“Who’s bartending?” Smoke announced to the girl and three boys inside the boggy, musty-smelling suite. “We got something to celebrate. Weed, meet your new family. That’s Divinity, and the three assholes there are Dog, Sick and Beeper.”

“That’s their real names?” Weed couldn’t help but ask.

“Their slave names,” Smoke replied.

7

THE PIKES WERE sipping vodka out of Dixie cups and smoking cigarettes. They looked at Weed and seemed amused, their eyes laughing at him as they lounged on stained, sour-smelling mattresses.

Divinity was dark-skinned, but Weed didn’t think she was black, maybe Hispanic or a little bit of everything. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her tight sheer black undershirt showed more than Weed had ever seen in person. Her slender legs in their worn-out jeans were spread wide. She was really pretty.

Dog was big and looked mean and stupid, and Sick had acne and a dark buzz cut and five loops in his right ear. Beeper seemed a little nicer, or maybe it was just that he was small like Weed. Each of them had a number tattooed on the right index finger and seemed oblivious to the nasty mattresses and the rotting wall-to-wall brown carpet beneath them.

Strewn about were plain oak chairs that Weed associated with school, and TV trays, and boxes of paper napkins and Dixie cups. Candles of all description sat in puddles of hardened wax on windowsills, and the motel furniture was so warped the Formica lamination was curling up. Piled in corners were boxes of chalk, erasers, a slide projector, library books, a corkboard, throw pillows, and at least a dozen empty wallets and ladies’ purses and just as many pairs of leather tennis shoes of different sizes. Cases of liquor were stacked up to the water-stained ceiling. Smoke lit one of the candles while Divinity poured Smirnoff into a Dixie cup and handed it to him.

“Are you gonna change my name?” Weed asked.

“Give him some,” Smoke ordered Divinity.

She poured a cup of vodka for Weed and laughed when he hesitantly took it from her.

“Go on.” Smoke jerked his head at Weed.

Weed’s daddy drank straight liquor all the time, but Weed never had. He knew it made his daddy mean and sent him out running around and not coming back, sometimes the entire weekend Weed was visiting. The vodka burned and almost gagged Weed. Instantly his face heated up and his brain got lighter.

“Naw,” Smoke said as he held out his cup for more and gestured for Divinity to refill Weed’s as well. “You got such a fucking stupid name, I’m just gonna leave it. We couldn’t do much better than Weed if we tried, could we?” he said to his gang.

“No, baby.” Divinity sighed as she lay back on her mattress, hands beneath her head, breasts pointed up at the ceiling.

Smoke caught Weed staring.

“You never seen tits before, retard?” he asked.

Weed downed his second cup of vodka and thought he might be sick.