Inch by inch, I shuffle behind the Mexican ladies toward check-in. My bravery has ebbed away. I decide to try my New York accent on the man at the ticket counter, just ask him some question; that way, if anybody comes looking for me later, he'll say, 'Nah, I only saw some kid from The Apple.' The ladies finish and move away. The clerk stops tapping at his keyboard, and looks up. My mouth opens, but he doesn't look at me, his eyes shoot over my shoulder.

'Howdy Palmyra,' he says.

Pam's shadow falls over me. 'Hell, Vernie, what're you doing down here?'

'Uh – looking for work.'

'Lord, a boy can't work on an empty belly – c'mon now, I'm on my way past the Barn to your place…'

Fuck. Everybody in the place looks up to watch Pam drag me out by the hand, like a goddam kid. The man with the newspaper nudges somebody next to him, and points. I feel the noose of this fucken town tighten around my throat.

nine

'The dogs will also uncover firearms, and other devices,' says the sheriff on TV. 'So if a weapon is found, it'll just be a matter of matching the fingerprints.'

'And if you get a match – case closed?' asks the reporter.

'You bet.'

Mom switches off the TV on her scurry back to the kitchen. 'Lord, Vernon, please don't go to the Tragedy Sale in those shoes, you heard what everybody thinks. Please. I can't believe there isn't a pair of Tumbledowns in your size around town.'

'Timberlands, Ma.'

'Whatever. Look, here's the pastor now. I know it's not much of a job, but, as Lally says, it's important to show the community you're making good.'

'But I didn't do anything – damn!'

'Vernon Gregory!' says Lally. 'Don't argue with your mother.'

He wears this fancy suit today, with a tie and all. Suddenly this fancy fucken suit appeared.

I just want to fucken die, go back to jail, to the warmth of Barry and his crew of madcap funsters. Last night was a long night at home, real fucken long. To cap it off, Kurt started barking again. I swear the barking circuit that orbits town every night starts and ends with fucken Kurt. For such a nerdy dog, I don't see how he got to be president of the barking circuit. It ain't like he's a fucken rat-wheeler or anything.

Lally sucks down a ginseng, and nuzzles Mom. 'Hey,' he grunts, 'remember what we talked about? If I get the series, we'll fill this house with Special Edition fridges.'

Her lips tighten. 'Well I don't know what happened to that order, now it looks like Nancie got one. Anyway, if you saw her old refrigerator you'd know why. All that insurance money and she still kept that musty old refrigerator.'

'Shhh,' whispers Lally. 'We got a new speakerphone, didn't we? Now you don't even have to hold the receiver!'

I get waves about it all. My ole lady was never Honey Bear like this with my daddy. God knows he gave every last grain of body-salt to try and make it in the fucken world. It just wasn't enough, in the end, I guess. The day he got his first thousand dollars, the neighbors must've got ten. Aim for a million bucks, you suddenly need a billion. I upgraded my computer, but it wasn't enough. No matter what, it ain't fucken enough in life, that's what I learned.

The preacher steps over the porch and maneuvers his flab past the kitchen screen. 'This glorious Saturday smells of joy cakes,' he booms. I swear the Lord giveth and just keeps fucken givething to Pastor Gibbons.

'They're hot and perky, Pastor,' Mom whisks the napkin off a tray of pessimistic-looking bakes, offering it up like it was a feel of her tits twenty years ago. Gibbons' new Timberlands chirp a trail across the linoleum.

He grabs a cake, then turns to smile at me. 'And you're my deputy for the day?'

'That's your boy,' says Lally, 'he'll give a hundred and fifty percent.'

'Awesome, I'll put him on the bake stall – we're hoping to raise ten grand today, for the new media center.'

Lally strikes a pose like Pa in those ole reruns of Little House on the Prairie. 'This town sure is teaching a thing or two about community spirit, Pastor.'

'God knows the Tragedy Committee has worked miracles to bring some good out of the devastation,' says Gibbons. 'Word is, one of the networks might even put us national today.' He pulls focus from infinity to Lally's face. 'Wouldn't be – your people, would it, Mr Ledesma?'

Lally smiles the smile of a doting God. 'I'll certainly be giving you some camera time, Pastor, don't you worry. The world will be yours.'

'Oh my,' Gibbons does the coy padre off that ole army hospital show. 'All right, Vernon,' he says, nudging me toward the door. 'The Lord helps those who help themselves…'

'See you there,' says Mom.

Lally follows us onto the porch. As soon as we're out of Mom's sight, he grabs my ear and twists it hard. 'This is the way forward, little man – don't blow it.'

Son of a stadium full of bitches. I rub my ear on the way to the New Life Center; the pastor listens to the radio as he drives, nose up to the windscreen. He doesn't talk to me at all. We pass Leona Dunt's house, with the fountain in front. Her trash is out four days early again. That's to help you take stock of all the rope-handled boutique bags, and razor-edged boxes barfing tissue and ribbon. You could sell her a fucken turd if it was giftwrapped, I swear.

The Lozano boys are out hawking T-shirts on the corner of Liberty Drive. One design has 'I survived Martirio' splattered across it in red. Another has holes ripped through it, and says: 'I went to Martirio and all I got was this lousy exit wound.' Preacher Gibbons tuts, and shakes his head.

'Twenty dollars,' he says. 'Twenty dollars for a simple cotton T-shirt.'

I slouch low in my seat, but not before Emile Lozano sees me. 'Yo, Vermin! Vermin Little!' he whoops and salutes me like a fucken hero or something. The pastor's eyebrows ride up. Thanks, fucken Emile. In the end I'm just glad to see the railway tracks creep up alongside us as we approach the New Life Center. The radio is pissing me off now, to be honest. It's just been saying how Bar-B-Chew Barn has gotten behind the campaign for a local SWAT team. Now it's making noise about the hunt for the second firearm. They don't say exactly where they're fixing to hunt; like, they don't say they're specifically going to hunt around Keeter's or anything. If they were going to hunt around the Keeter property, you'd think they'd say it.

The New Life Center is actually our ole church. Today the lawn and carpark have been turned into a carnival market, a laundry-day of tousled whites flapping under the sun. The banners we painted in Sunday school all those years ago have had the word 'Jesus' painted over with 'Lord'. I help the pastor unload the car and carry stuff to a cake stand right next to the train tracks. He installs me there, as caretaker of the cake stand, and – get this – I have to wear a fucken choir gown. Vernon Gucci Little, in his unfashionable Jordan New Jacks, with fucken choir gown. After ten minutes, the morning freight train lumbers past my back, honking all the while. It never honks if you don't stand here in a fucken choir gown.

You don't know how full my head is of plans to disappear. The crusher is that I got identified by Pam at the bus depot, so they'll just be waiting for my face to show up again. Truth be told, they probably installed a fucken panic button or something, In Case of Vernon. Probably connected it to Vaine Gurie's ass. Or Goosens's pecker or something. It means I'll have to cross country to the interstate, maybe find a truck on its way from Surinam, or a driver who hasn't seen the news, a blind and deaf driver. Plenty of 'em out there, if you listen to Pam.

As the sun pitches high and sharp, more folk wander into the market. You can tell they're making an effort not to seem drained and bleak. Drained and bleak is what town's about these days, despite the joy cakes. They ain't setting the world on fire with sales, I have to say. Everybody keeps a safe distance from the joy cakes. Or from me, I guess. Mr Lechuga even turns his desk away from me, over by the prize tent, where he's selling lottery tickets. After a while Lally and my ole lady arrive. You can't actually see them yet, but you can hear Mom's Burt Bacharach disc playing somewhere. It cuts through the gloom like a pencil through your lung. Nobody else would have that disc, I fucken guarantee it, with all these jingle singers going, 'Something big is what I'm livin for,' all tappetty-shucksy, bubbly silk pie, just the way she likes. A typical stroke-job of musical lies, like everybody grew up with back then, back when all the tunes had a trumpet in them, that sounded like it was played through somebody's ass.