Hari Kunzru - Gods Without Men

“It’s about love,” she said. “What can I tell you? It’s about shining forth with the Light.”

“Oh my goodness,” said Sheri. “Oh my.”

By the time the nights started getting cold, things had pretty much broken down with Aunt Luanne and Uncle Ray. Old Craw fired her from the store for running off with Wolf too many times and Uncle Ray told her she was going to have to find some other kind of work and quick, because he sure as heck wasn’t going to carry freeloaders. He had a whole lot more to say, about decency and the young men fighting in Vietnam and the obligations that came with living under his roof. When she told him she was against the war and suggested he’d probably be less uptight if he was to get rid of his stupid roof and float free of the rest of town in a personal bubble, he got mad and slapped her face. He would have done worse had her aunt not intervened.

Dawn knew what really bothered the old bastard: the thought of her having “sexual relations.” He’d come home from work (he drove a back-hoe out at the borax plant) and start right in on lecturing her. It was sexual relations this and sexual relations that, and she had the idea that he sat there in his cab, pulling levers and imagining in fine detail who was or wasn’t getting into the white cotton panties she pegged out on the line in the yard. He’d always been sort of touchy-feely, even when she was a little kid and first went to live with him and Aunt Luanne. He’d pinch her thighs and pat her on the tush in a way that always meant more than he was letting on, but in the last year or so he’d really let the cat out of the bag. If she was sunbathing, he’d find some reason to be outside with her, fooling about in the rain gutter or tinkering with his truck. He had this whole routine of walking in on her when she was in the bathroom, pretending he hadn’t heard the shower running. She’d taken to wedging a chair against the door, and even then he kept on trying the handle. She knew what he wanted, and he knew she knew. The idea of her making it with “some greaser” was probably more than he could bear.

She’d have been out of that cramped little ranch house like a bullet if only she’d been confident she could support herself. She was half sure the Time of Tribulation was coming, in which case money wouldn’t matter soon enough. The other half of her mind was full of inconvenient questions about where she’d be in five years’ time and how she was going to pay for it. So she went to speak to Mr. Hansen about a job, and he said he might have something because he was opening up a new location over in Morongo. She might be suitable, just as long as she kept up her appearance. He asked why she’d stopped doing her hair. She’d given up on the spray and curling iron and was wearing it straight, or else tied up in a bandanna like the other girls at the Command. Lena and Sheri had said flat out it was a cry for help.

Eventually Uncle Ray banned her from going out to the Pinnacles, and for a while she did as she was told. Then Pioneer Day came along and the folks from the Command drove into town in their school bus, which they’d freshly painted silver like a NASA rocket and wanted to run in the parade. Mayor Robertson and the other committee men refused to let them, though the parade was a small, drab affair, just the high-school marching band and the veterans and the fire department and the Cholla Queen and her cactus maidens waving from the back of a convertible. With their costumes and that great glittering dazzle of a bus, the Command would have livened things up, but those committee boys had some excuse about permits and applications needing to be made in advance and right then and there she decided she couldn’t stand it anymore. It was time to pick sides. That afternoon, when the big silver bus drove out of town, she was on it.

Problem was she was under twenty-one. Uncle Ray must have infected the mind of Sheriff Waghorn with imagery of her panties, because the next day Waghorn was out at the rocks, purple-faced, bellowing about how he was going to commission a medical examination to check she was still “intact” and threatening all kinds of legal consequences if she wasn’t. “Are you here of your own free will?” he kept asking, repeating the question when she said yes, thank you, as if putting it a third or fourth or God help her a fifth time might produce a different answer. “Did they give you anything? An injection? Did you eat something made you drowsy?” She’d have laughed out loud if she weren’t also scared to hell. When she refused point-blank to go back with him, the sheriff got so angry he snorted the breath out of his nostrils like a bull.

She thought the Command would just put her out. She was bringing trouble on them. But Clark Davis took her over to Maa Joanie’s shack for a meeting. It was one of the buildings on the compound that was kind of off-limits and she’d never had reason to go in there. The shack turned out to be just one room full of all kinds of books and papers and religious items, crystals and Buddha statues and candles and pictures of Jesus opening up his bleeding heart. Maa Joanie had hung it with electric Christmas lights, which made the whole place look like a cantina in Mexicali she’d once been to with Uncle Ray and Aunt Luanne. There was a little bed covered with a patchwork comforter and an old-fashioned washstand with a basin and jug and a big round mirror and a few photographs in frames that mostly seemed to feature groups of people in shiny uniforms, with sashes and tunics and little hats like tin soldiers or majorettes.

Maa Joanie was sitting in a rocking chair. Judy stood behind her, brushing her hair with a silver-backed brush. She was concentrating real hard, her eyes sparkling like it was some sort of treat.

“Hundred strokes before bedtime,” said Maa Joanie, who looked contented, half asleep. Clark Davis turned a wooden chair backward and sat down heavily on it, rotating his hat nervously in his hands.

“Well, little Dawn, you’ve certainly put the cat among the pigeons.”

“I didn’t mean to. I just want to be here, you know? Be part of the Light.”

“I can understand that. But, as Sheriff Waghorn was at pains to remind me, your uncle’s still your legal guardian. He’s got the right to decide what’s best for you.”

“My uncle’s an asshole.”

“That’s as may be.”

“It might be best if she goes,” said Maa Joanie, who didn’t even look over, just stared off into the distance with that dreamy expression on her face.

“Do you want to?” asked Davis.

“No! You don’t know what it’s like. My uncle’s a creep, and my aunt doesn’t do a thing about it.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I–I don’t know.”

“You’re saying he’s interfering with you?”

“Well …” She thought about it for a moment. “Yes.” It was true enough. It was what was on his mind.

“I want to be clear. This involves touching and such? Sexual touching?”

“Yes,” she said more firmly.

“Clark, I don’t like this,” said Maa Joanie. “We’ve got a burden on our shoulders as it is.”

“But if what Dawn says is true, then her uncle’s in league with the Dark Forces. Look at this girl, Joanie. She’s a starchild! You can see the mark on her brow. We can’t just throw her out. We have a duty.”

“They’re going to come after her. They’ll start hassling us, and we’re too far along just to up and move to another place.”

“Then we’ll fight. That’s what we’re here to do.”

“This isn’t the Tribulation. It’s not that time.”

“It’s close. We all know that. We need to take guidance. We ought to contact the Command.”

While they were talking, Judy stood behind Maa Joanie, the hairbrush held limply in her hand. The faintest trace of a smile played about the corners of her mouth. Dawn didn’t see what was so funny. This was her life they were talking about.