Vernon God Little

'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.