twenty-one

Life flashes before my eyes this fourteenth of November, bitty flashes of weird existence, like the two weeks of a mosquito's life. The last minute of that life is filled with the news that Mr Nuckles will testify on the last day of my trial, in five days' time. Observers say only he can save me now. I remember the last time I saw him. Twentieth of May this year.

'If things don't happen unless you see them happening,' said Jesus, 'do they still happen if you think they're gonna – but don't tell nobody…?'

'Sounds like not unless nobody doesn't see you not telling,' I say.

'Fuck, Verm. Just forget it.' His eyes squint into knife cuts, he just pedals ahead. I don't think he can take another week like last week. His lust for any speck of power in life is scary at times. He ain't a sporting hero, or a brain. More devastatingly, he can't afford new Brands. Licensed avenues of righteousness are out of his reach, see? Don't get me wrong, the guy's smart. I know it from a million long minutes spent chasing insects, building planes, oiling guns. Falling out, falling in again, knowing he knows I know he's soft at heart. I know Jesus is human in ways nobody'll spend the money to measure. Only I know.

Class is a pizza oven this Tuesday morning, all the usual smells baked into an aftertaste of saliva on metal. Rays of light impale selected slimeballs at their desks. Jesus is locked in his school attitude, lit by the biggest ray. He stares at his desk, baring his back, exposing his knife. You probably have a knife stuck in you that loved-ones can twist on a whim. You should take care nobody else discovers where it's stuck. Jesus is proof you should take damn good care.

'Yo Jaysus, your ass is drippin,' says Max Lechuga. He's the stocky guy in class, you know the one. Fat, to be honest, with this inflatable mouth. 'Stand clear of Jaysus's ass, the fire department lost another four men up there last night.' The Gurie twins huddle around him, geeing him on. Then he starts on me. 'Vermie – git a little anal action this morning?'

'Suck a fart, Lechuga.'

'Make me, faggot.'

'I ain't no faggot, fat-ass.'

Lorna Speltz is a girl who's on a time-delay from the rest of us. She finally gets the first joke. 'Maybe a whole fire engine is up there too,' she says with a giggle. That authorizes the she-dorks to start up. Hee, hee, hee.

School never teaches you about this mangled human slime, it slays me. You spend all your time learning the capital of Surinam while these retards carve their initials in your back.

'Find focus, science-lovers.' Marion Nuckles arrives in a puff of Calvin Klein chalk dust, all gingery and erectile. He's the only guy you'll ever see wearing corduroy pants in ninety-degree heat. Looks like he'd wear leather shorts without laughing.

'Who remembered to bring a candle?' he asks. Suddenly I find my shoe needs tying. Like just about everybody, except Dana Gurie who produces a boxed set of gold-leaf aromatherapy candles.

'Oops – I left the price on!' She waves the box around real slow. It even looks like she highlighted the price with a marker. That's our Dana. She's usually busy reporting who barfed in class. The careers advisor says she'll make a fine journalist.

Lechuga stands out of his chair. 'I think Jesus used his candle already, sir.'

Exploratory snorts of laughter. Nuckles tightens. 'Care to elaborate, Max?'

'You mightn't want to touch Jesus' candle, that's all.'

'Where do you think it's been?'

Max weighs up audience potential. 'Up his ass.'

The class detonates through its nose.

'Mr Nuckles,' says Dana, 'we're here to receive an education, and this doesn't seem very educational.'

'Yeah, sir,' says Charlotte Brewster, 'we have a constitutional right to be protected from deviated sexual influences.'

'And some people have a right not to be persecuted, Miss Brewster,' says Nuckles.

'That's Ms Brewster, sir.'

Max Lechuga puts on his most blameless face. 'Heck, it's just fun, y'know?'

'Ask Jesus if he finds it so fun,' says Nuckles.

'Well,' shrugs Charlotte. 'If you can't take the heat…'

'Get out of the car!' chirps Lorna Speltz. Wrong, Lorna. Duh.

Nuckles sighs. 'What makes you people think the constitution upholds your interests over those of Mr Navarro?'

'On accounta he's a diller-wippy,' says Beau Gurie. Don't even ask.

'Thank you, Beauregard, for that incisive encapsulation of the issue at hand. As for you, Ms Brewster, I think you'll find that our illustrious constitution stops short of empowering you to breach a person's fundamental human rights.'

'We're not breaching any rights,' says Charlotte. 'We, The People, have decided to have a little fun, with whoever, and we have that right. Then whoever has a right to fun us back. Or ignore us. Otherwise, if they can't take the heat…'

'Get out of the fire!' Wrong, Lorna. Duh.

'Yeah, sir,' says Lechuga. 'It's constitutional.'

Nuckles paces the width of the room. 'Nowhere in the papers of State, Doctor Lechuga, will you see written "If you can't take the heat.'" He spreads the words out thick and creamy. It's a tactical error with Charlotte Brewster fired up the way she is. She won't tolerate losing, not at all. Her lips turn anus-like. Her eyes get beady.

'Seems to me, sir, you're spending a lot of time defending Jesus Navarro. A whole lot of time. Maybe we don't have the whole picture…?'

Nuckles freezes. 'Meaning what?'

'I guess you don't surf the net much, huh, sir?' Lechuga casts a sly eye around the room. 'I guess you ain't seen them – boy sites.'

Nuckles moves towards Max, trembling with rage. Jesus abandons his desk with a crash, and runs from the room. Class goddess Lori Donner runs after him. Nuckles spins. 'Lori! Jesus!' He chases them into the hall.

See Jesus' dad, ole Rosario? He'd never end up in this position. Know why? Because he was raised back across the border, where they have a sensible tradition of totally freaking out when the first thing gets to them. Jesus caught the white-assed disease of bottling it all up. I have to find him.

The class casually slips into character for the scene, the one where they're innocent bystanders at a chance event. Heads shake maturely. The Gurie twins swallow a giggle. Then Max Lechuga gets out of his chair, and goes to the bank of computer terminals by the window. One by one, he activates the screen-savers. Pictures jump to the screen of Jesus naked, bent over a hospital-type gurney.

I step up to Nuckles in the hall outside class. He ain't seen the computer screens yet. 'Sir, want me to find Jesus?'

'No. Take those notes to the lab and see if you can find me a candle.'

I grab the sheaf of notes from his desk, and head outside. Already I can see Jesus' locker hanging open in the corridor; his sports bag is gone. Nuckles returns to the class. I guess he sees the pictures, because he snarls: 'You cannibals dare talk to me about the constitution?'

'The constitution', says Charlotte, 'is a tool of interpretation, for the governing majority of any given time.'

'And?'

'We are that majority. This is our time.'

'Bambi-Boy, Bambi-Boy!' sings Max Lechuga.