Twenty

   I sit on a jail toilet feeling a little hopeful, to be frank, just letting my worldly pressures crackle through my lower tract. I know I shouldn't say it, but exercising your tract is one of the greatest hits, boy. It's another thing you're never taught about life. In fact, it not only doesn't get taught, but they teach you the opposite, like it's the Devil's Work or something. It's like my mom invented all the damn rules of the world, when you think about it.
   But I don't think about it at all. It's morning, and the air in the shade has that hazy, wet crispness you get in winter. I have some time before they load me into the wagon for the trip back to court, so I hang here in the bathrooms nearest to the prison yard. I even have a Camel to smoke, a brand-spanking-new Camel Filter, from Detiveaux, who's on trial for grand theft. He's feeling generous on account of his girlfriend brought their new baby to visit. I told him the kid looks just like him, which it kind of does, even though it's a girl. Now here's me sucking wads of blue smoke, and trying to ash between my legs without burning my reproductive apparatus. All my troubles jump out of my tract like rats from an airplane, and I just get lighter and clearer every second. Making plans like crazy. Tracts, boy, damn.
   The journey into court is gray and regular. From the make-up room, I hear helicopters thumping over the courthouse, in case I escape, or something. Ha. Like: yeah, right. They wish I'd escape, just so's they can avoid the hard core of regret they have coming when my innocence struts out. They're going to have to eat that ole dish cold. I sit stiff with this kind of righteous optimism during make-up today, eating fries. They must whiff that ole truth around the corner, to suddenly feed me fries. Only problem is they cuff me extra-tight for the walk to my cage, and I have to hunch my shoulder up to my cheek, where I smeared ketchup. As I try to clean the ketchup, I watch a shaft of sunlight swivel slowly over the courtroom floor, until the witness stand is lit up like Mount Sinai. The sound of tattered leather scuffles up the stairs towards the back. Without even looking, you know it's Mom, leaving. She gets her picture took arriving each morning, but she can't handle the guts of the day. Pam'll be outside in the Mercury, both feet on the pedals.
   The judge arrives, nods to everybody, and I sit back to watch my Fate played out before me.
   'The State calls Taylor Figueroa.'
   Taylor steps through the crowd in a gray business suit with short skirt. She throws back her hair, fixes the cameras with a girl-next-door smile, then stands tall like a majorette to take her oath. Goodness but she's pretty. A taste crawls through me of how things could have been. I kill it.
   'Ms Figueroa,' says the prosecutor, 'please state your age and occupation.'
   Taylor bites her lip, like she's thinking about it. When she speaks, her inflection rises, then dips, then rises again at the end, like a car changing gear. The school smell effect.
   'I just turned nineteen, and like, I was a student, but now I'm kind of, trying out for a career in media.'
   The prosecutor nods sympathetically, then frowns. 'I don't want to cause undue distress, but you'll appreciate these proceedings demand that some delicate questions be asked—please, hold up a hand if this becomes too uncomfortable.'
   Taylor scrapes a tooth over her lip. 'It's okay, whatever.'
   'You're very brave.' The prosecutor hangs his head. 'Ms Figueroa—have you ever been—stalked?'
   'Stalked?'
   'That is, has a disproportionate interest ever been shown toward you by a stranger, or a casual acquiantance?'
   'I guess so, yeah, one guy.'
   'What made you think this person's interest was unusual?'
   'Well like, he just turned up out of the blue, and started confessing to all these crimes and whatever.'
   'Had you known him previously?'
   'Uh-huh, kind of, I mean—I think I saw him outside a party once.'
   'Outside a party?'
   'Yeah, like, he wasn't invited or anything.'
   'Was anyone else outside this—party?'
   'No.'
   The prosecutor nods at the floor. 'So—this person was alone, outside a party he couldn't attend. And he talked to you?'
   'Uh-huh. He helped me into the back of this car.'
   'He helped you into the back of a car? What happened next?'
   'Like, my best friend turned up, from inside the party or whatever, and this guy went away.'
   My eyes move over the jury members, revising their age up to where they all have daughters like Taylor. Their eyebrows show a new slant.
   The prosecutor waits for it all to sink in. Then he asks, 'So where did you next see this person?'
   'In Houston.'
   'Did he reside in Houston, or in Harris County somewhere?'
   'No. He was on his way to, like—Mexico.'
   'From where?'
   'Martirio.'
   The prosecutor shoots a meaningful glare at the jury. 'Martirio to Mexico via Houston is quite a detour.'
   'Yeah, like, I couldn't believe it, he just came to see me, and he confessed to all this stuff and whatever …'
   'And then what happened?'
   'My cousin turned up, and he ran away.'
   Taylor drops her head now, and everybody holds their breath, in case she cries or something. She doesn't though. The prosecutor waits till he's sure she ain't, then he lets go the cannonball. 'Do you see that person in the courtroom?'
   Taylor doesn't lift her head, she just points at my cage. I lower my face to try and snag her gaze, but it's glued to her shoes. The prosecutor tightens his lips, and launches himself, business-like, into nailing the rest of my cross.
   'Let the record show that the witness has identified the defendant, Vernon Gregory Little. Ms Figueroa, you will have heard the defense claim that Vernon Little was in Mexico at the time of the most recent murders. They say you knew he was there. Did you know he was there?'
   'Well, like—he was there when I arrived.'
   'How long can you definitely say the defendant was in Mexico?'
   'Three hours maybe, tops.'
   'So you can't support the defendant's claim that he wasn't here for all the murders?'
   'I guess not.'
   The prosecutor moves to the witness box, rests one arm on the railing, and smiles caringly at Taylor. 'It's nearly over,' he says softly. 'Just tell us, in your own time—what transpired during those hours in Mexico?'
   Taylor stiffens. She takes a breath. 'He tried to, like—make love to me.'
   'Was this when he confessed to the murders?'
   'Uh-huh.'
   Breath is intaken across the room, across the world, probably, followed by a buzz of murmurs. My soul screams out with the sting of it, but my attorney nails me quiet with an eye. The green buzzer in my cage starts to look inviting as, ever so slowly, the room, the cameras, and the world, turn to study me in greater detail. The prosecutor just smiles, moves to his table, and presses a button on a machine there.
   'Yeah,' my voice scratches through the court. 'I did it for you.' It plays over and over. 'I did it for you, for you, for you. I did it.'
   Brian puts on a real hooshy face for the cross-examination. He puts his hands in his pockets, and stands in front of Taylor, like her dad or something. He just stares at her, as if what she's about to say is the dumbest excuse he ever heard. Her eyes flick down a little, then widen like, 'What?'
   'You saw the defendant for three hours in Mexico?'
   'Uh-huh.'
   'So, as far as you're concerned, he could've been anywhere in the world, outside those three hours?'
   'I guess so.'
   'Why did Vernon Little come to meet you in Mexico?'
   Taylor rolls her eyes—a girl's hoosh. 'Well, to have sex, or confess, or whatever.'
   'You paid him to have sex with you?'
   Taylor recoils. 'No way!'
   'So no money changed hands between you that day?'
   'No, well like …'
   'Yes or no answer, please.'
   'See, but …'
   'Yes. Or no.'
   'Yes.'
   'So you gave Vernon Little some money—three hundred dollars, in fact.' Brian turns to the gallery, raises one eyebrow. 'Darned boy must be good.' A chuckle scurries through the back.
   'Objection!' barks the prosecutor.
   'Sustained,' says the judge.
   Brian throws me a bitty wink, then turns back to Taylor with his most fatherly stare. 'Did Vernon Little know you would be in Mexico that day?'
   'See—but, like …'
   'You surprised him, didn't you? You used a cash offer to entice him—a confused, innocent, desperate teenager—to a place where you appeared, out of the blue. Is that the truth?'
   Taylor's mouth flaps emptily for a second. 'Yeah, but I was told …'
   My attorney raises his hand to her, then folds his arms. 'I put it to you that you were employed to enact this stunt. You were employed to entrap the defendant, not by the police, and not necessarily with cash, but lured with promises of celebrity by the man behind this entire charade.'
   She just stares at Brian.
   'Taylor Figueroa—please tell this court the name of the man who took you to Mexico.'
   'Eulalio Ledesma.'
   'No further questions.'
   Lally appears at the top of the stairs, dressed all in white. His face is waxy. Angry puckers squirm on each cheek as he grinds his teeth inside. The crowd turn to look at him as he steps down the aisle, into the light. I turn to look at the crowd. You can tell they love him. The prosecutor is first to examine.
   'Eulalio Ledesma—you've been in a unique position to observe the defendant, first as a close family friend, and later, I'm sure, as a concerned citizen …'
   'Tch, excuse me,' says Lally, 'I have a meeting with the Secretary of State—will this take long?'
   'I can't speak for the defense, but I'll keep it brief,' says the prosecutor. 'Just tell us, please—if you could characterize the defendant in a word, what would it be?'
   'Psychopath.'
   'Objection!' shouts Brian.
   'Sustained—the jury will ignore both question and answer.' The judge rotates a hard eye to the prosecutor. 'And Counsel will remember a young man could well be executed as a result of these proceedings.'
   The prosecutor gestures to the jury like his hands are being tied, but the judge quickly scowls him out of it. He skulks back to Lally. 'Perhaps you'll tell the court, Mr Ledesma—did the defendant say anything to you, privately, about the school tragedy?'
   Lally draws his lips tight, the way your best buddy does when he has to tell his mom you ate the last cookie. 'Not as such,' he says.
   'Did anything he do suggest his involvement?'
   Lally takes a deep breath. He looks at me with black, swollen eyes, and shakes his head. 'He talked in his sleep some nights.' His bottom lip starts to bounce. 'Growled in his sleep, more like it –"Boom," he would say. "Take that—booom …"' A sob breaks free from his throat. Deathly hush spreads over the world.
   The prosecutor bows his head, and waits a respectful moment. Then he says, 'I'm sorry to put you through this …'
   Lally raises a trembling hand, cuts him short. 'Anything to bring peace upon those wretched souls.'
   Sniffles break out in court. There ain't a trace of hoosh about the prosecutor anymore, not within a hundred miles of him. After eight centuries, he just asks, 'Did you also see the defendant kill Officer Barry Gurie?'
   'From the ground where I lay, injured, I saw the defendant run towards Officer Gurie. I heard a scuffle, then three shots …'
   The prosecutor nods, then turns to my attorney. 'Your witness.'
   Brian straightens his tie, and steps up to the box. Silence crunches like lizard bones.
   'Mr Ledesma—how long have you been a TV journalist?'
   'Almost fifteen years now.'
   'Practicing where?'
   'New York mostly, and Chicago.'
   'Not Nacogdoches?'
   Lally frowns. 'No-ho,' he hooshes a little powerdime-booster.
   'Ever visit?'
   'No-ho.'
   Brian shoots him a knowing smile. 'Ever told a lie, Mr Ledesma?'
   'Tch …'
   'Yes or no.'
   'No-h-ho.'
   My attorney nods and turns to the jury. He holds up a calling card. 'Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to show the witness a calling card. It reads, "Eulalio Ledesma Gutierrez, President & Service Technician-In-Chief, Care Media Nacogdoches."' He glides it through the air to Lally's face. 'Mr Ledesma—is this your business card?'
   'Oh p-lease,' hooshes Lally. He's like an ole-fashion train all of a sudden.
   Brian gives him his hardest stare. 'A witness will testify that you presented this card as your own. I ask again—is this your card?'
   'I said no.'
   'Your honor, if I may be allowed to append a witness to this examination, for the purpose of identification …?'
   'Go ahead,' says the judge.
   My attorney nods to the back of the court. The double doors creak open, and two orderlies guide a little ole Mexican lady into the room. Brian waits until she's tottering at the top of the stairs, then he closes in on Lally.
   'Mr Ledesma—is this your mother?'
   'Don't be ridiculous,' growls Lally.
   'Lally! My Lalo!' cries the lady. She breaks free of the orderlies, but her foot catches a railing in the aisle, and she tumbles to the ground. The judge rises out of his seat, frowning as the lady is helped to her feet. She bawls, and tries to pinpoint Lally's voice. He stays quiet. His cheeks pucker double-time.
   Brian lets the hush return before calling to the ole lady. 'Mrs Gutierrez, please tell the court—is this your son?'
   'It's him.'
   She pulls her helpers down the aisle, then her foot misses another step, and she dangles suspended in their arms. The judge pulls back his lips like he just stepped on a spleen. He squints at the ole woman, then shakes his head.
   'Ma'am—can you point to your son?'
   Breathing is canceled across the world. 'Lalo?' she calls. 'Eu-lalio?' He doesn't answer. Just then, one of the attorneys folds his arms, and at that nano-rustle of his sleeves, the ole woman flinches and points to the prosecutor. 'Lally!'
   The prosecutor throws out his arms in despair. The judge's eyes fall to my attorney. 'Time out—am I to understand this witness is visually impaired?'
   'Every woman knows her child's voice, your honor.'
   'Lalo?' sniffs the woman, now reaching for the stainographer.
   The judge sighs. 'Just how in God's name did you figure to get a positive identification?'
   'Your honor,' starts Brian, but the judge slams down his glasses and spreads his hands wide.
   'Counsel—the good lady can't see.'
   A good night's sleep doesn't happen for me tonight. I twist and buck with the horrors of Jesus, knowing I'm in a lottery to join him in the flesh. When I'm locked in my zoo cage next morning, everybody's attention hangs on me. Sure, Brian gets up and argues, says it's entrapment and all. But you get the feeling everybody kind of knows Lally's was the final nail. Subtle changes in the room tell you they know; the stainographer's head sits back an extra notch, for instance.
   While all this happens I feel a vibe from Jesus. It says to cut my losses, forget about my family secrets—it says I've been loyal above and beyond the call of duty, I just have to let them find the gun. It says to tell them about the bowel movement I had outside school that day. I mean, shit must carry a lot of evidence about a guy. Probably you could clone whole other guys from it, then just ask them why they did it. One of my fingers touches the green button in the cage, feels its surface. Cameras whirr close. You just know crowds on the street, people in airports, folks in the comfort of their own smell at home, men in barber shops in Japan, kids skipping classes in Italy, are tuned in, holding their damn breath. You sense a billion cumulative hours of human life just got shortened by raging blood-pressure. Power, boy. I purse my lips, and trace a gentle line around the buzzer, toying with it, pretending to have hefty options. The sudden hush in the room makes Brian spin around. When he sees my hand over the buzzer he scrambles my way, but the judge hisses behind him.
   'Leave him be!'
   I don't hit the buzzer to change my story. I hit it because my story ain't getting told. I get an enlightenment about the ten years it feels like I've been listening to this whole crowd of pow-erdime spinners, with their industry of carpet-fiber experts, and shrinks and all, who finish me off with their goddam blah, blah, blah. And you just know the State ain't flying any experts down for me. What I learned is you need that industry, big-time. Because, although you ain't allowed to say it, and I hope I ain't doing The Devil's Work by saying it myself—Reasonable Doubt just don't apply anymore. Not in practice, don't try and tell me it does. Maybe if your cat bit the neighbor's hamster, like with Judge Judy or something. But once they ship in extra patrol cars, and build a zoo cage in court, forget it. You have to come up with simple, honest-to-goodness proof of innocence, that anybody can tell just by watching TV. Otherwise they hammer through nine centuries of technical evidence, like a millennium of back-to-back math classes, and it's up in there that they wipe out Reasonable Doubt.
   With nothing to really lose, I hit the buzzer. It makes a sound like a xylophone dropped from an airplane, and I'm suddenly blinded by a firestorm of camera flashes. The last thing I see is Brian Dennehy's mouth drop open.
   'Judge,' I say.
   'Shhh!' chokes Brian.
   'Go ahead, son,' says the judge. 'Shall we activate the recant procedure?'
   'No sir, it's just that—I thought I'd get a chance to say how things really happened, but they're only asking stuff that makes me look bad. I mean, I have witnesses all the way back to the tragedy.'
   'Your honor,' says the prosecutor, 'the State would hope to preserve the structure of this case, after all the effort that's gone into it.'
   The judge stares blankly at him. 'And I would hope, Counsel, that the State, like this court, would seek to preserve the truth.' He smiles warmly for the camera, then says, 'Swear the boy in.'
   'Your honor,' says Brian, holding out a helpless hand.
   'Silence!' says the judge. He nods to me. 'Say your piece, Mister Little.'
   I take a deep breath, and go through the routine with the Bible. Brian sits with his head in his hands. Then I quiver right to the heart of my concern. 'I never was in any trouble. My teacher, Mr Nuckles, knows it, he knows where I was. The reason I wasn't in class is because he sent me to get a candle for some teeter-totter experiment—if he'd talked earlier, none of this suspicion would've happened.'
   The judge stares at the attorneys. 'Why has that witness not appeared?'
   'He was judged unfit by his doctors,' says Brian. 'Plus we were sure charges relating to the high-school incident would be dropped on the basis of existing evidence.'
   'I think we need to hear from your Mr Nuckles,' says the judge. He looks up at the cameras. 'I think the world will demand to hear from him.' He waves a hand at the court officers. 'Order him to appear—we'll travel to his bedside if necessary.'
   'Thank you, sir,' I say. 'Another thing is …'
   'You've made your point, son. In fairness now, I'll have to let the prosecutor ask you some questions.'
   I think you can hear my attorney weeping. The prosecutor adjusts his smile and wanders over. 'Thank you, Judge. Vernon Gregory Little, how are you today?'
   'Okay, I guess—I just was going to tell …'
   He holds up a hand. 'Your position is that you never saw the last sixteen victims—correct?'
   'See, the thing is …'
   'Yes or no answers, please.'
   I look at the judge. He nods. 'Yes,' I say.
   'And you never saw the victims at school, until they were dead or dying—correct?'
   'Yes.'
   'But you admit you were at the scene of those murders?'
   'Well, yeah.'
   'So you've sworn under oath that you were at the scene of eighteen deaths, although you didn't see all those deaths happen.'
   'Uh-huh,' my eyes flicker, trying to keep up with the math of the thing.
   'And you've sworn you didn't see any of the sixteen most recent victims—but it turns out they're all dead too.' The prosecutor runs his tongue around his mouth, frowning. It's an advanced type of hoosh, in case you didn't know. Then he smiles at the jury, and says, 'Don't you think your eyesight is starting to cause a little trouble around town?' Laughter bubbles through the court.
   'Objection!'
   'Leave it, Counsel.' The judge dismisses Brian, and waves me to answer.
   'I wasn't even there, at the latest deaths,' I say.
   'No? Where were you?'
   'Mexico.'
   'I see. Did you have a reason to be in Mexico?'
   'Uh—I was kind of on the run, see …'
   'You were on the run.' The prosecutor tightens his lips. He looks back to the jury, which is mostly station-wagon owners, and the like; some hard-looking ladies, and a couple of nervy men. One dude you just know irons his socks and underwear. They all emulate the prosecutor's lips. 'So let's get this straight—you say you're innocent of any crime, that you never even saw half of the victims. Right?'
   'Yeah.'
   'But you admit to being present at the first massacre, and you have been positively identified at the scenes of the other murders. Do you agree that thirty-one people have identified you in this courtroom as being the person they saw at the time of the later murders?'
   'Objection,' says Brian 'It's old news, your honor.'
   'Judge,' says the prosecutor, 'I'm just trying to establish the defendant's perception of the facts.'
   'Overruled.' The judge nods at me. 'Answer the question.'
   'But …'
   'Answer the question yes or no,' says the prosecutor. 'Have you been identified as the suspect by thirty-one citizens in this courtroom?'
   'Uh—I guess so.'
   'Yes or no!'
   'Yes.'
   My eyes drop to the floor. And once I'm aware of what my eyes are doing, the rest of me gets that first wave of panic. Heat rushes to the back of my nose. The prosecutor pauses, to give my body space enough to betray me on TV.
   'So now, having had your presence established at the scenes of thirty-four murders—you tell us you were later on the run.' He makes googly eyes to the jury. 'I can't imagine why.' A chuckle bumps through the room.
   'Because everybody suspected me,' I say.
   The prosecutor tosses his arms out wide. 'After thirty-four murders, I'm not surprised!' He stands a moment, while his shoulders bounce with silent laughter. He shakes his head. He mops his brow. He wipes a tear from the corner of one eye, takes a deep breath, then stumbles the few steps to my cage, still vibrating with fun. But when he levels his gaze at me, it burns.
   'You were in Mexico on the twentieth of May this year?'
   'Uh—that was the day of the tragedy, so—no.'
   'But you just told this court you were in Mexico at the time of the murders.'
   'I meant the recent ones, you know …'
   'Ahh I see, I get it–you went to Mexico for some of the murders—is that your story now?'
   'I just meant …'
   'Let me help you out,' he says. 'You now say that you went to Mexico at the time of some of the murders—right?'
   'Uh—yeah.'
   'And where were you otherwise, when you weren't in Mexico?'
   'Right at home.'
   'Which is in the vicinity of the Amos Keeter property, is it not?'
   'Yes sir, kind of.'
   'Which is where the body of Barry Gurie was found?'
   'Objection,' says my attorney.
   'Your honor,' says the prosecutor, 'we want to establish that all the murders took place before he ran.'
   'Go ahead—but do feel free to find the point.'
   The prosecutor turns back to me. 'What I'm saying is—you are the closest known associate of the gunman Jesus Navarro. You live mighty close to the scenes of seventeen homicides. You have been identified at all of them. When first interviewed, you absconded from the sheriff's office. When apprehended and released on bail, you ran to Mexico …' He leans into the bars, casually, wearily, and lets his face relax onto his chest, so just his heavy eyes poke up. 'Admit it,' he says softly, reasonably. 'You killed all those people.'
   'No I didn't.'
   'I suggest you killed them, and just lost count of all the bodies mounting up.'
   'No.'
   'You didn't lose count?'
   'I didn't kill them.'
   The prosecutor tightens his lips and sighs through his nose, like extra work just landed at knock-off time. 'State your full name, please.'
   'Vernon Gregory Little.'
   'And where exactly were you in Mexico?'
   'Guerrero.'
   'Can anyone vouch for you?'
   'Yeah, my friend Pelayo …'
   'The truck driver, from the village on the coast?' He ambles to his desk and picks up an official-looking document. He holds it up. 'The sworn affidavit of "Pelayo" Garcia Madero, from the village named by the defendant,' he says to the court. He carefully lays the paper down, and looks around the room, engaging everyone's attention individually. 'Mr Garcia Madero states that he only ever met one American youth in his life—a hitch-hiker he met in a bar in northern Mexico, and drove to the south in his truck—a hitch-hiker called Daniel Naylor …'

Twenty-One

   Life flashes before my eyes this fourteenth of November, bitty flashes of weird existence, like the two weeks of a mosquito's life. The last minute of that life is filled with the news that Mr Nuckles will testify on the last day of my trial, in five days' time. Observers say only he can save me now. I remember the last time I saw him. Twentieth of May this year.
   'If things don't happen unless you see them happening,' said Jesus, 'do they still happen if you think they're gonna—but don't tell nobody …?'
   'Sounds like not unless nobody doesn't see you not telling,' I say.
   'Fuck, Verm. Just forget it.' His eyes squint into knife cuts, he just pedals ahead. I don't think he can take another week like last week. His lust for any speck of power in life is scary at times. He ain't a sporting hero, or a brain. More devastatingly, he can't afford new Brands. Licensed avenues of righteousness are out of his reach, see? Don't get me wrong, the guy's smart. I know it from a million long minutes spent chasing insects, building planes, oiling guns. Falling out, falling in again, knowing he knows I know he's soft at heart. I know Jesus is human in ways nobody'll spend the money to measure. Only I know.
   Class is a pizza oven this Tuesday morning, all the usual smells baked into an aftertaste of saliva on metal. Rays of light impale selected slimeballs at their desks. Jesus is locked in his school attitude, lit by the biggest ray. He stares at his desk, baring his back, exposing his knife. You probably have a knife stuck in you that loved-ones can twist on a whim. You should take care nobody else discovers where it's stuck. Jesus is proof you should take damn good care.
   'Yo Jaysus, your ass is drippin,' says Max Lechuga. He's the stocky guy in class, you know the one. Fat, to be honest, with this inflatable mouth. 'Stand clear of Jaysus's ass, the fire department lost another four men up there last night.' The Gurie twins huddle around him, geeing him on. Then he starts on me. 'Vermie—git a little anal action this morning?'
   'Suck a fart, Lechuga.'
   'Make me, faggot.'
   'I ain't no faggot, fat-ass.'
   Lorna Speltz is a girl who's on a time-delay from the rest of us. She finally gets the first joke. 'Maybe a whole fire engine is up there too,' she says with a giggle. That authorizes the she-dorks to start up. Hee, hee, hee.
   School never teaches you about this mangled human slime, it slays me. You spend all your time learning the capital of Surinam while these retards carve their initials in your back.
   'Find focus, science-lovers.' Marion Nuckles arrives in a puff of Calvin Klein chalk dust, all gingery and erectile. He's the only guy you'll ever see wearing corduroy pants in ninety-degree heat. Looks like he'd wear leather shorts without laughing.
   'Who remembered to bring a candle?' he asks. Suddenly I find my shoe needs tying. Like just about everybody, except Dana Gurie who produces a boxed set of gold-leaf aromatherapy candles.
   'Oops—I left the price on!' She waves the box around real slow. It even looks like she highlighted the price with a marker. That's our Dana. She's usually busy reporting who barfed in class. The careers advisor says she'll make a fine journalist.
   Lechuga stands out of his chair. 'I think Jesus used his candle already, sir.'
   Exploratory snorts of laughter. Nuckles tightens. 'Care to elaborate, Max?'
   'You mightn't want to touch Jesus' candle, that's all.'
   'Where do you think it's been?'
   Max weighs up audience potential. 'Up his ass.'
   The class detonates through its nose.
   'Mr Nuckles,' says Dana, 'we're here to receive an education, and this doesn't seem very educational.'
   'Yeah, sir,' says Charlotte Brewster, 'we have a constitutional right to be protected from deviated sexual influences.'
   'And some people have a right not to be persecuted, Miss Brewster,' says Nuckles.
   'That's Ms Brewster, sir.'
   Max Lechuga puts on his most blameless face. 'Heck, it's just fun, y'know?'
   'Ask Jesus if he finds it so fun,' says Nuckles.
   'Well,' shrugs Charlotte. 'If you can't take the heat …'
   'Get out of the car!' chirps Lorna Speltz. Wrong, Lorna. Duh.
   Nuckles sighs. 'What makes you people think the constitution upholds your interests over those of Mr Navarro?'
   'On accounta he's a diller-wippy,' says Beau Gurie. Don't even ask.
   'Thank you, Beauregard, for that incisive encapsulation of the issue at hand. As for you, Ms Brewster, I think you'll find that our illustrious constitution stops short of empowering you to breach a person's fundamental human rights.'
   'We're not breaching any rights,' says Charlotte. 'We, The People, have decided to have a little fun, with whoever, and we have that right. Then whoever has a right to fun us back. Or ignore us. Otherwise, if they can't take the heat …'
   'Get out of the fire!' Wrong, Lorna. Duh.
   'Yeah, sir,' says Lechuga. 'It's constitutional.'
   Nuckles paces the width of the room. 'Nowhere in the papers of State, Doctor Lechuga, will you see written "If you can't take the heat.'" He spreads the words out thick and creamy. It's a tactical error with Charlotte Brewster fired up the way she is. She won't tolerate losing, not at all. Her lips turn anus-like. Her eyes get beady.
   'Seems to me, sir, you're spending a lot of time defending Jesus Navarro. A whole lot of time. Maybe we don't have the whole picture …?'
   Nuckles freezes. 'Meaning what?'
   'I guess you don't surf the net much, huh, sir?' Lechuga casts a sly eye around the room. 'I guess you ain't seen them—boy sites.'
   Nuckles moves towards Max, trembling with rage. Jesus abandons his desk with a crash, and runs from the room. Class goddess Lori Donner runs after him. Nuckles spins. 'Lori! Jesus!' He chases them into the hall.
   See Jesus' dad, ole Rosario? He'd never end up in this position. Know why? Because he was raised back across the border, where they have a sensible tradition of totally freaking out when the first thing gets to them. Jesus caught the white-assed disease of bottling it all up. I have to find him.
   The class casually slips into character for the scene, the one where they're innocent bystanders at a chance event. Heads shake maturely. The Gurie twins swallow a giggle. Then Max Lechuga gets out of his chair, and goes to the bank of computer terminals by the window. One by one, he activates the screen-savers. Pictures jump to the screen of Jesus naked, bent over a hospital-type gurney.
   I step up to Nuckles in the hall outside class. He ain't seen the computer screens yet. 'Sir, want me to find Jesus?'
   'No. Take those notes to the lab and see if you can find me a candle.'
   I grab the sheaf of notes from his desk, and head outside. Already I can see Jesus' locker hanging open in the corridor; his sports bag is gone. Nuckles returns to the class. I guess he sees the pictures, because he snarls: 'You cannibals dare talk to me about the constitution?'
   'The constitution', says Charlotte, 'is a tool of interpretation, for the governing majority of any given time.'
   'And?'
   'We are that majority. This is our time.'
   'Bambi-Boy, Bambi-Boy!' sings Max Lechuga.


* * *

   Dew tiptoes down Lori Dormer's cheeks, falling without a sound onto the path outside the lab. 'He took his bike. I don't know where he went.'
   'I do,' I say.
   I guess she feels safe, Jesus turning out the way he is. She's just real sympathetic. I'm still not sure how to handle the new Jesus. It's like he watched too much TV, got lulled into thinking anything goes. Like the world was California all of a sudden.
   'Lori, I have to find him. Cover for me?'
   'What do I tell Nuckles?'
   'Say I fell or something. Say I'll be back for math.'
   She takes one of my fingertips and kneads it. 'Vern—tell Jesus we can change things if we stick together—tell him …' She starts to cry.
   'I'm gone,' I say. The ground detaches from my New Jacks, I leap clean over the school building, in my movie I do. I'm fifty yards away from Lori before I realize that the candle, and Nuckles's notes, are still in my hand—I don't want to ruin my Caped-Crusader-like exit, though. I just jam them into my back pocket, and keep running.
   Sunny dogs and melted tar come to my nose as I fly to Keeter's on my bike. I also catch a blast of girls' hot-weather underwear, the loose cotton ones, white ones with bitty holes to circulate air. I'm not saying I catch a real whiff, don't get me wrong. But the components of this lathery morning bring them to mind. As Nuckles would say, the underwears are evoked. I ride this haze of tangs, dodging familiar bushes along Keeter's track. A sheet of iron creaks in a gust, somehow marking this as an important day, a pivot. But I'm embarrassed. The excitement of it puts me in a category with the ass-wipes at school, toking on the drug of somebody else's drama. Your neighbor's tragedy is big business now, I guess because money can't buy it.
   I spy fresh tracks in the dirt. Jesus went to the den all right. The last bushes crackle around me as I squeeze into our clearing. But he's not here. It's unusual for him not to stick around and sulk, shoot some cans with one of the rifles. I throw the bike down and scramble to the den hatch. The padlock is secured. My key is back home, in the shoebox in my closet, but I manage to lever back an edge of the hatch enough to squint into the shaft. My daddy's rifle is still there. Jesus' gun is gone. I follow his tracks up the far side of the bunker, scanning the horizon all around. Then I catch my breath. There, in the far distance, goes Jesus—a speck away, standing up pedaling, flying, on the way back to school with his sports bag. I screech after him, catch myself running like the kid in that ole movie, 'Shane—come back!' But he's gone.
   Blood circulation re-starts in my body. It's interpreted as a window of opportunity by my bowels. Thanks. My brain locks up over a crossfire of messages, but there ain't much I can do. Believe me. I grab Nuckles's handwritten physics notes from my pocket. They're all I have for ass-paper. I decide to use them, then ditch them in the den. Some bitty inkling tells me they won't be top priority when I get back to class.
   On the ride back to school I'm followed, then overtaken, by a rug of time-lapse clouds, muddy like underfruits bound for the fan. You sense it in the way the breeze bastes your face, stuffs your sinus with dishcloth, ready to yank when the moment comes. Trouble has its own hormone. I look over my shoulder at the frame of a sunny day shrinking, vanishing. Ahead it's dark, and I'm late for math. It's dark, I'm late, and my life rolls toward a new alien world. I haven't figured out the old alien world, and now it's new again.
   School has a stench when I get back, of sandwiches that won't be eaten, lunchboxes lovingly packed, jokingly, casually packed, that by tonight will be stale with cold tears. I'm bathed in the stench before I can turn back. I drop flat to the ground at the side of the gym and, through the shrubs, watch young life splatter through slick mucous air. When massive times come, your mind sprays your senses with ice. Not to deaden the brain, but to deaden the part that learned to expect. This is what I learn as the shots fire. The shots sound shopping-cart ordinary.
   I find a lump of cloth tucked in the shadow of the gym. Jesus' shorts, the ones he keeps at the back of his locker. Somebody cut a hole in back, and painted the edges with brown marker. 'Bambi' it says above. A few feet away lies his sports bag. I grab it. It's empty, save for a half box of ammunition. I keep my eyes down, I don't look across the lawn. Sixteen units of flesh on the lawn have already given up their souls. Empty flesh buzzes like it's full of bees.
   'He went for me, but got Lori …' Nuckles snakes around the corner on his belly, slugging back air in blocks. 'He said don't follow him—another gun, at Keeter's …'
   One of Jesus' fingers betrayed him. He hit Lori Donner, his only other friend. I look up to the school's main entrance and spy him arched over her crumpled body, shrieking, ugly and alone. I never see his face in its likeness again. He knows what he has to do. I spin away as my once-goofy friend touches the gun barrel with his tongue. My arms reach for Nuckles, but he pulls away. I don't understand why. I stare at him. His mouth turns down at the edges, like a tragedy mask, and spit flows out. Then a chill soaks through me. I follow his eyes to the sports bag, and leftover ammunition, still tightly gripped in my hand.

Twenty-Two

   Nuckles looks white and pasty stepping down the court aisle, his hair is reduced to clumps. You'd say he had something more than a nervous breakdown, if you saw him. He's bony and frail under his ton of make-up.
   'Marion Nuckles,' says the prosecutor. 'Can you identify Vernon Gregory Little in the courtroom?'
   Nuckles's sunken eyes worm through the room. They stop at my cage. Then, as if against a hurricane wind, he raises a finger to me.
   'Let the record show the witness has identified the defendant. Mister Nuckles, can you confirm you were the defendant's class teacher between ten and eleven o'clock on the morning of Tuesday, May twentieth, this year?'
   Nuckles's eyes swim without registering anything. He breaks into a sweat, and crumples over the railing of the witness box.
   'Your honor, I must protest,' says Brian, 'the witness is in no state …'
   'Shh!' says the judge. He watches Nuckles with razor eyes.
   'I was there,' says Nuckles. His lips tremble, he begins to cry.
   The judge flaps an urgent hand at the prosecutor. 'Get to the point!' he hisses.
   'Marion Nuckles, can you confirm that at some time during that hour you gave some notes to the defendant, written in your own hand, and sent him with them on an errand, outside the classroom?'
   'Yes, yes,' says Nuckles, shaking violently.
   'And what happened then?'
   Nuckles starts to dry retch over the railing. 'Scorned the love of Jesus—erased his perfume from across the land …'
   'Your honor, please,' shouts Brian.
   'Doused it all in the blood of babes …'
   The prosecutor hangs suspended in time, mouth open. 'What happened?' he shouts. 'What exactly did Vernon Little do?'
   'He killed them, killed them all …'
   Nuckles breaks into sobs, barks them like a wolf, and from my cage in the new world I bark sobs back, pelt them through the bars like bones. My sobs ring out through both summations, spray the journey to the cells behind the courthouse, and continue through a visit from an officer who tells me the jury has retired to a hotel to consider the matter of my life or death.
   Friday, twenty-first of November is a smoky day, tingling with a sense that solid matter can pass through you like air. I watch the jury foreman put on his glasses and lift a sheet of paper to his face. Mom couldn't make it today, but Pam came by with Vaine Gurie and Georgette Porkorney. Vaine is frowning, and seems a little slimmer. George's ole porcelain eyes roll around the room, she distracts herself with other thoughts. She trembles a little. You ain't allowed to smoke in here. And look at Pam. When I catch her eye, she makes a flurry of gestures that seem to describe us eating a hearty meal together, soon. I just look away.
   'Mr Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?'
   'We have, sir.'
   The court officer reads out the first charge to the jury. 'How do you find the defendant—guilty, or not guilty?'
   'Not guilty,' says the foreman.
   'On the second count of murder, that of Hiram Salazar in Lockhart, Texas—how do you find the defendant, guilty or not guilty?'
   'Not guilty.'
   My heart beats through five not guilties. Six, seven, nine, eleven. Seventeen not guilties. The prosecutor's lips curl. My attorney sits proud in his chair.
   'On the eighteenth count of murder in the first degree, that of Barry Enoch Gurie in Martirio, Texas—how do you find the defendant, guilty or not guilty?'
   'Not guilty,' says the foreman.
   The officer reads a list of my fallen school friends. The world holds its breath as he looks up to ask the verdict.
   The jury foreman's eyes twitch, then fall.
   'Guilty.'
   Even before he says it, I feel departments in the office of my life start to close up shop; files are shredded, sensitivities are folded into neatly marked boxes, lights and alarms are switched off. As the husk of my body is guided from the court, I sense a single little man sat at the bottom of my soul. He hunches over a card table under a naked low-watt bulb, sipping flat beer from a plastic cup. I figure he must be my janitor. I figure he must be me.

Act V.
Me ves y sufres

Twenty-Three

   On the second of December I was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Christmas on Death Row, boy. To be fair, ole Brian Dennehy tried his best. In the end, it doesn't look like they'll cast the real Brian in the TV-movie, I guess because he doesn't lose his cases. But my appeal will draw out the truth. There's a new fast-track appeals process that means I could be out by March. They reformed the system, so innocent folks don't have to spend years on the row. It can't be bad. The only news about me is that I put on twenty pounds since the sentence. It keeps out some of this January chill. Apart from that, my life hangs still while the seasons whip around me.
   Taylor's eyes flicker brightly through the screen. TV makes them sparkle, but they move strangely, as if she holds them back on a leash. Her grin is frozen like it came out of a jelly mold. I watch her almost-but-not-quite staring at me, until, after a minute, I realize she's reading something behind the camera. Her lines must be written there. After another moment I realize she's reading something about me. My skin cools as understanding dawns.
   'Then, when the big day arrives,' she says, 'everybody else, including witnesses, will assemble at five fifty-five in the lounge next to the visiting room. The final meal will be served between three-thirty and four o'clock in the afternoon, then, sometime before six, he'll be allowed to shower, and dress in fresh clothes.'
   A stray, impassive thought bubbles up through my mind: that Pam will have to supervise my last meal. 'Oh Lord, it's getting soggy...'
   'Right after six o'clock,' says Taylor, 'he'll be taken from the cell area into the execution chamber, and strapped down to a gurney. A medical officer will insert an intravenous catheter into his arm, and run a saline solution through it. Then the witnesses will be escorted to the execution chamber. When everyone is in place, the warden will ask him to make any last statement …'
   The host of the show chuckles when she says that. 'Heck,' he says, 'I'd recite War and Peace as my last statement!' Taylor just laughs. She still has that killer laugh.
   I've seen a whole lot of Taylor these last weeks, actually. First I saw her on Today, then she was with Letterman, talking about her bravery, and our kind of relationship together. I never realized we got so close, until I saw her talking about it. She came out in November Penthouse too, real pretty pictures taken at the prison museum. That's where they keep 'Old Sparky', the State's first electric chair. November Penthouse has these pictures of Taylor posing around Old Sparky, real fetching, if it's not too bold to say. I have one posted in my cell, not the whole body or anything, just the face. You can see a piece of the chair too, in back. I guess lethal injection wouldn't look so good for modeling, like with Taylor draped over the gurney or something.
   On the bench in my cell I have one of those ole distractions with the metal balls that hang on fishing wire, in a row, and clack into each other. Next to it sits my towel, with my art project tools hidden under. Yeah, I still hide things under my laundry. Some habits are a real challenge to break. Then, next to my towel, is the baby TV Vaine Gurie loaned me. I reach up and change the channel.
   'The Ledesma man is wrong, is criminel, they are many more fax hiden than come out in court.' It's my ole attorney, Abdini, speaking to a panel of ladies on local TV. Lookit ole Ricochet there, my man the underdog. He's dressed like for a Turkish disco.
   'Vernon Little's appeal is in process now, isn't it?' asks the hostess.
   'It is,' says another lady, 'but it's not looking good.'
   'Police neber fine the other way-upon, for instants,' continues Abdini.
   'Excuse me?' says one of the panel.
   'I think he means they never found that other weapon,' prompts her colleague.
   The ladies all laugh politely, but Abdini just scowls at the camera. 'I will fine it …'
   I flick channels again, to see who else is on the gravy train. On another show, a reporter talks to Lally. 'But what do you say to those sectors of the community that accuse you of trash-mongering?'
   'Tch, nonsense,' says Lally. 'First, the broadcast itself is a nonprofit venture. Revenues flow right back to the State, instead of taxpayers' money flowing out to support some of the worst criminals in the land. Second, it upholds our basic right to see justice being done.'
   'So you're effectively proposing to fund the State's penal system by selling broadcast rights to the prisoners' executions? I mean—isn't a prisoner's last hour a little personal?'
   'Not at all—don't forget that all executions are witnessed, even today. We're simply expanding the audience to include anyone with an interest in the proper function of law.' Lally puts a hand on his hip. 'Not so long ago, Bob, all executions were public—even held in the town square. Crime went down, public satisfaction went up. Throughout history it's been society's right to punish delinquents by its own hand. It makes plain sense to give that right back to society.'
   'Hence the web-vote?'
   'Exactly. And we're not just talking executions here—were talking the ultimate reality TV, where the public can monitor, via cable or internet, prisoners' whole lives on death row. They can live amongst them, so to speak, and make up their own minds about a convict's worthiness for punishment. Then each week, viewers across the globe can cast a vote to decide which prisoner is executed next. It's humanity in action—the next logical step toward true democracy.'
   'But surely, due process dictates the fate of prisoners?'
   'Absolutely, and we can't tamper with that. But the new fast-track appeals process means prisoners' last recourses at law are spent much sooner, after which I say the public should have a hand in the roster of final events.' Lally lets fly a hooshy laugh at the reporter, and spreads his hands wide. 'In the tradition of momentous progress, it's blindingly simple, Bob: criminals cost money. Popular TV makes money. Criminals are popular on TV. Put them together and, presto—problem solved.'
   The reporter pauses as a helicopter settles in the background. Then he asks, 'What do you say to those who claim prisoners' rights will be breached?'
   'Oh please – prisoners, by definition, live in forfeit of their rights. Anyway, cons today can languish in institutions for years without knowing their fate—wouldn't you say that was cruel? We're finally giving them what the law has always promised but never delivered—expediency. Not only that, they'll have greater access to spiritual counsel, and musical choices to accompany their final event. We'll even craft a special segment around their final statement, with the background imagery of their choice. Believe me—prisoners will welcome these changes.'
   The reporter smiles and nods at Lally. 'And what of reports that you're gearing up for a shot at the senate?'
   I switch off the set. I ain't looking forward to cameras in here. We just have an open toilet, see? I guess that's where the money gets made. Internet viewers will be able to choose which cells to watch, and change camera angles and all. On regular TV there'll be edited highlights of the day's action. Then the general public will vote by phone or internet. They'll vote for who should die next. The cuter we act, the more we entertain, the longer we might live. I heard one ole con say it'd be just like the life of a real actor.
   Before lights-out I sit up to play with the clacking metal balls, something I've been doing a lot of lately. Ella Bouchard mailed me a pome that I sometimes read too, about true hearts and what-all. I know it's spelled poem, but she don't, not yet anyway. I avoid the pome tonight, and just play with the cause-and-effect balls. Then Jones the guard brings the phone to my cell. The cell-phone is one good thing about Lally's operation. That, and cubicle doors in the shower block, and electronic cigarette lighters, even though they don't give a flame.
   I take the phone from Jonesy. 'Hello?'
   'Well,' says Mom, 'I don't know who's been talking to Lally …'
   'Who hasn't been talking to him, more like it.'
   'Well don't get snotty Vernon, God. I'm just saying, that's all. People came snooping about your father, and they've been hassling the gals as well. You'd think Lally'd be busy enough, what with everything. Meantime I have to scrape up the money to do something about that damn bench, it sinks more every day …'
   'Snooping?'
   'Well, you know, asking why they never found your daddy's body and all. Lally's been so antsy since he dumped Georgette—even Pam and Vaine noticed it.'
   'Vaine's in your club now, huh?'
   'Well she's been through a lot, what with Lalicom pulling out of the SWAT team. The sheriff's taking all his home troubles out on her, and she's under real pressure to prove herself—you just don't empathize, Vernon.'
   'There ain't a whole lot I can do, Ma.'
   'I know, I'm just saying, that's all. If he'd only come home, things'd be different.'
   'Don't wait up for him.'
   'Well there's love at stake, a woman senses these nancies.'
   'Nuances, Ma.'
   'Oops—I have to run, Pam and Vaine just arrived, and I haven't finished the zipper on Pam's pants. Harris's is floating the e-store today and there are specials galore. Promise me you'll be okay …'
   'Palmyra's wearing pants...?'
   She hangs up. Taylor's voice oozes out of a TV in the next cell, so I go back to clacking the balls, just watching them. I have too much pain right now to work on my art project. Maybe later.
   'Jeezus, Little,' screams a con up the row. 'Fuck up with yer cunted fuckin noise!'
   He's an okay guy, the con. They're all cool, actually. They all planned a beer together, with ribs and steak, when they get to heaven. Or wherever. I still plan to have some here on earth, to be honest. The truth's still out there, virginal and waiting. Anyway, I don't take much notice of the row. That's one thing about these balls, once you set them clacking. You focus right in. Drop two balls, and an equal two clack off the other side; just this one metal ball in the middle passes on all the shock.
   'Burnem Little you motherfuckin scroted cunt-ass shitsucker,' screams the con.
   'Je-sus Ch–risst,' hollers Jonesy, 'keep it down, willya?'
   'Jones,' says the con, 'I swear I'm gonna waste my fuckin self if he don't quit clickin them fuckin balls.'
   'Chill out, the kid's entitled to a little diversion,' says the guard. 'Y'all know what it's like with an appeal pending.' He's actually okay, ole Jonesy, though he's none too smart. Stops by my cell sometimes to tell me my pardon came through. 'Little, your pardon came through,' he says. Then he just laughs. I laugh too, these days.
   'Jonesy, I ain't kiddin,' calls the con. 'That fuckin click, click, click goes on day and fuckin night, the kid's losin his sense—fix him a little time with Lasalle for chrissakes.'
   'Oh yeah, like you give the orders around here. Gimme a fuckin million dollars and I'll think about it,' says Jones. 'Anyway, he don't need Lasalle. He don't need no Lasalle at all, now shut the fuck up.'
   'Little,' screams the con, 'fuck your goddam appeal, I'll ream your ass with a fuckin Roto-Rooter if you don't quit them balls.'
   'Hey,' barks Jones. 'What am I now tellin you?'
   'Jonesy, the kid's bended up, he need some Lasalle to help him face his God.'
   'Take more'n damn Lasalle to straighten this boy out,' says Jones. 'Git some sleep now, go on.'
   'I have some goddam basic fuckin human rights in this fuckin joint!' screams the con.
   'Git to sleep goddammit,' barks Jonesy. 'I'll see what I can do.'
   I go real quiet. Who's Lasalle? The idea of facing my God sticks in my brain like a burr.
   A guard comes for me after breakfast and takes me out of my cell.
   'Yeah, yeah,' go the cons as I shuffle along the row.
   We go down some stairs into the lower tract of the building, which is like the bowels, if it's not too rough to say, and end up in a dark, wet kind of corridor with only three cells running off it. The cells have no bars or windows, just these bank-vault kind of doors, with reinforced peepholes.
   'If you wuzn't who you wuz, you wun't even be comin down here,' says the guard. 'Only you celebrity killers git to come down here.'
   'What's down here?' I ask.
   'Think of it as a chapel.'
   'The pastor's down here?'
   'Pastor Lasalle's down here.' He stops at the last door, and unlocks it with a set of keys.
   'You lock the pastor in there?' I ask.
   'I lock you in there.'
   The guard flicks a switch outside the door, and a pale green light glows into the shadows of the cell. It's empty except for two metal bunk frames that fold out of the wall on each side.
   'Siddown. Lasalle be along just now.'
   He steps back into the corridor, throwing an eye into the gloom of the stairwell. After a minute you hear clinking and shuffling, and an ole black man appears in a beat-up mechanic's cap, and regular gray shirt and pants. He wears a bemused kind of smile. You sense it's been around awhile.
   '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 firs t," 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?"'
   'Sure, but—where's that leave God?'
   'Boy you really missed the boat. I'll make it simple, so's even fuckin you can understand. Papa God growed us up till we could wear long pants; then he licensed his name to dollar bills, left some car keys on the table, and got the fuck outta town.' Water rushes to his eye-holes. 'Don't be lookin up at no sky for help. Look down here, at us twisted dreamers.' He takes hold of my shoulders, spins me around, and punches me towards the mirror on the wall. 'You're the God. Take responsibility. Exercise your power.'
   Four men appear at the door: two guards, a chaplain, and the guy in the dark suit. 'Time for the final event,' says the suit.
   My eyes snap to the cubicle where the other prisoner takes a quiet dump, but the men walk right past it and grab hold of Lasalle. His lip juts dumb again, his shoulders droop. Through the corner of my eye I see Jonesy calling me out.
   'Lasalle? You a con?' I ask.
   'Not for long,' he says softly. 'Looks like not for long.'
   'C'mon, Little,' calls Jones from the door. 'Lasalle won the first vote.'
   'But Lasalle, was that like—the secret of life?'
   He tuts and shakes his head as the group march him to the door.
   'I mean—what's the practical …?'
   He holds a hand up to the guards. They stop. 'You mean, how do you do it? Big yourself up—watch any animal for clues. As for us humans–check this …' He pulls a lighter from his pocket, and motions us to hush. He clicks the lighter once, softly, then cranes an ear toward the toilet cubicles, where the other con still sits out of sight. After a moment, you hear rustling in the cubicle. Then a lighter clicks inside. We watch a puff of smoke rise up, as the con drags on a cigarette he didn't even know he wanted. The power of suggestion. Lasalle turns to me with a smile, and clicks his lighter in the air. 'Learn their needs, and they'll dance to any fuckin tune you play.'
   Jonesy grabs my arm as the group turns to the corridor. I wrassle free, and pounce a couple of steps after Lasalle, but Jonesy threads his arms through mine, Deadlocking me from behind. It's what he needs. I don't struggle.
   'Thanks, Lasalle,' I holler.
   'No sweat, Vernon God,' comes the voice.
   'Boy,' says Jonesy, when he gets me to the stairs, 'you really bought his bullshit.'
   'Somebody told me he was a preacher.'
   'Yeah, right. Clarence Lasalle, the fuckin axe-murderer.'
   I lie awake on my bunk tonight as Lasalle's execution buzzes from the TVs along the row. I expect to hear Taylor's voice, but one of my fellow inmates says she left the show to try and be a roving reporter. She has all the contacts now, I guess. Just needs that one big story. Anyway, we only catch the last hour of the show. Lasalle doesn't make any final statement, which seems kind of cool. He chooses 'I Got You under my Skin' for his final tune. What a guy.
   This view of my ceiling grows familiar over the rest of the week, I even work on my art project, underneath a towel, lying here on my back. The entertainment appliances disappear again, right after Lasalle's event, and I get to thinking about his last talkings. It all sounded too simple, like a TV-movie or something, like just any ole thing they'd run violin music to. It gets me thinking though, about my wasted ole damn life. They don't even have job descriptions for the kind of talents I have. I guess the tragedy is that I should've been up there as the prosecutor, or even Brian Dennehy—I'm the one that can sense stuff about people, and situations and all. Sure, I'm not a great student or anything, or athlete or anything, but I have these talents, I'm sure I have. I guess the way their powerdimes mount up against mine, the final tally of dimes in the power system means they go through, and I don't. One learning, though: my big flaw is fear. In a world where you're supposed to be a psycho, I just didn't yell loud enough to get ahead. I was too darn embarrassed to play God.
   Watch any animal, said Lasalle. Give them what they want, and watch any animal. I can understand the giving thing, but I spend nights all the way to the Ides of March, I survive two, then three more execution votes, trying to place the animal clues. I end up watching these useless brown moths that thwack around the light in my cell, felty splinters torn from nighttime, lost and confused. I guess they're animals. I hear moths are actually programmed to fly a straight line, steered by the moon. But these supermarket kind of lights mess up their navigation. Now look at them. I watch one snag behind the light cage, spanking dust off its wings in puffs. Then, Thp,' it spins to the floor, broken. The light just buzzes on. So much for the moon. I can relate to moths, boy.
   Fantasy animals start to infect my dreams, linen spaniels that romp with Jesus, but in daylight I struggle to make sense of Lasalle's concept. I guess the only permanent animal I know is Kurt the dog, and I ain't sure he counts when it comes to the Secret of Everything. Ole Kurt, who drives himself crazy with the smell of next door's barbecue, who props up his self-esteem by being president of the barking circuit. You know he wouldn't be president of anything, if the circuit knew how damn measly he was. He would've been laughed out of town, if they knew. But they don't.
   I sit up on the bunk. Kurt gets by with the bark of a much bigger dog.

Twenty-Five

   'Well but, Vernon, are you using the bathroom every day?' 'Heck, Ma.'
   'It's just that this week you're up against that sweet cripple who supposedly killed his parents. And he cries all the time. All the time.'
   'You sayin I look guilty?'
   'Well on camera you always just lie staring at the ceiling, Vernon, you can be so impassive.'
   'But I didn't do nothin.'
   'Don't let's start that again. I just don't want the day to arrive and you not be—you know, ready–it's March twenty-eight tomorrow, I mean, that'll be another vote under the bridge …'
   Death Row always hushes when my ole lady calls. I guess it's like that in TV-land too, you know how entertaining she can be.
   'Did you get the thing I sent for Pam?' I ask.
   'Well yes, and thank you very much, from both of us. You know, we were even saying …'
   'Mom—I think you should use it at the, you know—the time …'
   'Well that's what we were saying …' I wait while she gives a bitty sob, and blows her nose. My eyes mist up too. She leaves the receiver for a second to compose herself, and returns with a sigh. 'Then we can just remember you the way you were—just imagine you're out on your bike …'
   'Sure,' I say. 'That's why I sent the token—you can use it at any branch y'know.'
   'Well we're very grateful, specially if you saw the price of a Chik'n'Mix lately. Pam and I will use the token, and Vaine can pay for her own …'
   'And Ma—tell Nana she don't have to come up here either.'
   There's a pause on the line. 'Well—Vernon, I haven't told your nana about, you know—the trouble. She's old, and she only watches Shopping anyway, she won't have seen the news—I think it should just be our little secret, okay?'
   'And when I don't show up for lawnmowing this spring?'
   'Oh hell—Vernon, the gals just arrived and I haven't finished Vaine's skirt.'
   'Vaine's wearing a skirt?'
   'Listen baby, we're canvassing votes for you, so don't worry—some people end up waiting years on drrth rhrw …'
   After the call, I lay back on the bunk and plough things over in my mind. Needs, boy, human needs. Mom once said Palmyra was into food because it was the only thing she could control in her life. It wouldn't run from the plate, or stand up to her. I think about it, and see Leona sucking attention like sunrays; ole Mr Deutschman savoring his mangle-headed tangs. Sympathy dripping giddy into the aching sponge of Mom's life. Melted cheese and Vaine Gurie. Give 'em all what they want, I say.
   I know the Earn token is a good want to give Palmyra, but I should think of something especially for Mom, even though another death in the family will probably fix her true need, like for sympathy. Shame it has to be me, though. And, know what? Who else I'd like to fulfil before I go is ole Mrs Lechuga. She's had a hard time of things, and I regret the stuff I said about Max, I guess I'm just pumping cream pie about it all, this giving of wants and whatever, but—what the heck. You only die once. Strangely, I even feel I should grant something for the ole jackrabbit media. You can only guess what they really want.
   Then there's Taylor. Oh Tay. She's tight with all these media types now, reporters and all, with helicopters and stuff, so it won't be easy granting a wish for her. What she really wants is a big new story to launch her career. Maybe just a real nice call or something would do the trick. Maybe that could solve all the more difficult wants, a nice phone call.
   I work my way through the list of wanters, until I hit Vaine Gurie. She seems to have fallen in with Pam now, don't even go there really. The only thing I can think she wants is a homicidal maniac for her SWAT team to practice on. She ain't easy. To be honest, though, I think I only linger on Vaine to avoid working on Lally's want. I know the Godly thing, the forgiving thing to do, is to give a want to Lally, even though he has just about everything. Just some bitty token, y'know?
   The appliances return early this Sunday morning, giving the day a brisk feel. March twenty-eight. Execution day for somebody. Engineers set the TVs up permanently this time, and install a system to shut them down during the vote. Emotions howl like pack-dogs in my soul when a bunch of paperwork arrives with my breakfast tray. First is a brochure about how to act for the cameras, and what not to say or do. The whole Row must've got that one, on account of everybody's saying and doing the wrong thing. Under the brochure is a glossy page showing some cartoon convicts, with arrows on their clothes and all, giving hints for your last statement. Then another form has a list of musical choices for the Final Event: you get to choose one tune before the witnesses come into the chamber, and one for the Event itself. It's mostly real ole music on the list. I know I'll regret my choices when the time comes. I'll just have to be brave to that wave.
   As I digest things, the regular Sunday quiet falls over the Row. You hear some papers rustle. Then a con calls out, softly.
   'Burnem—you okay, my man?'
   I turn over the last sheet of paper on my pile. Under it lays an order for my execution, effective six o'clock tonight. I look at it like it was a napkin or something. Then I fall down on my knees, bawl like a storm cloud, and pray to God.

Twenty-Six

   Folks are friendlier to me on the afternoon of my death. The cons are friendlier by not hassling, especially the one I gave my clacker-balls to. Everybody else quietly avoids the issue. It's a busy-feeling day, like one of your mom's urgent baking days gone wrong, with feelings left unattended, a sense that somehow I forgot something, left the oven on, didn't lock the door. A sense that I can do it when I get back.
   When my belongings are neatly folded on the table, and my bunk is stripped clean, four executives arrive with a cameraman. My row-mates wave fingers through their grilles, and holler good wishes as I shuffle down the row. 'Yo, Burnem—fuck 'em up man, piss on those muthas …'
   Bless them. We pass down the hallway Lasalle disappeared from, not for the ride to the Huntsville unit, but to the new Events Suite here at Ellis, right downstairs. It's a one-stop shop now, carpeted and all, with artwork on the walls. I miss the chance of a last drive, but at least the Suite has windows. It seems gray and cool out, with just a few bugs clicking. A part of me is disappointed there ain't tornadoes and firestorms for the night of my death, but then—who do I think I am, right?
   Just like she promised, Pam supervised my last meal. Chik'n'Mix Choice Supreme, with fries, rib-rings, corn relish, and two tubs of coleslaw. How smart she is—she had the kitchen people stuff bread in the tub, to absorb any excess steam, and keep the bottom pieces crisp. You figure the coleslaw ain't Pam though—that'll be Ma, on account of it's healthy. Those gals will be eating the same thing this evening, when I'm on the gurney. It's what they want, to imagine I'm just out and about on my bike, instead of being put to death.
   At four-thirty I get to evacuate my tracts in a private restroom. They even give me a copy of Newsweek to read, and a Marlboro to suck on. I'm numb, like anesthetized or something, but I still appreciate these little touches. Newsweek says Martirio has the fastest economic growth rate in the world, with more new millionaires than even California. The cover shows a bunch of Guries throwing banknotes into the air and laughing. It ain't all roses, though: if you read farther down it says they're getting sued by the California tragedy, over the use of their statistics. Typical Martirio, I have to say.
   An hour before my execution, I get to make some private phone calls. First I try home, then Pam's. There's no answer, I must've missed them already. Ma's been through a lot, and so's Pam, I guess. Bless them. They don't have answering machines, so I can't just say 'I love you' or something. In a way, though, it gives me the courage to make some other calls.
   First I try Lally, to get it over with. His secretary almost hangs up, until I tell her why I'm calling. Lally's in a meeting at the new Martirio mall. She connects me to his phone. 'Big man!' he says when the phone answers. I give him what he wants, and tell him where my gun is stashed. He seems to accept the gesture gracefully.
   Next I call Mrs Lechuga. Boy is she surprised, she even tries to change her voice so I'll think it's a wrong number. 'Oh my God,' she says.
   'Yes?' I answer. She's been through a lot, bless her. In the end I think she's glad I called. Knowing her love of information, and her ole position as president of the douche-brigade, I'm sure she just loves the want I grant her. In a way, I designated her the command center for this evening's wants.
   The next brainwave is to call Vaine Gurie, on her way to meet Mom and Pam at the Barn. I give her just what she really wants—just what she really needs, actually, if you think about it. She ends up being real touched to hear from me, and promises to pass my love on to the gals. I guess it is love after all, in that zany way we humans have.
   Finally, for my last call in the world, I try Taylor Figueroa. She answers her phone personally, and her voice immediately takes me back to another time and place—a moist, fruity place, if it's not too smutty to say. And guess what: I give her the break she's been waiting for. She squeals with delight, and says to look after myself. Sounds like she means it too.
   When I hang up the phone, two guards appear with a chaplain, and escort me to the make-up suite.
   'Don't you worry darlin,' says a make-up lady, 'a little blush'll perk you up.'
   Another lady whispers, 'You want toothpaste, or you think you can make it on your own?' I snort when she says it, and she looks at me, confused. Then she kind of gets it, and laughs along too. Not everybody gets the irony of things, that's what I learned.
   Next, a girl with a clipboard arrives and makes me sign a waiver for my final statement. I'm going out quietly, just like Lasalle. I ask her one special favor in return. She calls a producer to check it out, then says it's okay. I can take my shirt off for the Event. She leads the pastor, the officers, and me down a bright hallway to the execution chamber. My knees go weak with the kind of swooni-ness you get from hospital smells; the pastor even takes hold of my arm when I hear the tune playing down the hall.


'Galveston, oh Galves-ton—I am so afraid of dying...'


   We pass the broadcast control room, and guess what: they must've licensed the TV weather theme for the show. I hate that theme. I close my ears until we reach this simple white room with a window along one wall, and theater-like seats beyond.


'Before I dry the tears she's crying...'


   I take off my shirt. My skin is mostly healed now, from my art project. Tattooed in big blue letters across my chest are the words 'Me ves y sufres'—'See me and suffer.' A medical orderly helps me climb onto the gurney, which is kind of person-shaped, like the hole left after a cartoon character crashes through a wall. I catch a glimpse of Jonesy in a room at the back. He must be manning the governor's phone. The governor is the only man who can stop this now. He'd need some damn convincing evidence to do that. Jonesy just turns away when he sees me. He doesn't stand near the phone.
   Guards secure me to the gurney using thick cowhide straps with metal buckles, then the orderly raises a vein in my arm, and gives me a tiny shot, of anesthetic I guess. He fixes a long needle onto a tube that runs through the wall from the back room. I look away as he slides the needle into my vein. After a moment, cool solution begins to flow.
   An usherette appears behind the glass that separates me from the witness area, and people start filing into their seats. Fragile Mrs Speltz is the only person I recognize. Aside from the wave of sadness I get from her haunted eyes, I actually feel relieved that she's the highlight of the witness area. Nothing in there suggests I'll be missing any parties when I'm gone. Then, just as I'm thinking that, the darnedest thing happens: a tall, beautiful young woman in a pale blue suit squeezes along the back row to her seat, kindling my groin out of retirement. Even the guards turn to watch as she sits, modestly tugging down the hem of her skirt. Then she looks at me. It's Ella Bouchard. Boy did her equipment arrive. Bluebonnet eyes call to me through the glass.
   'Sailing' starts to play now, because when Fate opens up, it opens up with both barrels. I try to swallow, but my mouth is woody. A terminal learning comes to me: that for all the sirens, game-show buzzers, and drum-rolls of life, it is the nature of men to die quietly. I mean, what kind of life was that? – a bunch of movies, and people talking about movies, and shows about people talking about movies. Still, I guess I asked for it. By being negative, destructive. I remember once calling my daddy to collect me from a place, but was sad when he came because I'd since grown to love the place. Death takes me like that.
   I feel an itch around the needle, and close my eyes. Voices in the chamber soften, and I feel myself slipping away, up and over the gurney, into a reverie. I look down on myself, but instead of panic, instead of sudden death, I float out of the chamber, and over the landscape outside, where my senses are filled with the scent of lawn-clippings. I'm transported, clear as day, back home to Beulah Drive. There's Mrs Porter's, and there's my front yard. It's today, it's right now. The mantis pumpjack beats with my soul as a black Mercedes-Benz sweeps into my driveway. Mrs Lechuga's drape twitches. Mom ain't home this evening, which is unusual. She's eating out with Pam. I watch Lally climb out of the car. Bless the motherfucker to hell. Bless his bones smashed and stuffed through the ligaments of his puking fucked eyes, bless his mouth to suck me off, take my bile so it kills him dead to a place where he stays conscious and fucken broken and cold, shivering fucken worms and slime from organs that pop and fucken waste as I laugh.
   He seems excited by the want I granted. I know the question of the second firearm always plagued him. He lets himself into the house through the kitchen, and moves to my bedroom closet, where he finds the shoebox containing the padlock key, just like I told him. Next to it lays a bottle of ginseng. You can't even see the LSD pearls I stuffed in it all those moons ago. He smiles, and picks it up.
   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. 'Mamб!'
   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.


Sailing
Takes me away
To where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
And soon I will be free...


   Suddenly, a cannonade of noise swells through the windows and cracks, down the stairs and ducts of the jail, a thousand voices and fists and feet triggered by some invisible cue. My eyes pop open to see if God, or the devil, has come to claim my slimy soul. Instead, Abdini bursts into the witness area, followed be a horde of cameramen. The whole jail must be watching it live on TV. Abdini has a dirty brown ball of paper in one hand, and a melted candle in the other. He holds them up to the glass, singing, jumping. It's Nuckles's notes, the ones I used to wipe my ass that fateful day. 'Test prove it!' he cries.
   A phone rings out back. After a moment I crane to see Jonesy toddle into the chamber, shaking his head. He leans over the end of the gurney, cups his hands to his mouth.
   'Little—your pardon came through.'

Twenty-Seven

   The ladies study the envelope like it was the body of a dead baby.
   'Definitely one of those Italian cars, a Romeo and Juliet or whatever,' says George.
   'I know,' says Betty, 'but why send the brochure to Doris's?'
   'Honey, it doesn't say Don's on the front, it says Leona. Just the address is Doris's.'
   'But why?'
   George shakes her head. 'Loni wants us to know she's getting one of those sports cars, I guess.'
   Betty tightens her lips, and tuts awhile. 'I know, but why doesn't she just come over, like always, or even just call? Maybe she went to have the implants after all …'
   George blows a plume of smoke, finishing with a ring that travels up and over the Central-Vac box on the rug. 'Betty, don't piss me off, okay? You know damn well why.'
   'Oh Lord,' scowls Betty. 'But that's her ex-ex-husband, the tragedy was nothing to do with her...'
   George rolls her eyes. 'I know, I know, but some people might question the quality of a marriage that left a man chasing teenage boys for kicks—you have to admit that's out there even for Marion Nuckles, never mind the phony shrink he hooked up with. And goddammit to hell, Betty, now you've got me saying "I know."'
   'I know.'
   George clicks her teeth. Then their eyes meet, and they start to froth with helpless laughter.
   'Girls, it's here!' calls Mom through the kitchen. 'It's the side-by-side!' She tries to keep her mouth pointed down, in mourning for Lally, but her eyes give her away. My ole lady just loves being in mourning. It's one of her needs, I guess. Bent ole kitten.
   I hear Brad hollering up the hall, so I slink into the kitchen where a pile of media paperwork sits on the bench, along with some contracts from my agent. On top of the pile is a faxed cover of next week's Time magazine—the headline reads: 'Stool's Out!' The picture shows the dried remains of my crap, wrapped in Nuckles's class papers, sitting in a scientific laboratory. Behind it, Abdini proudly holds up the note Jesus left in the den, for Nuckles and Goosens, the lovers and internet entrepreneurs. 'You sed it was love you batsards,' reads the note, in his ole baby scribble. My eyes drop for Jesus. One thing, though: his note inadvertently granted a big ole want for Nuckles and Goosens. Now they'll have all the boys they could wish for, up there in prison. Somehow you sense they might be doing a little more receiving than giving, though. But hell. As Nuckles himself would say—'Beggars can't be choosers.'
   Farther along the kitchen bench lies a copy of today's paper, with the headline: 'Old Familiar Feces.' The picture shows Leona out at Keeter's, holding lumps of shit in her hands. Farther down still is an article about Taylor. She'll be fine. Just maybe not filling her panties the way she used to. Maybe they can implant a silicon butt-cheek or something, who knows?
   Mom bunts me over the porch and down to the wishing bench, where the man from the morgue hovers. 'Let me shake your hand, son,' he says, 'your daddy would've been mighty proud.'
   'Thank you,' I say, breathing in the clear blue day.
   'Yessir, that was some turnaround. What's your secret?'
   'I went down on my knees and prayed, sir.'
   'Mighty fine,' he says, turning to Mom. 'And ma'am—I think we can process that earlier insurance matter just now—the body clearly can't be found.'
   'Well thank you, Tuck,' says Mom, running a hand over her wishing bench.
   'Mr Wilmer!' calls George from the porch. 'See what you can do for that poor woman in Nacogdoches …'
   'Be my pleasure, Mrs Porkorney—you take care now, y'hear?'
   After he turns away, Mom frowns at the fridge box being wheeled up the driveway. She frowns extra-hard, not just on account of being a double widow, but because Leona taught her not to show too much joy over new goods. You have to pretend they don't matter, that's what she taught her, that and how to throw her head back when she laughs. Doesn't fool me, though.
   I lean over the bench and soak up Mom's clammy warmth. When the ladies join us, Mrs Lechuga comes to her window across the street. She sends a little wave, and I realize who's missing, for the full set of dice in my life—Palmyra. But, hey—I guess it ain't every day you get to play pinball on Oprah.
   'Vern,' says Betty, 'Brad's just desperate to show you his birthday present.'
   I try to nod politely, but my eyes snag on some dappled pink flesh behind the willows up the street. It's Ella with her suitcase. She wears a wool sweater over a loose cotton dress that swishes full of honey breeze. She grins when she sees me watching her. I told her I'd send a car, but she insisted on taking one last walk through town, crazy girl. Anyway, we'll be back. Mexico ain't so far.
   'Kurt, stay!' Ole Mrs Porter bangs through her screen, and struggles down the lawn with a table full of knitted toys. Then, as I cross the driveway to meet Ella, Brad thumps onto the porch behind us.
   'B-ooom! Suck shit muthafucka!'
   That better not be loaded,' says Betty. 'Bradley Pritchard! Don't you point that thing, or it'll go right back to the store!'
   I ignore him by rubbing lips with Ella. Then we both turn to watch Mrs Porter stand her toys by the roadside. She's setting up a fucken stall for chrissakes. We just swallow giggles.
   'Ma'am,' I call over the road. 'Mrs Porter!'
   She cocks her head, in a kindly way, and flaps a little wave.
   'Everybody's gone, Mrs Porter. Everything's back to normal …'


The End

Acknowledgements


Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t'have his sails filled with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water, and her keel ploughs air.


George Chapman
   Love to Katz for gently stitching and filling such fine new sails; to my parents and family for this taste for the sea; and to all whose faith opened space beneath a ragged keel.
   To the Burnbury Court of Miracles: Strawberries to Dawn & Mark, who practiced friendship with the stealth many reserve for crime; Lisa for energy and chocolate; Bubbles & Frog, who didn't put me up in Hong Kong; Val Wilson, Martinez, and the Cavendish milieu for enlightenment and vodka; to the CWs—Hawker Siddeley!
   May the Watras be with Hog, Hildegard, and all Bara crew; Abrazos pa Toсo y los cuates—ora si verda carnales; to Junius and family for longevity of faith; Lynn Pearce & family for mindful encouragement; to all whose shores remain littered with my sins—this could be the handle of a mop …
   Special thanks to Clare Conville, of Conville & Walsh, Lee Brackstone and all at Faber and Faber, for the vigor with which they hoisted this sheet to the breeze, and to Grant Stewart, whose keen eye first sighted the craft approaching.
   P.S. Gumby—still want that assassination?