Vernon God Little (30 page)

‘Tch, nonsense,’ says Lally. ‘First, the broadcast itself is a nonprofit venture. Revenues flow right back to the State, instead of taxpayers’ money flowing out to support some of the worst criminals in the land. Second, it upholds our basic right to see justice being done.’

‘So you’re effectively proposing to fund the State’s penal system by selling broadcast rights to the prisoners’ executions? I mean - isn’t a prisoner’s last hour a little personal?’

‘Not at all - don’t forget that all executions are witnessed, even today. We’re simply expanding the audience to include anyone with an interest in the proper function of law.’ Lally puts a hand on his hip. ‘Not so long ago, Bob, all executions were public - even held in the town square. Crime went down, public satisfaction went up. Throughout history it’s been society’s right to punish delinquents by its own hand. It makes plain sense to give that right back to society.’

‘Hence the web-vote?’

‘Exactly. And we’re not just talking executions here - were talking the ultimate reality TV, where the public can monitor, via cable or internet, prisoners’ whole lives on death row. They can live amongst them, so to speak, and make up their own minds about a convict’s worthiness for punishment. Then each week, viewers across the globe can cast a vote to decide which prisoner is executed next. It’s humanity in action - the next logical step toward true democracy.’

‘But surely, due process dictates the fate of prisoners?’

‘Absolutely, and we can’t tamper with that. But the new fast-track appeals process means prisoners’ last recourses at law are spent much sooner, after which I say the public should have a hand in the roster of final events.’ Lally lets fly a hooshy laugh at the reporter, and spreads his hands wide. ‘In the tradition of momentous progress, it’s blindingly simple, Bob: criminals cost money. Popular TV makes money. Criminals are popular on TV. Put them together and, presto - problem solved.’

The reporter pauses as a helicopter settles in the background. Then he asks, ‘What do you say to those who claim prisoners’ rights will be breached?’

‘Oh please - prisoners, by definition, live in forfeit of their rights. Anyway, cons today can languish in institutions for years without knowing their fate - wouldn’t you say that was cruel? We’re finally giving them what the law has always promised but never delivered - expediency. Not only that, they’ll have greater access to spiritual counsel, and musical choices to accompany their final event. We’ll even craft a special segment around their final statement, with the background imagery of their choice. Believe me - prisoners will welcome these changes.’

The reporter smiles and nods at Lally. ‘And what of reports that you’re gearing up for a shot at the senate?’

I switch off the set. I ain’t looking forward to cameras in here. We just have an open toilet, see? I guess that’s where the money gets made. Internet viewers will be able to choose which cells to watch, and change camera angles and all. On regular TV there’ll be edited highlights of the day’s action. Then the general public will vote by phone or internet. They’ll vote for who should die next. The cuter we act, the more we entertain, the longer we might live. I heard one ole con say it’d be just like the life of a real actor.

Before lights-out I sit up to play with the clacking metal balls, something I’ve been doing a lot of lately. Ella Bouchard mailed me a pome that I sometimes read too, about true hearts and what-all. I know it’s spelled poem, but she don’t, not yet anyway. I avoid the pome tonight, and just play with the cause-and-effect balls. Then Jones the guard brings the phone to my cell. The cell-phone is one good thing about Lally’s operation. That, and cubicle doors in the shower block, and electronic cigarette lighters, even though they don’t give a flame.

I take the phone from Jonesy. ‘Hello?’

‘Well,’ says Mom, ‘I don’t know who’s been talking to Lally …’

‘Who hasn’t been talking to him, more like it.’

‘Well don’t get snotty Vernon, God. I’m just saying, that’s all. People came snooping about your father, and they’ve been hassling the gals as well. You’d think Lally’d be busy enough, what with everything. Meantime I have to scrape up the money to do something about that damn bench, it sinks more every day …’

‘Snooping?’

‘Well, you know, asking why they never found your daddy’s body and all. Lally’s been so antsy since he dumped Georgette - even Pam and Vaine noticed it.’

‘Vaine’s in your club now, huh?’

‘Well she’s been through a lot, what with Lalicom pulling out of the SWAT team. The sheriff’s taking all his home troubles out on her, and she’s under real pressure to prove herself - you just don’t empathize, Vernon.’

‘There ain’t a whole lot I can do, Ma.’

‘I know, I’m just saying, that’s all. If he’d only come home, things’d be different.’

‘Don’t wait up for him.’

‘Well there’s love at stake, a woman senses these nancies.’

‘Nuances, Ma.’

‘Oops - I have to run, Pam and Vaine just arrived, and I haven’t finished the zipper on Pam’s pants. Harris’s is floating the e-store today and there are specials galore. Promise me you’ll be okay …’

‘Palmyra’s wearing pants …?’

She hangs up. Taylor’s voice oozes out of a TV in the next cell, so I go back to clacking the balls, just watching them. I have too much pain right now to work on my art project. Maybe later.

‘Jeezus, Little,’ screams a con up the row. ‘Fuck up with yer cunted fuckin noise!’

He’s an okay guy, the con. They’re all cool, actually. They all planned a beer together, with ribs and steak, when they get to heaven. Or wherever. I still plan to have some here on earth, to be honest. The truth’s still out there, virginal and waiting. Anyway, I don’t take much notice of the row. That’s one thing about these balls, once you set them clacking. You focus right in. Drop two balls, and an equal two clack off the other side; just this one metal ball in the middle passes on all the shock.

‘Burnem Little you motherfuckin scroted cunt-ass shitsucker,’ screams the con.

‘Je-sus Ch-risst,’ hollers Jonesy, ‘keep it down, willya?’

‘Jones,’ says the con, ‘I swear I’m gonna waste my fuckin self if he don’t quit clickin them fuckin balls.’

‘Chill out, the kid’s entitled to a little diversion,’ says the guard. ‘Y’all know what it’s like with an appeal pending.’ He’s actually okay, ole Jonesy, though he’s none too smart. Stops by my cell sometimes to tell me my pardon came through. ‘Little, your pardon came through,’ he says. Then he just laughs. I laugh too, these days.

‘Jonesy, I ain’t kiddin,’ calls the con. ‘That fuckin click, click, click goes on day and fuckin night, the kid’s losin his sense - fix him a little time with Lasalle for chrissakes.’

‘Oh yeah, like you give the orders around here. Gimme a fuckin million dollars and I’ll think about it,’ says Jones. ‘Anyway, he don’t need Lasalle. He don’t need no Lasalle at all, now shut the fuck up.’

‘Little,’ screams the con, ‘fuck your goddam appeal, I’ll ream your ass with a fuckin Roto-Rooter if you don’t quit them balls.’

‘Hey,’ barks Jones. ‘What am I now tellin you?’

‘Jonesy, the kid’s bended up, he need some Lasalle to help him face his God.’

‘Take more’n damn Lasalle to straighten this boy out,’ says Jones. ‘Git some sleep now, go on.’

‘I have some goddam basic fuckin human rights in this fuckin joint!’ screams the con.

‘Git to sleep goddammit,’ barks Jonesy. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

I go real quiet. Who’s Lasalle? The idea of facing my God sticks in my brain like a burr.

A guard comes for me after breakfast and takes me out of my cell.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ go the cons as I shuffle along the row.

We go down some stairs into the lower tract of the building, which is like the bowels, if it’s not too rough to say, and end up in a dark, wet kind of corridor with only three cells running off it. The cells have no bars or windows, just these bank-vault kind of doors, with reinforced peepholes.

‘If you wuzn’t who you wuz, you wun’t even be comin down here,’ says the guard. ‘Only you celebrity killers git to come down here.’

‘What’s down here?’ I ask.

‘Think of it as a chapel.’

‘The pastor’s down here?’

‘Pastor Lasalle’s down here.’ He stops at the last door, and unlocks it with a set of keys.

‘You lock the pastor in there?’ I ask.

‘I lock you in there.’

The guard flicks a switch outside the door, and a pale green light glows into the shadows of the cell. It’s empty except for two metal bunk frames that fold out of the wall on each side.

‘Siddown. Lasalle be along just now.’

He steps back into the corridor, throwing an eye into the gloom of the stairwell. After a minute you hear clinking and shuffling, and an ole black man appears in a beat-up mechanic’s cap, and regular gray shirt and pants. He wears a bemused kind of smile. You sense it’s been around awhile.

‘Knock when you want out,’ the guard tells him, locking the door.

The ole black man unfolds the opposite bunk, and squeaks down onto the bare springs, as if I wasn’t here. Then he pulls his cap down low, folds his hands in his lap, and shuts his eyes, real comfortable.

‘So - you’re a preacher?’ I ask.

He doesn’t answer. After a minute you hear a gentle wheezing from his nostrils, and see his tongue laze around his mouth. Then his face nods onto his chest. He’s asleep. I study him for about six decades, until I get bored of the shadows and the damp, then I slide off the bunk, and step away to knock for the guard.

Lasalle stirs behind me. ‘Crusty young outcast,’ he says, ‘all brave and lonely, older than his years …’

My feet weld to the floor.

‘Lopin away to hop another bus outta town.’ I turn to see a yellow eye pop open and shine at me. ‘Only one bus leaves these parts, son - and you know where it’s goin.’

‘Excuse me?’ I stare at his ole slumped form, watch his lip hang dopey from his jaw.

‘Know why you down here with me?’ he asks.

‘They didn’t say.’ I sit back down on the opposite bunk, and slouch to see under the shadow of his cap. His eyes glisten through the dark.

‘Only one reason, boy. Becausen you ain’t ready to die.’

‘I guess not,’ I say.

‘Becausen you spent all these years tryin to figure things out, and in figurin them out you got tangled up worse’n before.’

‘How do you know?

‘Becausen I’m human.’ Lasalle creaks to the edge of his bunk. He takes a big pair of glasses from his shirt pocket, and puts them on. Huge moon eyes swim through the glass. ‘How you feel about us humans?’

‘Heck, I don’t know anymore. Everybody’s just yelling their heads off about their rights, and stuff, and saying, “Nice to see you,” when they’d rather see you in the river with your neck cut. I know that much.’

‘Boy, ain’t it the truth,’ says Lasalle with a chuckle.

‘Ain’t it just? Folks lie without even thinking about it, like every day of their lives, “Sir, I woke up with a fever,” then they spend the whole rest of their lives telling you not to lie …’

Lasalle shakes his head. ‘Amen. Sounds to me like you plain don’t want to associate with those people no more, you rather not even be around.’

‘You’re right there, Pastor.’

‘Well,’ he says, eyeing up the cell. ‘You got your wish.’

That kind of hits me sideways. I sit up.

‘What else did you wish for, son? I bet you wished you could shut your mama up once or twice before, I bet you dreamed of quittin home.’

‘I guess I did …’

‘Presto,’ he says, opening out his hands. ‘You lookin more and more lucky.’

‘But, wait - that ain’t the right logic …’

His eyes bore through me, a hardness comes to his voice. ‘Ahhh, so you a logical boy. You all strung out on everybody else’s lies, and everybody else’s habits that you hate, becausen you logical. I bet you can’t even tell me a thing you love.’

‘Uh …’

‘That cos you such a big man, all crusty and independent? Or wait, lemme guess - it’s probably cozza you ole lady - I bet she the type of lady makes you feel guilty about the leastest thing, the type who probably gives the same dumb ole cards on you birthday, with puppy-dogs, and steam trains on ‘em …’

That’s her.’

Lasalle nods, and blows a little air through his lips. ‘Boy that woman must be one stupid cunt. Must be the dumbest fuckin snatch-rag that ever roamed this earth, probably is so butt-spastic …’

‘Hey, hey - you sure you’re a pastor?’

‘Boy, she one selfish fuckin piss-flap …’

‘Wait, goddammit!’

There’s a noise at the door, the peephole darkens. ‘Keep it down,’ says the guard.

I realize I’m on my feet, with my fists clenched tight. When I look back to Lasalle, he’s smiling. ‘No love, huh, kid?’

I sit down on the bunk. Velcro maggots crawl up my spine.

‘Lemme tell you something for free - you’ll have a honey of a life if you love the people who love you first. Ever see your ma choose a birthday card for you?’

‘No.’

He laughs. ‘That’s becausen there ain’t the hours in a boy’s agenda to watch her stand and read every little word in those cards, turn every feeling over in her soul. You probably too busy hiding the thing in you closet to read the words inside, about rays of sunshine the day you came into the world. Huh, Vernon Gregory?’

Heat comes to my eyes.

‘You messed up, son. Face it.’

‘But I didn’t mean for anything to happen …’

‘Stuff needed to happen, kid. Different stuff from this. You just ain’t faced your God.’ Lasalle goes to his pants pocket and pulls out a rag for me to wipe my eyes. I use my sleeve instead. He reaches over and wraps a wrinkly hand around mine. ‘Son,’ he says, ‘ole Lasalle gonna tell you how it all work. Lasalle gonna give you the secret of this human life, and you gonna wonder why you never saw it before …’

As he says it, I hear movement in the corridor outside. Footsteps. Then Lally’s voice.

twenty-four

‘The key to this first public vote’, says Lally, ‘is not to give too many choices. We need to pick a shortlist of prisoners, advertise them well, then open the voting lines and see who performs.’