Vernon God Little

It's the lunchtime news. You hear the fanfare of trumpets and drums, then the face of an asshole appears in the far distance, staring through the back window of a departing Smith County Sheriff's truck.

' Vernon, I have some bones to pick with you,' says Mom.

'I have to go now.'

'Well Vernon…'

'Click.'

My eyes latch onto the screen. A breeze rustles cellophane on the Lechugas' teddy farm, then snags a wire of Lally's hair and floats it off his head. The pumpjack squeaks rhythmically under his voice. 'This proud community takes a decisive step from the shadow of Tuesday's devastation, with the arrest of a new player in the deadly web of cause and effect that has brought the once-peaceful town to its knees.'

'Ain't see me on my fuckin knees,' says Barry, straddling a chair.

'To his neighbors, Vernon Gregory Little seemed a normal, if somewhat awkward teenager, a boy who wouldn't attract attention walking any downtown street. That is – until today.'

Lush pictures fill the screen, of crime-scene tape dancing under a blackened sky, body-bags punctuating drag-marks of blood, moist ladies howling pizza-cheese bungees of spit. Then a school photo of me, grinning.

'I definitely saw changes in the boy,' says George Porkorney. You can see her cigarettes hidden behind the fruit-salad plant on the breakfast bar at home. 'His shoes got more aggressive, he insisted on one of those skinhead haircuts…'

'I know,' says Betty in back.

Cut to Leona Dunt. Her handbag needs to be a yard taller for how big the word Gucci is written on it. 'Wow, but he seemed like such a regular kid.'

Black, disordered xylophone music joins the soundtrack as the camera bumps up the hallway to my room. Lally stops by my bed to face the camera. ' Vernon Little was described to me as something of a loner; a boy with few close friends, given more to playing on his computer – and reading.' The camera takes a vicious dive into the laundry pile by the bed. Out comes the lingerie catalog. 'But we find no Steinbeck, no Hemingway in Vernon Little's private library – in fact, his literary tastes run only to this…' Pages flap across the screen, sassy torsos cut me that once tugged chains of shameful sap through my veins. Then we hit page 67. Flapping stops. 'An innocent prop,' asks Lally, 'or a chilling link to the confused sexuality implied by Tuesday's crimes?' Twisted violins join the xylophone. The shot pans over my computer screen to the file marked 'Homework'. 'Click.' Cue the amputee sex pictures I saved for ole Silas Benn.

'Well golly,' says Mom. 'I had no idea

.'

Lally sits beside her on my bed, cranking his brow into a sympathetic A-frame. 'As Vernon 's mother, would it now be fair to number you among the victims of this tragedy?'

'Well, I guess I am a victim. I really guess so.'

'Yet you maintain Vernon 's innocence?'

'Oh God, a child is always innocent to his mother – well even murderers are loved by their families you know.'

Some fucken powerdime shift. Lally lets it sit there. Even Barry Gurie knows it's all over, he just sighs out of his chair and says, 'Time to go down.' He steadies me to the door, but I turn for the blow I know is coming. Things could've been different if I'd learned to spell earlier, if I'd just been a smarter, more regular kid. But as things turned out, I was almost seven before I could spell The Alamo. So there's no title at all on the finger-painting I gave Mom when I was five. Just a bunch of stick-corpses and a shitload of red.

'Well, you can see he was just a normal little boy, in almost every way.'

'All-a rise.' The court officer detours around my computer, and a boxload of other shit that turned up on the courtroom floor. Mom's panty catalog has a table all to itself. Even my ole finger-painting is here, but they don't seem to have bothered with my Nike box. The ozone in court has a new, unhealthy crunch to it.

'Mr Abdini,' says the judge, 'I trust your client understands he is being arraigned – I draw your attention to the various issues of waiver that might apply.'

Abdini cocks his head. 'Your honor?'

'The matter will proceed to indictment, sir. Might be time for you to act.'

'Ma'am,' I say, 'this whole thing can be cleared up with a call to my witnesses, my teacher and all…'

'Shhh,' hisses Abdini.

'Counsel, please inform your client that he's not on trial here. Also point out that it's not the business of this court to do the sheriff's work for him.' She sits back for a moment, then turns to Vaine.

'Deputy – you have

checked alibi witnesses?'

'I'm afraid the last witness, Miss Lori-Bethlehem Conner, passed away this morning, Judge.'

'I see. What about the boy's teacher?'

'Marion Nuckles didn't mention the suspect's whereabouts at the time of the tragedy.'

'He didn't mention, or you didn't ask?'

'His doctors say he won't be able to talk until the end of March next year. We couldn't get more than a few words, ma'am.'

'Well dammit Vaine. What were those words about?'

'Another firearm.'

'Oh good Lord.'