I had a talk with the psychologist here, told him I didn't have any human qualities, like any skills or anything. But he said it wasn't true, he said I had fine higher perceptions and sensitivity toward my fellow beings. In a way, I guess I do have those talents. I could sniff trouble before all this started, I say that must be a talent. It has to count for something. The other big news is that I quit cussing, believe it or not. I guess I've just used some of this time to, you know, watch TV, and not dwell on the bad side of things. Dwelling on the bad side of things has been identified as a problem area for me, that and being anal-fixated, if you'll excuse me saying it, where all my thoughts end up relating to human waste matter, and undergarments, and what have you. Big problem area, but the psychologist says realization is the first step to change. I can't even conjure tangs anymore, really. I'm just watching plenty of ole TV-movies, I guess checking back where I went wrong. The other day, a movie even brought a tear to my eye.
A lynch-mob crowds the streets around the courthouse, throwing things, screaming, and hammering on the van as I drive through. I see them through this tiny window, them and the cameras watching them. One thing, though, at the back there seems to be a crowd of supporters as well. The front of the courthouse has turned into the Astrodome, with camera and light towers, and live studios with National Personalities on them. Then there are catering wagons, hot-dog stands, power trucks, make-up trucks. T-shirt stands, lapel-pin stands, balloon sellers.
I don't get taken straight to the courtroom, but into a make-up room behind the building; apparently on account of its being 'Bathed in succulent, diffuse light,' as the dude explains who sits me down and strokes my head. Some other court folks are here getting blush on their faces. They smile at me as if I was a colleague from the mailroom in their office, and talk about today as if it was a ball game. I notice my make-up is kind of pale. Pale and gray.
I'm finally walked up a long corridor, like the barrel of a gun. Bright light cuts the outline of a door at the end, and I'm led through it into the courtroom. Here we go. I enter this court an innocent man, I have to say, and I believe I'll leave it via the front door, once they hear my story. Truth always wins out in the end, see. I look around at the cast of my whole life, who sit waiting in the smell of finger-paintings and popcorn glued onto cut-outs of shepherd Joseph's lambs. Cameras whir on swivel mounts, people's heads turn with them to watch me being locked into this kind of zoo cage, with a microphone, and a big green button mounted on the front. The cage has shiny black bars set four inches apart, and stands three feet taller than my head when I stand. One guard unlocks a door at the back, while a second man handles me inside. A plaque on the cage door says it's made from a new alloy that no man alone can destroy. I cast an eye around the room and see my mom there with her mouth all tight across, like a Muppet or something. Her wrists are bandaged, I guess from her Cry For Help. Pam sits next to her with a face that tells you they're full of some plastic motel breakfast, of the kind where the ingredients come in matching shapes, like out of a clay mold. They just love hospital food, and motel breakfasts and stuff. Today Mom has her own camera position. No knife turning, though, you know it. My knife turns by itself these days, now that I'm all grown up. My conscience is what the knife ended up being, according to the psychologist. A knife is the greatest gift your folks can give you, according to him.
My new attorney looks real positive, ole Brian, real confident about things. He stops for a moment to wink at me, then unloads a box of files onto his desk. There's a whole set of shiny new prosecutors too. The head prosecutor even wears baggy pants, if you don't think it's too vulgar to say, if it's not too regressive into my problem area. That's how damn funny he thinks today's going to be. At the bench on high, an ole judge clasps his hands together, and nods to the attorneys. Silence erupts.
'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,' says the prosecutor. 'Today we open one of the most cut-and-dried legal cases this state has ever seen. A person stands before you, having extinguished the lives of thirty-four decent citizens, many of them children – friends of his, even. A person who openly admits attending the scene of a high-school massacre, and who has been positively identified by eyewitnesses at the scenes of sixteen other capital crimes. A person whose childhood fantasies revolved around bloodshed and death. A person whose perverse sexual leanings link him inextricably to the other gunman in the high-school shooting. Ladies and gentlemen – today you will meet a person – and I use the term loosely – who, at the tender age of sixteen, has supplanted the notorious John Wayne Gacy, for the depth and boundlessness of his disregard for the most basic rights of others.'
He sweeps a hand across the crowd to my cage. Faces turn to take in my shiny head, my huge swimming eyes through the glasses. I stay impassive. The prosecutor smiles, as if remembering an ole joke.
'And you know,' he says, 'like Gacy – the boy cries innocence. Not of one crime, where maybe his identity could've been mistaken. But of thirty-four vicious slayings across this great state.'
Parts of my body have retracted by the time Brian takes the mound. He paces slowly around the open space of the court, nodding quietly to himself. Then he stops to lean on the jury bench, and looks into the air, reminiscing.
'Lord knows,' he says, 'it's a fine thing to relax in front of the TV after a hard day's work.' He rubs his chin, and strolls into the clearing. 'Maybe watch a movie.' A frown takes his brow. 'Must make life a little hard for the stars of that movie, though, having everyone recognize them on the street. Why do I mention it? I mention it because four-point-three murders happen every week across the region supposed to be my client's stomping ground. Four-point-three murders happened before the crimes of which he stands accused – four-point-three happened during his supposed reign of terror. And four-point-three are happening this week, while he's here with us.' He turns and stares at each jury member in turn. 'What we will discover, ladies and gentlemen, is that no allegation of murder existed against my client until the day his picture appeared on our TV screens. From that moment forward, virtually every murder in Central Texas and beyond has been attributed to him. That means all the regular murderers took a vacation, and Vernon Gregory Little fulfilled nearly the whole published quota of murders, some of them occurring almost simultaneously, with different weapons, at opposite ends of the state. Please ask yourselves: how? By remote control? I don't think so.'
My attorney takes a walk to my cage. He looks thoughtfully at me, grabs one of the bars, and turns back to the jury.