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. Parti 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.'
He scans the jury, narrows his eyes.
'Fellow citizens, you will see that this meek, shy young man, with no previous record of wrongdoing, had the misfortune of being a living victim of the Martirio tragedy. Events overwhelmed him at a crucial point in the delicate unfolding of his manhood. He was unable to properly articulate his grief, couldn't assimilate the fragmentation around him. I'll show you that the boy's only mistake—and it was a big one—was not crying "Innocent!" quickly or loudly enough.'
The prosecutor spreads his legs wide for that one, if it ain't too smutty to mention. But I like what Brian said. I look around the room, and I get to marveling that justice will visit here, just like it's supposed to, just like Santa. This is a special place, reserved for truth. Sure everybody's smug, but that could be on account of the confidence they have that justice is coming. Take the court typist woman—the stainographer I heard somebody call her, don't even ask me why they need her—is her head thrown back with confidence that justice is coming, or just because of the stench of the words, the stains she has to punch into her sawn-off machine? And why is her machine sawn-off, why can't you have the full alphabet in court? You wonder if she likes being close to the slime, or even loves it. Maybe she tells her buddies about it after work, and they all tighten their lips together. Sigh, 'Oh my God,' or something. And maybe the attorneys wear these kind of half-smiles all the time, even at home. Maybe they became attorneys because of this overdeveloped skill of making hooshy little laughs that suggest you're the only person in the world ignorant enough to believe what you just said. Maybe they let a hooshy laugh slip when they were babies, and their folks said, 'Look, honey, an attorney.'