Vernon God Little

An unmistakable sound draws me back out of the house. It's the Eldorado, idling up the street. For the first time in Leona's life, she parks at the unfashionable end of Beulah Drive. Neither she nor George or Betty talk, or adjust their make-up. They don't even breathe. They sit parked under a willow and wait. Nobody, but nobody, overrides Nancie Lechuga's instructions. I watch with the ladies as Lally climbs into his car and drives away. They follow at a discreet distance. Mrs Lechuga's drapes twitch shut behind them. She's back in charge of the brigade, bless her.

Mom and Pam are fretting over the chicken by now, as Muzak boils the life out of some ole song. A two-inch pile of napkins sits soggy with their tears, under a sprinkling of salt and crumbs. I'm touched that my spirit is with them, just like the ole days, when hanging out together was like playing a favorite ole disc, reliving the tickles you got when you first heard it. Neither Pam nor my mom is saying anything relevant, that's the beauty of it. I don't know if it's on purpose, or if it's like a genetic kind of thing that folk just cruise into comfortable, meaningless ole routines when the shit hits the fan.

Mom just says, 'Well but they've moved things around since last time.'

Pam says, 'Lord, you're right, the cashier used to be over there.'

All I can say is they must've moved it in about five seconds, for the time these gals spend out of the joint. But where's Vaine? She's usually so punctual when it comes to chicken.

I race like a breeze over my ole stomping grounds, through Crockett Park towards Keeter's. Lally can't help chuckling when he reaches Keeter's corner. He can't stop laughing as he bounces up the track, and he's positively howling by the time the den comes into view, as the elephant dose of hallucinogens starts to warp his perception. His last steady action is to fit the key into the den padlock, pull back the hatch, and haul out my daddy's rifle. My ole lady bequeathed me that rifle, on condition I never bring it near the house. I had to act fast the day Daddy disappeared. Mom was real antsy. She got over it by shopping for garden furniture – go figure.

Thunder from an approaching helicopter nudges the acid in Lally's bloodstream to a peak. The vista starts to liquefy before his eyes. He's a drug-crazed, homicidal maniac, loose in our community. He turns his back on sunlight beaming low over the escarpment, only to find a spotlight pinning him from the other side.

'Drop it!' barks a voice. It's Vaine with her SWAT team. She shields her eyes against dust from the settling chopper.

Lally reels in a wild circle, confused, caressing the rifle, erasing Mom's fingerprints, and her worries, forever. As Taylor Figueroa ducks out of the helicopter with a news cameraman, Lally raises the rifle and cries in an unearthly tone. 'Ma

-mi,' he bawls, finding the trigger with both hands. 'Mamá!'

Watch out Taylor, like – oh my God!

'Open fire!' Vaine screams to her team.

Lally's face is a mask I fucken adore, suspended in time forever as slugs whistle and pierce the evening sky. He dances mid-air as chunks of his body pelt down like rain, before the bulk of him thuds twitching to the ground. Leona Dunt's Eldorado has to swerve off the track to avoid him.

'Wow, but is it supposed to be hidden, like – in the shit?' asks Leona, pouring out of the car in a cloud of tobacco smoke.

'I think Nancie means the story about the shit is what's valuable,' coughs Betty, ashing a cigarette into the dust. 'Just the evidence of the shit, the story rights…'

'Honey,' says George, 'a bonanza is a bonanza, whether it's in or on or about

the shit, now hand me that flashlight…'

'Golly,' says Betty, scraping through the bushes around my den. 'Looks like somebody's been here already…'

My vision dissolves, my mind shimmers back to the gurney and I find myself still alive, teeth clenched into a smile. That's some fucken anesthetic, boy. I look over to see the guards nod to each other in readiness. As the day's first thunder crackles outside, I turn to wink at Ella through the glass. Then I close my eyes. I wait for the deep to claim me, for the cool in my arm to turn icy, or not to turn at all, to just vanish through the glare with everything around, including lumpy ole asshole me.

SailingTakes me awayTo where I've always heard it could beJust a dream and the wind to carry meAnd soon I will be free…