Free Vernon God Little by Tanya Ronder, D. B. C. Pierre

corridor, clink-a-clink. He stops by the grille of my door, out of sight, just breathing and clinking. He knows I'm waiting for him to say I have a call. But he starts to walk away, then shuffles back again. See?
    'Little?' he finally says.
    'Yeah, Barry?'
    'That's Officer Gurie to you. You ain't porkin the preacher in there are ya? You ain't tossin the ham javelin all night long, thinkin of your Meskin boy? Grr-hrr-hrr.'
    Fuck him to death. He walks me upstairs to the phone, and I fantasize about ramming his baton up his goddam ass. Not that he'd probably even feel it.
    The weeping sax from the TV weather plays in the office, just to cheer me up. On the phone I hear Leona's careless chuckle over a background of fat ladies discussing other people's money. The weather plays at their end too. I get it in fucken stereo. Then comes the skidmark of my ole lady's voice.
    'Vernon, are you all right?'
    Her sniffling feels like she physically has her tongue in my ear, like an anteater or something.
    Makes me want to puke and bawl at the same time, go fucken figure. Here's why she's going for gold, let me tell you: it's because now I'm not only in jail, but I might be fucken crazy as well. What a bonanza for her if I'm fucken crazy as well. Then her problem would be that she already spent her best whimpery moves; like, she'd have to shred a tit or something, just to keep up with the Unfolding Tragedy of Her Fucken Life. Out of kindness, I absorb the maximum number of sniffles before speaking.
    'How could you do that to me, Ma?'
    'Well I only told the truth, Vernon. Anyway young man, how could you do all this to me?'
    'I didn't do anything.'
    'Well, famous actors put toothpaste under their eyes to help them cry. Did you know that?'
    'Say what?
    'I'm just telling you for court, in case you look too impassive. You know how impassive you can look.'
    'Ma - just don't talk to Lally anymore, okay?'

    'Hold on,' she takes her mouth from the phone, 'it's all right Leona, it's the fridge people.' You hear questioning noises in back, about the time of night, then Mom comes on the line again. 'Well it's ridiculous - I've waited days for you people!'
    'Goodnight, Ma.'
    'Wait!' She presses her mouth to the phone, whispering. 'Vernon - it's probably best not to mention anything about the, er …'
    'Gun?'
    'Well yes, probably best to keep it between us, you know?'
    My daddy's gun. If only my ole lady had let me keep it at home. But no. The fucken gun gave her the tremors. I had to stash it far from the house, way out in the public domain. Nuckles must know it's there. Jesus must've used it as a wild card, must've mentioned it to stop him following, to make him think there was an arsenal stashed away. But then Jesus died. Took the information, the context, all our innocent boyhood times with him. Took the truth with him.
    Just my gun's left behind, with all the wrong fingerprints on it. Left behind, just waiting.
    Act II
    How I spent my summer vacation
    seven
    The sign on the shrink's door says: 'Dr Goosens.' What a crack. Goosens. Whoever invented the Cold Light of Day sure went to fucken town on it, boy. On the ride over here I had a truckload of ideas about how to act crazy, maybe pull some Kicked Dog, some Spooked Deer and all, like Mom does. I even thought I could maybe drop a load in my pants or something, as a last resort. It's a slimy secret, I know it. I even loosened my asshole in case it came to that. But now, in the cold light of day, I just hope I flossed enough.
    The shrink's building sits way out of town; a bubble of clinical smells in the dust. A receptionist with spiky teeth, and a voicebox made from bees trapped in tracing paper, sits behind a desk in the waiting room. She gives me the fucken shiver, but the jail guards don't seem to notice her at all. I have an urge to ask her name, but I don't. I can imagine her saying, 'Why, I'm Graunley Stelt,' or 'Achtung Beed,' or something way fucken bent. It'd be typical of shrinks to hire