Vernon God Little

  ‘Knock when you want out,’ the guard tells him, locking the door.

  The ole black man unfolds the opposite bunk, and squeaks down onto the bare springs, as if I wasn’t here. Then he pulls his cap down low, folds his hands in his lap, and shuts his eyes, real comfortable.

  ‘So – you’re a preacher?’ I ask.

  He doesn’t answer. After a minute you hear a gentle wheezing from his nostrils, and see his tongue laze around his mouth. Then his face nods onto his chest. He’s asleep. I study him for about six decades, until I get bored of the shadows and the damp, then I slide off the bunk, and step away to knock for the guard.

  Lasalle stirs behind me. ‘Crusty young outcast,’ he says, ‘all brave and lonely, older than his years . . .’

  My feet weld to the floor.

  ‘Lopin away to hop another bus outta town.’ I turn to see a yellow eye pop open and shine at me. ‘Only one bus leaves these parts, son – and you know where it’s goin.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ I stare at his ole slumped form, watch his lip hang dopey from his jaw.

  ‘Know why you down here with me?’ he asks.

  ‘They didn’t say.’ I sit back down on the opposite bunk, and slouch to see under the shadow of his cap. His eyes glisten through the dark.

  ‘Only one reason, boy. Becausen you ain’t ready to die.’

  ‘I guess not,’ I say.

  ‘Becausen you spent all these years tryin to figure things out, and in figurin them out you got tangled up worse’n before.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Becausen I’m human.’ Lasalle creaks to the edge of his bunk. He takes a big pair of glasses from his shirt pocket, and puts them on. Huge moon eyes swim through the glass. ‘How you feel about us humans?’

  ‘Heck, I don’t know anymore. Everybody’s just yelling their heads off about their rights, and stuff, and saying, “Nice to see you,” when they’d rather see you in the river with your neck cut. I know that much.’

  ‘Boy, ain’t it the truth,’ says Lasalle with a chuckle.

  ‘Ain’t it just? Folks lie without even thinking about it, like every day of their lives, “Sir, I woke up with a fever,” then they spend the whole rest of their lives telling you not to lie . . .’

  Lasalle shakes his head. ‘Amen. Sounds to me like you plain don’t want to associate with those people no more, you rather not even be around.’

  ‘You’re right there, Pastor.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, eyeing up the cell. ‘You got your wish.’

  That kind of hits me sideways. I sit up.

  ‘What else did you wish for, son? I bet you wished you could shut your mama up once or twice before, I bet you dreamed of quittin home.’

  ‘I guess I did . . .’

  ‘Presto,’ he says, opening out his hands. ‘You lookin more and more lucky.’

  ‘But, wait – that ain’t the right logic . . .’

  His eyes bore through me, a hardness comes to his voice. ‘Ahhh, so you a logical boy. You all strung out on everybody else’s lies, and everybody else’s habits that you hate, becausen you logical. I bet you can’t even tell me a thing you love.’

  ‘Uh . . .’

  ‘That cos you such a big man, all crusty and independent? Or wait, lemme guess – it’s probably cozza you ole lady – I bet she the type of lady makes you feel guilty about the leastest thing, the type who probably gives the same dumb ole cards on you birthday, with puppy-dogs, and steam trains on ’em . . .’

  ‘That’s her.’

  Lasalle nods, and blows a little air through his lips. ‘Boy that woman must be one stupid cunt. Must be the dumbest fuckin snatch-rag that ever roamed this earth, probably is so butt-spastic . . .’

  ‘Hey, hey – you sure you’re a pastor?’

  ‘Boy, she one selfish fuckin piss-flap . . .’

  ‘Wait, goddammit!’

  There’s a noise at the door, the peephole darkens. ‘Keep it down,’ says the guard.

  I realize I’m on my feet, with my fists clenched tight. When I look back to Lasalle, he’s smiling. ‘No love, huh, kid?’

  I sit down on the bunk. Velcro maggots crawl up my spine.

  ‘Lemme tell you something for free – you’ll have a honey of a life if you love the people who love you first. Ever see your ma choose a birthday card for you?’

  ‘No.’

  He laughs. ‘That’s becausen there ain’t the hours in a boy’s agenda to watch her stand and read every little word in those cards, turn every feeling over in her soul. You probably too busy hiding the thing in you closet to read the words inside, about rays of sunshine the day you came into the world. Huh, Vernon Gregory?’

  Heat comes to my eyes.

  ‘You messed up, son. Face it.’

  ‘But I didn’t mean for anything to happen . . .’

  ‘Stuff needed to happen, kid. Different stuff from this. You just ain’t faced your God.’ Lasalle goes to his pants pocket and pulls out a rag for me to wipe my eyes. I use my sleeve instead. He reaches over and wraps a wrinkly hand around mine. ‘Son,’ he says, ‘ole Lasalle gonna tell you how it all work. Lasalle gonna give you the secret of this human life, and you gonna wonder why you never saw it before . . .’

  As he says it, I hear movement in the corridor outside. Footsteps. Then Lally’s voice.

  twenty-four

  ‘The key to this first public vote’, says Lally, ‘is not to give too many choices. We need to pick a shortlist of prisoners, advertise them well, then open the voting lines and see who performs.’

  It sounds like he’s with at least three other men. The guard knocks urgently on our door, but doesn’t open it, like he just wants us to shut up.

  ‘We have a hundred and fourteen ready to go,’ says another man. ‘You mean put up three dozen or so, for the first vote?’

  ‘Tch, no way. I mean put up two or three, at most. Flesh-out their characters for the audience, show interviews, reconstructions of their crimes, tears from the victims’ families. Then give the candidates web-cam access for the last week, live to air – a head-to-head battle for sympathy.’

  ‘I see,’ says the guy. ‘Kinda Big Brother, huh?’

  ‘Precisely, just how we sold it to the sponsors.’

  ‘But how do we select the first two?’ asks a third man.

  ‘It doesn’t really matter, provided the crimes are strong enough. I heard a concept the other day that kind of interested me, though, I think it was on a game show or something – “The last shall go first,” it said. Has a ring to it, don’t you think?’

  ‘Nice,’ says the fourth man. ‘Top-of-mind recall.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Their footsteps slow as they approach the cell, you hear the guard clink to attention.

  ‘Any reason for you to be down here, Officer?’ asks Lally.

  The guard shuffles on the spot, then a shadow passes over the peephole. ‘Open this door,’ says Lally. The key turns, and he looks inside. ‘What have we here?’ He turns to the guard. ‘Aren’t the men supposed to be segregated?’

  ‘Oh sure, sure,’ says the guard, fidgeting with his keys. ‘It’s just like, therapy, you know? A little counseling makes the living easier up on the Row.’

  Lally frowns. ‘This boy is a mass-murderer – surely it’s a little late for counseling. Anyway, these cells are out of bounds, we’re installing sound post-production down here.’

  ‘How’s your mama?’ I ask Lally. The words skim from my lip like spit. ‘Motherfucker.’

  ‘Jesus, kid!’ chokes the guard.

  Lally stifles an impulse to lash me, his business cronies keep him chilled. I stare slow deaths at him. ‘There ain’t prayers enough in heaven to stop me paying your fucken ass back,’ I hear myself whisper. Even Lasalle recoils.

  Lally just smirks. ‘Break them up.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ says the guard. He straightens, and waves an angry hand at Lasalle and me. I try to catch Lasalle’s eyes, but he just shuffles away.
/>
  ‘Lasalle – what’s the secret?’ I hiss after him.

  ‘Later, kid, later.’

  Lally smiles at me as I leave the room. ‘Still trying to figure things out, eh, Little man?’ He gives an asthma laugh, then his voice folds into echoes as he leads his men away. ‘So, February fourteenth we launch the first vote.’

  ‘You mean Valentine’s Day?’ asks another man.

  ‘Precisely.’

  Guess what: you can receive junk-mail on Death Row. The week before the first vote I get a sweepstakes letter that says I definitely won a million dollars; at least that’s what it says on the envelope. I think you have to buy encyclopedias to get it or something, or to maybe get it. I also find a Bar-B-Chew Barn token entitling me to a Chik’n’Mix for two, at any of their branches across the State. Yeah, they’re across the State now. Tomorrow the world, I guess.

  I’m working on my art project when I hear Jonesy making his way down the Row towards me. Banter from the other cells lets you know where he is. He’s bringing the phone. I stiffen, and stash away my art stuff. As it happens though, the big news reaches me before Jonesy arrives with the phone. I hear it from a TV up the Row.

  ‘. . . The body of the American will be flown home today. Forty refugees also died in the skirmish,’ says the news. ‘After the break – the end of the road for serial killer Vernon Gregory Little; we’ll have the latest on that failed appeal, and also – the duck and the hamster that just won’t take no for an answer!’

  Jones doesn’t look at me, he just passes me the phone. ‘Vernon, I’m sorry,’ my attorney crackles through the receiver. ‘I don’t have the words to tell you how I feel.’

  I just stay quiet.

  ‘There’s nothing more we can do.’

  ‘What about the Supreme Court?’ I ask.

  ‘In your case, I’m afraid the fast-track process puts that option out of our reach. I’m sorry . . .’

  I put the phone down on my bunk, hearing every crease of the blanket like gravel in my ears.

  Tonight they install cameras in my cell, and remove all the TVs and radios from the Row. We ain’t allowed to see how the voting’s going, that’s why. I just sit quiet in the darkest corner and think about things, I don’t even play with the clacking balls. Eight squillion valentines turned up for me, from sickos all over the world. Somebody in the mail room was kind enough to just send up the one from Ella Bouchard. I left her on my mail list, don’t ask me why. I don’t open it, though. The Row is extra-quiet tonight, out of respect, I guess. They’re called the worst in the land, but my Row mates know something about respect.

  I need another date with Lasalle. As the first public vote gets underway, I find myself thinking hard on some of that stuff he said. Not that it made a whole lot of sense, back when I had a chance to live. But it laid an egg in my mind that started growing. Face my God. In between trading junk-mail, the other cons get talking about this week’s public vote, laying bets who’ll be first to go. That’s what they do in between griping for their TVs and radios. They don’t bet on anyone from this Row, but you know the feeling of being the last one in the dentist’s waiting-room? That’s me right now. The problem with the voting is that you don’t get to hear if it’s you until the last day. You have to stay prepared. Sometimes I get grand schemes to be wacky for my execution, wear socks on my ears or something, or say something bizarre for my last statement. Then I just bawl a little. These days I’m bawling way too much really, for a man, I know it.

  By the last day of voting, I can’t bear it anymore. In an hour the world will know who’s going to die. I bitch to Jonesy about some more time with Lasalle, but he ain’t interested. He argues with another guard over who gets to mind the governor’s phone-line in the execution chamber, for the first executions. Occasionally he snaps down the Row at me.

  ‘Mr Laid-his-ma ordered no more visits,’ he says. ‘Anyway, in a while you mayn’t have to worry about nothin no more.’

  In the end I take up clacking the metal balls again, until the other cons join in griping. All it does is ruffle Jonesy’s feathers. ‘Which one a you fucks got a million bucks to pay for special favors?’

  ‘Git outta here,’ yell the cons.

  I just sigh. The swirl of musty air rustles a paper on my bench. An idea rustles with it. ‘Jonesy,’ I say, gabbing the sweepstakes letter. ‘Here’s your million.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ he says.

  ‘I ain’t fooling – look,’ I hold up the envelope.

  ‘You think I was born yesterday?’ snorts Jonesy. ‘I just about have to shovel that mail-order fuckin bullshit off my driveway every mornin.’

  I try a hooshy laugh on him. ‘We-ell,’ I hoosh. ‘O-kay – but this is a legally binding promise for a million bucks – you know they can’t say it unless it’s true, and they say it right here in red and white.’

  ‘Hey, Little!’ calls a con. ‘You sayin you got the latest sweepstakes letter?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Does it have black writin on it, or red writin?’

  ‘It’s the red one, all right.’

  ‘God, Jesus in Heaven – I’ll give you two hundred for that letter,’ he says.

  ‘Lemme see that,’ Jonesy snatches the letter through my grille. He studies it a second, then says, ‘It’s got your name on it, that ain’t no good to me.’

  ‘Officer Jones,’ I say, like a schoolteacher or something, ‘my execution-kit has a last will and testament in it – I can leave it to you, see?’

  ‘Little, wait!’ yells another con. ‘I’ll give you three hundred for that letter.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ hollers another, ‘I’ll make it five!’

  ‘Pipe the fuck down,’ shouts Jonesy. ‘Didn’t y’all hear he gave it to me?’ He checks his watch, then points through the grille at my slippers. ‘Get ready.’

  When the clinking of his keychain is out of earshot, a giggle flutters along the Row. ‘Hrr-hrr-hr, fuckin Jonesy,’ go the cons.

  ‘Little,’ says the con next door. ‘You finally learnin how to git along.’

  Officer Jones personally marches me along the Row, and down the stairs to find Lasalle. We have to sidestep a porter pushing a trolley loaded with TVs and radios on their way back to the cells. That means the vote is over. Behind the appliances struts the dark-suited man with the execution papers. It’s his job to deliver the papers to the head warden of a Row, so that he can deliver them to the condemned man. As the suited man passes, I see Jonesy flash him an eyebrow, almost imperceptibly. The man just as imperceptibly shakes his head, and walks right on by.

  ‘None of my boys dyin today,’ says Jones. My gut relaxes. I live again, for now. When we reach the floor below, a different floor this time, Jones sticks his head into a regular-looking room, but nobody’s there. He calls to a guard up the Row.

  ‘Lasalle around?’

  ‘In the cans,’ says the guard, ‘takin a dump.’

  Jonesy takes me to the shower block on the floor below, and marches me right inside.

  ‘Ain’t we gonna wait for him to come out?’ I ask.

  ‘No time – it’s execution day, I have to get downstairs. You got five minutes.’ He casts a shifty eye around, then he leaves me with this echoey drip of brown-sounding water, and goes to stand outside the door.

  I crouch on the wet concrete floor, and scan under the cubicles for evidence of life. Two cubicle doors are shut, not that you can lock them or anything. Under one door hangs a pair of jail slippers, and regular jail pants. Under the other is a pair of polished black shoes, and blue suit pants. I knock on that cubicle.

  ‘Lasalle – it’s Vern.’

  ‘Aw Jesus. What you think I can do for you from a prison fuckin toilet?’

  ‘Uh – help me face my God.’ I hoosh it ironically. I guess it’s ironic, hooshing when you’re in the prison shithouse on some poor bastard’s execution day.

  ‘Shit,’ he gripes.

  Everybody’s tense today, see. Tension even
buzzes through this can door, like we just met in the freezer section of Death-Mart or something. Waves rise to engulf me.

  ‘Really wanna meet you God?’ says Lasalle. ‘Then git on you damn fuckin knees.’

  ‘Uh – it’s kinda wet out here, actually, Lasalle . . .’

  ‘Then make a fuckin wish to Santa. Ask for what you most want in this damn world.’

  I think for a second, mostly wondering if I should just leave. Then, after a moment, I hear Lasalle’s clothes rustle inside the cubicle. The toilet flushes. He opens the door. His ole turkey neck appears, poking out of a collar and tie. His bottom lip juts dumb.

  ‘Well?’ he says, looking around. ‘You a free man?’ I look around, like a dumbo, while he straightens his tie, and raises a polite hand to the door. ‘Officer Jones,’ he calls, ‘any news on the boy’s pardon?’ Jonesy just laughs, a real dirty laugh. Lasalle glares at me. ‘So much for fuckin Santa.’

  ‘Some preacher you are,’ I say. I turn for the door but he grips my arm and spins me around. One tubular vein stands out from his neck, throbbing like it lives on a reproductive organ.

  ‘Blind, dumb shit,’ he spits, his breath like hot sandpaper in my ear. ‘Where’s this God you talk about? You think a caring intelligence would wipe out babies from hunger, watch decent folk scream and burn and bleed every second of the day and night? That ain’t no God. Just fuckin people. You stuck with the rest of us in this snake-pit of human wants, wants frustrated and calcified into needs, achin and raw.’

  The outburst takes me aback. ‘Everybody needs something,’ I mutter.

  ‘Then don’t come cryin to me becausen you got in the way of another man’s needs.’

  ‘But, Lasalle . . .’

  ‘Why you think the world chewin its own legs off? Becausen the goodies are right there, but we can’t fuckin get ’em. Why can’t we get ’em? Becausen the market for promises need us not to. That ain’t the work of no God. That’s human work, animals who dreamed up an outside God to take the heat.’ Lasalle pokes a trembling lip at my face. ‘Wise the fuck up. Intermingling needs make this world go round. Serve that intermingling, and you needs can get fulfilled. Ever hear say, “Give the people what they want?”’