Young God: A Novel (5 page)

Angel slides her hand under the bikini bottom’s elastic. She sticks a finger into Nikki. She pulls it out. She starts to rub Nikki in a circle. In the mirrored closet Angel looks calm and Nikki looks alarmed.

Nikki sits very still. Then she reaches back and pulls Angel by the hair.

Oh, Nikki thinks.

Angel wipes her fingers on a tissue. She chins at the bed.

“Can you tell him to take me to the Super 8 tonight?”

COY HAWKINS GLANCES BACK.

“I don’t need you,” he says.

Nikki stops dead on the steps. Angel turns back, too, and her face is nasty like it’s Nikki’s fault. They both get in the pickup and peel off.

She looks across the yard. Levi’s just sitting there on his bike.

“What?” Nikki says.

She slams the door behind her.

ALL NIGHT SHE SITS ON THE COUCH
in the dark with her mind racing.

He does need her. He couldn’t have gotten into that apartment without her, for one thing.

She pictures the black girls, with their mouths wide open, but she doesn’t hear them scream.

Back then Coy Hawkins was the biggest coke dealer in the county and now he’s not even a gorilla pimp.
Cletus
, she thinks.

She smokes a bunch of Kool Kings in a row and doesn’t get sick. She listens to everything.

When the front door squeals open light shoots in. Angel starts to sit on the couch. But she goes around to the other side of the coffee table instead. Angel drops down on the floor. Coy Hawkins sits in his chair.

Nikki looks at him.

“You should have more girls,” Nikki says.

Coy Hawkins snaps his fingers at her.

“Put that knife back in the kitchen.”

“RENEE,”
Nikki says.

Nikki slouches in the seat. Renee is sitting on the clinic sidewalk waiting for the group-home van. Renee has physical therapy every Tuesday and Thursday and the van is always late.

“Renee.”

Finally Nikki honks. Renee flicks her head and Nikki raises hers above the windowsill. Renee squints. She stands up. She wanders across the parking lot. Already she is taking forever. Nikki rolls her eyes.

When Renee puts her hands on the windowsill she grins.

“Whose car is this?”

“Mine,” Nikki says.

Nikki shrugs. Renee smirks.

“Nikki,” she says.

“What?”

“You ain’t old enough to drive.”

Nikki looks at her.

“You wanna go for a ride or what?”

Renee glances at the road.

“All right,” she says.

Nikki slumps all through town but they never pass the van.

On the north highway Renee lets her right hand dip through the air. Her right wrist is bulky in a brace. Out of the corner of her eye Nikki watches her. She thinks Renee is prettier than Angel but not as pretty as her. Renee’s hair is blue, but only the underneath part.

She’s annoyed that Renee hasn’t asked where they’re going.

“We’re going to my daddy’s.”

“All right,” Renee says.

Nikki turns up the stereo until the whole car is rattling.

Up the hill Levi’s in the way again. He’s wearing a T-shirt over where she threw the brick at him. She lays on the horn and he jerks his bike to the side.

“Who was that?”

Renee peers out the back window.

“Nobody,” Nikki says.

Nikki almost loses control around the last bend. She parks next to the pickup in the yard.

“Damn, your daddy stay out in the boonies.”

Nikki looks out at the vacant houses and the tall grass.

“He’s got ecstasy.”

Renee looks at Nikki.

“Molly?” Renee says.

Nikki reaches into the cup holder. She pulls out the eyeliner.

“Want me to do you?” Nikki says.

Under Renee’s eyes there are the thinnest bones. Nikki’s hand shakes. She stares at Renee’s closed lids even after she’s done with her scalp prickling.

The cat’s eyes come out crooked.

“You look pretty,” Nikki says.

Renee grins. She touches one of Nikki’s leopard spots.

“Where’d you get that dress?” she says.

“They’re still looking for me, ain’t they?”

“Who?” Renee says.

“DSS,” Nikki says.

Renee shrugs.

“I guess.”

Nikki makes a face. She takes the lipstick from the cup holder. She twists it out.

“You know my daddy’s Coy Hawkins.”

“Who?” Renee says.

Renee doesn’t know anything. Nikki hands the lipstick to her.

“Pull your finger through your teeth.”

Coy Hawkins and Angel are both in the living room. They turn from the TV at the same time.

“Angel?” Renee says.

“What’s she doing up here?” Angel says.

Nikki leads her to Coy Hawkins’s chair.

“This is Renee,” she says.

Coy Hawkins just looks at them.

“She’s a virgin,” Nikki says.

THIS TIME THEY SNORT THE ECSTASY
and Coy Hawkins himself passes Nikki the rolled bill.

“INDIAN,” Renee says.

Coy Hawkins flips the top card off the deck and it’s black. It’s the three of clubs.

“Drink,” Coy Hawkins says.

Renee chugs her beer.

“Indian,” Renee says.

Coy Hawkins turns over the next card and it’s black again.

“Drink,” Coy Hawkins says.

Beer runs down Renee’s chin.

“Indian.”

“God, she just don’t wanna say nigger,” Angel says.

Renee giggles. The next card’s red, the nine of diamonds.

“My turn,” Renee says.

Coy Hawkins slides the deck in front of her.

“Nigger,” Coy Hawkins says.

Angel picks up the deck and throws it at Renee and cards fly everywhere.

“Jesus Christ,” Renee says.

Coy Hawkins looks at Angel.

“What, you don’t wanna play nigger-Indian?” he says.

They’re all sitting at the card table. Nikki feels fucked up.

NIKKI AND RENEE DANCE
in the living room. In the yard the pickup doors are open and the stereo is cranked up.

Angel sits on the couch with her arms crossed over her chest. Coy Hawkins sits in his chair with his boots up on his footrest. Angel is not wearing one of her dresses or any makeup.

Renee does a lot of different dances. She does the running man and the cabbage patch. She does the robot. She bends over and pops her ass in the air.

In his chair Coy Hawkins laughs. Nikki grins at him and something warm inside her brain bursts and bursts and bursts.

Angel is watching her.

RENEE MAKES NIKKI
go to the bathroom with her.

“You were always so quiet.”

Renee’s peeing.

“What?” Nikki says.

“I never would’ve thought.”

Renee pulls her shorts up.

“What are you talking about?” Nikki says.

While Renee washes her hands she looks at herself in the mirror. Her red lips smile. She doesn’t seem to notice her crooked eyes. Nikki is leaning against the sink, too, but the other way. She also stares at Renee’s face.

“Your daddy’s handsome.”

The ecstasy drips down the back of Nikki’s throat.

NIKKI NEARLY BURNS RENEE.
Renee’s face was far away and then suddenly it was so close. She jerks her cigarette back.

Renee is leaning forward. She is sitting on the arm of Coy Hawkins’s chair. Nikki is sitting on the arm of the couch. Renee is looking at Angel, whose arms are still crossed.

“What happened to your glasses?” Renee says.

“What happened to your hand?” Angel says.

Renee covers her wrist brace with her fingers.

“It’s been broke,” Renee says.

“Her daddy broke it,” Nikki says.

Renee looks at Nikki and her cheeks flame up, like when Nikki told she was a virgin, but when she speaks her voice is a long flat line. They all sound that way.

“Nikki,” she says.

Coy Hawkins reaches around to stub his cigarette out and then he keeps his hand there, on Renee’s hip.

NIKKI FOLLOWS COY HAWKINS
into the kitchen. She stands by the card table while he pulls beers from the fridge.

“Virgins make more money,” she says.

Coy Hawkins looks at her.

“Don’t they?”

He picks up a card from the floor and puts it on the table.

“Drink,” he says.

NIKKI SITS NEXT TO ANGEL
on the couch. First Coy Hawkins went down the hall and then Renee did. Nikki’s waiting for them to come back. She’s holding a beer but she hasn’t cracked it. Its condensation is all over her leg.

“That gorilla pimp’s gonna find me,” Angel says.

Nikki looks at her. Angel has her knees up under Coy Hawkins’s shirt.

“You seen what he does to their necks?” Angel says.

She touches her throat.

“Every time you look in the mirror you gotta see that shit, even when you’re eighty.”

“He’s so little. How does he even beat them?”

“You don’t know nothing,” Angel says.

Nikki is looking at the hall again.

“Nikki?”

Her temples are crawling.

Angel’s hand slips between Nikki’s thighs. Angel’s finger drags up the middle of Nikki’s bikini bottom. It starts to fuzz, the hallway.

Nikki shoves Angel’s hand away.

“What are you doing?” Nikki says.

IN THE BATHROOM MIRROR
Nikki is doing something weird, distorted, with her mouth.

THE BATHROOM DOOR SLAPS OPEN.

“I wanna go,” Renee says.

Nikki looks at her. Renee’s hair’s a mess. The skin all around her mouth is red.

“Why?” Nikki says.

Also one of her bra straps is hanging out of her tank top.

“I wanna go right now.”

“Did he say you could?” Nikki says.

“What?” Renee says.

Like she even needs a bra. Nikki’s sitting on the floor between the toilet and the shower with a towel wrapped around her and Renee’s hovering above her.

The rest of Renee’s face is white, pale. Nikki doesn’t know what she’s so upset about.

“Did you know my mama died?” Nikki says.

“What?”

Renee stares at her.

“She jumped off a cliff.”

Nikki pulls the towel up to her chin. She’s shivering.

Renee’s crooked eyes go everywhere, to the electric shaver and the shower curtain and the window that is little and high.

“The law’s gonna be looking for me,” she says.

Nikki shrugs.

“I guess.”

For a second Renee’s nose bunches up like she might cry. Then she puts her hands on her hips.

“I gotta puke,” Renee says.

She runs into the hall.

“You should puke in the bathroom. Renee.”

After a second Nikki pulls herself up.

“God,” she says.

NIKKI WATCHES RENEE
fly across the yard into the dark. She watches from the trailer’s top step.

She feels him behind her. She turns and looks at him.

“Well, go fucking catch her,” Coy Hawkins says.

“RENEE,” Nikki says.

Luckily the moon is huge. Luckily Renee’s tank top is white. Nikki chases after her, dodging old toilets and mattresses and bricks.

“Renee.”

The yard shoots up to their waists. The woods are a black wall. Renee doesn’t even flinch.

“Renee.”

Nikki plunges in, too. She gets tangled in brush. Giant weeds attack her. And then it’s so steep they’re crawling on their hands and knees. Nikki scrambles behind Renee’s feet.

All of a sudden the trees break. The moon shines back. They stand up on a crop of rock. This is the very top of the hill. They just came up the deer cut, Nikki thinks.

Above her Renee turns around.

“Where are you going?” Nikki yells.

Renee puts her hands on her knees.

“He raped me.”

Nikki looks over her shoulder at Coy Hawkins.

“He raped me.”

Renee’s voice bounces off all the smaller hills, rolling away on every side, the darkest things and shimmering.

“He raped me.”

Coy Hawkins pulls the gun from his boot and shoots Renee in the face.

RENEE LIES ON A ROCK LEDGE
below, her face a hole.

“The old woodpile in the yard, go pull the ax out. There’s trash bags in the kitchen,” Coy Hawkins says.

He sounds far off though he’s standing right in front of her. He has a flashlight. He throws it at Nikki.

In shock she skids down the deer cut.

The woodpile is around the side of the big house with the ax still stuck in it.

“Did you catch her?”

Nikki looks at Angel. She is just standing in the yard with her eyes like saucers. The ax is rusted and Nikki has to brace her foot against the log. With both hands she has to yank the handle.

“Yeah,” Nikki says.

Angel backs toward the trailer.

COY HAWKINS
is nowhere. She opens her mouth to call him and thinks she doesn’t know what to say.

“Hey,” Nikki says.

“Down here,” Coy Hawkins says.

Coy Hawkins is down on the ledge, squatting by Renee. He squints in the flashlight and points at the path.

The deer cut makes a sudden switch left and leads down the other side of the hill. Nikki has to stoop because this is not a trail made by humans. She is afraid she is going to fall into nothingness. By the time she reaches him she is sweating.

Coy Hawkins stands up.

“Grab my waist. We gotta pull her off this,” Coy Hawkins says.

He is skinny when Nikki loops her arms around him. He grips Renee by the shins.

“One, two, three,” he says.

They drag her off the ledge and onto the deer cut.

She looks freakish without a face. She no longer looks like a person. With his knife Coy Hawkins strips off her clothes. He cuts off her panties with one flick. She’s not shaved. She’s peach-fuzzed.

Nikki takes her wrist brace from him. It reveals a weird tan line, a block of white skin. In the flashlight it’s almost translucent.

“Did you rape her?” Nikki says.