Vernon God Little

Everybody has their fucken fun tonight, showing some future impartial jury how innocent I must be. Then I get banged back up to hell. Not back home, but down here, in Harris County, where all the big stuff happens.

I close my eyes in the cell, and do a re-cut of my life. In my cut of the thing, I ain't even in shit at all. Instead, I'm the kid out there who hears about somebody else's trouble, maybe some other kid took his dad's assault rifle to class and blew away half his buddies, Lord knows it fucken happens. Maybe I'd be the kid just hearing about it. Hearing about some poor fuck, probably the quiet one, the wordsmith, the one with thoughts and shit, at the back of the class. Until the gun came to school. I'd be the guy just hearing about it, with the tickly kind of luxury of deciding whether to be sympathetic or devastated, or not even pay attention at all, the way people do when shit happens that doesn't involve them. That's the kind of day I re-shoot in my head. Still full of different melted things, and dogs and all, but with me the outsider, up the street getting ice-cream, ignoring my carefree years, the way we do, and just getting bored and ornery.

I'm trying to sleep when the other cons on my row are waking up. One of them hears me sigh, and tosses some words through his door. 'Little? You a fuckin star!'

'Yeah, right,' I say. 'Tell the prosecution.'

'Hell, youse'll get the bestest fuckin attorneys, hear what I'm sayin?'

'My attorney can't even speak fucken English.'

'Nah,' says the con, 'they dissed his ass, he history. I saw on TV he said he still workin on it, but that's bullshit, he ain't even hired no more. You get big guns now, hear what I'm sayin?'

The guy eventually quiets up, and I snatch an hour of shitty sleep. Then a guard comes to maneuver me to a phone at the end of the row. He marches me proudly past all the other cells, kind of parades in front of them, and everybody jams up to their doors to watch me pass.

'Yo, Burn! Burnem Little, yo!'

I get sat by the phone. The guard fits himself an earpiece, then dials home for me. The number's disconnected. I get him to dial Pam's.

'Uh-huh?' she answers through a mouthful of food.

'Pam, it's Vern.'

'Vern? Oh my Lord, where are you?'

' Houston.'

'Hell, that's right – we saw it on TV. Are they feeding you?'

The guard leans over and whispers, 'Egg and chorizo, half an hour.'

'Uh – egg and chorizo, we're having.'

'What, just that? Just chorizo and egg?'

The guard frowns. He makes the motions of a full tray of trimmings.

'And a whole bunch of stuff,' I say.

The guard shoots me a thumbs-up. Mom is already tussling for the phone, you can hear her in the background. She finally wins.

' Vernon?'

'Hi, Ma.'

'Well are you okay?'

'I guess so. Are you okay?'

'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.