Read an Excerpt
Young God
By Katherine Faw Morris Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2014 Katherine Faw Morris
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-374-71088-0
CHAPTER 1
NIKKI IS ALL TO HELL. A boy jumps off the cliff in front of her. She peers over the edge, watching him go.
"Nikki."
She clenches her toes. The river is druggy and yellow and slugs next to the bottom road for miles before suddenly whipping itself into rapids and dumping, white and frothy, over the edge of this cliff.
"Nikki."
Sixty or seventy or eighty feet below is the swimming hole.
"Nikki."
"How far down is it?"
"Like a hundred feet," Wesley says.
Wesley squats near her feet. He wants to stick his dick in her. Nikki yanks tight all the bows of her bikini, hot pink. It used to be Mama's. Now Mama's too old to wear it. Nikki has been thirteen forever.
"You gonna jump?" Wesley says.
"Nikki," Mama says.
Nikki puts her hands on her hips, which are sharp like weapons.
"What?"
"You," Mama says.
Mama points at Nikki.
"Come down here."
Mama points at the book bag.
"So that me and him."
Mama flips a finger between herself and Wesley.
"Can jump."
She lets her finger drop off the cliff.
"Now."
Mama is down on the bank of the swimming hole. Nikki is dizzy as she looks back at Wesley. To her left the mountains crawl like a slow blue animal. These are just their foothills. They're lumpy and green.
A little girl died here last summer. She went off the wrong side. When they dragged the river they found her caught in a cave. Mama told this to Nikki on the way over. She was turned and watching Nikki in the backseat like she's some odd creature. Like Mama always does when she sees her. Mama's voice was rattled by the car engine. The little girl's head was smashed in, Mama said, like a basketball bitten by a dog.
"You gotta go off over there," Wesley says.
"I know," Nikki says.
"Do it then."
Wesley jabs his beer at a shrub growing out of a crack in the riverbank. This is the jumping-off place. Everywhere else is the wrong side. Nikki bends at the knees and moves her feet one by one. With a lunge she grabs the head of the shrub. Now the river flings its white froth at her. The falls roar in her ears.
"I'll go first."
"No," Nikki says.
"Just walk down on the path," Wesley says.
"No."
"Nikki," Mama says.
"God," Nikki says.
Since she is going to die she would like to be remembered, spoken of in the backs of cars in words that shudder. Nikki pictures this. She turns the shrub loose and stands up.
"Nikki."
She slips a step and then jumps.
"SHIT, SHIT, SHIT," she says.
SHE SMACKS INTO THE SWIMMING HOLE. Sinking like weights are on her feet until she remembers she can kick. She comes up gasping and touching all around her head. The river is witch-tit freezing. Shivering up at the falls she laughs to herself. It's at least two hundred feet down, she thinks.
Wesley's a stick figure flailing the long roaring drop. His shorts puff out. His yelling goes loud. His splash dumps a cold sheet of water over Nikki's head. She screams.
She swims from him. With one hand Wesley clamps her head and pushes it under and holds it there. His stomach is the hairy yellow of every other shape she can hardly see. She kicks him. She tries to pull his shorts down around his hairy yellow knees.
He slaps water in her face after he lets her up. He floats away on his back, grinning. She swims at him. She jumps up and grabs him by the skull. He squeezes her around the waist and she squeals.
"Quit it," Nikki says.
"Nikki," Mama says.
Nikki wraps her legs around Wesley. Then she squirms away from him. As soon as he's free he slips underneath. He swims for the bank. A jumper's spray lashes Nikki's back.
"Watch out," she snaps.
She swims slowly after Wesley.
"What the hell was that?"
"What?" Nikki says.
Nikki pulls herself up on the bank. It's a bunch of boulders.
"You heard me calling you," Mama says.
Nikki twists river out of her hair and doesn't look at them. Wesley's been up on the bank the whole time it took Nikki to swim here, sometimes on her back and sometimes underwater. He lounges next to Mama.
"Sit with this bag," Mama says.
Nikki sits where she's standing. Her butt bangs rock.
"You're lucky I ain't called DSS on you yet," Mama says.
"Whatever," Nikki says.
But Mama's already walking away. Nikki watches Mama walk toward the trees that hide the path. Earlier Mama made the sourest face, when Nikki came out of the bathroom wearing the pink bikini.
"What's wrong with her?" Nikki says.
Nikki leans back on her hands. Wesley flicks his cigarette over the backside of the bank where the river sneaks out.
"Watch that bag," Wesley says.
He takes his time wandering after Mama. He reaches up and folds his arms on top of his head. He could do better, Nikki thinks. He's too young, for one thing. She scoots over to the book bag. She thinks of throwing it in the water and how they would both freak out.
She feels a man staring at her. Her pulse picks up. But when she looks it's just a little boy.
"What?" she says.
Up on the cliff Mama and Wesley come out of the trees.
"Move," Nikki says.
She waves. Mama is not nearly close enough to the shrub though she is at the very edge, peering over, scratching up and down her leg.
"Mama," Nikki says.
Mama turns her back to talk to Wesley like she can't hear. Nikki rolls her eyes.
From down here the waterfall doesn't look so tall. Not more than sixty feet, Nikki thinks. Somebody jumps off with his arms swinging circles and she just shrugs. Mama is laughing at something Wesley said. Her heel slides off first.
Mama tries to catch herself but on the wrong side there is no shrub to grab. She falls down the rock wall, not the falls. Her head slams two big jags before she drops into the swimming hole with a huge splash.
All around Nikki is a sharp suck.
MEN WADE into the swimming hole. Nikki watches them. She watches the water fall behind them.
Wesley snatches the book bag and rips her up by the armpit. He's saying something.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go."
He pulls her up the path.
Nikki does not get to see Mama, if her head looks like a dog-bitten basketball or not.
SHE STARES AT HERSELF in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. She wears a bandanna tied around her mouth and nose so only her eyes show.
"OH. MY. GOD."
From the TV two girls moan. Wesley watches girl-girl porn only. He looks like he's asleep but when she puts her hand on his knee his eyes open. They're on the couch side by side.
Nikki climbs on his lap. Wesley stares at her. Because his pupils are the tiny heads of pins his eyes are the greenest green. He touches her hair.
"I like the pink."
It's Kool-Aid. Nikki kisses him. She sticks out her tongue. It's bad, the girls at the group home say, to kiss with no tongue. He moves her back and forth by the hips. After a while he unzips her shorts and has her stand up and wiggle them down.
Her panties are really the pink bottoms of the bikini but he doesn't seem to notice. She shoves them to her feet. She kicks them under the table with the bag of Mama's clothes. It's a built-in table. This is a camper.
He holds his dick in one hand. It's tall and pink.
"Oh," Nikki says.
"Come here," Wesley says.
His voice is raspy. It's dried to a husk. She straddles his lap again. She puts her hands flat on the wall behind them. She pushes with her whole weight. She bears down on him.
"Goddamn, I can feel you shaking," Wesley says.
His dick only jabs her. She wonders what's wrong with her.
"I'm harder than a fucking brick."
Nikki grits her teeth.
When she finally feels him slide inside it is not at all like she thought and much more like a jackhammer. She watches the wall behind them jerk up and down.
"Huh," Wesley says.
"Oh. My. God," the TV says.
He lets go suddenly. He pulls his dick out and flops it on her stomach where it convulses and spews warm white goo from its head.
"Ha," Wesley says.
Come, Nikki thinks. Also it's bad not to swallow come. Nikki wipes her hand up her stomach and then licks it. It tastes a little salty and mostly like nothing.
"You can stay here if you want," Wesley says.
OUT OF THE CORNER OF HER EYE she scowls at the redneck girl. The redneck girl has crunchy curls. She has big square tips. She taps them on everything. She giggles like a turkey. She's old like Mama, twenty-nine or thirty. She's been here three days. She's been the one sleeping in the bed with him.
On the couch Wesley sits between them. This girl taps her nails. She taps them on her beer can. Nikki stands up. She puts her hands on her hips. She does not have to put up with this.
"Where are you going?" Wesley says.
"I got a daddy," Nikki says.
CHAPTER 2
IN HER MOUTH his name is shiny and bitter like a licked coin.
"Coy Hawkins."
It rings out.
"YOU FUCKING CUNT," Wesley yells.
He trips in the yard. The redneck girl gapes from the camper's top step. Nikki watches them in the rearview. Until they disappear around a hook in the hill.
Wesley lives near the top of his hill but not the very top. His road's dirt. It whiplashes. Dogs lunge from most places but always catch on their chains. Their different howling follows her down. One old man stares from his chair. Gas on the right, brake on the left. It's not so hard.
At the foot of Wesley's hill Nikki crosses the yellow river. It creeps by like it always will. She turns onto the bottom road, away from the falls.
The bottom road goes from dirt to gravel to tar. From falls to highway, but she's not going that far. As soon as the dirt bumps to gravel she lets off the gas. She inches along.
A car bunches behind her and honks and finally passes. She's looking for this chicken house with its windows shattered. When she sees it she almost turns around. Just past it she cuts a steep left onto a road that's not marked.
There are no barking dogs because nobody lives on this hill until you get to him. And Crystal and them. On the way up there are zero houses. There are PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING signs on every tenth trunk. It's twisty and sheer. It's rutty as if driving up ribs. A chill runs through Nikki's teeth.
She hasn't been up here in years. When she's run away it's been to Mama. But at the very top of this hill, above the big house, that's where her money is buried.
In the middle of the road, like a deer, is a little boy on a bicycle.
NIKKI SLAMS THE BRAKES. The little boy grabs the side mirror with both hands.
"I almost killed you," she says.
"Who you?" he says.
He leans on the mirror to look inside. He is nine or ten. Nikki stares at him, at his crooked ears.
"I ain't never seen you before," he says.
"Levi?" she says.
He leans back to squint at her.
"It's Nikki," she says.
"Who?"
She doesn't have time for this. She smashes the gas and his hand snaps from the mirror.
In the rearview she watches him coming up behind. He has to stand on his pedals to climb. The last time she saw him he could barely walk. She glares at him. He must have been here all these years.
She turns the last bend. The road levels off, the trees part. She nearly screeches the brakes again.
On the top of the hill there is one yard and two houses. Crystal's house is boarded up because Crystal's in prison. But the big house is boarded up, too. Its doors and windows are nailed shut with plywood. In the wild yard are two trailers now. Two single-wides.
She rolls to a stop next to a plain black pickup. She sits and stares at it.
She should leave. This is the first place DSS will check. A door squeals. Coy Hawkins comes out of the trailer parked in front of the big house. He stands on the top step. Nikki gets out of the car.
He looks like he's supposed to. He looks skinny and slick-headed. She waits for him to grin but he just crosses his arms over his chest. She remembers her pink hair.
"It's me," she says.
"What are you doing up here?" Coy Hawkins says.
Her face twists.
"Mama died."
Coy Hawkins scratches his jaw.
"At the falls," Nikki says.
"That was your mama?" Levi says.
He circles her on his bike.
"I heard they pulled a body out," Coy Hawkins says.
She tries to think of what else to say. A girl comes out of the trailer. A girl who looks like a mouse. But with her hair bleached blond and piled on top of her head. She stands next to him on the top step and Coy Hawkins lifts his arm and drapes it around her neck.
"Angel?" Nikki says.
"What's she doing up here?" Angel says.
AT THE GROUP HOME Angel never said anything. She was so quiet she barely existed. She lights an extra-skinny cigarette. Nikki can't stop staring. She looks so different.
"What happened to your glasses?"
"I don't wear them no more," Angel says.
"You drove that car up here?" Coy Hawkins says.
The three of them are sitting in the trailer's kitchen. They're sitting in folding chairs around a card table. It's dim and dusty. There's a skillet, a coffeepot, and three ashtrays. Coy Hawkins smokes regular-sized cigarettes. He smokes Kool Kings in a hard box.
"Yeah," Nikki says.
"DSS was up here the other day."
Nikki looks at him.
"What did you tell them?"
"I told them I ain't seen you because I ain't," Coy Hawkins says.
He taps his lighter on the table.
"Then."
Nikki looks at Angel.
"What did you tell them about her?"
The only thing Angel is wearing is one of Coy Hawkins's shirts. The buttons are skewed, a few of them. Coy Hawkins smirks.
Angel scrunches her nose.
"Is she staying here?" Angel says.
The last time Nikki saw Coy Hawkins his eyes were big black beads. He was smoking crack then. Today they're just blue. Nikki shrugs. She guesses she is staying.
She grabbed the book bag before she left.
"I got like five hundred Roxies if y'all want some," she says.
"Do what?" Angel says.
"In the car," Nikki says.
"Where the hell you get them?" Angel says.
"Wesley Harrell."
Coy Hawkins leans back until his chair hits the wall.
"Well, let's see them," he says.
SHE EXPECTED HIM to sell them first. Call somebody. However that works. Nikki didn't snort any. Angel's nodding on the couch. Coy Hawkins is slumped in a reclining chair. Nikki stands at its foot, completely alert.
THIS TRAILER is the tube kind. It goes kitchen, living room, hallway, bathroom, bedroom. Nikki starts there.
The carpet's green. The headboard of the bed is cut into cubbyholes and stuffed with anything: beer cans, clothes, ashtrays, hair spray, tissues. The closet is mirrored. Nikki looks at herself in it. She makes a face. She twirls her pink hair on top of her head. Then she rolls her eyes.
The closet slides open. On its floor is a pile of boots. Some trash bags. She dumps one out and dresses slink to her feet. They are bright and shiny. They have see-through parts or leopard spots or laces up and down the sides. Nikki pictures Angel trying them on and Coy Hawkins buying them. Nikki steps back to see what she's wearing. She snaps fray off her shorts and makes a face again.
Also there are some shoe boxes but the only thing in them are poisonous packets.
The bathroom is off the hall. It's small and linoleum. The mirror doesn't open. Plugged into the wall is an electric shaver. Nikki finds Angel's stuff under the sink in another trash bag. She has a hair dryer and a flatiron. She has a whole pouch of makeup. Nikki opens a thing of glitter. She rips back the shower curtain. If she squints she sees bleached blond hairs plastered to the stall. They're in the sink, too, and on the walls.
Nikki lifts the lid off the toilet tank and peers in.
In the living room there's the couch and the reclining chair, a coffee table and a boxy TV with rabbit ears that says NO SIGNAL on the screen. The couch is plaid. Nikki flips up the skirt and pulls out mail and coffee cups. She checks the pockets of Coy Hawkins's chair.
When she sits back on her heels Angel's looking at her.
"Hey," Nikki says.
Angel's eyes close.
Nikki opens all the kitchen cabinets. She cracks the stove and microwave. She stares into the refrigerator. There's a bag of potato chips in the vegetable crisper. The freezer has pounds of ground beef and a jar of liquor with a peach in the bottom. Nikki sips some. The moonshine burns a path down her throat to her heart. She bares her teeth.
"Uh," she says.
She sits at the card table to think. Coy Hawkins used to be the biggest coke dealer in the county. But if there are kilos in here she can't find them.
NIKKI BRINGS THE LIQUOR into the living room. She flops the rabbit ears until a channel comes in. She nudges Angel with her knee. Angel cuts her teeth and bats at Nikki limply. She curls to the other side of the couch. Nikki sits down.
A phone is on the coffee table. There's no service up here. Nikki goes to photos. The first photo is of Angel against one of the fake wood walls of the trailer, naked, with her fingers between her legs. She is shaved like a porn star. The phone clatters when Nikki drops it but they are not disturbed.
She watches TV sitting up. She watches TV lying down. She dips her finger in liquor and sets it on fire.
Coy Hawkins opens his eyes.
"Is that my brandy?" he says.
His voice is raspy, dried to a husk.
"Yeah," Nikki says.
Angel's cigarette ash drips in her lap. Nikki eats the peach off a fork, watching it.
Nikki smokes a cigarette in front of the mirrored closet. A Kool King. The third one in a row makes her run to the bathroom and puke in the toilet.
The hall ripples. She takes a wrong step and runs into the wall. She wonders if this is shitfaced or just drunk.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Young God by Katherine Faw Morris. Copyright © 2014 Katherine Faw Morris. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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