Young God: A Novel (4 page)

Coy Hawkins is doing something weird with his mouth. Nikki doesn’t want to talk anymore.

“You never called me, not once,” she says.

“I was in prison,” Coy Hawkins says.

“I was in the group home,” Nikki says.

Coy Hawkins puts his hand on Nikki’s alien knee, briefly.

HE SAID TO GET SOMETHING TO DRINK.
She slides a six-pack onto the counter.

“ID?”

Nikki looks down at her dress that can’t hide anything. She feels nothing when she bangs her hip into Plexiglas.

“I forgot it,” she says.

The register man gestures over her head.

“Next.”

She runs across the service road on her own. She almost gets hit. She feels so fuzzy. She climbs back into the pickup. Coy Hawkins looks at her. She’s empty-handed.

“He carded me.”

“For water?” Coy Hawkins says.

NIKKI IS THINKING
so many things she can’t remember though she just thought them.

This bubble gum is dull in her mouth. It has zero taste. She wonders how long she’s been chewing it.

She thinks if either one of them moves, Coy Hawkins or her, she will panic and vomit everywhere.

A different man comes out of Angel’s room.

“THE MONEY’S STILL THERE?”

She waits a long time for him to say
yeah, it is
.

When she finally looks at Coy Hawkins he’s asleep. Nikki won’t ever sleep again. She stares at him in disbelief.

THE SUN RISES.
It rises over gas stations and drive-thrus and motels. It rises over parking lots. It rises over sparse trees and pale grass. On the horizon there are no mountains, foggy and looming, like they don’t even exist. Nikki feels uneasy. This is what happens when the foothills run out. The world goes flat.

Angel gets in the pickup. Whore, Nikki thinks.

“Cash,” Coy Hawkins says.

“Y’all should really take off them sunglasses,” Angel says.

“WHAT’S THAT SMELL?”

It’s not Angel’s feet. It’s a thin, yellow-green stench.

“Chicken shit,” Angel says.

“What?” Nikki says.

“You ain’t never been out of the county?”

So, she thinks.

“You don’t smell it if you don’t leave,” Angel says.

“It’s fertilizer,” Coy Hawkins says.

He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. From the bitch seat Nikki watches the sign for the county shoot by. It looks like a car smashed into it. Her whole body relaxes.

In town it’s still early. The stoplights are blinking. Coy Hawkins rolls through the group-home light and the other two and then they are back on the highway that cuts up into the north part of the county.

They start to climb. They start to wind. Nikki tilts her head back on the bench and stares at the pickup ceiling. This ecstasy will never end.

This highway goes all the way to Virginia.

The bottom road breaks from tar to gravel with a thump. The road up his hill is so steep it slams her back in her seat. When Coy Hawkins pulls into his yard Nikki looks at the trees. They make a ring around her that is deep, dark green. Above them, to her left, the mountains are huge and blue.

Coy Hawkins and Angel get out and leave her there. She smells nothing. She thinks it’s going to be okay.

ANGEL OPENS HER MOUTH
in an
O
. Nikki sits beside her, in front of the mirrored closet, watching her. After Angel’s done she looks at Nikki. Nikki shrugs. Angel grabs Nikki’s face.

The eyeliner is cold and squirmy. Nikki’s scalp prickles and she wishes it would always. When Angel lets go Nikki opens her eyes. Nikki’s mouth twitches up in the mirror.

“You were so fucked up last night,” Angel says.

“No, I wasn’t,” Nikki says.

Angel curls into a ball and mimes shivering all over. She laughs. In the mirror Nikki’s new cat’s eyes twinkle. She feels like shit. She feels like every nutrient in her body has been leached.

“It was fun,” Nikki says.

Angel turns lipstick out of a tube. It goes on bright red. Angel sticks a finger in her mouth and drags it out between her teeth. She passes the lipstick to Nikki. She reaches out and shakes Nikki’s knee.

“You’re so skinny,” Angel says.

“So are you,” Nikki says.

Nikki puts a finger in her mouth and pulls it out.

“Can you give blood?”

“Do what?”

“I can’t,” Angel says.

Nikki’s lips are so red. She pushes them together and parts them again.

“I never gave blood,” she says.

“You got to be at least a hundred and ten so you don’t black out.”

Nikki looks at the two of them. For one thing Angel’s face is not great.

“I’m like ninety-five,” Angel says.

Nikki looks at Angel’s hand on her knee.

“I’m like ninety-one,” Nikki says.

Angel pushes up the bottom of Nikki’s dress.

“Are you wearing a bathing suit?”

“What?” Nikki says.

One of Angel’s fingers is holding the elastic of the bikini bottom away from Nikki’s skin. Nikki clamps her legs shut.

Angel smirks. Angel nods at the bed where Coy Hawkins is sleeping. The covers are on the floor. He’s half-wrapped in the fitted sheet.

“He’s just waiting to see who’s gonna pay the most money for you,” Angel says.

“What?” Nikki says.

“It’s called the high bid. Because you’re a virgin.”

“I ain’t a virgin.”

Angel puts on Nikki’s white sunglasses.

“You act like one,” Angel says.

“I don’t gotta work for him. He’s my daddy,” Nikki says.

Angel turns to look at Nikki.

“That don’t matter.”

NIKKI OPENS THE COOLER DOOR.
A man opens the door beside her. She closes hers and leans against the glass. She puts a hand on her hip. When the man closes his door she looks at him with cat’s eyes and red lips. She shakes in the gas station’s air conditioning. He swings his beer at her as if he’s about to say something.

“Stop staring,” Nikki snaps.

She hurries down the aisle with her pulse pounding. She looks over her shoulder to make sure he’s not following. She grabs a bag of chips.

“CHIP?”
Coy Hawkins says.

“I ain’t a virgin,” Nikki says.

Coy Hawkins takes his time chewing. He licks his fingers.

“You should be.”

Nikki glares at him. She doesn’t know how he can eat. The thought of food is the thought of chewed cardboard in her mouth. She looks at the back of the motel.

“All you do now is sit in parking lots all night.”

Coy Hawkins puts a chip in his mouth.

TWO GIRLS COME DOWN THE STAIRS
from the motel’s second floor. They’re black girls in tight dresses. They’re in tall high heels and they have to hold on to the railing. Nikki watches them. She decides they’re whores, too.

They get in a mauve car. Coy Hawkins turns the key in the pickup.

“Where are we going?” Nikki says.

The pickup goes through the parking lot behind the mauve car. They both make a left. Nikki looks over her shoulder at the motel.

“What about Angel?”

“She’s busy,” Coy Hawkins says.

The gas station flies by. It’s late and the service road is dead but Coy Hawkins rides the girls’ tail.

Nikki stares at their mauve trunk for a while.

“Are we following them?”

“Yeah,” Coy Hawkins says.

She looks at him.

“Why?”

“They’re the gorilla pimp’s girls.”

“Who?” Nikki says.

“The gorilla pimp.”

“What’s a gorilla pimp?”

“It means he beats them.”

“Them two girls?”

“Broke arms hanging out of the socket, shit like that.”

Nikki stares at him.

“You ain’t a gorilla pimp?” she says.

He does that weird thing with his mouth. He’s rolling again. Nikki’s not. This time Angel didn’t share. The interstate swoops overhead.

“Do they know we’re following them?” Nikki says.

“I don’t think so,” Coy Hawkins says.

The mauve car’s brakes flash. The girls make a right and so does the pickup. The road lamps go out. It’s pitch-black and they go faster through the dark. Nikki gets that wild feeling like she always used to have with him.

The mauve car pulls into a courtyard made by four buildings. They’re low and brick and they dead-end the road. The pickup pulls in, too. Coy Hawkins parks next to the girls.

“Come on,” he says.

Nikki is holding on to the bench seat.

“Is the gorilla pimp the high bid?”

“The what?”

Coy Hawkins turns to look at her and his eyes are the size of saucers.

“Angel said you’re waiting to see who’s gonna pay the most money for me because you think I’m a virgin and it don’t matter that you’re my daddy.”

The way Coy Hawkins laughs makes her put her hands in her lap.

“And you believed her?”

“No,” Nikki says.

“Come on,” he says.

The girls are already out of the car. They are walking backward across the courtyard staring at Nikki and Coy Hawkins. They have the same tattoo. It cinches their necks. It says something.

“Who the fuck are you?” the skinny girl says.

“Were you fucking following us?” the other girl says.

Nikki trails behind him. She scans the apartments all around. In the middle of the courtyard there is grass and a gazebo and boys who were sitting in lawn chairs but are now standing up. She yanks down the hem of her dress. She crosses her arms over her chest.

“Your daddy in?” Coy Hawkins says.

Nikki looks at him.

“Who?” the skinny girl says.

When Nikki stops so does Coy Hawkins. He reaches back and grabs Nikki’s hand. He lifts it up in his.

“I brung him this,” Coy Hawkins says.

The girls cut their teeth. The boys sit down.

“He inside,” the other girl says.

NIKKI SCREAMS.

COY HAWKINS
gets Nikki by the hair. He scrapes her across the courtyard on her hands and knees. He drags her into an apartment. All the blood rushes out of her head.

They’re in this living room. It’s air-conditioned and freezing. A man saunters down a hall and she strains to see him. He’s wearing sweatpants. He bends down to look at her. He tilts his head at Nikki and grins.

“You’re the gorilla pimp?” Nikki says.

The girls snicker. The gorilla pimp flops over the arm of a love seat. He’s smaller than one of them and prettier than both of them. His chest is narrow and hairless. He has diamond studs in his ears. His nails are shiny. She can’t think.

He chins above her head.

“Cletus, how you know where I live at?” he says.

“I been sitting outside that motel your girls like for two nights,” Coy Hawkins says.

“He fucking followed us,” the other girl says.

“He creepy,” the skinny girl says.

“That motel where you tried to steal my other girl. You remember that?” Coy Hawkins says.

The gorilla pimp smirks. The girls are standing on either side of him.

“Man, you still tight about that?”

Nikki stares at the carpet. It’s beige. It waves.

“That was like last month,” the gorilla pimp says.

“I ain’t a virgin,” Nikki says.

“Shut up,” Coy Hawkins says.

The girls laugh. She’s going to pass out. The gorilla pimp turns on the TV. He gestures at her with the remote.

“I’ll give you ten for this one,” he says.

Nikki pukes on the carpet.

“Did she just puke on my carpet?”

“Oh my God,” the skinny girl says.

“She about to get it,” the other girl says.

Coy Hawkins pulls Nikki to the love seat. He lets go of her hair. Her eyes dart. She tries to read the girls’ necks. The gorilla pimp’s not their real daddy. He’s way too young, she thinks.

“I’m his daughter,” Nikki shrieks.

Coy Hawkins flicks out a knife. He slashes the gorilla pimp’s face, both sides.

The girls scream. They scream so loud Nikki covers her ears. The gorilla pimp puts a hand to his cheek and then he looks at it.

Coy Hawkins shoves Nikki out the door. In the courtyard the boys are gone from their chairs.

WHEN THEY TURN ONTO THE SERVICE ROAD
all the lights flare back, super bright.

“It ain’t just sitting in parking lots,” Coy Hawkins says.

Nikki stares at him.

“WHOSE BLOOD IS THAT?”

Angel’s in the bitch seat. Coy Hawkins turns out of the motel lot.

“That boy that tried to take you.”

“What?”

“The pretty one. He just got his face cut.”

“What?”

“The gorilla pimp,” Coy Hawkins says.

Angel flips to Nikki. Her mouth is dropped. Her hair is messy. She flips back to Coy Hawkins.

“What about that guy last week bashed my head against the wall? He tried to kill me.”

Coy Hawkins merges onto the interstate and says nothing.

“Hello?”

Angel looks at Nikki again.

“He wasn’t acting like this before you showed up.”

Nikki says nothing, too.

“You lost my shoe?”

Nikki looks at her feet. She kicks off the high heel that’s left.

THE DAWN IS FOGGY.
It shrouds everything in damp white cotton. It makes this place look sweet and fat. Like nothing bad ever happens. Out of the pickup window Nikki watches the bottom road roll by, lying.

“HOW MUCH THOSE MEN PAY YOU?”

Angel is awake. She’s balled herself up but Nikki can hear her teeth grind. It’s a while before Angel says something.

“Depends,” Angel says.

“On what?”

“On what they want.”

“What if they want everything?”

“No condom?”

Nikki stares at
NO SIGNAL
on the TV.

“No condom.”

“Two hundred.”

“The gorilla pimp offered ten grand for me,” Nikki says.

On the couch Angel looks over her shoulder.

NIKKI LOOKS AT ANGEL’S HAND.
It’s on one of her skinned knees. She takes Angel’s hand and moves it to her bikini bottom. Angel looks at Nikki in the mirror. She puts down the eyeliner.