Vernon God Little

'How could you do that to me, Ma?'

'Well I only told the truth, Vernon. Anyway young man, how could you do all this to me?'

'I didn't do anything.'

'Well, famous actors put toothpaste under their eyes to help them cry. Did you know that?'

'Say what?

'I'm just telling you for court, in case you look too impassive. You know how impassive you can look.'

'Ma – just don't talk to Lally anymore, okay?'

'Hold on,' she takes her mouth from the phone, 'it's all right Leona, it's the fridge people.' You hear questioning noises in back, about the time of night, then Mom comes on the line again. 'Well it's ridiculous – I've waited days for you people!'

'Goodnight, Ma.'

'Wait!' She presses her mouth to the phone, whispering. ' Vernon – it's probably best not to mention anything about the, er…'

'Gun?'

'Well yes, probably best to keep it between us, you know?'

My daddy's gun. If only my ole lady had let me keep it at home. But no. The fucken gun gave her the tremors. I had to stash it far from the house, way out in the public domain. Nuckles must know it's there. Jesus must've used it as a wild card, must've mentioned it to stop him following, to make him think there was an arsenal stashed away. But then Jesus died. Took the information, the context, all our innocent boyhood times with him. Took the truth with him.

Just my gun's left behind, with all the wrong fingerprints on it. Left behind, just waiting.

Act II How I spent my summer vacation

seven

The sign on the shrink's door says: 'Dr Goosens.' What a crack. Goosens. Whoever invented the Cold Light of Day sure went to fucken town on it, boy. On the ride over here I had a truckload of ideas about how to act crazy, maybe pull some Kicked Dog, some Spooked Deer and all, like Mom does. I even thought I could maybe drop a load in my pants or something, as a last resort. It's a slimy secret, I know it. I even loosened my asshole in case it came to that. But now, in the cold light of day, I just hope I flossed enough.

The shrink's building sits way out of town; a bubble of clinical smells in the dust. A receptionist with spiky teeth, and a voicebox made from bees trapped in tracing paper, sits behind a desk in the waiting room. She gives me the fucken shiver, but the jail guards don't seem to notice her at all. I have an urge to ask her name, but I don't. I can imagine her saying, 'Why, I'm Graunley Stelt,' or 'Achtung Beed,' or something way fucken bent. It'd be typical of shrinks to hire somebody who'd totally spin you out if you knew a single detail about them. If you weren't edgy when you came in, you would be after you met the fucken receptionist.

'Bloop,' an intercom hoots behind her desk.

'Didn't you get my email?' asks a man.

'No, Doctor,' says the receptionist.

'Please monitor the systems, there's no point upgrading our technology if you don't monitor the systems. I emailed you three minutes ago for the next patient.'

'Yes, Doctor.' She taps at her keyboard, scowls at the monitor, then looks at me. 'The doctor will see you now.'

My Nikes chirp over black and green linoleum, through a door, and into a room with supermarket lighting. Two armchairs sit by a window; an ole stereo rests beside one of them, with a notebook computer on top. At the back of the room stands a hospital bunk on wheels, with a towel over it. And there's Dr Goosens; round, soft, butt-heavy, and as smug as a Disney worm. He smiles sympathetically, and waves me to an armchair.

'Cindy, bring the client's file, please.'

Check my fucken face now. Cindy! It slays me. Now I'm just waiting for her to say, 'Groovy, Wayne,' and bounce through the door in a little tennis skirt or something. She doesn't though, not in the cold light of day. She trudges past in socks and sandals, and hands a file to Goosens. He thumbs through the pages and waits for her to leave the room.

' Vernon Gregory Little, how are you today?'

'Okay, I guess.' My Nikes tap each other.

'Alrighty. What can you tell me about why you're here?'

'The judge must think I'm crazy, or something.'

'And are you?' He gets ready to chuckle, like it's obvious I ain't. It might help if the judge thought I was bananas, but looking at Ole Mother Goosens just makes me want to tell him how I really feel, which is that everybody backed me into a nasty corner with their crashy fucken powerdimes.

'I guess it ain't up to me to say,' I tell him. It doesn't seem enough though; he stares and waits for more. As I catch his eye, I feel the past wheeze up my throat in a raft of bitter words. 'See, first everybody dissed me because my buddy was Mexican, then because he was weird, but I stood by him, I thought friendship was a sacred thing – then it all went to hell, and now I'm being punished for it, they're twisting every regular little fact to fit my guilt…'

Goosens raises a hand, and smiles gently. 'Alrighty, let's see what we can discover. Please continue to be candid – if you open yourself up to this process, in good faith, we won't have a problem at all. Now, tell me – how do you feel about what's happened?'

'Just wrecked. Wrecked dead away. And now everybody's calling me the psycho, I know they are.'

'Why do you think they might be doing that?'

'They need a skate-goat, they want to hang somebody high.'

'A scapegoat? You feel something intangible caused the tragedy?'

'Well, no, I mean – my friend Jesus ain't around, in person, to take any blame. He did all the shooting, I was just a witness, not even involved at all.' Goosens searches my face, and makes a note in his file.

'Alrighty. What can you tell me about your family life?'

'It's just regular.' Goosens holds his pen still, and looks at me. He knows he just found a major bug up my ass.

'The file notes that you live with your mother. What can you tell me about that relationship?'

'Uh, it's just – regular.' The whole subject drags a major tumor out of my ass, don't fucken ask me why. It just lies there on the floor, throbbing, glistening with gut-slime. Goosens even leans back in his chair, to avoid the heaving tang of my fucken family life.

'No brothers?' he asks, wisely steering east. 'No uncles, or – other male influences in your familial network?'

'Not really,' I say.

'But you had – friends…?' My eyes drop to the floor. He sits quiet for a moment, then reaches over to rest a hand on my leg. 'Believe me, Jesus touched me too – the whole affair touched me deeply. If you're able, tell me what happened that day.'

I try to dodge the spike of panic you get when you hear yourself fixing to bawl. 'Things had already started when I got back.'

'Where had you been?' asks Goosens.

'I got held up, running an errand.'

' Vernon, you're not on trial here – please be specific.'

'I needed the bathroom on the way back from an errand Mr Nuckles sent me on.'

'The school bathroom?'

'No.'

'You took a leak outside school?' He leans his head over, as if the information might splat in his face.

'Uh – not a leak, actually.'

'You had a bowel movement, outside school? At the time of the tragedy?'

'Sometimes I can be kind of unpredictable.'

Silence fills the forty years Fate gives me to recognize the import of things. This would never happen to Van Damme. Heroes never shit. They only fuck and kill.

A shine comes to Goosens's eyes. 'You told the court this?'

'Hell no.'

He blinks and folds his arms. 'Forgive me, but – forensically, doesn't a fresh stool, situated away from the scene of the crimes – automatically rule you out as a suspect? Fecal matter can be accurately dated, you know.'