Vernon God Little by Dbc Pierre Read Free Book Online Page A

angry. I know just what to do, and I fucken do it. Underpants my fucken ass.
    I’ll tell you a learning: knife-turners like my ole lady actually spend their waking hours connecting shit into a humongous web, just like spiders. It’s true. They take every word in the fucken universe, and index it back to your knife. In the end it doesn’t matter what words you say, you feel it on your blade. Like, ‘Wow, see that car?’ ‘Well it’s the same blue as that jacket you threw up on at the Christmas show, remember?’ What I learned is that parents succeed by managing the database of your dumbness and your slime, ready for combat. They’ll cut you down in a split fucken second, make no mistake; much quicker than you’d use the artillery you dream about. And I say, in idle moments, once the shine rubs off their kid - they start doing it just for fucken kicks.
    I stop dead. Something crackles around the bend on the track. It’s the red van, spinning a trail of fluff-balls down the hill. Like somebody with oldtimer’s disease, who doesn’t remember what’s good for them, I glance at my T-shirt. ‘Ping,’ it jackrabbits to Lally. He stops with a crunch, forcing down the electric window with the flat of his hand. Tappets mark time with my heart, tic, tic, tic.
    ‘Big man!’
    I wave, like I’m in the freezer section at the fucken Mini-Mart or something. I should drop the drugs where I stand, but the dogs are close by. They’d know. Anyway, I ain’t that decisive in life, not with all this grief on board, not with my anger evaporated. It fucken slays me. Van Damme’s your man if you want the drugs dropped right here.
    Lally calls me over. ‘See those cops? They came from your place - jump in.’
    Ginseng clinks around the floor as we cut a fresh trail toward home.
    ‘Where’s the rest of your head?’ Lally slicks down his eyebrows in the mirror. You can tell the mirror hasn’t pointed at the road awhile.
    ‘Don’t ask,’ I say.
    ‘You going somewhere?’
    ‘Surinam.’
    He laughs. ‘How’d you get down here? I didn’t see a car this morning …’
    ‘We walked.’ I’m supposed to say Mom’s car is in the shop. But it ain’t in the shop. The car paid for the new rug in the living room, the one Brad wipes his fingers on.
    ‘What do you think the cops want?’
    ‘Search me.’
    ‘Tch.’ Lally shakes his head. ‘Things won’t get any easier, you know. Take my advice - I could cut a report by sundown, it could air by tonight - Vern? I think it’s time to tell your story. Your real, true story.’
    ‘Maybe,’ I say, slouching low in the seat. I feel Lally watching me.
    ‘You don’t even have to appear, I can patch it together from clips of friends and family. Camera’s loaded, big man. Just say the word.’ I hear Lally’s offer, but just sit wishing Marion Nuckles would tell his damn story. He knows I’m clean, he was there. I can’t believe I get all the heat - me, who has family secrets to watch out for - while he lounges around in goddam silence. I mean, what’s he holding back?
    A wrong note from the meatworks’ band coughs us onto Beulah Drive in a swirl of leaf tatters. A baby marketplace has grown around the pumpjack since I’ve been gone. One stall sells Martirio barbecue aprons, just like Pam’s. Next to it, some media men pay a buck a hit for some fudge from Houston. One of the fudge sellers gloomily puts on an apron. The apron sellers gloomily munch fudge. My face goes Porked Monkey. It’s the face for when life around you travels in fucken dog years, but you stay frozen still. For instance, a whole mall grows around the pumpjack, but I’m here with the same problems I went out with this morning. I just look down, herd ginseng with my foot.
    ‘Take one,’ says Lally.
    ‘Say what?’
    ‘Take some ginseng, keep your strength up.’
    As he says it, I notice the ginseng is the same shade of piss as the acid pearls in my hand. Dogs would never smell through the ginseng. I