Vernon God Little

  ‘Oh Lord God, bring Lally back, bring Lally back, bring Lally back . . .’

  It’s been a long day. Cameras pinned me in the house since Lally left yesterday. Now they went to cover the hayride. Mom senses me approaching her willow; she sobs louder, and gets a hysterical edge to her voice, to make sure I don’t miss the implication of things. A large flying bug scoots behind the mantis as I step close.

  ‘Wishing bench is airborne this end,’ I say, to break the ice. ‘Like the dirt’s caving in underneath.’

  ‘Well Vernon just shutup! – you did this to me, all this – all this fucking shit.’

  She cussed me, boy. Hell. I study her ole hunched body. Her hair is sucked back into a helmet again, and she wears her regular toweling slippers with the butterflies on top, their rubber wings torn off by the white cat she used to have, before the Lechugas ran it over. I’m compelled to reach out and touch her. I touch her where the flab from her back dams under her armpit, and feel the clammy weight of her ole miserable shell, all warm and spent. She cries so cleanly you’d think her body was a drum full of tears that just spill out through the holes.

  I sit down beside her. ‘Ma, I’m sorry.’

  She gives an ironic kind of laugh, I guess it’s ironic when you laugh while you sob. After that she just stays sobbing. I look around at the night; things are liquid-clear, warm and dewy, with a snow of moths and bugs around the porch lights, and distant music from the hayride.

  ‘Papa always said I’d amount to nothing.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Ma.’

  ‘Well it’s true, look at me. It’s always been true. “Just plain ungainly,” Papa used to say, “Ornery and ungainly.” Everyone was head of the cheerleading squad, and homecoming queen, and class president. Everyone was Betty, all sparkling and fresh . . .’

  ‘Betty Pritchard? Gimme a break.’

  ‘Well Vernon, you just know everything, don’t you! Betty was class president in the fourth grade you know, and had all the bubbly parts in school plays – she never cussed or smoked or drank like the rest of us; bright as sunshine, she used to be. Until she started getting beaten black and blue by her father, whipped till she bled. So while you’re all critical, and know everything about everyone, just remember the rest of us are only human. It’s cause and effect, Vernon, you just don’t realize – even Leona was relaxed and sweet, before her first husband went, you know – the other way.’

  ‘The one that died?’

  ‘No, not the one that died. The first one, and out of consideration you shouldn’t even ask.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She takes a breath, wiping her eyes with the palm of her hand. ‘I lost a few pounds for the prom, though. I proved Papa wrong, just that once. Den Gurie asked me to be his date – Den Gurie, the linebacker! – I slept under the shawl of my prom dress all week.’

  ‘There you go – see?’

  ‘He picked me up in his brother’s truck. I almost fainted from excitement, and from hunger, I guess, but he told me to relax, said it’d be like spending a night with my kin . . .’ Mom starts to hiss from the back of her throat, like a cat. It’s another way to weep, in case you didn’t know. The early part of a strong weep.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘We drove out of town, sang songs nearly all the way to Lockhart. Then he asked me to check the tailgate on the truck. When I climbed out, he drove away and left me. That’s when I saw the hog farm by the road.’

  A bolt of anger takes me, about the fucken Guries, about the ways of this fucken town. The anger cuts through waves of sadness, cuts through pictures of young Jesus, the one who nailed himself to a fucken cross before anybody else could do it. That’s why this town’s angry. They didn’t get a shot at him. But they don’t have anger like I have anger brewing up. Anger cuts through a wide range of things. Cuts like a knife.

  After a second, I feel the dampness of Mom’s hand on mine. She squeezes it. ‘You’re all I have in the world. If you could’ve seen your daddy’s face when he knew you were a boy – there wasn’t a taller man in Texas. All the great things you were going to be when you grew up . . .’ She narrows puffy eyes into the distance, through Mrs Porter’s house, through the town, and the world, to where the cream pie lives. The future, or the past, or wherever it fucken lives. Then she shoots me this brave little smile, a genuine smile, too quick for her to pull any victimmy shit. As she does it, violins shimmer into the air across town, like in a movie. Even Kurt hangs silent as a guitar picks its way out of the orchestra, and a Texan voice from long ago herds our souls up into the night. Christopher Cross starts to sing ‘Sailing’. Mom’s favorite tune from before I was even born, before her days fell dark. Type of song you listen to when you think nobody likes you. She gives a broken sigh. I know right away the song will remind me of her forever.

  It’s not far down to paradise, at least it’s not for me

  And if the wind is right you can

  sail away

  And find tranquility . . .

  Fate tunes. This one breaks my fucken heart. We sit listening as long as we can bear it, but I know the song has sunk a well into Mom’s emotional glade, and I guess mine too. Dirty blood will gush high just now. The piano brings it on.

  ‘Well,’ she says. ‘George said she can only decoy the sheriff until tomorrow. And that isn’t even counting the thing about the drugs.’

  ‘But at least I’m innocent.’

  ‘Well Vernon, I mean, huh-hurr . . .’ She gives one of those disbelieving laughs, a hooshy little laugh that means you’re the only asshole in the world who believes what you just said. Notice how popular they are these days, those kinds of fucken laughs. Go up to any asshole and say anything, say, ‘The sky is blue,’ and they’ll wheel out one of those fucken laughs, I swear. It’s how folk spin the powerdime these days, that’s what I’m learning. They don’t shoot facts anymore, they just hoosh up their laughs, like: yeah, right.

  ‘I mean – surely the damage is done,’ she says. ‘You did have that awful catalog, and now these illegal drugs . . .’

  Awful catalog, get that. Her closet is probably full of that lingerie, but now it’s an awful catalog. I skip the catalog and move on to the drugs. ‘Heck, plenty of dudes are into that stuff – anyway it ain’t even mine.’

  ‘Well I know, that catalog was mine – what on earth got into you? Was it something the Navarro boy put you up to?’

  ‘Hell no.’

  ‘I don’t like to speak badly, but . . .’

  ‘I know, Ma, Meskins are more colorful.’

  ‘Well I only mean they’re more – flamboyant. And Vernon, they’re Mexicans, not Meskins, have some respect.’

  The conversation is nano-seconds away from including the word ‘panties’, something you should never hear in conversation with your mom. Knowing her, she’d probably say ‘underpants’ or something. ‘Interior wear’, or something way fucken bent. A new resignation settles over me, that I can’t run out on my ole lady while she’s like this. Not right away, not tonight. I need to reflect, alone.

  ‘I think I’ll take some fresh air,’ I say, stretching off the bench.

  Mom opens out her hands. ‘Well what do you call this?’

  ‘I mean at the park or something.’

  ‘Well Vernon, it’s nearly eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Ma, I’m being indicted as an accessory to murder for chrissakes . . .’

  ‘Well don’t cuss at your mother, after all I’ve been through!’

  ‘I ain’t cussing!’

  There’s a pause while she folds her arms, and hunches her shoulder to wipe an eye. Clicking night bugs make it seem like her skin is crackling. ‘Honestly, Vernon Gregory, if your father was here . . .’

  ‘What did I do? I’m only trying to go to the park.’

  ‘Well I’m just saying grown up people make money and contribute a little, which means getting up in the morning – I mean, there must be a thousand kids in this town, but you don’t see them all
at the park in the middle of the night.’

  Thus, quietly, and with love, she reels me out to the end of my tether, to that itchy hot point where you hear yourself committing to some kind of fucken outlandishness.

  ‘Yeah?’ I say. ‘Yeah? Well I’ve got live and direct news for you!’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I wasn’t even going to tell you yet, but if this is how you’re gonna be – I already talked to Mr Lasseen about a job, so, hey.’

  ‘Well, when do you start?’ A smile’s shadow passes over her lips. She knows I just cut lumber for a cross. The motivation behind her higher-than-Christ eyebrows gives me the fire to carry it on.

  ‘Tomorrow, maybe.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Just helping out, you know.’

  ‘Well I used to know Tyrie’s wife, Hildegard.’ She ups the ante, makes me think she’ll bump into Tyrie’s wife. But I hold my course, I say anything not to lose another knife game. My ole lady doesn’t lose at knife games. She ain’t lost this one yet. ‘Well what about Dr Goosens? I’ll die if I see the police around here again . . .’

  ‘I can work mornings.’

  ‘What will Tyrie Lasseen think, if you don’t do a full day’s work?’

  ‘I already fixed it with him.’

  ‘Well you can pay me a little lodging then, now that you’re so grown up and all.’

  ‘Oh, sure, you can have most of it – all of it if you want.’

  She sighs like I’m already behind with my rent. ‘The power company comes first, Vernon – how quickly will you get paid?’

  ‘Uh – I can probably get an advance.’

  ‘Without any working history?’

  ‘Oh sure,’ I say, squinting into the sky. ‘So now can I go to the park?’

  She blinks dreamily, her ole innocent eyebrows rise up to heaven. ‘I never said you couldn’t go to the park . . .’

  Needless to say, there is no fucken job. I stand insulated from my world by the buzzing tequila-ozone of what I just did. Lies scatter around me like ants.

  ‘Well I guess I’ll have to make lunches for you now,’ says Mom.

  ‘Nah, I’ll come home for lunch.’

  ‘From Keeter’s? But that’s miles away.’

  ‘Twenty minutes, it takes me.’

  ‘Oh goodnight, it’s almost twenty minutes by car ...’

  ‘Nah – I know all the shortcuts.’

  ‘Well maybe I better call Hildegard Lasseen and see what they expect, I mean it’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll take lunch.’

  ‘Y’all die and nobody told me?’ Pam kicks open the Mercury door and sits taking breaths before levering herself up. Something as big as a goddam bullfrog jumps out through her legs, I swear. ‘Vernie, come help ole Palmyra with these bags – I’ve been calling your damn number since Adam & Eve.’ She drops some sacks onto the driveway, then struggles over to the willow, pulling back the branches like drapes. Mom sits sniffling underneath.

  ‘Lalito’s gone,’ she sniffs.

  ‘Took his time about it,’ says Pam. ‘C’mon now, this food’s getting soggy.’ She begins the long haul up to the porch. I gather the Bar-B-Chew Barn sacks, and linger beside her.

  ‘Vernie, look!’ she says, pointing into the sky. I look up. ‘Tsh,’ she slaps my belly. She even makes the little sound, ‘Tsh,’ like a cymbal. It’s just a thing we do, me and Pam. ‘C’mon, Doris, or I’ll call Lolly and tell him about your herpes.’

  ‘Shit, Palmyra, God.’

  Thunderclaps of laughter ripple through Pam’s flesh. My ole lady struggles to keep her misery, squirms and wrassles with herself on the bench. In the end, she gets mad and scuttles up to the porch. ‘You’re just too damn perky – it’s important to hurt sometimes.’

  ‘Want me to push ya down the stairs? Haugh, haugh, haugh.’

  ‘Well for God’s sake, Palmyra. Anyway, we don’t want your damn food.’

  ‘Haugh, haugh, haugh. You should’ve seen Vaine at the hayride, she put away more corn than a truckload of empty Meskins.’

  ‘But Atkins diet is supposed to be protein ...’

  ‘Barry’s out for the night.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘A few of the posse owe him a beer. He found a gun yesterday, at Keeter’s.’

  twelve

  It ain’t my idea to leave before dawn. My ole lady decided to visit Nana, that’s why the house stinks of hairspray. You know why she’s leaving early: so nobody sees her scurry through town on foot. All she wants is for them to see her arrived, all hunky-dory. Not scurrying. It’s a learning I made since the car went.

  ‘Well I just can’t believe there isn’t a pair of Tumbledowns around town, I mean, I’ll have to try down by Nana’s.’ She gives off breathy noises, and flicks her fingertips through my hair. Then she takes a step back and frowns. It means goodbye. ‘Promise me you won’t miss your therapy.’

  An electric purple sky spills stars behind the pumpjack, calling home the last moths for the night. It reminds me of the morning when ole Mrs Lechuga was out here, all devastated. I try not to think about it. Instead I look ahead to today. Going to Keeter’s is a smart idea; if anybody sees me out there, they’ll say, ‘We saw Vernon out by Keeter’s,’ and nobody will know if they mean the auto shop, or the piece of land. See? Vernon Gray-matter Little. In return, I’ve asked Fate to help me solve the cash thing. It’s become clear that cash is the only way to deal with problems in life. I even scraped up a few things to pawn in town, if it comes to that. I know it’ll come to that, so I have them with me in my pack – my clarinet, my skateboard, and fourteen music discs. They’re in the pack with my lunchbox, which contains my sandwich, the two joints, and a piece of paper with some internet addresses on it.

  As for the joints and the piece of paper, I heard the voice of Jesus last night. He advised me to get wasted, fast. If at first you don’t succeed, he said, get wasted off your fucken ass. My plan is to sit out at Keeter’s and get some new ideas, ideas borne out of the bravery of wastedness.

  I ride down empty roads of frosted silver, trees overhead swish cool hints of warm panties in bedclothes. Liberty Drive is naked, save for droppings of hay, and Bar-B-Chew Barn wrappers. In this light you can’t see the stains on the sidewalk by the school. As the gym building passes by, all hulky and black, I look the other way, and think of other things.

  Music’s a crazy thing, when you think about it. Interesting how I decided which discs not to pawn. I could’ve kept some party music, but that would’ve just tried to boost me up, all this thin kind of ‘Tss-tss-tss,’ music. You get all boosted up, convinced you’re going to win in life, then the song’s over and you discover you fucken lost. That’s why you end up playing those songs over and over, in case you didn’t know. Cream pie, boy. I could’ve kept back some heavy metal too, but that’s likely to drive me to fucken suicide. What I need is some Eminem, some angry poetry, but you can’t buy that stuff in Martirio. Like it was an animal sex doll or something, you can’t buy angry poetry. When you say gangsta around here, they still think of Bonnie & fucken Clyde. Nah, guess what: I ended up keeping my ole Country albums. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck – even my daddy’s ole Hank Williams compilation. I kept them because those boys have seen some shit – hell, all they sing about is the shit they’ve seen; you just know they woke up plenty of times on a wooden floor somewhere, with ninety flavors of trouble riding on their ass. The slide-guitar understands your trouble. Then all you need is the beer.

  Silas Benn has an ole washing machine for a letterbox. You have to watch out for it, because it’s behind some trees as you approach his place from this end of Calavera Drive. I mention it because someday you might want to swing into Silas’s driveway at speed. Watch out for the fucken washing machine. It’s just one of the weird things about ole Silas. I know it’s early to visit, but he always leaves his living-room light on, for security I guess, and it gives you the chance to say, ‘Heck, Silas, I saw your light on.’
He’s wise to that ole line, but he still plays along. I nudge my bike up his driveway, and walk around to his bedroom window, tapping on the pane in the usual way. Then I stand back and hold my breath. A chink opens in the drapes. I tread softly to the back door. After some scrapes and rattles, Silas opens up and peeks out through crusty eyes.

  ‘Pork my henry, son, what kinda time d’ya call this?’

  ‘Heck, Silas, I saw your light on . . .’

  ‘Ya dint see my damn bedroom light on. Dog-gone it, hell to berries . . .’ Silas didn’t have time to strap on his leg. He just hangs on a kind of crutch. Silas had a leg amputated, see.

  ‘Sie, I got some real big business to run past you.’

  He rustles through his robe for his glasses. ‘Lemme see, whatcha find for me today . . .’

  ‘Well y’see, that’s the thing – I don’t have any hard stuff, like on paper and all, on account of they took my computer away.’

  ‘So what the . . .?’

  ‘See, I have this plan how you can get all the pictures you want, hundreds of ’em – today even, when Harris’s opens.’

  ‘Aw hell, son, shill my wincer – ya dragged me up fer nothin?’

  ‘Look,’ I say, unfolding the sheet of paper. ‘See these internet addresses? That’s where all those hard-core pictures are kept, for free – even the Amputee Spree stuff that you really like. With these instructions, you can go by Harris’s store, take the booth with the computer, and print out all you want. No kidding. With this list, you’ll never have to pay for pictures again.’

  ‘Shit, I don’t know – I never got with them com-puder machines.’