‘Take one,’ says Lally.
‘Say what?’
‘Take some ginseng, keep your strength up.’
As he says it, I notice the ginseng is the same shade of piss as the acid pearls in my hand. Dogs would never smell through the ginseng. I reach down for a bottle, but Lally brakes to avoid a stray teddy under the Lechugas’ willow; I overbalance, the dope cigarettes fall from my hand.
Lally switches off the engine, looks at the joints, picks one off the floor, sniffs it, and grins. Then he looks at me. ‘Tch – you could’ve just said you didn’t want to share.’
‘Uh, they ain’t mine actually.’
‘Not for long, anyway,’ he says, frowning into his mirror.
I spin around to see the Smith County truck nose onto Beulah Drive, a block behind us. Velcro fucken ant-farms seize my gut.
‘Here, give them to me,’ says Lally. He lifts himself up, and stashes the joints through a tear in the seat.
‘Thanks – I’ll be right back.’ I fly across our lawn, into the house, and up the hall to my room, where I pick the cap off the ginseng. I take Taylor’s LSD pearls and poke them into the bottle. They blend right into the piss, and the cap replaces like new. I drop the bottle into the Nike box, next to my padlock key, and hide it back in my closet. As I stroll onto the porch, all nonchalant, cooled by a sweat of relief, I see Vaine Gurie, Mom, and a Smith County officer arrive in the truck. Air-conditioning blows their hair like seaweed underwater, except Mom’s, which blows more like one of those tetchy anemone things. Lally sits quiet in the shade of the Lechugas’ willow. I guess he turned out okay, ole Lally, in the end. ‘A good egg,’ as the once-talkative Mr Goddam Nuckles would say.
Fate suddenly plays its regular card. Leona’s Eldorado sashays past the pumpjack, full of musty, dry wombs and deep, bitter wants. Mom withers. The fucken timing of these ladies is astounding, I have to say, like they have scandal radar or something. They foam out of the car like suds from a sitcom washing machine, except for Brad, who stays in back. He’s eating a booger, you can tell. Betty Pritchard gets out and starts to strut around the lawn like a fucken chicken.
‘I think I need the bathroom – I just can’t be sure with this infection.’
Leona and George take the high ground by our willow. ‘Hi, Doris,’ they wave. I almost make it back into the house, but Vaine Gurie unfolds faster than you’d expect from the cab of the truck. ‘Vernon Little, come down here please.’
‘Another setback, Doris?’ asks Leona, hopefully.
‘Well it’s nothing, girls,’ says Mom. ‘There’s some fudge inside.’
‘We don’t have long,’ says Leona, ‘they’re coming to lay the sunken patio at three.’
‘Well, I thought it was the people with my Special Edition,’ says Mom, scuttling over the dirt. ‘I saw the car, and thought the new fridge was here . . .’
‘Ma?’ I call. She doesn’t hear.
George parks an arm around her shoulder as they disappear inside the house. ‘Honey, of course they’ll come after him if he insists on looking like that – that haircut’s the pits.’
The screen clacks shut, Mom’s voice trails away into the dark. ‘Well I couldn’t sway him, you know how boys are . . .’
‘Vernon,’ says Gurie. ‘Let’s go for a little ride.’
I search her face for signs of uncovered truth, imminent apology. None appear. ‘Ma’am, I wasn’t even there . . .’
‘Is that right. Makes it difficult to explain the fingerprints we found then, doesn’t it.’
Picture a Smith County Sheriff’s truck with me inside, sitting quiet on a road between three wooden houses. Bugs chitter in the willows, oblivious. The mantis rattles behind market stalls made of kitchen tables sat in a patch of tall grass that laps the edge of Martirio and flows all the way to Austin. Then Brad Pritchard appears at my window; nose to the sky, finger pointed at his shoes.
‘Air Maxes,’ he states. ‘New.’
He stands with his eyes shut, waiting for me to blow a fucken kiss, or break down weeping or something. Asshole.
I lift my leg to the window. ‘Jordan New Jacks.’
He squints momentarily before pointing at my Nikes. ‘Old,’ he explains patiently. Then he points at his. ‘NEW.’
I point at his, ‘Price of a Barbie Camper.’ Then at mine, ‘Price of a medium-range corporate jet.’
‘Are not.’
‘Are fucken too.’
‘Enjoy jail.’
His shuffle across the lawn turns into a scamper up the porch steps. A single raised finger shines back at me through my own front doorway, until the screen cracks shut in front of it. Then, just as the officers start the truck, the screen swings open again. My ole lady bursts out, and hurries down to the road.
‘Vernon, I love you! Forget about before – even murderers are loved by their families, you know . . .’
‘Heck, Ma, I ain’t a murderer!’
‘Well I know – it’s just an example.’
Lally shoots me a stare from his van, motioning like a camera with his hands. ‘Just say the word!’ he yells.
Mom stands helpless in the road behind us, and parks her chin on her chest. Her lips prime up for tears. The pain of it ploughs me over, inside out. I spin to see Lally through the back window as he rushes to her, puts a hand to her shoulder. Her ole soggy head leans toward it. He slides his shoulder under to absorb her tears, then stands tall, and stares gravely at my truck disappearing.
I can’t take it. I lunge across Gurie and holler back through her window with all the air in the fucken world: ‘Do it, Lally – tell ’em the fucken truth.’
Jail is sour tonight. Dead like the air between your ass and your underwear when you’re sitting down. A TV buzzes somewhere in the background; I listen out for a news-flash about my innocence, but instead the weather report theme plays. I hate that fucken theme. Then a voice bangs down the corridor. Footsteps approach.
‘Don’t you let me find them burgers gone, I mean it. Sure, right, it’s Dr Actions Diet Revolution now, huh. All your noise about Prettykins, and now – don’t tell me – it’s a fuckin burger diet, right? Sure, fuckin protein, uh-huh. What? Because there is no other news except your fuckin barn of an ass . . .’
The man stops outside my cell. Light through the grille outlines a fuck-you pout crowded with teeth. Barry E Gurie – Detention Executive, says the badge. He sees me awake, and presses the phone into his neck.
‘You ain’t pullin your rod in there are ya, Little? You ain’t chokin your chicken all day and night, are ya?’ He laughs this smutty laugh, like Miss goddam Universe just sucked his boy or something. Even at long range his breath hits you like a solid block, just slithers down your face leaving a trail of onion-relish and lard. What a disgusting human being, I swear. If this is how much of an asshole everybody’s going to be, about such a devastating fucken issue, then I better get the hell out of town. Maybe even out of Texas. Just until they get the story straight. Nana’s ain’t even fucken far enough, the way folk are behaving right now.
Barry continues his rounds, lingering for the rest of the night down by the TV. I lay back onto the bunk in my cell, and drift into the important and scary business of my future. Remember that ole movie called Against All Odds, where this babe has a beach-house in Mexico? That’s where I can run. Mom can visit after things die down. There she is, sobbing with joy, ole spankycheeked Doris Little, who could be played by Kathy Bates, who was in that movie Misery. Tears of pride at the excellent sanitation, and at my decent, orderly life. See how it works? It’s the future now, young Vernon has been vindicated. Now he’s buying her a clay donkey, or some of those salad utensils Mrs Lechuga makes such a big deal about. The salad utensil seller would say to me, ‘You want the same kind Mrs Lechuga got, or you want the Deluxe edition?’ There’s a fucken point up Mrs Lechuga’s ass. See? That’s definitely my new plan. I like the food just fine, burritos, and cappuccinos and whatever. They say money’s cheap down there, h
ell – I could really make good. Folk must live in those beach-houses, for real.
But the pessimist in me says, ‘Kid, forget vacations, what yez need is a cake wid a fuckin bomb in it.’ My pessimist has a New York accent, don’t ask me why. I ignore it. The question of the babe needs thought; you never see guys running alone, admit it. Who to take is Taylor Figueroa. She’s in Houston now, in college or something, on account of being older than me. But she’s the fox to take. Moist air stirs me through the bars of my cage, and in my mind it becomes a shunt of hormone from the lip of her skirt. I’ll take that girl to Mexico, see if I don’t. Now that I’m grown up, now that I’ve been to jail and all. I wasn’t close to her at school, even though we nearly made out once. I say nearly because, fucken typical of me, I had her on a plate and I let her go. You’re just never taught when to be an asshole in life. There was this senior party that I wasn’t invited to, and Taylor was there, face as soft as panties, just her big wet eyes seeped out. She left the party and crashed on the back seat of a Buick in the Church parking lot, where I just happened to be with my bike. She was wasted. She called me over. Her voice was sticky like freshly bitten cake. Some drugs fell out of her clothes onto the ground by the car. I picked them up. She said to keep them for her, in case she passed out or whatever. I kept them too, you know it. Boy was she fucken bent though. She started saying my name, and writhing around the back seat of the car. Don’t even ask me who drives a fucken Buick at our school, but she added some value to his back seat. I helped unpeel her shorts a little, ‘So she could breathe’ – her words, not mine – I didn’t even know you could breathe from down there. Brown Wella Balsam hair licked her body all the way down to her buns, where gray cotton tangas peeped out; clefted heaven in workaday dew. She was wasted, but conscious.
So guess what your fucken hero did, take a shot. Vernon Gonad Little went into the party and sent her best friend out to mind her. I never got a finger to her panties, even though I was close enough to catch the lick-your-own-skin-and-sniff-it disease that wastes me today; fucken hauntings of hollows between elastic and thigh, tang ablaze with cotton and apricot muffin, cream cheese and pee. But no, duh, I went inside. I even kind of strode in, like a TV doctor, all fucken mature. It fucken slays me, she was right there. I tried to look her up again, but Fate deployed the shutdown routine you get whenever you miss a ripe opportunity in a dumb way. A billion reasons she can’t be located, and fucken blah, blah, blah. So much for Taylor Figueroa.
Tonight, though, my hand is her mouth. Every stroke of my boy brings her cotton closer, burrows vents for her fruit-air to escape and waste me. Mexican fruit-air, boy, if I have my way. As I abandon myself to the dream, muffled wisps of the TV-news fanfare travel the corridor like an infection. Then a prisoner snorts with laughter.
six
‘You touch bag? Make fingerprince?’ This is what Mr Abdini asks me. Don’t even ask me the rest of his name.
‘Fingerprints? Uh – I guess so.’ I’m uneasy enough today, without having to meet folk like this.
Abdini is fat the way an anvil is fat, but his face is probably swept back by the velocity of his talking. He’s my attorney. The judge appointed him. I guess nobody else works Sundays around here. I know you’re not allowed to say it anymore, about other places being different and all, but, between you and me, you can tell Abdini is the product of centuries of fast-talking and doubledealing. Ricochet Abdini, ‘Bing, ping, ping!’ He’s dressed in white, like the Cuban Ambassador or something. A jury would convict on his fucken shoes alone, not that his shoes are my biggest problem. They’re the least of my fucken problems, know why? Because if you take a bunch of flabby white folk, of the kind that organize bake-sales and such, and put them in a jury, then throw in some fast-talker from God-knows-where, chances are they won’t buy a thing he says. They can tell he’s slimy, but they’re not allowed to officially do anything, on account of everybody has to pretend to get along these days. So they just don’t buy what he says. It’s a learning I made.
Therefore, Mr Something Fucken Abdini Something stands sweating in my cell, getting ready to say ‘Therefore’ probably. His eyes bounce across a file in his hand, which is all about me. He grunts.
‘You tell me whappen.’
‘Uh – excuse me?’
‘Tell me whappen in school.’
‘Well, see, I was out of class, and when I came back . . .’
Abdini holds up a hand. ‘You went batroom?’
‘Uh – yeah, but that wasn’t . . .’
‘Very impotent evidence,’ he hisses, scribbling in the file.
‘No, see, I was . . .’
Just then the guard clanks at the door. ‘Shh,’ goes Abdini, patting my arm. ‘I fine out. You don tsetse fly today. We try bail.’
Barry ain’t around this morning; another guard escorts us through the sheriff’s back door, and down the alley behind Gurie Street. Abdini said there couldn’t be any media in court today, on account of me being a juvenile. Anyway, everybody’s at the funerals. ‘An option holding limited appeal,’ as the now-dumbstruck Mr Asshole Nuckles would say. It’s bitterly hot today; unusual this early in summer. And quiet like when you hold your breath, though you can still sense cotton dresses over on Gurie Street, and kids jumping through sprinklers. Typical Sunday things, but with the damp fizz of tears about them. They come with their own wave of sadness.
Three buildings along from the sheriff’s office stands Martirio’s ole whorehouse, one of the Wild West’s most beautiful buildings. The fun gals are gone though, now it’s next to the courthouse. The only gal left is Vaine Gurie, a whole barrel-load of fucken laughs. She waits for us at the back. Her eyebrow rides high today. I’m led up some stairs into the mostly empty courtroom, where the guard maneuvers me into a small wooden corral, with a fence around it. It’s almost possible to be brave in here, if you add up your Nikes, your Calvin Kleins, your youth, and your actual innocence. What shunts you over the edge is the smell. Court smells like your first-grade classroom; you automatically look around for finger-paintings. I don’t know if it’s on purpose, like to regress you and freak you out. Truth be told, there’s probably an air-freshener for courtrooms and first-grade classrooms, just to keep you in line. ‘Guilt-O-Sol’ or something, so in school you feel like you’re already in court, and when you wind up in court you feel like you’re back in school. You’re primed for finger-paintings, but what you get is a lady behind one of those sawn-off typewriters. Court, boy. Fuck.
I look around while everybody shuffles papers. Mom couldn’t make it, which ain’t such a bad thing. I learned that the authorized world doesn’t recognize the knife. Your knife is invisible, that’s what makes it so convenient to use. See how things work? It’s what drives folk to the blackest crimes, and to sickness, I know it; the thing of everyone turning the knife just by saying hello, or something equally innocent-sounding. The courts of law would shit their pants laughing if you tried to say somebody was turning the knife just with their calendar-dog whimpers. But here’s why they’d laugh: not because they couldn’t see the knife, but because they knew nobody else would buy it. You could stand before twelve good people, all with some kind of psycho-knife stuck in them that loved-ones could twist on a whim, and they wouldn’t admit it. They’d forget how things really are, and slip into TV-movie mode where everything has to be obvious. I guarantee it.
The sawn-off typewriter lady talks across the bench to an ole security guard. ‘Oh my, it’s a fact. We had a copy of that same catalog, me and my girls.’
‘No kidding,’ says the guard, ‘that same one, huh?’ His tongue pushes some spit around his mouth. That means he’s picturing whatever she just said. He shunts some spit around, picturing it for a moment, then he says, ‘Don’t forget the judge has girls too.’
‘That’s a fact,’ says the typist.
They turn to stare daggers at me. The typist’s daggers come wrapped in Kleenex, I guess so they don’t get shit on them. I just stare at my Nikes. Thi
ngs have gone beyond a fucken joke. You just know the justice system ain’t set up for folk like me. It’s set up for more obvious folk, like you see in movies. Nah, if the facts don’t arrive today, if everybody doesn’t apologize and send me home, I’ll jump bail and run over the fucken border. Against All Odds. I’ll vanish into the cool of tonight, see if I fucken don’t, hum cross-country with the moths, with my innocent-headed learnings and my ole panty dreams.
‘All-a rise,’ says an officer.
A bright-eyed lady with short gray hair and bifocal glasses glides behind the tallest desk. Judge Helen E Gurie says the sign. Her swivel chair rattles politely when she sits. The Chair of God.
‘Vaine,’ she says, ‘it’d have to be one of your cases, now wouldn’t it?’
‘Gh-rrr. We have a suspect, Judge.’
Abdini stands. ‘We apply pearlymoney herring, your honor.’
The judge squints over her glasses. ‘A preliminary hearing? Wait one darned minute, I draw both your attentions to the Texas Family Code – this is a juvenile matter. Vaine, I sure hope you observed the provisions for service of process that apply in this instance.’
‘Gh-r.’
‘And why is no record of interview filed with the complaint?’
Just now the main door creaks open behind me. Sheriff Porkorney scrapes into the room and takes off his hat. Vaine stiffens like a bone.
‘We hoped a particular piece of evidence would come in first, ma’am,’ she says.
‘You hoped the evidence would come in? You hoped it would just fly right in? How long has this young man been in custody?’
‘Gh . . .’ Vaine’s eye flicks back to the sheriff. He just stands by the door, arms folded, real quiet.