The other ole flaps are in the background acting natural.

'Ladies!' says Lally, grinning. 'This is how you lounge, while I'm outside like a slave?'

'Oh, Mr Smedma,' says Mom.

'Eulalio Ledesma, ma'am. Educated people call me Lally.'

'Well can I get you a Coke, Mr Lesma? Diet, or diet-decaf if you prefer?' Mom loves it when important people call by, like the doctor and all. Her lashes flutter like dying flies.

Lally hoists his ass onto the kitchen bench, makes himself comfortable. 'Thanks, just water for me - and maybe one of these cakes. Actually I have something exciting to share with you ladies, if you're interested.'

'Wake me when it's over,' mutters Pam in back.

Lally pulls out the glass bottles, filled with like piss. 'Siberian Ginseng Compound.' He jams one into my hand, winking. 'Better than Viagra.'