I saw a show about adolescents that said role models were the key to development, same as for dogs. You could tell whoever made the show never met Jesus' dad, though. Or mine, for that matter. My dad was better than Mr Navarro, until the end anyway, although I used to get pissed that he wouldn't let me use his rifle, like Mr Navarro let Jesus use his. Now I cuss the day I ever saw my daddy's gun, and I guess Jesus cusses his day too. He needed a different role model, but nobody was there for him. Our teacher Mr Nuckles spent all kinds of time with him after school, but I ain't sure ole powder-puff Nuckles and his circus of fancy words really count. I mean, the guy's over thirty, and you just know he sits down to piss. He spent all this time with Jesus, up at his place, and riding in his car, talking softly, with his head down, like those caring folk you see on TV. One time I saw them hug, I guess like brothers or something. Don't even go there, really. The point is, in the end, Nuckles recommended a shrink. Jesus got worse after that.
Lothar 'Lard-ass' Larbey drives by in his ole man's truck, flicking his tongue at my buddy. 'Wetback fudge-packer!' he yells.
Jesus just drops his head. I sting for him sometimes, with his retreaded, second-hand Jordan New Jacks, and his goddam alternative lifestyle, if that's what you call this new fruity thing. His character used to fit him so clean, like a sports sock, back when we were kings of the universe, when the dirt on a sneaker mattered more than the sneaker itself. We razed the wilds outside town with his dad's gun, terrorized ole beer cans, watermelons, and trash. It's like we were men before we were boys, back before we were whatever the fuck we are now. I feel my lips clamp together with the strangeness of life, and watch my buddy pull alongside me on his bike. His eyes glaze over, like they do since he started seeing that shrink. You can tell he's retreated into one of his philosophical headfucks.
'Man, remember the Great Thinker we heard about in class last week?' he asks.
'The one that sounded like "Manual Cunt"?'
'Yeah, who said nothing really happens unless you see it happen.'
'All I remember is asking Naylor if he ever heard of a Manual Cunt, and him going, "I only drive automatics." We dropped the biggest fucken load.'
Jesus clicks his tongue. 'Shit, Vermin, you always only thinkin bout dropped loads. Just loads, and shit, and girl tangs. This is real, man. Manual Cunt asked the thing about the kitten – the riddle, that if there was a box with a kitten inside, and if the box also had an open bottle of death-gas or whatever, that the kitten's definitely going to knock over at any moment…'
'Whose kitten is this? I bet they're pissed.'
'Fuck, Verm, I'm serious. This is a real-time philosophy question. The kitten's in this box, definitely gonna die at some moment, and Manual Cunt asks if it may as well be called dead already, technically, unless somebody's there to see it still alive, to know it exists.'
'Wouldn't it be easier just to stomp on the fucken kitten?'
'It's not about wasting the kitten, asshole.' You can tick Jesus off real easy these days. His logic got all serious.
'What's the fucken point, Jeez?'
He frowns and answers slowly, digging each word out with a shovel. 'That if things don't happen unless you see them happening – do they still happen if you know they're gonna – but don't tell nobody…?'
As the words reach my ears, the mausoleum shapes of Martirio High School slam into view through the trees. A bitty chill like a worm burrows through me.
three
Too fucken late. When you spot a jackrabbit it automatically spots you back; it's a fact of nature, in case you didn't know. Same goes for Vaine Gurie, who I spy in the road by my house. Storms clouds park over her patrol car.
'Pam, stop! Leave me right here…'
'Get a grip, we're nearly home.' Pam don't stop easy once she's going.
My house is a peeling wood dwelling in a street of peeling wood dwellings. Before you see it through the willows, you see the oil pumpjack next door. I don't know about your town, but around here we decorate our pumpjacks. Even have competitions for them. Our pumpjack is fixed up like a mantis, with a head and legs stuck on. This giant mantis just pump, pump, pumps away at the dirt next door. The local ladies decorated it. This year's prize went to the Godzilla pumpjack on Calavera Drive, though.
As Pam throttles back the car, I see media reporters up the street, and a stranger lazing next to a van in the shade of the Lechugas' willow. He moves a branch to watch us pass. He smiles, don't ask me why.
'That man's been there all morning,' says Pam, squinting into the willow.
'He a stranger, or media?' I ask.
Pam shakes her head, pulling up at my house. 'He ain't from around here, I know that much. He has a camcorder, though…'
Fuck, fuck, fuck goes the mantis, like it does every four seconds of my life. Gas, brake, gas, brake, Pam berths the car like a ferryboat. Fuck, fuck, gas, brake, I'm snagged in the apparatus of Martirio. Across the street, Mrs Lechuga's drapes are tightly pulled. At number twenty, ole Mrs Porter stares from behind her screen-door with Kurt, the medium-size black and white dog. Kurt deserves a place in the fucken Barking Hall of Fame, although he ain't made a sound since Tuesday. Weird how dogs know things.
Next thing you know, a shadow falls over the car. It's Vaine Gurie. 'Who do we have here?' she asks, opening my door. Her voice plays from deep in her throat, like a parrot's. You want to check her mouth for the little boxing-glove kind of tongue.
Mom scurries across our porch with a tray of listless ole joy cakes. She's in Spooked Deer mode. She looked this way the last time I saw my daddy alive, although Spooked Deer can mean anything from her frog oven-mitt being misplaced, to actual Armageddon. But her mitt's right there, under the tray. She heads down the steps past our willow, the one with her wishing bench under it. The wishing bench is quite a new feature around here, but already the damned thing's listing into the dirt. She pays no mind, and flounces up to Pam's car.
'Howdy pardner,' she says to me, dripping with that cutesy-shucksy Chattanooga-buddy-boy shit she started when I first showed evidence of having a dick. Feel the bastard shrivel now. I pull away, in vain because she chases me, covers me with spit and lipstick and fuck knows what else. Placenta, probably. All the while she smiles a smile you know you've seen before, but just can't put your finger on. Clue: the movie where the mother visits this young family, and by the end they have to grapple fucken scissors from her hands.
'Gh-rrr.' Vaine steps between us. 'I'm afraid your pardner here absconded from our interview.'
'Well call me Doris, Vaine! I'm almost a Gurie myself, I'm so cozy with LuDell, and Reyna and all.'
'Is that right. Mrs Little, let me explain where things stand…'
'Well these cakes are just singing out to be tasted – Vaine?'
'I'm afraid I don't make the laws, ma'am.'
'At least come up to the house – no point getting hot and ornery, we can straighten things out,' says Mom. I stiffen. You don't want Gurie poking around my room or anything. My fucken closet or anything.
'I'm afraid Vernon will have to come with me,' says Gurie. 'Then we need to take a look through his room.'
'Well, God, Vaine – he hasn't done any wrong, he always does like he's told…'
'Is that right. So far he's done nothing but lie, and when I trust him alone he absconds. We still can't account for him at the time of the tragedy.'