'The one that died?'

'No, not the one that died. The first one, and out of consideration you shouldn't even ask.'

'Sorry.'

She takes a breath, wiping her eyes with the palm of her hand. 'I lost a few pounds for the prom, though. I proved Papa wrong, just that once. Den Gurie asked me to be his date – Den Gurie, the linebacker! – I slept under the shawl of my prom dress all week.'

'There you go – see?'

'He picked me up in his brother's truck. I almost fainted from excitement, and from hunger, I guess, but he told me to relax, said it'd be like spending a night with my kin…' Mom starts to hiss from the back of her throat, like a cat. It's another way to weep, in case you didn't know. The early part of a strong weep.

'So what happened?'

'We drove out of town, sang songs nearly all the way to Lockhart. Then he asked me to check the tailgate on the truck. When I climbed out, he drove away and left me. That's when I saw the hog farm by the road.'

A bolt of anger takes me, about the fucken Guries, about the ways of this fucken town. The anger cuts through waves of sadness, cuts through pictures of young Jesus, the one who nailed himself to a fucken cross before anybody else could do it. That's why this town's angry. They didn't get a shot at him. But they don't have anger like I have anger brewing up. Anger cuts through a wide range of things. Cuts like a knife.

After a second, I feel the dampness of Mom's hand on mine. She squeezes it. 'You're all I have in the world. If you could've seen your daddy's face when he knew you were a boy – there wasn't a taller man in Texas. All the great things you were going to be when you grew up…' She narrows puffy eyes into the distance, through Mrs Porter's house, through the town, and the world, to where the cream pie lives. The future, or the past, or wherever it fucken lives. Then she shoots me this brave little smile, a genuine smile, too quick for her to pull any victimmy shit. As she does it, violins shimmer into the air across town, like in a movie. Even Kurt hangs silent as a guitar picks its way out of the orchestra, and a Texan voice from long ago herds our souls up into the night. Christopher Cross starts to sing 'Sailing'. Mom's favorite tune from before I was even born, before her days fell dark. Type of song you listen to when you think nobody likes you. She gives a broken sigh. I know right away the song will remind me of her forever.

Fate tunes. This one breaks my fucken heart. We sit listening as long as we can bear it, but I know the song has sunk a well into Mom's emotional glade, and I guess mine too. Dirty blood will gush high just now. The piano brings it on.

'Well,' she says. 'George said she can only decoy the sheriff until tomorrow. And that isn't even counting the thing about the drugs.'

'But at least I'm innocent.'

'Well Vernon, I mean, huh-hurr...' She gives one of those disbelieving laughs, a hooshy little laugh that means you're the only asshole in the world who believes what you just said. Notice how popular they are these days, those kinds of fucken laughs. Go up to any asshole and say anything, say, 'The sky is blue,' and they'll wheel out one of those fucken laughs, I swear. It's how folk spin the powerdime these days, that's what I'm learning. They don't shoot facts anymore, they just hoosh up their laughs, like: yeah, right.

'I mean – surely the damage is done,' she says. 'You did have that awful catalog, and now these illegal drugs…'

Awful catalog, get that. Her closet is probably full of that lingerie, but now it's an awful catalog. I skip the catalog and move on to the drugs. 'Heck, plenty of dudes are into that stuff – anyway it ain't even mine.'

'Well I know, that catalog was mine – what on earth got into you? Was it something the Navarro boy put you up to?'

'Hell no.'

'I don't like to speak badly, but…'

'I know, Ma, Meskins are more colorful.'

'Well I only mean they're more – flamboyant. And Vernon, they're Mexicans, not Meskins, have some respect.'

The conversation is nano-seconds away from including the word 'panties', something you should never hear in conversation with your mom. Knowing her, she'd probably say 'underpants' or something. 'Interior wear', or something way fucken bent. A new resignation settles over me, that I can't run out on my ole lady while she's like this. Not right away, not tonight. I need to reflect, alone.

'I think I'll take some fresh air,' I say, stretching off the bench.

Mom opens out her hands. 'Well what do you call this?'

'I mean at the park or something.'

'Well Vernon, it's nearly eleven o'clock.'

'Ma, I'm being indicted as an accessory to murder for chris-sakes…'

'Well don't cuss at your mother, after all I've been through!'

'I ain't cussing!'

There's a pause while she folds her arms, and hunches her shoulder to wipe an eye. Clicking night bugs make it seem like her skin is crackling. 'Honestly, Vernon Gregory, if your father was here…'

'What did I do? I'm only trying to go to the park.'

'Well I'm just saying grown up people make money and contribute a little, which means getting up in the morning – I mean, there must be a thousand kids in this town, but you don't see them all at the park in the middle of the night.'

Thus, quietly, and with love, she reels me out to the end of my tether, to that itchy hot point where you hear yourself committing to some kind of fucken outlandishness.

'Yeah?' I say. 'Yeah? Well I've got live and direct news for you!'

'Oh?'

'I wasn't even going to tell you yet, but if this is how you're gonna be – I already talked to Mr Lasseen about a job, so, hey.'

'Well, when do you start?' A smile's shadow passes over her lips. She knows I just cut lumber for a cross. The motivation behind her higher-than-Christ eyebrows gives me the fire to carry it on.

'Tomorrow, maybe.'

'Doing what?'

'Just helping out, you know.'

'Well I used to know Tyrie's wife, Hildegard.' She ups the ante, makes me think she'll bump into Tyrie's wife. But I hold my course, I say anything not to lose another knife game. My ole lady doesn't lose at knife games. She ain't lost this one yet. 'Well what about Dr Goosens? I'll die if I see the police around here again…'

'I can work mornings.'

'What will Tyrie Lasseen think, if you don't do a full day's work?'

'I already fixed it with him.'

'Well you can pay me a little lodging then, now that you're so grown up and all.'

'Oh, sure, you can have most of it – all of it if you want.'

She sighs like I'm already behind with my rent. 'The power company comes first, Vernon – how quickly will you get paid?'

'Uh – I can probably get an advance.'

'Without any working history?'

'Oh sure,' I say, squinting into the sky. 'So now can I go to the park?'

She blinks dreamily, her ole innocent eyebrows rise up to heaven. 'I never said you couldn't go to the park…'

Needless to say, there is no fucken job. I stand insulated from my world by the buzzing tequila-ozone of what I just did. Lies scatter around me like ants.

'Well I guess I'll have to make lunches for you now,' says Mom.

'Nah, I'll come home for lunch.'

'From Keeter's? But that's miles away.'

'Twenty minutes, it takes me.'

'Oh goodnight, it's almost twenty minutes by car...'

'Nah – I know all the shortcuts.'