Vernon God Little Read Online Free Page A

wishing bench, abandoning her cakes to the side. She overbalances a little as the bench settles unevenly into the dirt. The fucken bench settles a different way every week, like it's indexed to her head or something. 'Well I don't know why everything has to happen to me. We have witnesses, Vaine - witnesses!'
    Gurie sighs. 'Ma'am, you know how accessible the so-called witnesses are. Maybe your boy knew. Maybe not. The fact is, he absconded before our interview was over - people with airtight alibis just don't do that.'
    This is how long it takes Pam to lever herself out of the Mercury. It grunts with relief as she lets go the frame. Fire ants catapult across the seat.
    'I took him, Vaine. Found him near dead from starvation.'
    Gurie folds her arms. 'He was offered food …'
    'Fiddledy-boo, the Pritikin diet wouldn't even feed the nose on a growing boy.' One sweaty eye snaps to Gurie. 'How's it going, Vaine - the Pritikin diet?'
    'Oh - fine. Gh-rr.'
    That's Gurie stuck through like a bug. The crumpled-looking stranger with the camcorder catches my eye from under the Lechugas' willow, then looks at Vaine. He still has a smile without promise, a chalk smile that strikes me edge-ways, don't ask me why. Gurie pays no mind. She just fixes him in the corner of her eye. The guy wears tan overalls with a white dinner jacket, like ole Ricardo Moltenbomb, or whoever Mom's favorite was who had the dwarf on Fantasy Island. He eventually penguin-walks over the road, fixing his camcorder onto a tripod. It tells you he's either a tourist, or a reporter. Only way to tell reporters these days is by their names - ever notice how fucken bent your local reporters' names are? Like, Zirkie Hartin, Aldo Manaldo, and shit.
    'So,' says Gurie, ignoring Moltenbomb. 'Let's get this child into town.' Child my ass.
    'Well wait,' says Mom. 'There's something you should know - Vernon suffers from a kind of
    - condition.' She rasps it like it's cancer.
    'Heck, Momma!'
    'Vernon Gregory, you know you get that inconvenience!'
    Jesus, fuck. My overbite grows a yard. Moltenbomb chuckles from the roadside.
    'We'll take care of him,' says Gurie, wiping a hand on her leg. She nudges me down the driveway with her body; effective law-enforcement if you have ass-cheeks like fucken demolition balls.
    'But he hasn't done any wrong! He has a clinical condition!' Clinical condition my fucken ass.
    Just then, Fate plays a card. The hiss of Leona Dunt's Eldorado echoes up the street. The uterus-mobile from hell. It's full of Mom's two other so-called friends, Georgette and Betty. They always just drop by. Until Tuesday, Mrs Lechuga was the leader of this pack; now she's indisposed until further notice.
    Leona Dunt only shows up when she has at least two things to brag about, that's how you know your position in life. She needs about five things to go to the Lechugas', so we're junior league. Fetus league, even. Apart from having the thighs and ass of a cow, and minimum tits, Leona's an almost pretty blonde with a honeysuckle voice you know got its polish from rubbing on her last husband's wallet. That's the dead husband, not the first one, that got away. She never talks about the one that got away.
    Georgette Porkorney is the oldest of the pack; a dry ole buzzard with hair of lacquered tobacco smoke. We just call her George. Right now she's married to the sheriff, not that you'd want to imagine them doing anything. And get this: just like the rhinos you see in the wild on TV, she has a bird that lives sitting on her back. It's called Betty Pritchard, Mom's other so-called buddy.
    Betty just has this mopey face, and tags along saying, 'I know, I know.' Her ten-year-ole is called Brad. Little fucker broke my PlayStation, but he won't admit it. You can't tell him fucken anything; he has an authorized disorder that works like a Get Out of Jail Free card. Me, I only have a condition.
    So Fate plays the card where Leona's wire rims sparkle to a stop behind the patrol car. Ricardo