'Bernie, how come you don't fool around? You a pillow-biter or what?'

'Hell no. I just think you're too young, that's all.'

'Guys a whole lot older than you want to fool around with me.'

'Yeah, right. Like who?'

'Like Danny Naylor.'

'Yeah, right, I don't fucken think so.'

'Yeah he does, him and a whole shit-loada other guys.'

'C'mon, Ella…'

'Mr Deutschman'd even pay for it, I know that, I know that too well, too damn well.'

'Fuck, Ell, Mr Deutschman's around eight hundred years ole.'

'It don't matter, he's older'n you, and he'd still pay for it.'

'Yeah, right. Anyway, how do you know? You been over there and asked him?'

'I went by there once and he gave me a Coke, and touched me a little, on my ass…'

Don't even think it. A man has his honor, you know.

At the end of the day, I take all the gullies and back roads home, and keep my eyes lively to any roving cops or shrinks. I'm glad Mom's at Nana's – she'll have company, and food in her belly, if only macaroni cheese. I missed my date with Goosens, and have to leave town, see. I just couldn't abandon Mom if she was home sniffling, no way. That's how I'm programmed. By the time I get home, I'm ready to call Nana's and tell Mom the job didn't work out – really come clean, as a final gesture. Then, when I step inside my house, I hear an unmistakable set of squeaks and sighs. The wind falls out of my sails and stays at the door, like your dorky buddy on his first visit to your place. My ole lady's here. Bawling. I stand quiet, as if she'll ignore me. She doesn't though, and this is where her routine gets quite transparent, actually, because she clears her throat, loudly, then uses that energy to launch into a bigger, better bawl. It breaks my fucken heart. Mostly because she has to resort to these transparent kind of moves to get attention.

'What's up, Ma?'

'Shnff, squss…'

'Ma, what's up?'

She takes hold of my hands, and looks up into my eyes like a calendar kitten after a fucken tractor accident, all crinkly, with spit between her lips. 'Oh, Vernon , baby, oh God...'

A familiar drenching feeling comes over me, like when the potential exists for serious tragedy. One thing I take into account, though, is that my ole lady always wants my blood to run cold; she bawls more convincingly the longer I know her, because my blood-freezing threshold goes up. This far down the road, she even fucken hyperventilates. My blood is icy.

'Oh, Vernon, we're really going to have to pull together now.'

'Momma, calm down – is it about the gun?'

Her eyes brighten for a moment. 'Well no, actually they found nine guns on Saturday – Bar-B-Chew Barn disqualified the prize winners for planting guns along the route, there's all kinds of hell to pay in town today.'

'So what's the problem?'

She sets up bawling again. 'I went to cash the investment this morning, and the company was gone.'

'Lally's investment?'

'I've been calling Leona's all day, but he's not there…'

This so-called investment was with one of those companies with names chained together, like 'Rechtum, Gollblatter, Pubiss & Crotsch'. If you want to know who the real psychos are, take any guy who names a business to sound like a lawyer's company, and is still surprised when folk won't turn their back to him.

'Power's being disconnected tomorrow,' says Mom. 'Did you get the advance? I've been counting on your advance, I mean, the power's only fifty-nine dollars for goodness sake, but then when the deputies came…'

'Ma, slow up – deputies came?'

'Uh-huh, around four-thirty. They were okay, I don't think Lally said anything yet.'

'So what'd you tell them?'

'I said you were with Dr Goosens. They said they'd check you at the clinic tomorrow.'

The Lechugas' teddy farm seems ole and squashed when I wake up next morning. Another Tuesday morning, two weeks after That Day. The shade under their willow is empty. Kurt is quiet, Mrs Porter's door is closed. Beulah Drive is clean of strangers for the first time since the tragedy. June is barely underway, but it's as if summer's liquor has evaporated, leaving this dry residue of horror. At ten-thirty the phone rings.

' Vernon, that'll be the power company – when can I tell them you'll have your advance from work?'

'Uh – I don't know.'

'Well, do you want me to call the Lasseens and see what the hold-up is? I thought they promised it to you on your first day…'

'I'll have it tonight, tell them.'

'Are you sure? Don't say it if you're not positive, I can call Tyrie…'

'I'm sure.' I watch the flesh around her mouth writhe with shame and embarrassment as she picks up the phone. My head runs a loop of Ella's words at Keeter's. 'Mr Deutschman'd even pay for it.' Proof that my mind hooked onto the idea, is that I pretended not to be interested. I just changed the subject. That's how you know the demon seed was planted.

'Well hi Grace,' says Mom. 'He says he'll have it tonight, definitely. No, he's starting late today – he's studying marketing dynamics for work. Oh fine, just fine – Tyrie's real happy with his progress – says he might even get promoted! Uh-huh. Uh-huh? No, no, I've spoken to Tyrie personally, and he's definitely getting paid – Hildegard's an old friend, so it's not a challenge. Oh really? I didn't know you knew her. Oh, well – tell her hi.' Mom's eyes sink back into her sockets, she turns dirty red. 'What? Well if you could just hold them back until after lunch, I'd really appreciate it. The truck left already? Uh-huh. But if I give them cash when they get here, can't you stop them from…?'

Blood splurches like paste from both ends of my body, caking hard in grotesque spike formations that only happen to liars and murderers, and that my ole lady can see from the phone. Thoughts dance through my head that shouldn't be there. Simonize the Studebaker, for instance. Mom puts down the phone. Her eyes cut me loose in a raft.

'The disconnection truck already set off for the day,' she says. Razorfish slash the fucken raft. Mom's eyebrows lean up on one elbow to watch. 'I better call Tyrie.' She fumbles through the phone-table drawer for her address book. I stay on my stomach in front of the TV. Save me falling back down here when I'm fucken dead.

In between snatches of my video research, the news plays on TV. 'Overshadows events in Central Texas,' says a reporter, 'with official sources confirming this morning's tragedy in California as the worst of its kind so far this year. Condolences and aid continue to pour into the devastated community…'

' Vernon, do you have the Spares & Repairs number?'

'Uh – not right here.'

I don't look up. I hear you can get big money selling your kidneys, but my brain's stressed from wondering where to sell them. Maybe the meatworks. Who fucken knows. My only other plan, plan B, is the desperate plan. I browse through my daddy's ole videos for tips. For cream pie, actually, truth be told. Close the Deal is here, one of his favorites. One thing about my dad, he had every kind of plan to get rich.

'Here it is – Hildy Lasseen,' says Mom. She shuffles back to the phone, and picks up the receiver. An important-sounding fanfare accompanies her, as the TV jumps from global to local news.

'Mrs Lasseen doesn't work at the yard,' I say. 'That's just their home number.'

'No, the Spares & Repairs number is here too.' She starts to dial. All you hear is the TV in back.

'Don't write Martirio off yet,' says a reporter, 'that's the message from the team behind a new multimedia venture inspired by the struggle of our brave citizens – a venture its founder claims will spread the gospel of human triumph over adversity to every corner of the globe.'