Megan Abbott: Mississippi Noir

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 you 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?