Vernon God Little (2 page)

A no-brand smile grows under the sheriff’s moustache. ‘Regular boy then, are you, son? You like your cars, and your guns? And your - girls?’

‘Sure.’

‘Okay, all right - let’s see if it’s true. How many offices does a girl have that you can get more’n one finger into?’

‘Offices?’

‘Cavities - holes.’

‘Uh - two?’

‘Wrong.’ The sheriff puffs up like he just discovered fucken relativity.

Fuck. I mean, how am I supposed to know? I got my fingertip into a hole once, don’t ask me which one. It left memories of the Mini-Mart loading-bay after a storm; tangs of soggy cardboard and curdled milk. Somehow I don’t think that’s what your porn industry is talking about. Not like this other girl I know called Taylor Figueroa.

Sheriff Porkorney tosses his bone into the box, nodding to Gurie. ‘Get it on record, then hold him.’ He creaks out of the room.

‘Vaine?’ calls an officer through the door. ‘Fibers.’

Gurie re-forms into limbs. ‘You heard the sheriff. I’ll be back with another officer to take your statement.’

When the rubbing of her thighs has faded, I crane my nostrils for any vague comfort; a whiff of warm toast, a spearmint breath. But all I whiff, over the sweat and the barbecue sauce, is school - the kind of pulse bullyboys give off when they spot a quiet one, a wordsmith, in a corner. The scent of lumber being cut for a fucken cross.

two

Mom’s best friend is called Palmyra. Everybody calls her Pam. She’s fatter than Mom, so Mom feels good around her. Mom’s other friends are slimmer. They’re not her best friends.

Pam’s here. Three counties hear her bellowing at the sheriff’s secretary. ‘Lord, where is he? Eileena, have you seen Vern? Hey, love the hair!’

‘Not too frisky?’ tweets Eileena.

‘Lord no, the brown really suits you.’

You have to like Palmyra, I guess, not that you’d want to imagine her humping or anything. She has a lemon-fresh lack of knives about her. What she does is eat.

‘Have you fed him?’

‘I think Vaine bought ribs,’ says Eileena.

‘Vaine Gurie? She’s supposed to be on the Pritikin diet - Barry’ll have a truck!’

‘Good-night, she damn near lives at Bar-B-Chew Barn!’

‘Oh good Lord.’

‘Vernon’s in there, Pam,’ says Eileena. ‘You better wait outside.’

So the door flies open. Pam wobbles in, bolt upright like she has books on her head. It’s on account of her center of gravity. ‘Vernie, you eatin rebs? What did you eat today?’

‘Breakfast.’

‘Oh Lord, we better go by the Barn.’ Doesn’t matter what you tell her, she’s going by Bar-B-Chew Barn, believe me.

‘I can’t, Pam, I have to stay.’

‘Malarkey, come on now.’ She tugs my elbow. The force of it recommends the floor to my feet. ‘Eileena, I’m taking Vern - you tell Vaine Gurie this boy ain’t eaten, I’m double-parked out front, and she better hide some pounds before I see Barry.’

‘Leave him, Pam, Vaine ain’t through …’

‘I don’t see no handcuffs, and a child has a right to eat.’ Pam’s voice starts to rattle furniture.

‘I don’t make the rules,’ says Eileena. ‘I’m just sayin …’

‘Vaine can’t hold him - you know that. We’re gone,’ says Pam. ‘Love your hair.’

Eileena’s sigh follows us down the hallway. My ears flick around for signs of Gurie or the sheriff, but the offices seem empty; the sheriff’s offices that is. Next thing you know, I’m halfway out of the building in Palmyra’s gravity-field. You just can’t argue with this much modern woman, I tell you.

Outside, a jungle of clouds has grown over the sun. They kindle the whiff of damp dog that always blows around here before a storm, burping lightning without a sound. Fate clouds. They mean get the fuck out of town, go visit Nana or something, until things quiet down, until the truth seeps out. Get rid of the drugs from home, then take a road trip.

A shimmer rises off the hood of Pam’s ole Mercury. Martirio’s tight-assed buildings quiver through it, oil pumpjacks melt and sparkle along the length of Gurie Street. Yeah: oil, jackrabbits, and Guries are what you find in Martirio. This was once the second-toughest town in Texas, after Luling. Whoever got beat up in Luling must’ve crawled over here. These days our toughest thing is congestion at the drive-thru on a Saturday night. I can’t say I’ve seen too many places, but I’ve studied this one close and the learnings must be the same; all the money, and folk’s interest in fixing things, parade around the center of town, then spread outwards in a dying wave. Healthy girls skip around the middle in whiter-than-white panties, then regions of shorts and cotton prints radiate out to the edges, where tangled babes hang in saggy purple underwear. Just a broken ole muffler shop on the outskirts; no more sprinklers, no more lawns.

‘Lord,’ says Pam, ‘tell me why I can just taste a Chik ‘n’ Mix.’

Fucken yeah, right. Even in winter the Mercury stinks of fried chicken, never mind today when it’s like a demon’s womb. Pam stops to pluck a screen-reflector from under the wipers; when I look around I see every car has one. Seb Harris rides through the haze at the end of the street, distributing them from his bike. Pam opens the thing out and squints at the writing: ‘Harris’s Store,’ it reads, ‘More, More, More!’

‘Lookit that,’ she says. ‘We just saved us the price of a Chik ‘n’ Mix:

Deep fucken trouble keeps my euphoria at bay. Pam just molds into the car. Her soul’s already knotted over the choice of side-order, you can tell. She’ll end up getting coleslaw anyway, on account of Mom says it’s healthy. It’s vegetables, see. Me, I need something healthier today. Like the afternoon bus out of town.

A siren wails past us at the corner of Geppert Street. Don’t ask me why, they can’t save any children now. Pam will miss this corner anyway - it’s fucken traditional, look, there she goes. Now she’ll have to cut back two blocks, and she’ll say, ‘Lord, nothing stays put in this town.’ Reporters and camera people roam the streets in packs. I keep my head down, and scan the floor for fire ants. ‘Far aints,’ Pam calls them. Fuck knows what other fauna climbs aboard in the century it takes her to get in and out of the fucken car. Wild Fucken Kingdom, I swear.

Today everybody at the Barn wears black, except for the Nikes on their feet. I identify the different models while they box up the chicken. Town’s like a club, see. You recognize fellow members by their shoes. They won’t even sell certain shoes to outsiders, it’s a fact. I watch these black forms scurry around with different-colored feet and, just like when anything weird screens through the Mercury window, Glen Campbell starts to sing ‘Galveston’ from Pam’s ole stereo. It’s a law of nature. Pam only has this one cassette, see - The Best of Glen Campbell. It jammed in the slot the first time she played it, and just kept on playing. Fate. Pam sings along with the same part of the song every time, the part about the girl. I think she once had a boyfriend from Wharton, which is closer to Galveston than here. No songs about Wharton I guess.

‘Vern, eat the bottom pieces before they get soggy.’

‘Then the top pieces will be on the bottom.’

‘Oh Lord.’ She lunges for the tub, but doesn’t get past the refresher wipes before we turn into Liberty Drive. She must’ve forgot about Liberty Drive today.

Look at all the girls crying by the school.

Galveston, oh Galveston …

Another luxury wagon parks up ahead, with even more flowers, even more girls. It maneuvers slowly around the stains on the road. Strangers with cameras move back to fit it all in.

I still hear your sea waves crashing …

Behind the girls, behind the flowers are the mothers, and behind the mothers are the counselors; senior brownies at a petting zoo.

While I watch the cannons flashing …

Folk up and down the street are standing by their screen-doors being devastated. Mom’s so-called friend Leona was already devastated last week, when Penney’s delivered the wrong color kitchen drapes. Typical of her to go off half-cocked.

‘Oh my Lord, Vernie, oh God - all those tiny crosses …’ I feel Palmyra’s hand on my shoulder, and find myself sobbing spit.

The picture of Jesus that hangs behind the sheriff’s door was taken at the crime scene. From a different angle than I last saw him. It doesn’t show all the other bodies around, all the warped, innocent faces. Not like the picture in my soul. Tuesday breaks through me like a fucken hemorrhage.

I clean my gun, and dream of Galves-ton …

*

Jesus Navarro was born with six fingers on each hand, and that wasn’t the most different thing about him. It’s what took him though, in the very, very end. He didn’t expect to die Tuesday; they found him wearing silk panties. Now girls’ underwear is a major focus of the investigation, go figure. His ole man says the cops planted them on him. Like, ‘Lingerie Squad! Freeze!’ I don’t fucken think so.

That morning crowds my mind. ‘Hay-zoose, slow the fuck up!’ I remember yelling to him.

A headwind worries our bikes on the way to school, weights them almost as heavy as this last Tuesday before summer vacation. Physics, then math, then physics again, some stupid experiment in the lab. Hell on fucken earth.

Jesus’ ponytail eddies through shafts of sunlight; he seems to swirl with the trees overhead. He’s changing, ole Jesus, turning pretty in an Indian kind of way. The stumps of his extra fingers have almost disappeared. He’s still clumsy as hell though, and his mind’s clumsy too; the certainty of our kid logic got washed away, leaving pebbles of anger and doubt that crack together with each new wave of emotion. My buddy, who once did the best David Letterman impression you ever saw, has been abducted by glandular acids. Sassy song and smell hormones must fume off his brain, the type that curdle if your mom senses them. But you get the feeling they ain’t regular hormones. He keeps secrets from me, like he never did before. He got weird. Nobody knows why.

I saw a show about adolescents that said role models were the key to development, same as for dogs. You could tell whoever made the show never met Jesus’ dad, though. Or mine, for that matter. My dad was better than Mr Navarro, until the end anyway, although I used to get pissed that he wouldn’t let me use his rifle, like Mr Navarro let Jesus use his. Now I cuss the day I ever saw my daddy’s gun, and I guess Jesus cusses his day too. He needed a different role model, but nobody was there for him. Our teacher Mr Nuckles spent all kinds of time with him after school, but I ain’t sure ole powder-puff Nuckles and his circus of fancy words really count. I mean, the guy’s over thirty, and you just know he sits down to piss. He spent all this time with Jesus, up at his place, and riding in his car, talking softly, with his head down, like those caring folk you see on TV. One time I saw them hug, I guess like brothers or something. Don’t even go there, really. The point is, in the end, Nuckles recommended a shrink. Jesus got worse after that.

Lothar ‘Lard-ass’ Larbey drives by in his ole man’s truck, flicking his tongue at my buddy. ‘Wetback fudge-packer!’ he yells.

Jesus just drops his head. I sting for him sometimes, with his retreaded, second-hand Jordan New Jacks, and his goddam alternative lifestyle, if that’s what you call this new fruity thing. His character used to fit him so clean, like a sports sock, back when we were kings of the universe, when the dirt on a sneaker mattered more than the sneaker itself. We razed the wilds outside town with his dad’s gun, terrorized ole beer cans, watermelons, and trash. It’s like we were men before we were boys, back before we were whatever the fuck we are now. I feel my lips clamp together with the strangeness of life, and watch my buddy pull alongside me on his bike. His eyes glaze over, like they do since he started seeing that shrink. You can tell he’s retreated into one of his philosophical headfucks.

‘Man, remember the Great Thinker we heard about in class last week?’ he asks.

‘The one that sounded like “Manual Cunt”?’

‘Yeah, who said nothing really happens unless you see it happen.’

‘All I remember is asking Naylor if he ever heard of a Manual Cunt, and him going, “I only drive automatics.” We dropped the biggest fucken load.’

Jesus clicks his tongue. ‘Shit, Vermin, you always only thinkin bout dropped loads. Just loads, and shit, and girl tangs. This is real, man. Manual Cunt asked the thing about the kitten - the riddle, that if there was a box with a kitten inside, and if the box also had an open bottle of death-gas or whatever, that the kitten’s definitely going to knock over at any moment …’

‘Whose kitten is this? I bet they’re pissed.’

‘Fuck, Verm, I’m serious. This is a real-time philosophy question. The kitten’s in this box, definitely gonna die at some moment, and Manual Cunt asks if it may as well be called dead already, technically, unless somebody’s there to see it still alive, to know it exists.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to stomp on the fucken kitten?’

‘It’s not about wasting the kitten, asshole.’ You can tick Jesus off real easy these days. His logic got all serious.

‘What’s the fucken point, Jeez?’

He frowns and answers slowly, digging each word out with a shovel. ‘That if things don’t happen unless you see them happening - do they still happen if you know they’re gonna - but don’t tell nobody …?’

As the words reach my ears, the mausoleum shapes of Martirio High School slam into view through the trees. A bitty chill like a worm burrows through me.

three

Too fucken late. When you spot a jackrabbit it automatically spots you back; it’s a fact of nature, in case you didn’t know. Same goes for Vaine Gurie, who I spy in the road by my house. Storms clouds park over her patrol car.

‘Pam, stop! Leave me right here …’

‘Get a grip, we’re nearly home.’ Pam don’t stop easy once she’s going.

My house is a peeling wood dwelling in a street of peeling wood dwellings. Before you see it through the willows, you see the oil pumpjack next door. I don’t know about your town, but around here we decorate our pumpjacks. Even have competitions for them. Our pumpjack is fixed up like a mantis, with a head and legs stuck on. This giant mantis just pump, pump, pumps away at the dirt next door. The local ladies decorated it. This year’s prize went to the Godzilla pumpjack on Calavera Drive, though.