'Have you fed him?'
'I think Vaine bought ribs,' says Eileena.
'Vaine Gurie? She's supposed to be on the Pritikin diet – Barry'll have a truck!'
'Good-night, she damn near lives at Bar-B-Chew Barn!'
'Oh good Lord.'
' Vernon 's in there, Pam,' says Eileena. 'You better wait outside.'
So the door flies open. Pam wobbles in, bolt upright like she has books on her head. It's on account of her center of gravity. 'Vernie, you eatin rebs? What did you eat today?'
'Breakfast.'
'Oh Lord, we better go by the Barn.' Doesn't matter what you tell her, she's going by Bar-B-Chew Barn, believe me.
'I can't, Pam, I have to stay.'
'Malarkey, come on now.' She tugs my elbow. The force of it recommends the floor to my feet. 'Eileena, I'm taking Vern – you tell Vaine Gurie this boy ain't eaten, I'm double-parked out front, and she better hide some pounds before I see Barry.'
'Leave him, Pam, Vaine ain't through…'
'I don't see no handcuffs, and a child has a right to eat.' Pam's voice starts to rattle furniture.
'I don't make the rules,' says Eileena. 'I'm just sayin…'
'Vaine can't hold him – you know that. We're gone,' says Pam. 'Love your hair.'
Eileena's sigh follows us down the hallway. My ears flick around for signs of Gurie or the sheriff, but the offices seem empty; the sheriff's offices that is. Next thing you know, I'm halfway out of the building in Palmyra 's gravity-field. You just can't argue with this much modern woman, I tell you.
Outside, a jungle of clouds has grown over the sun. They kindle the whiff of damp dog that always blows around here before a storm, burping lightning without a sound. Fate clouds. They mean get the fuck out of town, go visit Nana or something, until things quiet down, until the truth seeps out. Get rid of the drugs from home, then take a road trip.
A shimmer rises off the hood of Pam's ole Mercury. Martirio's tight-assed buildings quiver through it, oil pumpjacks melt and sparkle along the length of Gurie Street. Yeah: oil, jackrabbits, and Guries are what you find in Martirio. This was once the second-toughest town in Texas, after Luling. Whoever got beat up in Luling must've crawled over here. These days our toughest thing is congestion at the drive-thru on a Saturday night. I can't say I've seen too many places, but I've studied this one close and the learnings must be the same; all the money, and folk's interest in fixing things, parade around the center of town, then spread outwards in a dying wave. Healthy girls skip around the middle in whiter-than-white panties, then regions of shorts and cotton prints radiate out to the edges, where tangled babes hang in saggy purple underwear. Just a broken ole muffler shop on the outskirts; no more sprinklers, no more lawns.
'Lord,' says Pam, 'tell me why I can just taste a Chik 'n' Mix.'
Fucken yeah, right. Even in winter the Mercury stinks of fried chicken, never mind today when it's like a demon's womb. Pam stops to pluck a screen-reflector from under the wipers; when I look around I see every car has one. Seb Harris rides through the haze at the end of the street, distributing them from his bike. Pam opens the thing out and squints at the writing: 'Harris's Store,' it reads, 'More, More, More!'
'Lookit that,' she says. 'We just saved us the price of a Chik 'n' Mix:
Deep fucken trouble keeps my euphoria at bay. Pam just molds into the car. Her soul's already knotted over the choice of side-order, you can tell. She'll end up getting coleslaw anyway, on account of Mom says it's healthy. It's vegetables, see. Me, I need something healthier today. Like the afternoon bus out of town.
A siren wails past us at the corner of Geppert Street. Don't ask me why, they can't save any children now. Pam will miss this corner anyway – it's fucken traditional, look, there she goes. Now she'll have to cut back two blocks, and she'll say, 'Lord, nothing stays put in this town.' Reporters and camera people roam the streets in packs. I keep my head down, and scan the floor for fire ants. 'Far aints,' Pam calls them. Fuck knows what other fauna climbs aboard in the century it takes her to get in and out of the fucken car. Wild Fucken Kingdom, I swear.
Today everybody at the Barn wears black, except for the Nikes on their feet. I identify the different models while they box up the chicken. Town's like a club, see. You recognize fellow members by their shoes. They won't even sell certain shoes to outsiders, it's a fact. I watch these black forms scurry around with different-colored feet and, just like when anything weird screens through the Mercury window, Glen Campbell starts to sing 'Galveston' from Pam's ole stereo. It's a law of nature. Pam only has this one cassette, see – The Best of Glen Campbell. It jammed in the slot the first time she played it, and just kept on playing. Fate. Pam sings along with the same part of the song every time, the part about the girl. I think she once had a boyfriend from Wharton, which is closer to Galveston than here. No songs about Wharton I guess.
'Vern, eat the bottom pieces before they get soggy.'
'Then the top pieces will be on the bottom.'
'Oh Lord.' She lunges for the tub, but doesn't get past the refresher wipes before we turn into Liberty Drive. She must've forgot about Liberty Drive today.
Look at all the girls crying by the school.
Galveston , oh Galveston…
Another luxury wagon parks up ahead, with even more flowers, even more girls. It maneuvers slowly around the stains on the road. Strangers with cameras move back to fit it all in.
I still hear your sea waves crashing…
Behind the girls, behind the flowers are the mothers, and behind the mothers are the counselors; senior brownies at a petting zoo.
While I watch the cannons flashing…
Folk up and down the street are standing by their screen-doors being devastated. Mom's so-called friend Leona was already devastated last week, when Penney's delivered the wrong color kitchen drapes. Typical of her to go off half-cocked.
'Oh my Lord, Vernie, oh God – all those tiny crosses…' I feel Palmyra 's hand on my shoulder, and find myself sobbing spit.
The picture of Jesus that hangs behind the sheriff's door was taken at the crime scene. From a different angle than I last saw him. It doesn't show all the other bodies around, all the warped, innocent faces. Not like the picture in my soul. Tuesday breaks through me like a fucken hemorrhage.
I clean my gun, and dream of Galves-ton…
Jesus Navarro was born with six fingers on each hand, and that wasn't the most different thing about him. It's what took him though, in the very, very end. He didn't expect to die Tuesday; they found him wearing silk panties. Now girls' underwear is a major focus of the investigation, go figure. His ole man says the cops planted them on him. Like, 'Lingerie Squad! Freeze!' I don't fucken think so.
That morning crowds my mind. 'Hay-zoose, slow the fuck up!' I remember yelling to him.
A headwind worries our bikes on the way to school, weights them almost as heavy as this last Tuesday before summer vacation. Physics, then math, then physics again, some stupid experiment in the lab. Hell on fucken earth.
Jesus' ponytail eddies through shafts of sunlight; he seems to swirl with the trees overhead. He's changing, ole Jesus, turning pretty in an Indian kind of way. The stumps of his extra fingers have almost disappeared. He's still clumsy as hell though, and his mind's clumsy too; the certainty of our kid logic got washed away, leaving pebbles of anger and doubt that crack together with each new wave of emotion. My buddy, who once did the best David Letterman impression you ever saw, has been abducted by glandular acids. Sassy song and smell hormones must fume off his brain, the type that curdle if your mom senses them. But you get the feeling they ain't regular hormones. He keeps secrets from me, like he never did before. He got weird. Nobody knows why.