by Tom Franklin
“Douglas,” says Mom, “we have something to talk about.”
Immediately I’m on my guard. Did they find out I’m still dealing? Did Kroner rat on me to Dillon?
Jesus, I must be stoned. That’s fucking stupid. What good would it do Kroner to have Dillon on my back?
“Dillon and I are getting married!” says Mom.
“That’s awesome,” I reply. “Great.” Dillon’s a jobless parasite, a wannabe rock star with a ponytail. But he seems to like my mom okay, and that’ll make her happy. Fuck it, whatever.
“Honey, look at the ring he bought me!” Mom holds out her hand to show me the biggest hunk of diamond I’ve ever seen in my life. Christ. Either that’s fake or Dillon robbed a bank, because that dude is broke.
Oh fuck.
I run upstairs to my room and lock the door. I go up to my closet and unscrew the air vent and pull out my Nike box.
It’s fucking empty. My future stepdad robbed me.
I call him on his cell phone.
“Howdy, Douglas, did you hear the news?” says Dillon.
“Can it, cocksucker. You fucking stole my money.”
“Oh, that little shoe box full of change? You really should take better care of your things.” He chuckles. “Actually, that’s my first lesson to you, as your stepdad. Take better care of your shit.” Dillon laughs and laughs.
“I need that money, man. I’m not kidding. I know you didn’t spend it all on the ring. Just give me what you got left over.”
“No can do, kiddo. I’m on my way to Tunica now to celebrate.”
“Do you realize you’re going to get me killed?” I say.
“Who’s going to kill you? Kroner? Come on, that guy’s a pussy. I used to give him guitar lessons when he was twelve. He’s just some Madison kid, a phony like all the rest of you.”
“Yeah, you’re real hard core, Dillon. You grew up in North fucking Jackson. Real ghetto, man.”
“Hey, I’m not the guy who just got robbed by his mom’s boyfriend. And thanks, Douglas. I never could have gotten your mom such a nice ring without your help.”
I hang up. If I ever get out of this, if I ever go Scarface, I swear to God the first person I kill will be Dillon.
* * *
I’m supposed to meet Kroner at ten o’clock on this dirt road two turns off 463. High school kids call it The Spot, but it’s always abandoned on school nights. There’s no way I’m meeting him out there alone, with no neighbors or people around. No, I got to force him to meet me in public and try to explain things.
It’s eight fifteen. Kroner knows where I live, so if I holler at him now he’ll be at my place in twenty minutes. I got to be patient, make sure he’s all the way out at The Spot before I make contact.
I light up a joint and crank my stereo and wait. At ten thirty my phone starts ringing. I let him call me for five minutes before I answer.
“Hey, Kroner, dude. What time is it?” I say.
“Ten thirty, you pussy,” he shoots back. “That makes you thirty minutes late.”
“Shit, yeah, man, I’m sorry. Just fell asleep.”
“Do you need me to come and get your ass?” he says.
“Listen. There’s a problem.” Maybe it’s the weed, maybe it’s just because I don’t know what else to do, but I go for it: “My stepdad stole all your money.”
“Are you fucking with me?” says Kroner.
“I had it hid in a shoe box up in my room and he stole it.”
“Dillon stole it? The guitar-teacher guy?”
“Yeah, him. He’s my stepdad.”
“You had my money in a shoe box? With your daddy’s old Playboys? This is some junior high shit, man.”
“I’ll get you your money back. As soon as I can.”
“No, motherfucker. You get me my money tonight.” He hangs up.
That didn’t go well. I got to get on the move, somewhere Kroner won’t know to find me. I fill my backpack with the rest of my cash and all my bud. Maybe I can bargain with some of it.
Mom’s got the TV loud and she’s asleep in her pink bathrobe on the couch. I bend down and kiss her forehead. For a second I think about waking her up, telling her everything, asking for her help. But then I remember what it was like after Dad left, the overdose on sleeping pills, how proud she is of me now that I’m Jesus Boy. Besides, all the money she’s got is whatever Dad sends her, since he had the good lawyer and won the divorce.
Mom stirs, but doesn’t wake up. I ease the door shut behind me. I figure I’ll go to Kayla’s. Kroner doesn’t know her, and even if he did, I doubt he would storm a preacher’s house.
On the way I call my dad, just to see if he’ll answer for once. He doesn’t, but I leave a voice mail asking him to call me, it’s urgent. Fat chance of that ever happening, but I give it a shot.
It’s eleven fifteen. There’s no doubt Kayla’s asleep. Both she and her dad have this thing where they conk out at ten, no matter what. She calls it the family curse, says everyone on her dad’s side has it. Their house is two stories, in Annandale, but there’s a big tree on the back side of her house, facing her window, and it’s easy for me to climb.
I knock on the window until she wakes up.
“Hello, sexy,” she says, pulling me into her room.
God, Kayla. Only fifteen but with a body like a girl in a rap video. She’s wearing one of my T-shirts, that’s it, and no bra. We sit down on her bed.
“I’m in trouble,” I say.
She’s got a happy glazed smile on her face, like she hasn’t quite woken up yet. There’s a glow in her window and I can’t tell if it’s a streetlight or the moon. Outside is the developed half-woods of every Madison neighborhood. The only things out on the streets are kids and rent-a-cops chasing them down.
“What’s got my boy so worked up?” says Kayla.
I tell her the whole thing, about Kroner and Dillon and the money, about how royally fucked I am.
“Does Dillon have anything?” she asks. “I mean, he fucked you over. He deserves it. And he’s out of town, right? It’ll be easy.”
“Nah. He’s a mooch, been living off my mom for two years now. Had to rob me to buy the ring, remember?”
“But he’s got those guitars, right? The ones he teaches with?”
Goddamn, she’s right. A 1969 Les Paul Custom Black Beauty. Keeps it in a glass case. I’ve seen him wipe it down for hours at Mom’s house, when he’s showing off for her. He won’t let anyone else touch it. I could pawn that for a pretty good bit. There’s a handful of other ones, seventies Telecasters, a big red Gretsch hollow-body. He’s also got an old Fender Strat that he claims he used “for gigs” that’s worth a decent amount.
“Kayla, you’re a motherfucking genius. You’re saving my life.”
“Let’s smoke a blunt first,” she says.
“You know why I love you?”
“Because I’m the tightest pussy you ever had?”
I want to say, You’re the only pussy I ever had.
I want to say, You’re harder than I ever dreamed of being.
I want to say, No one loves me and no one ever did and if you were to die I would have nothing.
But what I say is, “If the Rapture came and sucked all the good people up, you and me would rule the earth.”
“We already do,” she counters, and passes me the blunt.
* * *
Dillon lives in a shitty brick thing in Gluckstadt. It’s got neighbors and a red door and a yard full of weeds. Dillon’s car broke down a few times so I’ve given him rides to and from work, but I’ve never been inside. The streetlight is burned out and all the neighbors’ windows are dark.
I try my debit card on the front door look. Kayla stands there with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face.
“You ever done this before?” she says.
“Yeah,” I lie. My card snaps in half.
Kayla walks over to the street and picks up a fist-sized chunk of broke-off concrete.
“What are y
ou gonna do with that?”
“Baby, sometimes you’re so fucking stupid,” she says.
I follow her around to the backyard where she chucks it through the kitchen window. I flinch, waiting for alarms to sound, for cops to come dropping out of trees and arrest the fuck out of us. But nothing happens. No neighbor lights even flick on. Just the insect whir of summer nights in Mississippi.
“He could have had an alarm system,” I say.
Kayla smirks at me. Then she clears the rest of the glass out with a stick and crawls through. I follow.
The nicest thing in Dillon’s den is the TV. It’s big and flat-screen and mounted on the wall like a goddamn family portrait. He probably watches Asian foot porn on it all day. He’s got a record player from the eighties, one of those big battleship-looking ones. The couch is fake leather. There’s a Pink Floyd poster on the wall. It’s like a shitty older brother’s college dorm.
His bedroom is even worse. The bed is big and unmade, with red sheets. He’s got boxers and used socks and flannel shirts all over the floor. An opened box of lubed Trojans sits on the bedside table and I gag a little.
“Hey, look at these,” says Kayla. She holds up some lacy red panties. “Holy shit, are these your mom’s?”
“Don’t touch those. That’s fucking gross,” I say.
“I bet they are.” Kayla drops her jean shorts and then her panties, and she’s just white V-neck and pussy bare to the world. She’s got my mom’s panties dangling from her finger.
“Please don’t,” I say.
Kayla slides them up her legs. “You like me in these?”
“Stop it.”
“They’re kind of tight. Your mom has the tiniest ass.” She climbs up in Dillon’s bed. “You want to fuck me in your stepdad’s bed?” She reaches her finger down into her panties. “Come on, peel your mommy’s panties off and fuck me right now.”
Kayla lifts one foot up, a slender, tanned thing. I can see her whole gorgeous leg. Her nipples stand up in the white undershirt.
I’m so hard it hurts. Sometimes Kayla really scares me.
I crawl onto the bed and Kayla pulls my shirt off, then the rest of my clothes. We fuck slow and good. She wants to be on top, and I let her have it. Kayla rides me until she cums. Then I get mine. When it’s over she clings to me like I’m the only thing on earth, arms and legs wrapped tight around me, like if she let go she’d fall forever. It feels good to be somebody’s only. Too bad I can’t let the quiet last.
“Baby,” I say, sitting up, “it’s time to steal us some guitars.”
I dress quickly, conscious of the time we just lost. Kayla only bothers with a T-shirt and my mom’s panties. I make a face at her.
“What?” she says. “I like them. They’re sexier than anything I got.”
In the far back of the house is a little room crammed with music equipment. I guess this is the “jam room” Dillon’s always talking about. The guitars are hanging from a rack on the wall. A Marshall half-stack from the seventies stands in a corner with a pedal board that takes up half the floor space. There’s also a black light and a minibar.
“What a fucking loser,” says Kayla.
“There’s the guitars,” I say.
“I’m more interested in the booze.”
There’s a minibar stocked full of whiskey bottles. Kayla grabs the smallest, most pricey-looking bottle. It’s got a cork in it. She pops it and takes a sniff. “Smells expensive.” Kayla takes a slug and passes it to me and I pass it back.
She wanders off, so I set to work on getting the guitars down. I sling the Les Paul around my right shoulder, like a rifle. The Strat doesn’t have a strap so I just hold it by the neck.
A crash comes from the den. Kayla’s in my mom’s underpants, ripping shit off the walls.
“The fuck are you doing?”
“Well, it’ll be pretty suspicious if we bust in and go right for the goods, like we already knew where everything was. Besides,” she says, chucking a framed picture of Dillon’s mom against the wall, “it’s fun. Try it.”
I lay the guitars down and walk over to the TV. I grab it with both hands and yank it loose from the wall mounts. I lift the TV over my head and smash it into the coffee table. I smash it like Moses smashed the Ten Commandments. I stomp it and stomp it and stomp it till it’s nothing but a mass of glass and wire.
I stop when I feel a hand on my shoulder. Kayla’s smiling.
“That’s it, baby,” she says. “Just like that.”
We get the guitars and go back out the window. I never stole anything before. It’s fucking easy. You just bash a window, walk in, and take whatever you want. It’s that simple. Why does anyone ever get a real job?
We drive off toward town, not a single flashing blue light in sight. Me and Kayla avoid the highway, moving only on back roads toward Madison. There’s always a million cops out on 463 and they’ll pull you over for nothing. At night, if you got long hair or a sticker on your car or you’re not driving a Beamer, you’re fucked.
When we get back to town, me and Kayla decide to drive back to her house and wait the night out. To do that, we have to cross the highway, the only time we won’t be on back roads. I don’t like it, but if we keep driving around, eventually a cop’s going to pull us over, and I can’t think of a better idea.
Everything’s going just fine until we catch a red light next to a new strip of lawyer offices and my passenger window explodes. Glass flies all in my face, in Kayla’s hair. Before I can do anything the door rips open and Ty the Thug yanks Kayla out of the car by her hair.
The headlights from a car parked along the side of the road cut on. The door of the Mustang opens and Kroner steps out.
“You trying to bail on me?” he says. “Going out for a stroll with your lady friend?”
“I got half your money here,” I say. “Now let her loose, a’ight?”
I pull Dillon’s prize Les Paul out of the car. The pickups sparkle in the headlights. Kroner takes it and gives it a once-over.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with a guitar?” he says. “I quit lessons after like two months. I need cash.”
“You give me until tomorrow and it will be cash, moron.”
Kroner takes the guitar by the neck and smashes it onto the pavement until it’s just splinters and strings. “Always wanted to do that,” he says.
“Yeah, you’re a real fucking rock star,” I say.
Kroner pulls an ugly-looking buck knife out of a sheath on his belt and points it at my chest. “You think I’m a pussy, don’t you? All motherfuckers around here think because I’m not from Jackson I’m a fucking pussy. Well, I ain’t a pussy. And I’m about to show you.”
He punches Kayla in the face. I can’t believe it. She falls back onto the street.
The big guy kicks me in the knee. I go down on the pavement. He puts a boot on my neck and keeps it there.
Kroner bends over Kayla. “Look me in the eyes,” he says to me. “I will rape her. I will fuck her every which way I want to. I will make that tight little pussy bleed. Do you hear me? I’m on a whole new level, Dougie. Nobody’s ever gonna fuck with me again.” He spits on Kayla. “Get me the money and I’ll give you your girl back. Meet me at The Spot in three hours.”
Ty takes his foot off my throat and I can breathe again. He grabs Kayla and shoves her into the trunk of Kroner’s Mustang. They drive off into the night.
I try to get up all calm and dust myself off. I walk away from the main road, away from where any passing cars can see me, behind a strip of disposable stores, and puke. One of the stores is under construction, they’re building a new bathroom or something, and there’s all kinds of shit—boards, glass, metal beams, nails—all over the place.
A noise like a window getting busted erupts out of the woods. I think it’s Kroner back to kill me or the cops or somebody wrecked a car. But a doe comes bounding out, bewildered and bleeding down its legs. Then comes a buck and a limping fawn, a whole lost family cra
shing on the construction material, sounding like a pack of looters.
The buck stares me down, its horns like weird fangs jutting out of its skull, like he will charge me at any moment if I so much as lift a finger toward his family.
I know I only got one person I can call.
Pastor Jerry answers on the sixth ring. His voice is rusted, croaking, not the cheerful high-pitched happy routine he gives the youth group. He sounds busted, worn out, and tired.
“Pastor Jerry, this is Douglas. I got a problem. It’s Kayla. We need to talk.”
* * *
He tells me to come over and I’m there in ten minutes. Pastor Jerry’s got a look to him like he’s halfway between pissed and confused. I sit him down on his front porch and tell him everything, like he’s a priest, like he’s my dad, like he’s God Himself.
“We have to go to the cops, Douglas,” he says. “There’s no way I’m letting anything happen to Kayla.”
“Can’t. They’ll hurt her. These guys are on some crazy shit.” It’s the first time I’ve ever cussed in front of him. If he notices, he doesn’t show it.
“How much you need?”
“About ten grand,” I say.
“Come inside,” he says, flicking his cigarette off into the bushes.
Pastor Jerry takes me to his bedroom, to a wooden trunk he has in the back of his closet. There’s a letter in it, some bottled water, canned food.
“It’s Kayla’s Rapture kit,” he says. “You know, in case she doesn’t come to Jesus in time. If I get taken and she gets left. It’s enough for her to live safely on for a while.”
The trunk has a false shelf. When he takes it out, there’s got to be twenty grand down there. Pastor Jerry counts out ten grand. We put it in a Walmart bag.
“I got to go,” I say.
“I’m coming with you. I’m a pastor, and I want to make sure no one gets hurt. Especially not my baby girl.”
“No fucking way you’re coming with me,” I say.
“If I don’t go, you don’t get the money.”
“Christ, fine, whatever. Let’s go.”
“Let me pray first,” says Pastor Jerry.
“We don’t have time for that kind of crap.”
Pastor Jerry looks hurt, like a dad whose kid just got caught cheating on a test. It makes me feel kind of shitty.