Vernon God Little (25 page)

‘Well Lally dumped Leona, so that’s one thing, not that we ever thought he wouldn’t. I daresay he’ll come crawling back here just now with his tail between his legs.’ She gives an ironic kind of grunt.

‘Ma, gimme a break.’

‘Well you just wouldn’t understand, he needs a strong woman around, with all that new responsibility - specially now he edged Vaine out of the picture …’

‘Responsi-bility?’

‘Well you must’ve heard, he bought the rights to your trial and everything. The company’s in negotiations to buy the correctional facility at Huntsville too, and he’s just stretched to the limit, without someone who really understands him, who really cares.’ She listens to my stony quiet for a moment, then tries to pump some cream pie. ‘So - did you have a nice birthday?’

‘Not really.’

‘Well I left the cake this year, I didn’t know if you’d be in town. Anyway, if you showed up I could’ve grabbed one at Harris’s, their opening hours are extended till ten every night now, although Marjorie isn’t too comfortable with the new arrangement, not yet anyway. These things can take time, I guess.’

I’m still deciding if it’s a bad or a good thing, this syndrome of loved-ones not talking about obvious shit. In a way it’s kind of embarrassing, with this really obvious big maggot in my life, oozing and stinking in front of everybody. Nobody talks about it, though. I guess it speaks for itself.

A pretty good breakfast turns up after I finish the call, with toast, grits, and hash browns on the side of my egg and chorizo. Then my new attorney arrives, appointed by the State. They cast Brian Dennehy as my attorney, no fucken kidding, all burly and wise. Ole Ricochet Rabbit really did get fired, I guess. Another underdog replaced by overdogs. This Brian gives me some real hope, though, you know he always wins his cases. I’m damn hopeful, and I just know the jury will love him, they’ll be wishing he was their dad, all crusty and benign. I have a long talk with ole Brian, and tell him the way things are stacked.

‘You’re saying you’re innocent?’ he asks. ‘You weren’t even there at all?’

‘Well, I mean I was there at, like, the school, and I guess my body crossed the same ground as where Barry Gurie fell, but …’

He frowns and holds up a hand. ‘Your testimony may not inspire a jury. You with me?’

‘Uh - sure.’

‘It’s an important defense,’ he says from the door. ‘Let’s not push our luck. It’s important for you, and important for me.’

‘Glad to hear you say it.’

‘Oh sure,’ he nods. ‘Capital trials are the cutting edge of our justice system.’

‘So, Mr Little, you’ll be the first to trial the new system - excuse the pun.’ The man from the court chuckles, and looks away. Whenever he smiles he looks away. And he smiles plenty, sitting here all cozy on the bunk in my cell.

‘Before you decide, you should know there’s no pressure whatsoever to press the buzzer, which will be prominently mounted in your, um - security enclosure. A camera will be trained on it at all times, to guard against accidents. But, if at any moment during the proceedings you should feel inclined to change your plea, or to in any way revoke the information given so far, the buzzer will give you recourse to instant and positive action, as well as providing a valuable visual aid in the interpretation of justice for viewers across the globe …’

‘Is there a buzzer for being innocent?’

‘Vernon, you are innocent. Until proven guilty - remember?’ The man rolls my way and smiles into my face like I’m a very small child. ‘I assure you every precaution has been taken in the system’s design. Both the button and the lights it activates are green, thereby avoiding the more stressful implications of the color red. Also, although we jokingly call it a buzzer, the sound it makes is more of a chime …’

Act IV

How my summer vacation spent me

nineteen

Every forty-three blinks, the flashing lights on the police cars that follow my van into Houston synchronize. They flash separately for a few turns, then start flashing in series, like leading-in lights. Then, for a second, they all flash at once.

What I learn as I’m driven into Houston under low, still clouds, and choppers, for the first day of my trial, is that life works the same way. Most of the time you feel the potential for synchrony, but only once in a while do things actually synch up. Things can synch good, or synch bad. Take me, for example. I stand accused of just about every murder in Texas between the time I left home and when they hauled my ass back. With my face all over the media, folks started seeing me everywhere, I guess. Recall, they call it. Watch out for that sucker. And I’m still accused of the tragedy. Everybody just forgot about Jesus. Everybody except me.

So the whole summer has passed since I last troubled you with my talkings. Yeah; I spent summer locked up, waiting for trial. Jesus kept me company, in a way. I just couldn’t talk. Life got real, I guess. Maybe I just plain grew up. Watch out for that sucker too, I mean it.

I turn to the bitty side-window in the van and watch fence posts slide by. An October damp has taken the landscape and wrung out the shine. Maybe it’s better wrung out. That’s what I think when I look back at the last weeks. For instance, my ole lady attempted suicide. Pam called secretly to ask me to be more encouraging about Lally, and the fridge and all. She said Mom closed up the house one day, turned the oven on full, and sat by its open door. Apparently it’s still a Cry For Help, even though our oven’s electric. Now Pam is feeding her up.

As for me today, I’m like a refrigerator myself, stale, empty, not even plugged in. My body has realized it doesn’t need sensory applications anymore, it just needs a real focused band of logic to survive. Just enough to play checkers and watch TV, that’s how smart the human body is, cutting back on things like that. And wouldn’t you know it - I needed glasses. The state discovered I have real bad eyesight, so it kindly got me these new glasses. I was none too sure at first, on account of they’re kind of big, and thick, with these clear plastic frames. But, with my head shaved clean, and all polished up, I have to admit they look okay, once you get used to them. The whole outfit’s kind of cool really, this pale blue pants suit, and my glasses with an elastic strap to keep them around my head. The strap was meant to hang around my neck, but I tightened it up to my head on account of it used to block my cross. Yeah - Mr Abdini gave me this crucifix on a chain. I couldn’t believe it, he was so nice and all. Ole Abdini drove all the way over here just to bring me this cross, with the little dude on it. Well, not even just a little dude, like - that’s Jesus on the cross. I mean, it’s hard to see all the details, but you just know it must be Jesus.

I had a talk with the psychologist here, told him I didn’t have any human qualities, like any skills or anything. But he said it wasn’t true, he said I had fine higher perceptions and sensitivity toward my fellow beings. In a way, I guess I do have those talents. I could sniff trouble before all this started, I say that must be a talent. It has to count for something. The other big news is that I quit cussing, believe it or not. I guess I’ve just used some of this time to, you know, watch TV, and not dwell on the bad side of things. Dwelling on the bad side of things has been identified as a problem area for me, that and being anal-fixated, if you’ll excuse me saying it, where all my thoughts end up relating to human waste matter, and undergarments, and what have you. Big problem area, but the psychologist says realization is the first step to change. I can’t even conjure tangs anymore, really. I’m just watching plenty of ole TV-movies, I guess checking back where I went wrong. The other day, a movie even brought a tear to my eye.

A lynch-mob crowds the streets around the courthouse, throwing things, screaming, and hammering on the van as I drive through. I see them through this tiny window, them and the cameras watching them. One thing, though, at the back there seems to be a crowd of supporters as well. The front of the courthouse has turned into the Astrodome, with camera and light towers, and live studios with National Personalities on them. Then there are catering wagons, hot-dog stands, power trucks, make-up trucks. T-shirt stands, lapel-pin stands, balloon sellers.

I don’t get taken straight to the courtroom, but into a make-up room behind the building; apparently on account of its being ‘Bathed in succulent, diffuse light,’ as the dude explains who sits me down and strokes my head. Some other court folks are here getting blush on their faces. They smile at me as if I was a colleague from the mailroom in their office, and talk about today as if it was a ball game. I notice my make-up is kind of pale. Pale and gray.

I’m finally walked up a long corridor, like the barrel of a gun. Bright light cuts the outline of a door at the end, and I’m led through it into the courtroom. Here we go. I enter this court an innocent man, I have to say, and I believe I’ll leave it via the front door, once they hear my story. Truth always wins out in the end, see. I look around at the cast of my whole life, who sit waiting in the smell of finger-paintings and popcorn glued onto cut-outs of shepherd Joseph’s lambs. Cameras whir on swivel mounts, people’s heads turn with them to watch me being locked into this kind of zoo cage, with a microphone, and a big green button mounted on the front. The cage has shiny black bars set four inches apart, and stands three feet taller than my head when I stand. One guard unlocks a door at the back, while a second man handles me inside. A plaque on the cage door says it’s made from a new alloy that no man alone can destroy. I cast an eye around the room and see my mom there with her mouth all tight across, like a Muppet or something. Her wrists are bandaged, I guess from her Cry For Help. Pam sits next to her with a face that tells you they’re full of some plastic motel breakfast, of the kind where the ingredients come in matching shapes, like out of a clay mold. They just love hospital food, and motel breakfasts and stuff. Today Mom has her own camera position. No knife turning, though, you know it. My knife turns by itself these days, now that I’m all grown up. My conscience is what the knife ended up being, according to the psychologist. A knife is the greatest gift your folks can give you, according to him.

My new attorney looks real positive, ole Brian, real confident about things. He stops for a moment to wink at me, then unloads a box of files onto his desk. There’s a whole set of shiny new prosecutors too. The head prosecutor even wears baggy pants, if you don’t think it’s too vulgar to say, if it’s not too regressive into my problem area. That’s how damn funny he thinks today’s going to be. At the bench on high, an ole judge clasps his hands together, and nods to the attorneys. Silence erupts.

‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,’ says the prosecutor. ‘Today we open one of the most cut-and-dried legal cases this state has ever seen. A person stands before you, having extinguished the lives of thirty-four decent citizens, many of them children - friends of his, even. A person who openly admits attending the scene of a high-school massacre, and who has been positively identified by eyewitnesses at the scenes of sixteen other capital crimes. A person whose childhood fantasies revolved around bloodshed and death. A person whose perverse sexual leanings link him inextricably to the other gunman in the high-school shooting. Ladies and gentlemen - today you will meet a person - and I use the term loosely - who, at the tender age of sixteen, has supplanted the notorious John Wayne Gacy, for the depth and boundlessness of his disregard for the most basic rights of others.’

He sweeps a hand across the crowd to my cage. Faces turn to take in my shiny head, my huge swimming eyes through the glasses. I stay impassive. The prosecutor smiles, as if remembering an ole joke.

‘And you know,’ he says, ‘like Gacy - the boy cries innocence. Not of one crime, where maybe his identity could’ve been mistaken. But of thirty-four vicious slayings across this great state.’

Parts of my body have retracted by the time Brian takes the mound. He paces slowly around the open space of the court, nodding quietly to himself. Then he stops to lean on the jury bench, and looks into the air, reminiscing.

‘Lord knows,’ he says, ‘it’s a fine thing to relax in front of the TV after a hard day’s work.’ He rubs his chin, and strolls into the clearing. ‘Maybe watch a movie.’ A frown takes his brow. ‘Must make life a little hard for the stars of that movie, though, having everyone recognize them on the street. Why do I mention it? I mention it because four-point-three murders happen every week across the region supposed to be my client’s stomping ground. Four-point-three murders happened before the crimes of which he stands accused - four-point-three happened during his supposed reign of terror. And four-point-three are happening this week, while he’s here with us.’ He turns and stares at each jury member in turn. ‘What we will discover, ladies and gentlemen, is that no allegation of murder existed against my client until the day his picture appeared on our TV screens. From that moment forward, virtually every murder in Central Texas and beyond has been attributed to him. That means all the regular murderers took a vacation, and Vernon Gregory Little fulfilled nearly the whole published quota of murders, some of them occurring almost simultaneously, with different weapons, at opposite ends of the state. Please ask yourselves: how? By remote control? I don’t think so.’

My attorney takes a walk to my cage. He looks thoughtfully at me, grabs one of the bars, and turns back to the jury.

‘What I propose to show you during the course of this trial, ladies and gentlemen, is the breadth of human suggestibility. Media arrive at the scene of every murder, with a picture of one suspect alone: the defendant. And not just any media. Media under the direct employ of the man who most stands to gain from these proceedings. A man who has built an industry - no, a virtual empire - on the relentless persecution of this single, hapless youngster. A man who, before the tragic events of May twentieth, was nobody. A man you will meet, and judge for yourselves, during this trial.’

Brian saunters over to the jury, pulls his sleeve cuffs up a little, and leans intimately over their railing. His voice drops. ‘How did this happen? Simple. Under the glare of camera lights, a confused and grieving public was offered the chance to be part of the biggest prime-time bandwagon since O J Simpson. “Is this the suspect?” they’re asked. The face rings a bell. They’ve certainly seen him somewhere, recently even. Result? Even black witnesses to black murders in black neighborhoods recognize this sixteen-year-old white schoolboy as the suspect.’