Vernon God Little by Dbc Pierre Read Free Book Online

doesn’t have arms or legs, but he’s neatly groomed. And he has a job, look - he even invests on the stock market.’
    They ask the kid on TV what it feels like to be so gifted. He just shrugs and says, ‘Isn’t everybody?’
    The barber mostly slashes mid-air; two halves of a fly hit the deck. ‘Barry was here. Said there could be a drugs link.’
    ‘A drug slink, yes,’ says Mr Deutschman.
    ‘A drugs link, or another firearm.’
    ‘Another farm, uh-huh. I heard it was a panty cult - you hear it was a panty cult?’
    On balance, today sucks. You don’t want to be here if they find any drugs. So I’m here with two spliffs, and two acid pearls in my pocket; nasty gels, according to Taylor, like your mind would projectile-exit your nose if you took one. I tried to ditch them on the way down, but Fate was against me. Fate’s always fucken against me these days.
    Load my pack, and lope away is what I’ll do; all crusty and lonely, like you see on TV. Ditch Taylor’s dope, and lope away. More successfully than last night, with Lally and the world’s media camped outside. I only got four steps away from my porch before they came a-sniffing. Now they think I take out the trash in my backpack. Last night was long, boy, long and shivery with ghosts and realizations. Realizations that I have to act.
    ‘Vaine’s coming down with they dogs,’ says the barber. ‘I’ll tell her we need a SWAT team, with some of they automatic guns, that rip the meat off offenders’ bodies, not any ole dogs.’ Click, slash; he evens up my skull. I scan the floor for ears.
    ‘Meat’s better’n dogs,’ says Deutschman.
    ‘Sit still, Vern,’ says Mom.
    ‘I have stuff to do.’
    ‘Well, Harris’ store might take you on.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘For a job, you know - Seb Harris even bought himself a truck!’
    ‘That ain’t what I’m talking about. Anyway, Seb’s dad just happens to own the whole store.’
    ‘Well, you’re the man of the house now, I’m counting on you to make good. All the boys I know have jobs, that’s all.’
    ‘Like which boys, Ma, like just who?’
    ‘Well - Randy and Eric?’
    ‘Randy and Eric are dead.’
    ‘Vernon Gregory, I’m just saying if you want to prove you’re all grown up it’s about time you got wise to the way things work in this world. Be a man.’
    ‘Yeah, right.’
    ‘And don’t you get smart either, in front of everybody. Don’t let’s end up like that other time after I found those underpants.’ Deutschman’s hand twitches under his gown.
    ‘Damn, Momma!’
    ‘Go ahead, cuss your mother!’
    ‘I ain’t cussing!’
    ‘My God, if your father was here …’
    ‘Here’s Vaine,’ says the barber. I spin out of the chair, ripping the gown off over my head.
    ‘Well go ahead, Vernon - go right ahead and humiliate your mother, after all that’s happened to me.’
    Fuck her. I bang out through the screen into the sun. Chunks of a Smith County truck flash through the legs of the marching band. Martirio may be a fucken joke, but you don’t mess with the boys from Smith County. Smith County has armored personnel carriers, for chrissakes. Trombones spit glare, horns throw back pictures of me puckering, melting, shrinking into the bushes at the steep end of the compound.
    Hot grasses heckle my face on the way up the hill; skeeterhawks twitch through the air, but dust is too bored to rise up. One cloud hangs in the sky, over my empty, desperate body. My ole lady won’t run after me. She’ll stay back, tell all my slime to the boys, so they can wear a knowing smile next time they see me. Underpants my ass. And there’s no drugs link, is there fuck. Jesus never had the damn money. See Hysteriaville here? Science says there must be ten squillion brain cells in this town, but if you so much as belch before your twenty-first birthday they can only form two thoughts between them: you’re fucken pregnant, or you’re on drugs. Fuck it, I’m outta here. Life’s simple when I’m