Vernon God Little полностью

'Hi, Bernie.' She enters the clearing slowly, as if I'll run away. 'Whatcha doin?'

'Just hanging out.'

'Whatcha doin really?'

'Just hanging out, I toldja – you shouldn't even be here.'

'You're getting fuckin loaded and fuckin wasted off your ass. Anyway, you fuckin promised.'

Such a foul mouth on a girl probably shocks you. Then you must think: foul-mouthed girl, at Keeter's, alone with Bernie. Okay, yes, a bunch of us boys got our first whiff of nakedness from Ella Bouchard. It cured us of any horniness we might've had; you couldn't name the flavors of ice-cream it looked like she strained through her pants some days. Like, she probably set us back years in our sexual development. She just wanted to cuss, spit, and fart with us, and I guess the only currency she had was her ropey ole body. I know you're not allowed to say it anymore, about certain girls and all, but off the record, Ella was born with it. She'd always be the one doing messy tumbles on the lawn, legs flying open all over the place. Her underwear would always shine your way. When aliens land in town, Ella will be out front with her fucken dress up, I guarantee it.

She takes another step into my space, and looks down at me. 'Fuck, Bernie, you're just like an alcoholic.'

'My name's not Bernie, and I'm not just like an alcoholic.'

'What's your name then? It's something like Bernie, I know that…'

'No, my name's nothing like Bernie, not in the minimum.'

'I'll go ask Tyrie what the name of the guy is who's over here smoking weed and drinking beer.' She gets that fabulous edge that girls get to their voices, the edge that spells oncoming Tantrum From the Bowels of Hell, that says, 'I'll scratch the heavens down around you and suck the fucken air from your lungs and spit you to fucken hell and you know it.'

'Name's John, okay?'

'No it ain't, not John, it ain't John, it ain't John at all, not John...' You can tell right away she spends too much damn time around her folks.

'Ella, I don't want to make a big deal out of anything today, okay? I'm just trying to chill on my own, and just figure some shit out – okay?'

'Not called John you ain't, not with a name like John, uh-uh, you ain't John, no way…'

'Well – whatever, okay?'

'I knew it was Bernie. Can I have a beer?'

'No.'

'How come?'

'Because you're only eight.'

'I ain't too so eight, I'm nearly fuckin fifteen.'

'Still too young to drink alcoholic beverages.'

'Well fuck, you're too fuckin young to drink – and smoke weed, fuck.'

'No I ain't.'

'Yes you are! How old are you?'

'Twenty-two.'

'You are not, you are fuckin not twenty-two.' All this goes to illustrate the First Rule of dealing with edgy people. Don't, under any circumstances, get talking to them.

After a minute of clicking her teeth, and of me ignoring her, Ella starts to mess with the hem of her dress. She makes these noises, like a stroked snake or something, and goes, 'Fuck, it's hot out here.' Then she raises the hem up her legs, to where they start thickening and softening into thigh. You can tell she swiped this behavior right off some TV-movie. I hope it's not wrong to say it, but it's like watching a Japanese person barn-dancing, the credibility of it, I fucken swear.

'Ella, c'mon will ya?!'

No, here comes the dress on its way up her legs. I just grab my pack and start to stash everything back inside. So she turns to me, real polite. 'I'll go to the shop and scream. I'll tell Tyrie what you did to me, after all that weed and beer, Bernie.'

A learning grows in me like a tumor. It's about the way different needy people find the quickest route to get some attention in their miserable fucken lives. The fucken oozing nakedness, the despair of being such a vulnerable egg-sac of a critter, like, a so-called human being, just sickens me sometimes, especially right now. The Human Condition, Mom calls it. Watch out for that fucker.

I drop my pack and make a deal with Ella. It lasts until the ninth sip of the beer that we share. I know it's the ninth because she counts them. 'Every sip together makes our feelings grow,' she says.

And strangely, for a nano-second before the ninth sip, I do kind of start to begin commencing to like Ella, don't ask me why. I get a few waves about how fucked-up she must be, and how she just wants someone to pay attention to her. I'm loaded, I admit it. But for a flash I even kind of take to her, with her ole straw hair blowing across her face, and the smell of warm bushes around. My hand even brushes against her leg, making silk hairlets stand up. She wriggles until a wedge of underwear shows up on the dirt. But at the same moment the breeze grates this smell off her legs, like salami or something, and I pull right back. I try not to wrinkle my face up, but I guess I kind of do, and she sees it. She tucks herself back into a knot.

'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.'