It ain't my idea to leave before dawn. My ole lady decided to visit Nana, that's why the house stinks of hairspray. You know why she's leaving early: so nobody sees her scurry through town on foot. All she wants is for them to see her arrived, all hunky-dory. Not scurrying. It's a learning I made since the car went.

'Well I just can't believe there isn't a pair of Tumbledowns around town, I mean, I'll have to try down by Nana's.' She gives off breathy noises, and flicks her fingertips through my hair. Then she takes a step back and frowns. It means goodbye. 'Promise me you won't miss your therapy.'

An electric purple sky spills stars behind the pumpjack, calling home the last moths for the night. It reminds me of the morning when ole Mrs Lechuga was out here, all devastated. I try not to think about it. Instead I look ahead to today. Going to Keeter's is a smart idea; if anybody sees me out there, they'll say, 'We saw Vernon out by Keeter's,' and nobody will know if they mean the auto shop, or the piece of land. See? Vernon Gray-matter Little. In return, I've asked Fate to help me solve the cash thing. It's become clear that cash is the only way to deal with problems in life. I even scraped up a few things to pawn in town, if it comes to that. I know it'll come to that, so I have them with me in my pack - my clarinet, my skateboard, and fourteen music discs. They're in the pack with my lunchbox, which contains my sandwich, the two joints, and a piece of paper with some internet addresses on it.

As for the joints and the piece of paper, I heard the voice of Jesus last night. He advised me to get wasted, fast. If at first you don't succeed, he said, get wasted off your fucken ass. My plan is to sit out at Keeter's and get some new ideas, ideas borne out of the bravery of wastedness.

I ride down empty roads of frosted silver, trees overhead swish cool hints of warm panties in bedclothes. Liberty Drive is naked, save for droppings of hay, and Bar-B-Chew Barn wrappers. In this light you can't see the stains on the sidewalk by the school. As the gym building passes by, all hulky and black, I look the other way, and think of other things.

Music's a crazy thing, when you think about it. Interesting how I decided which discs not to pawn. I could've kept some party music, but that would've just tried to boost me up, all this thin kind of 'Tss-tss-tss,' music. You get all boosted up, convinced you're going to win in life, then the song's over and you discover you fucken lost. That's why you end up playing those songs over and over, in case you didn't know. Cream pie, boy. I could've kept back some heavy metal too, but that's likely to drive me to fucken suicide. What I need is some Eminem, some angry poetry, but you can't buy that stuff in Martirio. Like it was an animal sex doll or something, you can't buy angry poetry. When you say gangsta around here, they still think of Bonnie & fucken Clyde. Nah, guess what: I ended up keeping my ole Country albums. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck - even my daddy's ole Hank Williams compilation. I kept them because those boys have seen some shit - hell, all they sing about is the shit they've seen; you just know they woke up plenty of times on a wooden floor somewhere, with ninety flavors of trouble riding on their ass. The slide-guitar understands your trouble. Then all you need is the beer.

Silas Benn has an ole washing machine for a letterbox. You have to watch out for it, because it's behind some trees as you approach his place from this end of Calavera Drive. I mention it because someday you might want to swing into Silas's driveway at speed. Watch out for the fucken washing machine. It's just one of the weird things about ole Silas. I know it's early to visit, but he always leaves his living-room light on, for security I guess, and it gives you the chance to say, 'Heck, Silas, I saw your light on.' He's wise to that ole line, but he still plays along. I nudge my bike up his driveway, and walk around to his bedroom window, tapping on the pane in the usual way. Then I stand back and hold my breath. A chink opens in the drapes. I tread softly to the back door. After some scrapes and rattles, Silas opens up and peeks out through crusty eyes.

'Pork my henry, son, what kinda time d'ya call this?'

'Heck, Silas, I saw your light on …'

'Ya dint see my damn bedroom light on. Dog-gone it, hell to berries …' Silas didn't have time to strap on his leg. He just hangs on a kind of crutch. Silas had a leg amputated, see.

'Sie, I got some real big business to run past you.'

He rustles through his robe for his glasses. 'Lemme see, whatcha find for me today …'

'Well y'see, that's the thing - I don't have any hard stuff, like on paper and all, on account of they took my computer away.'

'So what the …?'

'See, I have this plan how you can get all the pictures you want, hundreds of 'em - today even, when Harris's opens.'

'Aw hell, son, shill my wincer - ya dragged me up fer nothing.'

'Look,' I say, unfolding the sheet of paper. 'See these internet addresses? That's where all those hard-core pictures are kept, for free - even the Amputee Spree stuff that you really like. With these instructions, you can go by Harris's store, take the booth with the computer, and print out all you want. No kidding. With this list, you'll never have to pay for pictures again.'

'Shit, I don't know - I never got with them com-puder machines.'

'Forget it, it's easy. Everything you have to do is written here.'

'We-ell,' he says, stroking his chin. 'How much ya want fer it?'

'A case.'

'Git outta here.'

'No kidding, Sie, this list can save you a truckload of beer over the summer. A goddam truckload, at least.'

'I'll pay a six-pack.'

'We-ell,' I hesitate. You have to hesitate with Silas. 'We-e-ll. I don't know, Sie, plenty of kids'll wanna kill me, after I bust the business like this.'

'Six-packa Coors, I'll go git it.' He swings away into the house like a one-legged monkey. You can't drink till you're twenty-one around here. I ain't twenty-one. Good ole Silas always keeps some brews in stock, to trade for special pictures. Us Martirio kids are like his personal internet. He's our personal bar.

By seven-thirty this Monday morning I'm sat in a dirt clearing behind some bushes at Keeter's, sucking beer and waiting for ideas about cash. From where I sit you can watch the sun piss orange around the rims of those ole abandoned toilet bowls. I have my beers, my joints, and Country music pumping deep into my brain. I'm ready to howl like a coon-dog. I use it all to try and plot my position in life. There's me here, and Mexico down there. Taylor Figueroa in between. All I have to figure out is the rest of it. 'Get to the Nub of Things,' as Mr Nuckles used to say, back when his goddam mouth worked. To be honest, the only new information that comes to me is a whole swarm of lies about my so-called job. Take note of what happens in a lie-world like this; by the time you're in this deep, and you've invented an imaginary job, with an imaginary start time, and imaginary pay, and put your loved-ones through the sandwich routine, and 'Oh my God should I call Hildegard Lasseen,' and all - it doesn't matter anymore whether you admit the lie, or just get fucken busted doing it. People go, 'But he was so credible.' They start to realize you introduced them to a whole parallel world, full of imaginary shit. It's a pisser, I know it, I don't blame them at all. But it's like suddenly you qualify for membership in the fucken Pathology Zone, even though those same people immediately turn around and go, 'Can't make it, Gloria - my folks just flew in from Denver.'

Nah, my slime's so thick, it ain't worth coming clean at all. Take good note; Fate actually makes it harder to admit slime, the farther in you get. What kind of system is that? If I was president of the Slime Committee, I'd make it easier to come clean about shit. If coming clean is what you're supposed to do, then it should be made more fucken accessible, I say. I guess the shiver that really comes over me is that I just handed everybody the final nail for my cross. All they needed, on top of everything, was a credible lie. You can just see my ole lady on TV when they break the news, don't tell me you can't. 'Well but I even stayed up to pack his sandwiches . . .'

I fumble a lighter from my pocket, and spark up a joint. I ain't going by Goosens's today. Fuck that. My ole lady's safe with Nana. I'm going to find a way out of here.

'Bernie?' It's Ella Bouchard. She stops behind a bush at the edge of my clearing, and moves her lips the opposite way to what I hear in my ears, which is crawfish pie and filet gumbo.

Just let me say, in case you think I'm secretly in love with Ella, that I've known her since I was eight. Every boy in town knew Ella since they were eight, and none of them are secretly in love with her. Her equipment ain't arrived. You guess it maybe ain't coming either, when you look at her. Like her equipment got delivered to Dolly Parton or something. Ella's just skinny, with some freckles, and this big ole head of tangly blond hair that's always blown to hell, like a Barbie doll your dog's been chewing on for a month. Nobody yet figured out how to deal with Ella Bouchard. She lives with her folks, along the road from Keeter's Spares & Repairs. Her folks are like hillbilly types that don't move their arms when they walk, and just stare straight ahead all the time. The kind that repeat everything eighty times when they talk, like, 'That's how it was, yessir, the way it was was just like that, just like that, the way it was.' Probably explains why Ella's kind of weird too. Cause and effect, boy.

'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.'

'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............