Mississippi Noir

Combustible by Ace Atkins

Paris

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” I said.

“Hell you shouldn’t,” Shelby said. “You fucking owe me.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you want to meet Lyndsay Redwine?”

“Since I saw her in a bikini at the city pool.”

“Then shut the fuck up and drive.”

Shelby was fourteen. And she talked like that.

She’d crawled into my tall Chevy Silverado without even asking. Maybe because she liked my truck, riding high on a Rough Country lift kit and new set of 295 Firestones. I gave her rides to school sometimes from the bottom ass of the county down in Paris. People tried to make something of it, which was bullshit.

I was seventeen and a senior. Shelby was a freshman, chubby, and mean as hell.

“Wasn’t your momma picking you up?” I said.

“I don’t care.”

“This comin’ down on me.”

“I ain’t goin’ home.”

“Suit yourself,” I said, waiting for the deputy directing traffic to wave me onto 334.

He stared at me through mirrored sunglasses like he knew I was trucking jailbait. But he waved me on as Shelby got some Bubblicious out of her backpack and offered me a piece. She had on faded jeans and a Walmart T-shirt that tugged at her belly, saying, Amazing Grace. How Sweet the Sound.

“Well, I’m screwed,” I said, driving south, back to Paris. I used the cut-through by the Yellow Leaf Church where my kin were buried.

“Hunter, don’t be such a pussy,” she said. “You want, just let me out. I’ll walk.”

“It’s ten miles to Paris.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t care about nothing. I’ve gone way past that road.”

She smacked her gum and started texting. I let down my window and drove on. It was late November, already deer season and cold, but it felt good to air out the truck. “That ought to do it,” she said as she finished the text.

She held out her phone, proud as hell. I glanced down as we hit the stop sign at County Road 418. I FUCKING HATE U.

“Yep,” I said. “That ought to do it. Your momma will love it.”

“She’s fucked in the head.”

“Yep.”

“She didn’t used to be that way. He’s the one who led her into all her fucked-up-ed-ness.”

“He” meaning Randy. Randy being Shelby’s stepfather. ’Course I always liked Randy. Him and my daddy had gone to Lafayette back in the day, and I’d heard that Randy got in a year at Ole Miss before tearing up his knee. He was big and potbellied, always tan and grinning with large white teeth. He built barns from wood he’d milled himself. One time he bought me a Coke at the barbershop.

“I ain’t goin’ home,” Shelby said.

“Then don’t go home.”

“Let me out up at the cemetery,” she said. “I don’t give a shit, long as it’s not home.”

I dropped her at the old Paris cemetery, crooked and rolling and alone on the hills.

As I drove away, it started to rain. I watched her in my rearview as she sat down near a headstone. She looked worn-ass out.

Where U AT? Worried. Momma.

Shelby sat on a big slab of marble and texted back. I’M NOT FUCKING COMING HOME. EAT SHIT.

She got up, walked to a cedar tree, and uncovered a rock. Under the rock, and under a couple inches of dirt, she found a half-drunk pint of Aristocrat vodka. Shelby spit out her watermelon gum and took a swig, walking back to the headstone. Probably been better if she’d known any of the dead folks around her. But her people were from Olive Branch, her daddy was buried there, and she wished to hell she could move back.

She drank.

Randy. Fucking A-1 asshole.

Their old house had been colder than shit all week and he wouldn’t get his fat ass up and fix that propane leak. Just crawled under the house and cut off the heat. Said if he hadn’t noticed that fart smell the other morning, his first cigarette could’ve killed them all. Randy said it like he was some kind of fucking hero. Her daddy had been a hero. A hero doesn’t smell farts. A hero gets blown to bits out in the desert.

The phone buzzed in her lap.

I’M CALLING THE LAW.

Shelby downed some more vodka, warming her up in the cold rain and, by God, giving her strength. The ground all bumpy and uneven with skinny old headstones and thick new ones. A few old lambs for kids and tree stumps for the loggers. Must’ve been something to be a logger back in the day. Lots of dead folks here seemed to be real proud of it.

CALL EM, BITCH.

The rain come on hard, splatting off the headstones and dripping off the pine trees surrounding the cemetery. Fuck her. Fuck him. Fuck it all.

She heard a motor and looked up to see Hunter’s dumb ass driving back to where he’d let her out. She tucked the vodka in her pink camo backpack and walked down to where his Chevy idled.

“What?” she said.

“You just gonna sit out here all night in the rain?” Hunter said. “Jesus.”

“Maybe.”

“Get in.”

“I ain’t goin’ home.”

“You said that. I’ll take you to my cousin’s. Grab that damn towel. Shit, girl. Don’t get my seats all wet.”

She put on a pair of red sunglasses flecked with rain, and climbed in. She felt good and in control. “Okay,” she said. “Your cousin is cool.”

Kids only thought Rebecca was cool ’cause she was eighteen and had her own trailer. But she also had a two-year-old baby, bills, and a tenth-grade education. She’d ditched school about the time she got knocked up. When me, her, and the baby went shopping at the Walmart, folks stared like she was straight trash. Maybe it was all the bracelets she wore and the nose ring. People in Mississippi really got upset by that nose ring.

“What the hell, Hunter?” she said, walking barefoot from her trailer when she heard my truck. “What do you want?”

“To get out of the rain,” I said.

“This look like a motel to you?”

I shot Rebecca a look. She lit up a cigarette, stared down at Shelby all wet and chubby, and blew out some smoke. “Shit,” she said. “Come on in. Be quiet about it. Braden’s asleep.”

Rebecca tossed Shelby a clean towel as the rain drummed on the trailer. Shelby walked back to the bathroom while Rebecca pressed a hand on the kitchen counter. She was tall and thin and wearing a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut out. A tattoo on her right arm said, BRADEN. She’d gotten it done one night on Beale Street when she decided to quit drinking and smoking weed.

She looked to me and shook her head. “Y’all are screwed.”

“Why?”

“Johnny Law just called here about five minutes ago,” Rebecca said, smoke streaming from the edge of her mouth. “Sheriff’s looking for your girlfriend.”

Deputy Ricky Babb spent nearly a half hour with Leanne Dalton while she talked about how her daughter was a stupid, selfish shit and maybe crazy too. She said she wasn’t above committing Shelby, if things come to it. Leanne said her little girl didn’t make no sense most of the time and maybe she belonged in Whitfield. Babb wanted to tell her that if you could take a pill or do an electric shock for being a pain in the ass, he wouldn’t have a damn job.

But Babb just sat there on her tin-roofed porch, nodding along with problems kids got today, and waited to get some religion thrown in there. Just as he thought the woman had shut up, she mentioned a quote from The Purpose Driven Life. “God sometimes removes a person from your life for your protection. Don’t run after them.”

Babb never thought of God protecting a momma from her own child. But Leanne was pretty sure of it, saying that she didn’t have the money or time to put up with all Shelby’s bullshit and lies.

“How’s she lyin’?” Babb asked.

“’Cause that’s who she is,” Leanne said.

Babb sucked on his tooth, listening to the crackle of a radio call. A bunch of cows had broken out of fence on County Road 381. Son of a bitch. Nothing like herding cattle with a busted-ass Crown Vic. Least it wasn’t nighttime. Herding was a bitch at night. “What’s that, ma’am?”

“She accuses my husband of all kinds of things.”

“What kind of things?”

“What’s it matter?” she said. “Shelby’s a liar.”

“Yes ma’am,” Babb said. “These kids need to realize the road they’re paving to their future.”

Babb thought about all those cows heading down the county road, trying to break for the highway where they’d run out in front of semis and splatter the pavement with meat and blood.

He walked back to his patrol car, which he’d left running, and knocked her into drive.

“What do you think of that man your momma been seein’?” Shelby asked. “Jimmy or J.J. or whatever the fuck his name is.”

“Mac.”

“Yeah, Mac.”

“I guess I don’t think much of him,” I said. “He’s not my daddy or nothing. And he knows he’s not my daddy. My daddy lives in Jackson. He’ll always be my daddy.”

“My daddy is dead, but that doesn’t make it stop being a fact,” Shelby said. “Half of him is half of me.”

I nodded.

“Problem with Randy is he acts like he’s charge of me, my momma, and my brother,” she said. “Only reason he’s living with us is he’s paying the rent.”

“Yeah?”

“You bet,” Shelby said. “Payin’ it to my momma six inches at a time.”

“Shit, Shelby.”

“It’s true,” she said. “I hear him at night. His fat ass riding her like an old bicycle. I thought something was wrong with her one night, and I gone into the bedroom and seen her and him watching a dang porno movie and them doing it like dogs. His old fat, hairy ass on her, nasty breath in her ear. She seemed like she trying to get away. But him locking her down, holding her ass till he finished what he started.”

“Randy ain’t that bad,” I said. “They got a picture of him back in the day by the principal’s office. I heard he could bench-press three hundred pounds.”

Shelby looked like she was going to throw up. I slowed the truck.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Shit yeah.”

“You don’t look okay.”

“Just fucking drive, Hunter.”

“Doesn’t your momma work?” I said, hitting the gas, the dually pipes growling behind us. “I mean, she don’t need him.”

“She was working as a receptionist at an eye clinic for four years,” Shelby said. “She was real good at fitting glasses.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care,” she said. “Somewhere. Anywhere. Put me out. Hell, it’s all the same.”

“Why are you crying?”

“I ain’t fuckin’ crying.”

“Ma’am, the school resource officer said Shelby Littlejohn rode off with Hunter this afternoon,” Deputy Babb said. “Have you heard from your son?”

“No sir,” Hunter’s mom said. “He do something wrong?”

The woman wore a big blue flowered dress that didn’t hide her big blue flowered ass, which was blocking the entire door. She looked down from the mouth of the trailer, soap opera blaring on the television, waiting for him to leave. The rain was in his eyes and soaking his uniform good.

“Where does he usually go after school?”

“He comes home,” she said. “Except during baseball season. You know he’s starting this year. Third base. I think he’s got a future.”

“Yes ma’am,” Babb said. “You think you might try and reach him on his cell phone?”

“He doesn’t have a cell phone,” she said. “Kids don’t need phones.”

“Lots of kids have them.”

“Good way for them to get in trouble,” she said. “With all that twittered and selfie stuff. Girls taking pictures in their panties and passing it around. That can just do nothing but make a teenage boy lose his mind.”

“Does Hunter work?”

“He sometimes works at the radiator shop over on old 7,” she said. “But that’s when he’s trying to get some new parts for his truck. You know how much he loves that truck.”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Even got a name for it,” she said. “Calls it the Silver Bullitt. ’Cause of the way it looks like a Coors Light can.”

“Shelby’s momma is real worried,” Babb said, walking back from the steps. “The little girl sent some pretty awful words to her momma.”

“What did she say?”

“I can’t repeat them.”

“Do I look like I sing in the choir?”

“Harsh words, ma’am.”

“Don’t mix up Hunter in that little girl’s crazy family business,” she said. “He doesn’t have nothing to do with it. Didn’t I tell you he’s got a future?”

“Your boy didn’t have permission.”

“Talk to her mother, then,” she said. “’Cause I can’t raise their daughter while trying to raise my own son.”

Babb was soaked through and through. The trailer door slammed. He walked back to the patrol car. Been easier working with them cows.

“You ever think about killing someone?” Shelby asked.

“Hell no,” I said. “What’s wrong with you?”

Shelby’s shoulder pressed against the passenger window of my truck. She was still in her cheap sunglasses, chewing gum, blowing big loud bubbles.

“You know,” she said, “that your life would be better if someone wasn’t on the planet?”

“You want to kill your momma for being a pain in the ass?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“What are you saying then?”

“I’m just talking, Hunter,” she said. “Can’t we just talk awhile?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“’Cause the law showed up at your mom’s house?”

“She told them I didn’t have a phone,” I said. “She lied for me. She lied for you. And Johnny Law interrupted her afternoon television. That’s all she cares to do until I get home for supper. She said the law said I didn’t have permission to give you a ride.”

“You drove me because I said I’d talk to Lyndsay Redwine.”

“I got you here, didn’t I? Shit.”

“Fine,” she said. “Drop me off then. Right over fuckin’ there.”

“There?” I said. “That’s nowhere. That’s just an old couch on the road.”

“I need to rest.”

“I’m driving you home.”

“Shit,” she said. “I don’t even know where the hell that is.”

Shelby grabbed the door handle and acted like she was about jump out. And I figured she was just about crazy enough to do it. I slowed onto the gravel shoulder.

My truck pipes growled as she opened the door wide. I revved the engine. She didn’t move. She just sat there watching the wipers slap the hell out of the rain. She stared straight ahead, thinking on something.

“What you got in that toolbox?”

“Flowers,” I said. “What do you think?”

“You got a wrench?”

“Yeah, I got a wrench.”

“Give it to me.”

I left the motor running, walked out into the rain, and grabbed a wrench from my Husky toolbox. I looked at her hard as I handed it over in case she had it in her mind to go and hit someone with it.

“What?” she said. “Can’t a girl just go and fix her dang house?” She blew a huge pink bubble and it exploded like a shot.

“I guess.”

“And Hunter?” she said. “Pick me up for school tomorrow. Little earlier than usual. I got somethin’ to do.”

“You want me to get arrested?”

“Will you do it?”

I nodded.

She got out and went over to the wet, ragged sofa as I turned the Chevy around and rolled down my window. Shelby was a trip in her sunglasses, taking a seat on that old sofa in the rain. She acted like she owned all of Paris and that the hamlet was her living room.

“You really introduce me to Lyndsay Redwine?” I said.

Shelby smiled back and crossed her legs. She had a phone in one hand and a big-ass wrench in the other. “Just pick me up,” she said. “Okay?”

Randy had come in late the night before, racing up from Calhoun County where’d he’d been out with his stupid buddies spotlighting deer. He was red-faced and sweating, wearing an old Carhartt jacket over his T-shirt, when he’d asked Shelby to step outside. He had something he wanted to show her.

She knew her damn bitch momma had called him. She’d told him what she’d said.

“Why you want to upset her like that?” Randy said. “Your momma was crying and blubbering so much, I could barely make out her words.”

Shelby just stood there in his headlights, arms crossed over her small chest, in their front yard. Randy opened up the tailgate to his truck and dragged out a dead deer.

“Sometimes a young girl believes things, imagines things that never been there,” he said. “Way it works when you’re a kid. But you spread them things onto your momma, and your momma calls me up, that’s when you need to consider your actions. Brother Davis was sayin’ last Sunday...” Using his winch, Randy hoisted the doe by the back legs over a tree branch.

“Brother Davis is a cross-eyed hypocrite.”

“You need to think on what you’re sayin’ and doin’, Shelby,” Randy replied, shuffling back to his truck and cracking open another Busch from his cooler, Adam’s apple working while he swallowed most of it.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his bloody hand, and set down the beer on the tailgate. His stomach swelled over the top of his pants. The back of his neck was reddish-brown and hadn’t been shaved in a while.

“Are we straight?”

She was quiet. She just stared back at his big, dumb ass, showing she wasn’t scared of jack shit. She knew and her momma now knew too. Whether her momma believed it or not wasn’t Shelby’s damn problem.

Randy pulled a buck knife from a leather sheath and walked to the doe swinging in the wind. There was lightning far off from their neighbors’ and a cold wind bringing in rain from down on the coast. Headlights shone on the dead animal.

Shelby wanted to say more but only got out, “Can I go inside?”

“Hold up,” Randy said. “Hold up. Listen. Haven’t I been good to you?”

“That’s what you call it?” she asked, lifting up the sleeve of her T-shirt, fat finger bruises on her arms. “Goddamn you, you fat bastard. It ain’t right what you did. I didn’t want it.”

Randy froze in the front yard, open-mouthed, doe swinging from the pecan, and slit that deer from anus to throat, the insides of the animal dropping down hard and bloody onto the dead grass.

He studied the entrails that had fallen, picked up a cigarette, closing one eye as if to get better focus, and just nodded at her. “We straight?”

Shelby ran into the house and slammed the door behind her.

“Shelby’s momma ain’t gonna file charges or nothing,” said Johnny Law, a.k.a. Deputy Babb.

We sat in the cruiser together that night as it rained like hell outside us. I didn’t say nothing.

“But she and her stepdaddy wanted me to talk to you,” Babb said. “They wanted you to understand the exact nature of what you done today. That girl is fourteen years old.”

“Yes sir.”

“And she’s real impressionable,” Babb said. “You being a senior with a big, nice truck like that. I ain’t too old that I don’t recall what a young girl would do for an older boy. But your cousin sure as hell understands the consequences of her actions.”

“This don’t have nothing to do with Rebecca.”

“You don’t want to be changing diapers while trying to play ball,” Babb said. “That little girl is messed up in the head. Shelby would do anything for some attention. That’s why I’m talking to you like a man. Let you know all the things that come with spending time with a girl like that.”

“Shelby’s just my friend,” I said. “She needed help.”

Babb smiled. He had yellow, crooked teeth.

“She didn’t want to go home.”

“How come you went over to your cousin’s trailer?”

“’Cause we didn’t have nowhere else to go,” I said. “It was raining.”

“Y’all were together nearly four hours before she got home.”

“We were riding around. Shelby likes to take the back roads.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Babb just smiled bigger. He put a hand on my shoulder, leaned in, and said, “Keep it in your pants, Hunter. Don’t go throwing away your life on a little ol’ fat girl.”

I didn’t answer. I just crawled out of the cruiser and walked back to my house and the supper my momma had laid out. Field peas, greens, and hamburger steak that had grown cold.

Momma was back on the couch, laughing at something she’d seen on television.

The morning was bright and cold when Shelby removed the skirting around the front porch and crawled under the tin-roof house. She was quiet about it. All she needed was Randy to wake up from a twelve-pack coma and start asking a lot of questions.

The house was old and slat-boarded, nothing but dirt and trash up underneath the floors. Running above her was a mess of old copper pipes and new PVC water lines. So many cracks and breaks in the bottom floor of the house, she could see the light inside bleeding through clear as day. It took her awhile but she soon found where the gas line ran up into the living room and then along the back of the house to the stove. Shelby reached for Hunter’s wrench in her back pocket and turned the screw in the pipe, letting the propane run free.

She listed for a hiss, but didn’t hear a thing.

The rotten egg smell didn’t come to her until she put the wrench back in her pocket.

It took her twice as long to crawl backward into daylight, the back of her jeans and jacket covered in reddish dirt. She dusted herself off best she could and just started walking down the curved road toward what used to be Paris. The old general store was just a heap of boards and broken glass. The post office was an empty cinder-block building where they’d sometimes have a flea market on Saturday, selling old and useless things. Across the street was a volunteer fire station and a few trailers on a muddy, eroded hill.

Shelby kept walking, camo backpack over her shoulder, listening and looking for Hunter’s truck. She figured the house would be good and filled with gas in about an hour, filling those deep, dark places and far corners of that damn drafty old house. Her momma had gone to town. Her brother was already on the bus to school.

She’d left Randy’s cigarettes and lighter right where he liked them. Right by his bed.

Lord of Madison County by Jimmy Cajoleas

Madison

“Are y’all ready to worship?” says Pastor Jerry. He’s got his eyes shut, one arm raised high to Jesus in some weird half — Nazi salute. Frosted hair slicked back, bald spot barely showing. Graphic T-shirt that says, Lord’s Gym, and has Christ bench-pressing a cross on it. Cargo shorts that he still thinks are cool.

I’m a little ways back in the youth room, chewing on a pen cap. The worship band kicks in; it’s all reverbed guitar and concert lights and the bullshit praise lyrics projected onto a screen behind them. You know, the songs that are the kind of crap you say to your girlfriend but it’s supposed to be about God? You alone are beautiful. You alone are my rock. You alone are my one and only. Oh Jesus, baby!

Out in the crowd of youth-groupers are my customers. The girl with her hands up in the air, giggling, singing louder than anyone? That’s Theresa. Everyone thinks she’s weird, that maybe she’s one of God’s holy fools, but they all agree that she’s on fire with Jesus.

Nah, she just popped a molly.

Don’t get me wrong, Theresa loves Jesus. She says drugs just help the experience. She’s from Seattle, her parents are hippies, it’s a weird thing. But just look at that girl worship!

And the bro with the mullet up front? The one who’s all glassy-eyed for the Lord? That’s Dennis. I smoked him up about fifteen minutes ago.

I could go on. There’s Fran and Baskin and Hillary and Scottie. The youth group is about one hundred strong, and I sell to 30 percent of them.

The praise song ends. The guitars ring out. Pastor Jerry speaks: “The Lord reigns over our city. Can you feel Him all around us? Can you feel Him in this very room? It’s good to feel the presence of the Lord. The peace that passeth all understanding. Do y’all feel the peace of the Lord?”

Well, they’re feeling something, that’s for damn sure.

“Amen,” I say.

Pastor Jerry looks out to me and smiles. “Douglas, will you lead us in a word of prayer?”

It’s funny. Pastor Jerry has no clue about me. In fact, he believes I’m his greatest success story. I’m fully converted, and Pastor Jerry was the one who did it. I bet that asshole gets a holy boner in his cargo shorts every time he thinks of me.

Not to mention all the converts I brought. Once word got out I was dealing at youth group (they leave all the areas inside the church unlocked, so once you’re in, the place is an abandoned labyrinth of dark, closed-off rooms, perfect for private business), all sorts of riffraff started showing up. All of a sudden Pastor Jerry thinks I’m the Apostle Paul to a bunch of stoner kids.

“Sure, Pastor Jerry,” I say. “Let us pray.”

I used to go to school at Parkside Prep, along with every other rich kid in Madison. I was an okay student, I went to class, whatever. My dad was long gone and my mom started dating this guy, Dillon, who was a total pothead. I caught him at it one day while Mom was at her tennis lesson. I threatened to tell her that Dillon’s been selling me weed for months unless he gave me the number for his dealer.

So I went and met the guy, this white dude named Kroner. He had a shaved head and a nasty scar down his cheek, but he was a smooth guy, kind of soft, like everybody else in Madison. And I pitched him. You want an in at Parkside? It’s all rich kids with trust funds. They’ll buy anything to look cool.

He said sure. It was that easy. He said, Sure, but if you fuck this up, if you fuck with my money, I will fucking kill you. I will kill you and your entire family. I will cut your mother’s lips off and staple them to my dick.

And it was hard not to laugh. Just think about stapling something to your dick. That’s the stupidest shit I ever heard of in my life. Kroner was a fucking moron, and he was going to make me rich.

Everything went smooth at Parkside for a while. I was making all kinds of money. I was a hero. I got every kid the high they wanted. Even Kroner was impressed. All was golden until this fat fucker named Bill Widdleton did a line too many and had a seizure in Mrs. Bilson’s art class.

I’d never seen a kid have a seizure before. It was like watching a computer reset. He made this weird stuttering noise first, his chin bobbing up and down like the picture when a DVD skips. In seconds he was flopping on the floor, foaming at the mouth, legs kicking. It was a thing to see.

I shouldn’t have stayed to watch though. I should have run my ass to my locker and dumped everything I had in a toilet. Because the ambulance came, and then the cops arrived with the drug dogs.

Even though my dad flew in for a week to pay off half the county, I got kicked out of school. I got a month in juvie. I got mandatory rehab and parole for a year. Mom took my car so I had to walk thirty minutes just to get home. Every shop and gas station I passed made me hate this bullshit town more and more.

It’s all about the looks in Madison. Like how every store is made out of bricks. I mean everything, even the Walmart. It’s a city ordinance, I don’t know. You can’t tell if you’re at a bank or a gas station half the time. It’s like they fling up these cheap strip malls, throw a layer of bricks on them, and act like they’re going to last. When they won’t last at all. They’re just as disposable as everything else in this white-flight town.

My first day at the new school, Kroner drove up in his Mustang with the tinted windows. He had his thug Ty in the passenger seat. Kroner told me if I didn’t make it up to him, if I didn’t sell enough to cover everything I’d lost him, he would cut my dick off and feed it to his dog.

“You got a dog?” I said.

“A big dog,” he said. “A Doberman.”

“I figured you more for a dachshund kind of guy.”

“A what?”

“You know, a wiener dog.”

Kroner didn’t think that was funny. His thug Ty — this big blonde-headed county boy, complete with cowboy boots and brass knuckles — stepped out of the car and beat the shit out of me. He took my wallet and my shoes. He kicked me so hard I shit my pants.

There I was, crying my eyes out in a Walgreens parking lot, when I had my idea.

I called up Pineywood Baptist Church, the biggest church in Madison. It’s the one my mom and all her friends go to. They have the big church barbecues where everybody gets hammered and figures out who they’re going to cheat on their husbands with next. It’s a horrible church full of horrible people and everyone knows it.

I asked to talk to the youth pastor. I didn’t know his name, I didn’t know a thing about him. His secretary said he wasn’t in, but I told her it was an emergency so she gave me his cell phone number.

Bless his stupid heart, Pastor Jerry was there ten minutes after I called him. Picked me up at the Walgreens in his plum-colored Honda Element. Took me straight to his house and listened to my whole bullshit story: the bullying drug dealers, my desire to come clean, to have a fresh start. He had me say the sinner’s prayer, right then and there. Then he fed me dinner.

After we ate, Pastor Jerry went to take a dump and left me in the living room with his daughter Kayla. She’s a freshman at Parkside. She’s gorgeous. I had no clue how I’d never noticed her before. She was watching fat people yell at each other on the TV. A big smiling family portrait hung over the mantelpiece: a four-year-old Kayla, Pastor Jerry, and a brown-haired beauty with gigantic tits who I guessed was Kayla’s mom.

“So where’s your mom?” I asked.

“She’s dead,” said Kayla.

“I’m sorry.”

“I bet,” said Kayla, then she changed the channel. “Are you serious about all this Jesus shit?”

“Nope,” I said.

“I hate my dad.”

“He’s a fucking tool, and he’s about to make me a hell of a lot of money.”

Kayla smiled at me. I put my arm around her.

I come home from youth group with my backpack full of cash. Just three months in and I already got ten grand hidden in a Nike box up in my room. I overcharge like crazy but the kids are too rich to know the difference, or even to care. It feels good, knowing I got enough to pay Kroner back tonight. Then I can start making the real money.

Mom sits at the dinner table in a purple dress that shows off her legs. Guess she and Dillon must have had a date night.

“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 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?

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 crashing 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.

“Look, you can pray in the car. Let’s just go.”

We drive without any music, just the wind sliced by my busted window. Pastor Jerry prays to Jesus. He prays with his hands lifted up, same as he does in youth group, in that soft, sincere voice, begging God for the safety of his sweet Kayla, his good daughter who stumbled off the path.

“I know she doesn’t believe yet, Lord, but please let my faith be enough. Please let the faith of a parent get her through.”

It’s pure TBN Joel Osteen horseshit, but you can tell Pastor Jerry actually means it. He asks for forgiveness for all kinds of stuff — for his failure as a dad, as a husband, all his own faults and shortcomings. Never once does he blame me.

That hurts, you know? This guy was never anything but good to me and I have him begging Christ for his little girl’s life. Same daughter I fucked earlier tonight and who might get murdered because of me, same one who he doesn’t even hardly know, not really. Pastor Jerry never stole anything from me like Dillon, and he sure stuck around longer than my own dad when I was in trouble. I’ve done nothing but take from him. I’ve made a fool out of him.

All the while Pastor Jerry prays.

We pull up to The Spot in my bashed car. Kroner’s leaning against his Mustang with his arms crossed like a gangster in a movie. A bit-off chunk of moon hangs in the sky half-hidden by clouds. Ty holds Kayla by her arms. He’s got sunglasses on even though it’s dark. When I get out, I slam the door like I’m a tough guy and the rest of the glass shatters out in shards. Pastor Jerry steps out gingerly over the glass.

“Who the fuck is that guy?” asks Kroner.

“That’s Kayla’s dad,” I say. “I had to get the money somewhere.”

“We can do this real safe-like,” says Pastor Jerry. He holds out the money in a Walmart bag. “Everybody needs to keep real cool now. I don’t want any harm to come to anybody. Christ died for each and every one of you. Even if you don’t believe it.”

“The fuck is he talking about?” says Kroner.

“He’s a youth pastor,” I say.

“Oh,” says Kroner. “I fucking hated youth group.”

“Why?” asks Pastor Jerry.

“The singing. I hate singing.”

“Just give him the money,” I say.

“Yeah, give me the money,” says Kroner.

Pastor Jerry tosses him the bag. Kroner smiles.

The whole time Kayla’s got her arms crossed over her tits. Blood’s dried all down her face. I can tell she’s chewing on the inside of her cheek; she does it whenever she’s mad. I’ve seen her chew herself till she bled out of her mouth before. Ty has his hands on her shoulders, those stupid sunglasses on. Her head barely comes up to his chest.

“I told you not to fuck with me,” says Kroner. “I told you I was hard.” He grabs Kayla away from Ty and pulls her to him, twisting her arm behind her back, then yanks her head back by her hair. “See what I can do? See what I can do to your girl?” He licks Kayla’s neck. “I can do anything I want. I’m the hardest motherfucker in this whole city. Fuck Jackson. I’m the Lord of goddamned Madison County.”

Kayla elbows Kroner in the stomach. With her free hand she pulls his knife out of his belt sheath, whirls, and slides the blade across his face. It’s quick, but awkward, like she was aiming for Kroner’s throat but didn’t know how to do it, like she had never really tried to hurt anyone before. She only gets Kroner’s ear. It half-hangs off his cheek, mutilated, dangling from a flap of skin.

“You bitch! Jesus, my face!” Kroner reaches out to Ty, but the thug backs away like he doesn’t want any blood on him.

“You beat me,” says Kayla. “You were going to rape me.”

“Baby?” says Pastor Jerry.

“You’re fucking dead,” says Kroner. He points to Ty. “Kill her.”

“If you take one step closer I will cut your dick off.” She points the knife at Kroner. “I will cut it off and fuck him with it.”

Ty takes his sunglasses off. His eyes are blue and scared. He looks down at Kayla, then back to Kroner.

“You need to leave,” says Pastor Jerry. “I’m going to call an ambulance.”

Ty nods. He backs up a few steps with his hands in the air, like he’s being held up, then takes off running toward the woods.

“My fucking ear,” moans Kroner. Blood leaks between his fingers and down his face. “You cut it off.”

“Not all the way,” says Kayla.

Pastor Jerry pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket. It’s the same one he’s always wiping his face with when he preaches. He kneels down next to Kroner and presses the handkerchief to the guy’s ear, as if to heal him. Kroner cries and cries.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” says Kayla. “Get up, Dad.”

Pastor Jerry shakes his head.

“I said get up.”

“No,” says Pastor Jerry. “Remember, There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than ninety-nine who need no repentance.”

“You can have that party without me,” says Kayla. “If you call an ambulance, the cops will come, and no fucking way I’m going to be around for that.” She turns to me. “Keys?”

I look at her and there’s no love looking back. There’s something else in her eyes, a disappointment. Like I let her down. Like I couldn’t handle the situation and I had to go running to her daddy. Kayla finally sees me for what I really am: another goddamn phony Madison kid. Not like her. Kayla’s something different.

I toss her the keys. Kayla tucks Kroner’s knife in her belt. She picks up the bag of money, gets in my car, and drives off down the dirt road toward the highway. I watch my car disappear into the darkness without me.

Kroner whimpers on the ground. Pastor Jerry’s still holding him, rocking him back and forth, praying for him. They seem so close, like they’re related, like a father and son. The moonlight hits the shattered glass around them and the pieces glimmer. I feel like I belong there in the dirt with them, wounded and bleeding and maybe about to be healed. Pastor Jerry begins to sing a hymn, one I recognize from youth group. I would join in but I never bothered to learn the words.

Losing Her Religion by RaShell R. Smith-Spears

Jackson

Jada Wallace wrapped her long bronze legs around her lover’s waist as he slammed her into the bedroom wall. Her tongue pushed desperately past his lips, seeking the flavor of his mouth. His hands were just as desperate; they ran up her back under her shirt, seeking the hooks of her bra. The release of her breasts was freeing and satisfying. He threw her down on the bed and straddled her waist. He jerked her shirt over her head after his lips found hers again and pressed painfully against them. With equal purpose and intensity, he unsnapped her jeans and yanked them down her legs along with the pink lace panties she had worn for him. She sat up and licked a trail down his stomach, following the path laid out by the soft, dark hair that started at his navel and disappeared into his shorts, while she opened his jeans. Apparently, she was moving too slowly because he pushed her back on the bed and yanked his own jeans off. Having discarded his shirt almost immediately after coming into the house, he now stood before her naked and beautiful. His creamy white skin looked so delicious she wanted to run her tongue all over it; she wanted to bite him everywhere. And she did. As he covered her body and entered her, she put her mouth over the skin of his shoulder and bit down. And as he rocked her hard and fast, flipping her on top of him, then throwing her back underneath him, she found different areas of his body to place her teeth: his neck, his broad chest, the inside of his arm, between his thumb and finger. Anywhere on his body she could get access to, she marked her territory. She laid her claim to him just as his body inside of hers laid claim to her. She was his, all of her.

“Whose is it!” he demanded.

“Yours,” she gasped.

“Who?” he growled. His face was red. A vein in his neck stood out.

“Yours, Derek. Only yours.”

With a thunderous growl, he took the ultimate claim of her. “God, I love you, Jada!”

With that, she came.

They lay beside one another, both spent and sweaty, holding hands. Jada could not believe how satisfied she was. Was it anyone’s right to feel that good?

A slight buzzing sounded from the nightstand by her bed. Derek reached over and looked at his cell phone. Placing it back down, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Where’re you going?” Jada asked.

“Home.” He had already found and pulled on his jeans.

“Now? I thought she was going to be out all night with her friends.” Jada never called his wife by her name. It was hard to keep from calling her by other names.

“Guess the night ended early for her.” He was buttoning his shirt, the dark blue button-down Jada had given him.

“So it has to end early for us?”

“Unfortunately,” he bent over and kissed her forehead, “yes.”

Derek sat on the bed, his back to her, and put on his mahogany slip-ons.

“I thought we had the whole night; I had things planned.” She ran her fingers down his back and pulled his shirt out of his pants waist. She slipped her hand underneath, against his warm skin.

He stood up and stuffed his shirttail back into his pants. He gave her an exasperated look. “Jada, I gotta go. You know how this goes.”

“Why? Why does it have to go this way? Why does she get every damn minute of your time?”

“She’s my wife. You know that. I made promises to her. I told you I wasn’t looking to end my marriage when we first hooked up. I thought you understood that.”

Jada rose up on her knees, letting the sheet fall away to reveal her naked body. “You made promises to me. Every time you bust a nut, you tellin’ me you love me. That’s a promise.”

“C’mon. That’s just nuttin’ talk.” He looked at Jada’s body with longing.

“You know you want this. You can have it... if you stay a little longer.”

Derek leaned over to Jada, his knee on the bed and the other foot still on the floor. He grabbed one of Jada’s breasts and put it in his mouth. She threw her head back in pleasure — the physical pleasure of his tongue and the emotional pleasure of winning the battle. Jada didn’t beg men to stay — ever. It unnerved her that she begged now. But at least she had him; he was staying. His tongue traveled from her breast to her neck. Jada grabbed the back of his head, and guided him to her mouth. His tongue tasted like mint. She pulled him down on top of her, but he pushed back up.

“I’ll see you at work on Monday.” He flicked her wet nipple and walked out of her bedroom after grabbing his cell phone.

Jada pulled the cover over her cold, naked body and wondered how she’d gotten into this position in the first place and how she could get out of it.

Gray clouds held the sun hostage at 6:45 in the morning. The sun tried to break free of the rain clouds’ prison, glowing faintly on the horizon every so often as Jada sped up I-55 to Madison. She had left later than she intended which meant that she would probably be late all day. She tried not to take this as a bad omen, but the dreary cloud jailers seemed impossible to ignore. But sign or no sign, she would make her pilgrimage; she had made it every Sunday for the past month and would continue to do so until she had reached the nirvana she sought. The journey itself was a sanctifying ritual, working her into a passionate fervor. As she drove, she didn’t see the stores — Char, Chili’s, Target — that she had grown up with most of her life and which lined the sides of the interstate like silent sentinels. Instead she focused on her relationship with Derek, recounting what they had done and said the week before, smiling at the funny exchange they had on their way back from the pep rally for school-wide testing. She remembered the sex the night before, and a gentle shiver fell over her body. Already she felt sacred.

By the time she pulled over into the driveway of the house next to the two-story brick Tudor, she was almost ready for prayer. She prepared by pushing aside the pocket New Testament and the small pistol she always carried in her purse, and in calming solitude, she pulled out, then applied her Red Revival lipstick. Gently rubbing the velvety color between her lips, she surveyed the house’s landscaping, checking whether any changes had been made since the last Sunday. Fresh straw had been laid on the flowerbed that held budding tulips. It seemed a few branches had been cut back from one of the two large trees in the neatly manicured lawn. Jada closed her eyes and imagined she had been working in the yard yesterday morning; she had laid the straw. Dressed in her bright green capris and a peach T-shirt, she had kneeled in front of the flowerbed and removed most of the old, graying straw, placing it in a pile behind her. She worked hard, stopping every now and then to pull up some newly sprouted weeds. It was important to remove ugly, unwanted weeds so that the beautiful could grow. The sun had come out and she had begun to sweat. She wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. One of her neighbors, an older white gentleman, called to her. She smiled and waved at him. Returning to her work, she didn’t even notice Derek walking out with a glass of lemonade and her straw hat. He startled her by placing the hat on her head. She smiled up at him and stood. They shared a long kiss before she took the glass from him and drank the lemonade. He took the glass back, slapped her butt, and walked back in their house.

Jada exhaled, willing the fantasy to become reality. She would speak it to the universe so that which she named, she could claim. She and Derek were meant for beautiful things. She had not known it when they first met two years earlier on her first day at the high school where they both taught, but a year later, after they hooked up a few times, it became overwhelmingly clear.

“I want us to be together. God, I claim his love. I claim our love, in the name of Jesus,” she declared in the car sitting in the driveway next door to his house. “Please.”

Just as she opened her eyes, Derek’s front door opened and his wife came outside. She is so ordinary, Jada thought. What does he see in her?

Jada wasn’t sure when she started viewing her as a rival, but as she scrutinized her now, she couldn’t help but notice how uninteresting her wild curly brown hair and her pale, oval face were. The only thing that made her interesting was the olive undertone that hinted at her biracial heritage. She was thin and straight, like a boy. Derek said she played tennis in high school. Of course, that was fifteen years ago.

Jada peered a little closer, noting that she was gaining weight; at five four, her widening hips made her look short and sloppy. She certainly was no match for Jada’s shapely five seven. Summing her up, Jada assessed that she was not very formidable competition.

She got into her car and blew the horn. That was Jada’s cue to leave. Derek’s wife was calling him to come out so they could go to church. He probably wouldn’t have noticed Jada in the driveway, but she thought it better to leave.

Driving back down I-55, she observed the city coming awake. More cars were on the road even if the parking lots of the stores on the side were still empty. She loved the look of the city, having grown up in it most of her life. She learned to drive on the wide, open curves near Tougaloo College, one of the city’s two historically black colleges. In Fondren, the artsy part of town, she and her high school boyfriend went on her first date to eat at Brent’s Drugs. At Jackson State University, the other HBCU, she fell in love with biology and decided she would share that love with other generations as a teacher. Now she taught at the same high school she had graduated from and she loved her job and her children. She had watched the city of Jackson progress and regress, decay and rebound, and she loved every inch of it.

Of course, her senior year, she thought she would be on the first plane soaring out of the state. A full scholarship to Jackson State and a summer teaching program between her junior and senior year ensured that she would not only remain for college, but that she would stay after graduation. God had jokes. Just when she thought she had everything figured out, He surprised her.

Like Derek. Jada had never intended to fall in love with him. It had been all about the sex. Like it had been with the others. Since her freshman-year relationship ended badly with a boy who couldn’t commit if he were sewn to his girlfriend, she only entered relationships that promised to be beneficial to her financially or sexually. That meant three things to her: one, she was not interested in becoming emotionally involved, opting to see the men on a rotating basis. It also meant that she was perfectly okay with sleeping with a married man if she were attracted. Finally, it meant that she would only date white men. She entertained thoughts of sleeping with black men, but often, if they had any money, it was tied up in some plan for entrepreneurship or worse, some baby mama. White men could satisfy both her craving for the physical and the financial. Hooking up with Derek happened in a perfect storm: he was white, from a well-off family, her first married man, and he caught her when no other men were on her dating horizon.

Jada zoomed down the interstate toward the Byram exit. The small city outside of Jackson had grown up almost overnight, much to the dismay of Jackson’s city leaders who wanted to consume Byram in its body. The town had been so rural when she was a little girl attending church. Her grandmother had moved her and her sister Regina to South Jackson when she was ten, but they had maintained membership in the town’s little country church. As she drove down quiet roads, lined on one side by a speckling of small, older houses, trailers, and the occasional new stone houses, and on the other side by fenced-in yards corralling horses and cows, a few cars joined her on their way to one of the many country churches. Jada marveled at how quickly things can change. One minute she was surrounded by the signs of city life with the stores, wide pavement, and multiple cars, and then, a few miles down the road, she was in the midst of rural life. One minute she was unattached and unconcerned about any man in her life, and then, a few weeks down the calendar, one man was all she could think about. She didn’t like it at all, but like the city leaders of Jackson, she was powerless to stop its progress.

Jada went on to church, but she’d already had her worship service, complete with prayer and praise, outside of Derek’s house. If anyone had asked her about why she did this every Sunday, she would have told them she was keeping tabs on her investment, but really she didn’t know why she did it. Sometimes it worried her, but she didn’t dwell on it long.

After church she drove to her grandmother’s house. Nana had been too ill to attend church for the past few months. Jada took her a CD of the day’s sermon.

Her grandmother had never been a big woman. Jada inherited her height and size from her grandfather, a man she had never really gotten to know since he died when she was five and her sister seven. By all accounts, he was a big, jovial man who worked hard for his family until the day he died. In fact, he was at work at the Pepsi bottling plant when he had his fatal heart attack.

But Nana was a thin woman who stood at five feet even. She had a big presence, always unafraid to stand her ground and make people acquiesce to her will. Now, however, Nana looked small, in her pink flowered nightgown, lying in the hospital bed they moved in when she came from the hospital. Her steel-gray hair, usually pulled back into a single thick braid, was loose and unkempt. A thin sheet covered her legs, but nothing else. Her eyes were closed when Jada came to the bed and sat in the chair that had been vacated by the home health care nurse when Jada entered the house. The chair was still warm.

“Hey, Nana,” Jada almost whispered. It was hard seeing the woman who raised her like this. She fought against the lump rising like dry yeast in her throat.

Nana opened her eyes, the color of watered-down coffee. She rolled her head over and looked at Jada with those eyes. “Hey, baby.” Her voice was scratchy and airy at the same time.

It is hardly a voice, Jada thought. “How you feeling today, lady?”

She smiled weakly. “Fair to middlin’.”

Jada smiled back. “Well, the nurse said you’ve had a pretty good day.”

“Humph. Did she have the day? How is she going to pronounce my day good?”

Jada laughed, glad to see Nana had not lost her spunk, even in her illness. It gave her a little hope; maybe she wouldn’t have to face losing her grandmother so soon. She knew it was selfish. Nana was over eighty years old and she was tired. She had been through sharecropping, Jim Crow, struggles to vote, struggles to work. Her home had been attacked by white racists and later by black gangbangers. She had raised two daughters and later two granddaughters. She bore witness to the devastation of losing a child and then, a few years later, a spouse. She had seen her brother and her sister as well as two parents move on to glory. Now, her body was old and shutting down, diabetes and hypertension demanding more of her than was their due. But they were claiming her nonetheless. Jada knew she deserved rest, but Nana was the core of her earth; without her she would spin hopelessly off her axis. The back of Jada’s throat stung. Her cheeks grew hot, and she knew if she didn’t stop it now, she would soon be a sobbing mess lying in Nana’s bed. She switched her thoughts to wondering what Derek was doing.

“How is she?” a whispered voice asked, rousing her from her pleasant thoughts. It was Regina.

“She’s fine,” Nana answered in a voice strong enough to convey a hint of annoyance.

“I’m glad to hear it, Nana.” Regina leaned over the bed and kissed their grandmother on the forehead. Then she hugged Jada. “How long have you been here?”

“Just a little while. I came from church.” Out of the corner of her eye, Jada saw her grandmother smile. She knew it would please her to hear that she went to church. Her sister rolled her eyes.

“Have you had anything to eat, Nana?” Regina asked, clearly trying to steer the conversation to some other topic.

“I ain’t hungry.”

“You have to eat, Nana,” Jada gently chastised, losing some of the hope she had before. If Nana didn’t eat, she would not have strength to stay around. It wasn’t a good sign that she didn’t want to eat. “At least drink one of your shakes.”

“Okay, baby, I’ll get one a little later. You girls sit down and tell me what’s going on with you.”

Jada sat back in her chair while Regina pulled up another chair beside her.

“I saw that new Tyler Perry movie,” Regina offered.

“I likes that Tyler Perry. Madea cracks me up,” Nana half-chuckled.

“Who did you go with?” Jada asked.

“Tayshun.”

“You two have been going out for like a month now. Is this serious?” Jada teased.

Her sister pushed her playfully in the arm. “Who knows, you might be a maid of honor soon instead of just an old maid.”

“Don’t worry about me; I get mine,” Jada boasted.

“I do worry about you, baby,” Nana interjected quietly. “I wish you would find a good man you can settle down with, have me some great-grands. I don’t want to leave you here by yourself.”

“She has me, Nana,” Regina said.

“You can’t do for her what a man can do, Gina.”

“Nana!”

“I’m sick and old, Gina, not stupid. I remember what your grandpa did for me.”

“Nana, I’m not old enough for this conversation,” Jada laughed.

“You too old to be by yourself.”

“She’s picky, Nana. She don’t like ’em too dark. Really, she likes ’em, you know...” Regina turned one of her palms faceup and rubbed her finger across it.

“White?” their grandmother shrieked. “Oh, Lawd Jesus, where did I go wrong?”

“It’s fine, Nana. I’ve dated black guys before.”

“Don’t let her fool you, Nana. She hasn’t dated a black man in years.”

“Jada, baby, tell me it ain’t true.” She raised up slightly, seeming to gain strength from what she had to say. “You know them white folks near ’bout ran me out of my house that time just ’cause I moved into their neighborhood. And they kept passing yo’ grandfather up for promotion at the plant even though he had the knowledge and experience. They don’t mean you no good, Jada.” She fell back, having spent all of her energy.

“That was then, Nana. I know there were some bad racists in the past, but this is the new millennium. White people aren’t all racists. And if they all hated all of us, would any of the men even consider dating me?”

“Yeah. They want some of that sweet brown sugar.”

“Regina, you are not helping,” Jada countered. “Take the guy I’m dating now. Yes, he told me his family would rather he be with someone white like them, but he doesn’t care. He prefers black women.”

“What’s this fella’s name?” Nana asked, still looking disappointed.

“Derek Ross. He’s a teacher at my school.”

“Humph.”

“I really like him, Nana. I like him more than anybody I’ve liked in a long time.” It felt good to talk about Derek to her grandmother. To finally be out in the open with her feelings for him, even if she couldn’t tell her everything. But even her sister didn’t know he was married or how much she actually cared about him.

“Humph. Regina, go get me a shake. I’m getting thirsty.”

They watched Regina leave the room before Jada spoke again.

“Nana, you would really like him, if—”

“Hush, child. I see the crazy way yo’ face is lightin’ up just talkin’ about this white boy. Get that anniversary necklace out my jewelry box.”

A little peeved that Nana had interrupted her and said she looked crazy on top of it, she went to the jewelry box and retrieved the necklace her grandmother used to wear only on special occasions — sterling silver with a medium-sized mother-of-pearl teardrop dangling at the end. Nana had polished it once a week ever since her husband had given it to her on their twentieth wedding anniversary. He saved a year to buy it. The chain was now dull, more evidence of her grandmother’s failing health.

“Take it.”

“Nana?”

“Take it. I know I probably should give it to your sister since she’s the oldest, but I think you need it. It’s not a diamond necklace, not even pearl, but it cost your grandfather a full year of workin’ at the plant and fixin’ cars to get it for me. White folks threatened to fire him at the plant when they found out he was working at the car shop on the weekends, so he started just fixin’ cars at our house. He didn’t give up where he was going for them.”

“Don’t worry, Nana. I never let these men get in my head.”

“Humph. Put it on.” Nana watched as Jada clasped it behind her neck. “Don’t you give up too much for this white boy. Your grandfather worked that year, made that sacrifice because he loved me. Now, you wear it and remember, don’t settle for anything less than a love that will sacrifice for you. Don’t lose yourself.”

“Of course, Nana. You know Gina is going to be mad you gave me this necklace instead of her.”

“I’ll deal with Gina. Pull this cover up on me. I need to get some sleep.”

The visit with Nana lingered in her mind Monday morning when Jada entered the school building wearing the necklace. She was not as concerned about Nana’s health — she felt better about that — as she was about her grandmother’s advice to her. She knew she was in deeper with Derek than she had been with any man in a long time, but she certainly wasn’t in any danger of losing herself, whatever that meant. She knew Derek would never leave his wife. She didn’t expect him to, like silly mistresses did. Their arrangement was solid, secure. She enjoyed being with him, he enjoyed being with her. Except for the occasional annoying demands on his time, his marriage was a good insurance policy, Jada thought. It meant no surprises.

She refrained from her routine second-period visit to Derek’s classroom in an effort to prove something. She would wait and let him come to her. But by lunch he had not come by, so she went to his room. That’s when she discovered he had a substitute teacher; he hadn’t even come to work. She tried texting him, sending an innocuous message about school in case she read his messages, but he didn’t respond.

On Tuesday, he did come to her classroom between classes. Emerging from the wave of kids filing out of her room, he was like a merking — tall, powerful, and beautiful. His full, blond-streaked, light-brown hair flowed against the wind of people moving past him. It highlighted his strong cheekbones and square jawline underneath tanned skin.

Jada exhaled at his beauty. “Hey, stranger. Where were you yesterday?” She smiled as she silently willed her last student out of her classroom.

Derek glanced around, noticing the slow-moving girl. He looked back at Jada with a pensive expression. “I was, uh, at the doctor’s office.”

“Are you okay?” Jada asked, sounding too alarmed even to herself.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Um, I, uh, just came by to say hi. I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Derek nodded and walked out, leaving even before Jada’s student.

He was acting strangely. He seemed distracted and cagey. Jada didn’t like it, especially after not seeing him on Monday. Maybe he was really sick. He hadn’t said anything about feeling bad. Of course, he hadn’t told her he was going to see a doctor either. Maybe it was just a routine visit. He looked healthy enough, Jada thought, calling up the excitement of seeing him walk through her door.

By lunchtime, she was vacillating between worry and calm, finally deciding he was fine. She was on her way to meet him in the lounge when he appeared in her door.

“Are you walking me to the lounge? Did you want to carry my books?”

Derek did not return her smile. He closed the door. “We need to talk.”

“Something is wrong with you!” she gasped, and sat back down in her chair behind her desk.

“No, I’m fine. I went to the doctor yesterday with my wife. She’s pregnant.”

“What?”

He smiled. “Sixteen weeks.”

Jada felt like someone had dropped a lead baseball into the bottom of her stomach. She wondered if she were heavy enough to fall through the floor and if that was the meaning of “floored.”

“Aren’t you going to say something?” Derek prompted after a few moments of silence.

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks. I’ve been reluctant to go to her doctor visits with her because, you know, I wasn’t really ready for kids. I deal with these monsters all day; I didn’t want to go home to my own. I like my peace and quiet, you know.” He came over and sat in the student desk beside her desk. “But I went yesterday and Jada, it was amazing. I heard the heartbeat and then I saw him on the sonogram.”

“It’s a boy?” she managed to get out.

“It’s too soon to really tell, but I know we’re having a boy. I feel it.” His face was bright and excited. He looked like a little boy himself.

Jada loved him even more in this moment, which made that lead ball expand. It consumed the whole lower half of her body.

“Can you imagine me as a father?”

She had imagined it a hundred times — to her kids. “You’re good with the students. They like you.”

He nodded solemnly and reached for Jada’s hand. “I think, with the kid coming and all, that I need to do better by my family. We have to stop what we’re doing.”

Jada lost all feeling in her body. She slid forward out of her chair, unable to hold herself upright. Had Derek not been holding her hand, she would have been on the floor, hitting the back of her desk with her face on the way down.

“What?”

“You know I love being with you. What we do together...” He rubbed her arm, but Jada could not feel it. “And I really care about you, but I’m about to have a kid. I have to be more responsible.”

“What?”

“We both said this was just a hook-up in the first place. I’ll admit that it became a little more than that.” He lifted her hand and kissed the palm. She didn’t feel that either.

“So, we’re done, just like that?”

He looked at her longingly. “It has to be. I have a son.”

“Not yet,” she whispered. “It doesn’t have to end yet.”

Derek stood up, walked behind Jada, and kissed her neck. Gently, he lifted her from her chair. She let him. He wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned into him, feeling something like a tornado victim. Before her eyes, her home, her way of life, her being seemed to be uprooted, swirled in the air, and thrown somewhere she couldn’t see. She grabbed Derek and held on so she wouldn’t blow away too.

“Jada...” he whispered into her neck.

“No,” she interrupted him, trying to halt the inevitable. To keep him from talking, she kissed him, not caring that they were at school and there was no lock on the door. Anyone could walk in: a student, another faculty member, the principal. But she didn’t care. Jada needed to feel connected to Derek. She poured all of her emotions into him with her tongue. He kissed her back, communicating his own. Jada knew he didn’t want to end this; he just felt obligated. She could respect his obligation, respect him for feeling it. But what they had was good. It shouldn’t have to end because of a damn baby who wasn’t even here yet. A thousand things could happen between now and then. There was no reason they could not be together until the baby was born, and when they got to that bridge, they could decide how to cross it. She tried to say all of this in her kiss because she had been a speechless fool when he was talking to her.

“Mmm, I’m going to miss this,” he murmured, coming out of the kiss.

“You don’t have to. We can keep this relationship going.” She began unbuttoning his pants.

“Jada, I was serious. We have to end this.” He halfheartedly attempted to move her hands from his zipper.

“Derek, you know this is what you want.”

He shook his head as he silently watched her jerk down her pants and panties and pull his erect penis out of his boxers. Rolling his eyes upward in surrender, he pushed Jada against the cinder blocks behind her desk and entered her hard. Jada wrapped her arms around his neck and held on to him as he bounced her against the wall. She finally felt the connection. She closed her eyes and prayed that it would hold.

But it didn’t. After Derek pulled up his pants, he promised her that would be the last time; he thought it best if they didn’t even talk for a while.

The numb feeling reentered Jada’s body and she walked through the rest of the day like a zombie. She didn’t come alive again until Wednesday morning when Regina called her before work.

“The nurse just called. You better come over to Nana’s. She took a turn for the worse last night. The doctor’s out here. They don’t think she’ll make it.”

A flood of fear overran Jada’s body. Just when she thought she had made it through Derek’s tornado, a new disaster was aiming for her, threatening to drown her sanity if not her actual life. Nana could not die. What would she do without her?

At Nana’s, Gina and the nurse were talking quietly in the kitchen. Jada barely acknowledged them as she practically ran to Nana’s bedroom. She stopped at the doorway. Nana seemed even smaller than she had on Sunday. Thin, and transparent even, she looked like she was simply fading from existence. Her eyes were closed and the room was devoid of sound except the slow beeping of the heart monitor.

This can’t be real, Jada thought. It was almost a wish, a prayer. “Nana,” she called. She reached up and touched her necklace. Jada thought she saw the older woman’s jaw twitch, but there was no other movement. She moved closer to the bed and threw herself on Nana’s shoulder. “Nana, you have to stay here with us. You still have a lot to teach us hardheaded girls.” When no response came, not even the jaw twitch, Jada grabbed Nana’s hand and cried softly.

She didn’t know how long she stayed like that. It seemed like hours, days, but it didn’t matter. As long as she lay on Nana’s shoulder and felt her warm hand, she knew she was alive.

But why was God punishing her? Why was God taking away all the people whom Jada loved? She was a good person; she loved her family; she worked hard for her students; she went to church. What more did God want from her? Didn’t she deserve to be happy and loved? In this storm, she needed to be like those mothers in the tornadoes who lay atop their most precious ones and save them. Couldn’t she save her world from total destruction? Wasn’t she doing it now, lying atop her Nana to keep her from flying away?

But eventually Regina made her get up. Jada walked numbly over to the couch in the bedroom and lay down. She must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes, it was dark outside and she knew what she had to do. Like a trickle of sunshine pushing a small space through a barrier of clouds, a light dawned on her. She did not have to be unhappy. She could fix this.

With a kiss on her grandmother’s forehead and a quick prayer for her to keep living, Jada walked out of the house without saying a word to her sister or the nurse. She got in her car and drove the familiar trek up I-55 to Madison. She was going to Derek’s house to do what had to be done.

This time, she did not park in the driveway next door. Instead, she parked on the street two houses down from Derek’s. She knew on Wednesday nights he played tennis with some friends so he wouldn’t be home. It would just be Jada and his wife. It would be quick and easy. Jada would ring the doorbell, she would come to the door and let Jada in after Jada told her she had important information about Derek. She would be shocked, but Jada would do it. She would stop the loss of everything dear to her.

It was spring and the sun was going down later and slower, it seemed. A faint glow painted the evening. Cars whirred by in the distance, but otherwise the neighborhood was oddly quiet, safely unaware of the storm of sounds gathering inside of Jada. She heard sobs and wails and pleas inside her head. She rang the doorbell, and for a brief moment the melody obscured the cries. But only for a brief moment. When she opened the door, smiling hospitably, they returned.

“You need to know something, Mrs. Ross.” She spoke the woman’s name like a curse word. “Derek and I have been fucking for the past year.”

Horror and disbelief wrestled across the woman’s puffy, glowing face. Jada had to admit that pregnancy was agreeing with her; she looked less ordinary. But her new mom’s glow did not dissuade Jada. Instead, it emboldened her. This woman and her baby were responsible for blowing down the walls of her happiness. That had to end. Tonight.

Quickly, she pulled her pistol from her purse. It seemed light as a pencil. Maybe because she couldn’t feel anything on her person. She didn’t even feel the cool release of the trigger. She may not have known she had actually shot the woman if Jada hadn’t heard the loud pop and then another pop. Then a strange thing happened. All of her senses came back and she felt the gun, the warm mugginess of the night air against her back, and the hot splattering of blood across her bare arms and chest. She fell to the ground. Jada looked around, but no one was outside so she pushed the woman’s lifeless body farther into the foyer, out of immediate sight. Then she turned and walked out of the house, pulling the door closed with her now-crimson hands. She rubbed Nana’s necklace like a good luck stone.

But she had just made her own luck. She had eliminated the source of her problems. There was no baby to keep Derek tied to his wife. They could be together, and she didn’t have to worry about losing him. It never occurred to her, even as she drove back to Nana’s with blood covering her steering wheel and the pearly white of her necklace, that she had just lost herself.

Most Things Haven’t Worked Out by William Boyle

Holly Springs

Back when I was fifteen there wasn’t much Mississippi outside Holly Springs. I’d never hopped a train or even met someone from the coast. I’d been to a football game in Oxford with Phael once and to a doctor in Olive Branch when a roach got stuck in my ear. I stayed with Grandma Oliver because my mom was dead and so was my dad, though I never knew him. He was from Memphis and that was where he died. Shot by cops while robbing a liquor store. That was the story anyway. My mom smoked too much and got lung cancer and it spread everywhere and she went fast.

Grandma Oliver was taller than me and carried around an oxygen tank and smoked Pyramids and sometimes wore a Harley-Davidson bandanna across her forehead. I didn’t get along great with her or her husband, who wasn’t my real grandfather. His name was Jefferson, and he was Grandma Oliver’s third husband. Her first one had died of a heart attack when he was thirty-two. Her second one, my real grandfather, had killed himself in the bathroom with a razor. You could still see darkness on the tiles around the tub. All the rooms at Grandma Oliver’s had something like that. If it wasn’t blood, it was a ghost feeling. The house was painted traffic-cone orange and it glowed like an electric burner. Kids made fun of me for that orange. When I wasn’t in school, and even on some days when I was supposed to be in school, I spent all my time at the library. In the summer, I was at the library all day. I read books and watched a lot of movies. They had a little booth with a TV and headphones and you could watch a movie if no one was waiting. No one was ever waiting. Most people only came for the computers.

One day this lady came in and put on a presentation. It was right as I was getting to the naked part of The Terminator. The lady who did the presentation was called Miss Mary. She had this red curly hair and these freckles. She was maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. Her presentation was on birds. I saw it was going on out of the corner of my eye at first, but then I went over. Only two other kids were there for the presentation, and they were much younger than me. Miss Mary stopped what she was doing and smiled at me. “Welcome,” she said. “What’s your name?”

I told her it was Jalen.

“Jalen, you like birds?”

“I guess. Crows. Hummingbirds too. I’ve been to that Hummingbird Festival.”

“That’s where I work now, the place that holds the festival. The Audubon Center. I just moved here from New York.”

I nodded and sat down on the floor and crossed my legs. I’d seen New York in movies. I wanted to live there. I wasn’t thinking that New York was a big state. I was just thinking that she was from the city and that she rode in taxis and ate hot dogs on the street with a napkin balanced on her palm and that she took elevators up to the tops of tall buildings. I wanted to ask her why Mississippi, but she started showing us pictures of other birds. She leaned over, and I could see down her shirt. All that roundness. I wanted to kiss her freckles.

When she was done with the presentation and packing up, I asked her if I could help and she let me carry her box of binders out to the parking lot. Her car was yellow, the windshield webby with shatter. She had a red scrunchie on the rearview mirror and Obama bumper stickers. She thanked me for carrying the box and put it in the trunk. “It was nice meeting you,” she said. “Someday you should come out to Audubon and I’ll show you around. When the festival’s not going on out there, it’s so peaceful. We can watch the hummingbirds in the garden behind the Davis House. And I’ll take you out on the Gator.”

“Can we do that tomorrow?” I asked.

She didn’t even hesitate. “Absolutely,” she said. I was so glad to know that she’d meant it, that she hadn’t just been saying it. I was so used to people just saying things.

“What time should I come there?”

“How’s ten sound?”

I nodded. “Good. You miss New York?”

“I like it here.”

“Will you stay?”

“I hope so.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, and I turned back to the library.

Miss Mary offered me a ride, but I told her I lived right up the block even though I lived almost two miles down Route 7 and had to walk all the way on the shoulder and would’ve killed for a ride. I just didn’t want her to see Grandma Oliver’s house. And Jefferson was always sitting out on the porch with a cooler of Bud and some scratch-offs. I didn’t want her to see that either.

Holly Springs was full of sirens. Phael’s great-uncle had been shot in his car the week before right off the square downtown and the cops seemed to be running around even more than usual. I walked home thinking about Miss Mary. I wondered where she stayed. I wondered what kind of food she ate. I pictured her reading at night in gym shorts with no top on.

Grandma Oliver was on me right when I walked in the door. She wanted me to mow the lawn. I wanted to slam her head through the kitchen window. The way she spoke to me. Like I was a dumb slobbering dog. She didn’t even know me. Didn’t know I liked books and movies. I didn’t say anything. Just took off my shirt and went out and pushed the mower around for two hours. I drank from the spigot near the old garden shed and cars honked as they passed on the road, not because they knew us, but because the orange of the house made people want to honk at it. I was sick of horns.

I ate a bologna sandwich with pickles when I was done and then went into my room and read a library copy of Books of Blood until I could feel my eyes getting weaker. I couldn’t wait to be out at Audubon with Miss Mary. I wanted sleep to pass without actually having to sleep. I wanted the future.

The walk to Audubon was twice as long as the walk to the library. I had to go way out on 7 past Rust College and then make a left on 311. It was so hot the sweat had thickened all over me. I was wearing my red basketball shorts and a tank top, but I couldn’t even feel the air on my skin. My socks squished in my sneakers. Across from Rust was an abandoned building. I stopped to drink a Great Value citrus soda I’d brought with me. I wiped my head with the back of my hand. A cop buzzed by with his windows open and gave me a long look from behind his dickhead sunglasses. I didn’t wave. I knew that waving was the wrong thing. Phael taught me that. He told me they were just waiting for an excuse to shoot me.

The second part of the walk was the worst because the shoulder shriveled up on 311. Cars and trucks swerved out over the double-yellows to avoid me. Sweat stung my eyes. I’d finished my soda and hadn’t brought any water. My lips stuck to my teeth.

When I finally made it to Audubon, it was almost eleven and Miss Mary was waiting outside the visitor’s center for me. “You walk all this way?” she said.

I nodded.

“You should’ve told me you needed a ride. Come in and have some water.”

She brought me inside and put ice in a plastic cup from Corky’s and filled it to the edge with tap water. I took it and drank half in one long slurp. Some of the water spilled out of the side of my mouth and down the front of my shirt. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“You didn’t bring any water?”

“Just a soda.”

“Let’s go out on the back porch,” she said. “You rest awhile.”

The back porch was screened in. We sat in reclining chairs at a long oak table with paint splashes on it. Eight feeders hung from the eaves of the roof right outside the screen. Hummingbirds skittered in to drink sugar water. Trees spread out in their greenness beyond the feeders. I drank more water and took a few deep breaths.

“Are you okay?” Miss Mary asked.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. I’ll give you a ride home later, don’t worry.” Then she told me some things about hummingbirds, about their little hearts, about how fast their wings beat, about mixing the sugar and water and boiling it and letting it cool before putting it in the feeders.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Miss Mary said.

I wanted to know how high they went. I wanted to know if no one put their feeders out what would happen. I wanted to know how they knew to come here to the festival. I wanted to put my hand on Miss Mary’s leg. I just sat there and finished my water.

“Were you born in Holly Springs?” Miss Mary asked.

I said yes.

“I told you I’m from New York. People think New York and they think the city. But it’s a huge state. I’m from the Hudson Valley. Everyone asks me if I have culture shock. I don’t think so. I like it here.”

“You got family back there?”

“My family’s gone.”

“My mom and dad are dead. I live with my grandma.”

“Sweetie, I’m sorry.”

“Your family dead?”

She paused and looked out at the fluttering hummingbirds. “My dad is. My mom’s just gone.”

“Is anyone else here today?” I asked.

“Three other people work here. Landry is the director. He’s at a conference in Jackson. Willa is the native plant specialist, but she took the day off for a horse thing in Memphis. And then there’s Jimmy, the groundskeeper-slash-maintenance guy. I think he’s got jury duty.” She stood up. “You bring lunch? I have a peanut butter and banana sandwich. We can split it.”

“Ma’am, that’s okay.”

“You must be hungry.” She disappeared into the kitchen and came back out with half a sandwich wrapped in a paper towel.

I unfolded the paper towel and looked at it. The crust on the bread was thick and the bread was flecked with seeds. The peanut butter was crunchy-looking. I was used to Great Value white bread and peanut butter, the same peanut butter Grandma Oliver put in the mousetraps. I took a bite.

Miss Mary started telling me other things about herself. She said she hadn’t traveled much, but she’d spent some time in Florida. She had a distant cousin in Fort Myers who owned a bar. She said she was reading the Game of Thrones books and she wanted to go to France and she drove to Oxford last week to get milk at Brown’s Dairy and had gotten interested in birds after college.

I didn’t really have a life to tell her about. I wanted to make things up but that seemed like the wrong thing to do. I told her I liked whatever for music. I told her I watched movies at the library and that I liked horror books, but I didn’t remember the names of the ones I’d read. I told her I went to Oxford once for a football game against LSU and I couldn’t ever forget the people with chandeliers up in their tailgate tents.

She laughed and said, “Let’s go out on the Gator.”

We drove out to the far parts of the property on the Gator, and Miss Mary showed me an old sharecropper house where vultures tucked themselves into the darkness behind the broken windows. Across from that, down a scrubby dirt trail, was a slave cemetery that was really just a small patch of markers and mounds. The markers were thin stone slabs without any writing. Brightness settled on the graves from gaps in the nearby stand of trees. “It always makes me sad to think of what they must’ve gone through,” Miss Mary said, patting me on the shoulder.

Next she took me to Sharecropper’s Pond, where a beaver was trying to build a dam with a tree he’d gnawed down. She said they had a motion-detection camera set up on the other side of the pond to catch the beaver and the cranes and whatever else in action. One of her favorite things was to watch the footage when she came to work in the morning. “I didn’t have anything like this in New York,” she said.

“I went fishing with Phael once,” I said.

“Who’s Phael?”

“He’s my friend. He’s afraid of eating poison by mistake.”

“Like getting poisoned?”

“Like eating something that no one knows is poisoned. We didn’t eat any of the fish we caught. We just left them with the hooks in their mouths on a picnic table.”

“That’s sad.”

“I didn’t hate those fish though. I liked them. I felt sorry about it.”

Miss Mary was wearing a droopy backpack and she took out a canteen of water and a pair of binoculars. She shared the water with me; she really didn’t mind my lips on the canteen. I liked having my mouth where her mouth had been. She showed me how to focus the binoculars and I looked up at the sky and the tops of trees. I saw some little birds she said were chimney swifts.

We sat down on the grass and passed the canteen back and forth.

When we were done, she screwed the cap back on and we took the Gator over to a blind where a telescope was set up. A boom box was chained to the wall and Miss Mary turned on the radio to a Memphis station.

I looked through the telescope and I saw everything close up through the glass. Birds and mud and flowers and bushes and dry things and the ground where the sun had baked it hard. I aimed the telescope at the sky and focused in on the brightness.

Probably about forty minutes passed, and I was still looking through the telescope. Miss Mary wasn’t getting sick of it. She wasn’t complaining. She was just sitting there, looking peaceful. Eventually I stepped away from the telescope and sat next to her. “I got lost looking,” I said.

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said. “I was just taking in the day. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I came from some bad things back in New York. I’m trying to be positive. I’ve been doing yoga. I’ve been trying not to let negative energy influence me.”

“I wish I had a telescope or a pair of binoculars,” I said. “I’d look at things all day.”

Miss Mary opened up her backpack and took out the pair of binoculars she’d used at the pond. “Here. Take these.”

“Ma’am, I couldn’t.”

“Take them. I got them cheap. I have another pair. Plus, we have about twenty pairs back at the visitor’s center for camp.”

I took the binoculars and hung them around my neck and then glassed the treeline beyond the trail we were near. “I see a bird with a red head,” I said.

“That’s a woodpecker.”

I examined the woodpecker closely, the way he kissed the bark. “Why do you like me?” I asked. “I mean, why do you like hanging out with me?”

Miss Mary didn’t look startled or anything. “I guess I see something in you. Something I recognize. Some loneliness. I think we’re kindred spirits. I believe in that kind of thing, I do. Like maybe you were my son in another life. Like maybe I sang you to sleep.”

The woodpecker flickered away and I let the binoculars fall around my neck. “I feel that way too, I think. Like you took care of me once and you’re taking care of me again.”

“See?” she said.

“Thank you for the binoculars,” I said.

We went back to the visitor’s center and Miss Mary made me a glass of iced tea with honey stirred into it and a piece of lemon wedged on the rim of the glass. It was the best iced tea I’d ever had, nothing like the mix Grandma Oliver made or the Arizonas I got at the Shell. We sat in the main room where there were taxidermied animals: a bear, a coyote, a fox, a squirrel, two hawks, a mallard, and an otter. Glass cases filled with skins and hides and bones lined the walls. Miss Mary said, “I hope you had a good time. Next time we’ll pick blackberries.”

“I did.”

“I have to be here until four. Just wait for me, if you don’t mind. I’ll give you a ride.”

“I don’t mind.”

Outside we heard tires crunching gravel in the parking lot.

“Looks like we have a visitor,” Miss Mary said. “You can help me show them around. Maybe you want to volunteer here eventually? I can train you.” She went over to the window and looked out.

I stood next to her. A van had parked behind her car, blocking it in. The van was red with gold stripes, and I could see the shape of a lady in the driver’s seat. She was smoking a cigarette, and I thought she must be pretty old because she carried herself with a sharpness. Miss Mary’s face had gone pale.

“Who is that?” I asked.

Miss Mary scrambled around and locked the doors and shut off the lights and took me in the back bathroom where we crouched down next to the toilet.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Oh God,” Miss Mary said.

“Ma’am?”

“It’s Mother Edna.”

We heard a tapping out on the front porch, like Mother Edna was nudging the ground with a stick. I didn’t ask questions. Miss Mary was scared to her bones. Next we heard what sounded like one finger streaking down a window.

“Honey!” Mother Edna called out. Her voice was deep and smoke-grizzled. “I’ll burn you out if I have to.”

Miss Mary crumpled to her knees. “How’d she find me here? How’d she know about Mississippi?”

I stayed quiet.

“A nature sanctuary?” her mother said through the glass, drawing out the last word.

Miss Mary put her hand on mine and said, “I’m going to go out. You stay in here. Don’t be afraid. Just stay put.” She stood up and left the bathroom.

I felt alive. I pressed my ear against the door and tried to hear what Miss Mary was saying to her mother. All I heard was the low rumble of their voices. The sound of my heart racing filled the hot little bathroom. A mildewy towel was folded across a rack near the sink and the smell tickled the back of my throat. I opened the door and crawled out into the main room on my hands and knees, the binoculars still hanging from my neck. I tried to see out the window but couldn’t without standing up, so I went to the back door, unlocked it, and tiptoed onto the porch where Miss Mary had given me water that morning. The hummers were buzzing at their feeders. I opened the screen door, careful not to let it slam shut, and ducked around the side of the house. I hid behind a picnic table and lifted the binoculars to my eyes. Miss Mary and her mother weren’t that far off, and I could see way up close in the glass. The old lady had a cigarette in a cigarette holder and was exhaling smoke in big gusts. She was wearing thick heels and a red skirt that stopped at her knees. The skirt was unwrinkled. Her blouse was white and her sleeves were rolled up, as if she’d had to show somebody how to do something the proper way. She was old but not that old. Maybe fifty. And she was beautiful, with glassy eyes and the same long red hair as Miss Mary, except hers was a dye job and the red was closer to purple. Her nails were long and painted with clear polish, the half-moon cuticles dotted red. She was wearing a gold cross on a wispy chain around her neck. But it was her earrings that stopped me: little silver guns with diamond triggers.

I still couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Miss Mary’s shoulders were slumped as if she’d been scolded into submission. She was trembling.

The old lady, as if she could sense me, swung around and peered in my direction. I didn’t have much cover. I tried to stay hidden behind the table. She didn’t holler or charge. She removed the cigarette from the holder and then twisted it under her heel and walked calmly across the lot. I thought about running into the woods, but I didn’t move.

“Come on out here,” she said, sitting at the other end of the table and putting her elbows up on the splintered wood.

I let the binoculars fall to a dangle and stood.

“And who are you?” she said.

Miss Mary came running over. “He’s just a kid who was visiting today. Let him go.”

“Just a kid. I’ve heard that one before.”

“He’s got nothing to do with any of this.”

Mother Edna laughed. “My daughter here,” she said to me, “is a coward, pal. A bona fide coward.” She paused and motioned to the bench. “Sit down.”

I sat at the table.

“Never met such a subdued little shine,” she said. And then: “Take those binoculars off.”

I took the binoculars off and put them down on the table. I pressed my fingers against the lenses on the small side. I wanted to put them back on and look up at the birds in the trees and have Miss Mary whisper in my ear what they were. I looked at her and saw that she had changed in her face even more. No birds could brighten her.

“Everything will be okay, Jalen.” Miss Mary sat down across from me and touched my hands over the binoculars.

Mother Edna didn’t say anything. She just sat there and then she cracked her knuckles. They sounded like stomping on bubble wrap. Miss Mary tightened her grip on my hands as if the knuckle-cracking signaled the beginning of something terrible.

“I’m not scared,” I said.

“You should be,” Mother Edna said.

Mother Edna walked us over to the van and made us stand face-to-face. I was taller than Miss Mary by two or three inches, but she looked even smaller now. She looked like she’d lost about ten years. Mother Edna opened the back doors of the van and took out two pairs of red plastic ties and then she made us cross our arms and cuffed us left-to-left and right-to-right, cinching the ties with a tab that pinched my skin. Then she pushed us into the back of the van. The rear seats had been pulled out and we spilled across the floor like dead deer. Mother Edna slammed the doors and walked around to the driver’s side. I was so close to Miss Mary I could feel her breath on my neck and smell her sweat. I couldn’t fight off getting wood. I couldn’t look at Miss Mary’s face even though I knew my dick was the last thing she was worried about.

“She’s not going to kill us,” Miss Mary said. “She needs me.” But the words caught in her throat and she stopped talking. I knew why. Mother Edna needed Miss Mary for whatever reason, but she didn’t need me. She’d kill me if Miss Mary didn’t give her what she wanted. I still didn’t feel scared; I wanted the chance to kill Mother Edna. I wanted to kill her for Miss Mary. Maybe she’d love me for that.

Mother Edna got under the wheel. She reached across to the passenger seat, palmed something, and brought it up to her face. I twisted my head to see what it was. It was a plastic lion mask with an elastic strap that she’d pulled around the back of her head. The mask was well-worn, orange faded to rust, and the plastic was chipped and cracked around the edges. “You remember this, Audrey?”

Miss Mary shuddered against me.

“Audrey’s her real name,” Mother Edna said. “Audrey Rose O’Brien. I used to wear this around the house to spook her when she was little.”

She kept the mask on as she started the van. A hole was cut in the mouth. She put a cigarette in her holder and inserted the holder into the hole. She lit the cigarette and took a long pull and then exhaled smoke around the edges of the mask. “I’m waiting,” she said.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Miss Mary said.

“Tell me where to go.”

Miss Mary had tears in her voice but held them back. “This is about the money I took?”

Mother Edna laughed.

“I don’t know where it is,” Miss Mary said.

“Try again.”

“It’s gone. I spent it all getting settled.”

Mother Edna took off the mask and hung it from the rearview mirror. She climbed into the passenger seat and opened the glove box. A pair of wire cutters rested on top of a stack of road maps and a snuff container. Wire cutters in hand, she climbed into the back with us and kneeled over me, slipping the jaws of the wire cutter around my left pinky. “Every lie you tell, I snip off one of his fingers,” Mother Edna said.

“Just let him go,” Miss Mary said.

“Okay. Sorry, pal.”

I felt the jaws digging into my skin and closed my eyes. Time slowed down. I tried to visualize the wire cutters tearing through my skin and bone, my little finger falling between me and Miss Mary, blood fountaining from the stump. Nothing happened.

“I buried it,” Miss Mary said, kicking her feet around, trying to push her mother off me. “Most of it. I kept a few thousand at home. The rest is buried.”

“Where?”

“Here. Out on the property.”

“Let’s go. You have a shovel?”

“There’s a shovel over in the maintenance shed,” Miss Mary said. “You have to promise to let Jalen go before I tell you where the money is.”

“I’ll let him go after I get my money.”

“I don’t trust you. Let him go first.”

Mother Edna leaned over me again and put the jaws of the wire cutters back in place on my left pinky. She squeezed the handles together and I felt pressure first and then a bolt of pain spreading from my hand to my shoulder and I knew there was only air now where my little finger used to be. I looked up at Mother Edna. She was holding my pinky in her hand, dangling it like a slug. Miss Mary was screaming. Blood spread between us. A wave of nausea hit me and I passed out.

When I woke up, I was alone in the back of the van and the first thing I felt was the absence of my finger. I’d dreamed Miss Mary was kissing my neck. I’d dreamed all my teeth were gone and I was trying to kiss her back with a mouthful of slobber. Pain thumped through my body. My ankles were tied together but my hands weren’t. A T-shirt had been wrapped around my left hand and duct-taped into something like a boxing glove. I sat up, drenched in sweat, and looked around. Out the windows all I saw were trees. I heard Miss Mary and Mother Edna talking. Their voices seemed distant at first but then I realized they were right out in front of the van.

“I should’ve killed you before Kingston,” Mother Edna said.

“Just let me dig,” Miss Mary said.

“You and your father, I should’ve fucking done you at the same time. I thought I could make something of you at least. Your father was nothing but that policy he took out.”

I twisted around and made it up to my knees, the pain in my hand throbbing. I straightened my back and strained to see through the windshield. The van was parked on the dirt trail leading to the slave cemetery. Miss Mary was digging up one of the mounds. I couldn’t see how deep the hole was. Mother Edna was standing with her back to me.

“Why do you care about the Tatarskys so goddamn much?” Mother Edna asked.

“You ruined their lives,” Miss Mary said, tossing dirt to the side of her. “That old man killed himself. For what?”

“The money, sweetheart.” Mother Edna shook her head. “I don’t know what the fuck I did wrong raising you. Somehow I let you be weak. I guess that’s from your father.”

“Don’t talk about him anymore.” Miss Mary finally started crying, but she was still fighting it.

“He died because he was weak, and I need weak things out of my way.” Mother Edna paused. “You’re just lucky you got to the hospital that first time, that’s all. Luck’s just luck. It doesn’t last. The things you thought took guts — like stealing my money — didn’t take any guts. You don’t know from guts.”

Miss Mary stopped shoveling and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Get back to it,” Mother Edna said.

Miss Mary didn’t move.

“You need incentive? You, I’m gonna put in that hole, but the kid I’ll turn loose once I have the money. My word’s as good as you’ll get.”

Miss Mary started digging again.

I couldn’t walk with the plastic ties around my ankles, but I knew I’d be able to hop. I scrambled to the back of the van and pulled the handle and then pushed the doors open with my feet. I was hoping for a quiet exit but the doors whined. I jumped to the ground, turned, and saw Mother Edna spinning to me. She didn’t have a weapon that I could see. No gun hiding in an ankle holster either. She came at me, hands raised, and I bunny-hopped to the side, which made the pain in my hand even worse.

“Get back in the van,” she said. “I’ll let you go once I have my money.”

Miss Mary was fast on Mother Edna’s heels with the shovel. She swung it once, aiming for Mother Edna’s back, and missed, slamming the blade into the hard earth.

Mother Edna, lucky for the whiff, turned to Miss Mary and scratched her face, breaking a few of her nails and drawing blood from her daughter’s cheeks.

I hopped painfully past them and went to the hole that Miss Mary had been digging. One of the markers nearby had been loosened. I picked it up with my good hand and held it to my chest. It was an old stone tablet. Thin but sturdy. It looked like bone and felt like it too.

Miss Mary tried to swing the shovel again but she was too close to Mother Edna, who reached out and disarmed her. Mother Edna poked the handle end of the shovel into Miss Mary’s stomach, knocking her to the ground. Then she pinned down her daughter with her foot and swatted her face with the flat end of the shovel blade. Miss Mary whimpered and brought her arms up to protect herself from another blow.

I hopped back to where they were, cradling the grave marker.

Mother Edna stepped back and pointed the shovel at me.

Miss Mary rolled around on the ground, holding her face. Mother Edna was only half-watching her, focusing on me now. Miss Mary was aiming to take out Mother Edna’s legs, but she was off course. She drove Mother Edna closer to me.

I let out a breath.

Mother Edna swung the shovel, and I ducked it.

I hopped closer to her and lashed out with the grave marker, mashing it into the side of her head. The stone split in half. Mother Edna went down hard, landing on her elbows and then collapsing forward. Miss Mary stood, her face covered in blood and dirt, and picked up the shovel. She brought it down on the back of Mother Edna’s head. Mother Edna screamed into the ground. Her blood misted across my legs. I wanted to spit on her.

It was still light out, the sun two hours away from setting. Birds in the trees squawked and sang. Miss Mary kept hitting Mother Edna in the back of the head with the shovel until her hands and feet twitched and she went limp. I noticed those earrings again, tiny guns that weren’t worth shit.

“Ma’am, what are we gonna do?” I asked.

Miss Mary sat down on her mother, holding the shovel across her lap. “I’m so sorry you had to be part of this.”

I leaned against the van, blood starting to soak through the T-shirt wrapped around my hand. “I’m glad she’s dead. I didn’t mind hurting her.”

“She deserved it. Hitting her with that shovel felt good. I know that’s wrong.”

“You still feel the same about me, like I was your son in another life?”

Miss Mary stood up and hugged me. “Sure I do, Jalen. And you saved me like sons are supposed to. I can’t tell you how much that means. I hope when I have a son he’s just like you.”

We stayed hugging for a while and then she kissed me on the mouth. Her lips fireworked against mine and the pain in my hand seemed to disappear. I could smell her freckles. I could smell down to her bones. It was a quick kiss, just lips, but I got wood again. This time I tucked it up in my waistband to deflate it.

“We’ll bury her, I guess,” Miss Mary said, pulling away.

“You have that money?”

She nodded. “It’s buried where I said.”

“I’m glad you got that.”

She cut my legs free. I wondered what I smelled like. I sat back and watched as she dug out the money, which was in a brown suitcase covered in stickers. Then we rolled Mother Edna into the hole with the broken marker and filled it in. I hated to think about her buried with the bones of all those people who’d been done wrong. We tried to make her grave look like the rest of the cemetery, dry and hard, not freshly dug up. Miss Mary said no one would care that Mother Edna was missing and they wouldn’t look here anyway.

We walked to Sharecropper’s Pond. She tossed the shovel in and it sank down to the murky bottom. Miss Mary told me Mother Edna had tossed my pinky into the woods near the visitor’s center. She said it was probably too late. I’d also lost the binoculars.

We left in the van, the money in the back. I threw Mother Edna’s lion mask out the window when we turned onto 311. Miss Mary came up with a story that I’d been attacked by a stray dog. She dropped me at an urgent care clinic up the road in Collierville. I expected her to wait for me, but she said she couldn’t, not with her face messed up and driving Mother Edna’s van the way she was. She shook my good hand and said she’d come check on me. But I knew she’d disappear with that van, and I was right. No one else knew why she left like that, her car still parked at Audubon, her apartment paid up for the month.

I found out where Miss Mary’s place was the next day and broke in. She’d been there and taken some stuff. I went through what was left. In the garbage I found a few pairs of underwear streaked from her period. I held them to my cheek and then balled them up and put them in a plastic bag. I took scrunchies off doorknobs and books from her bed stand and painted rocks she’d lined up on the windowsill. I drank the rest of her good milk and made peanut butter sandwiches. I took her toothbrush; I still use it.

Grandma Oliver was very aware of me from then on. I never slept anymore. I’d stand in the kitchen and bounce a rubber ball off the wall. One night she put her hand on me like I was a dog she was done taking care of, a Pyramid hanging from her mouth, her oxygen tank rattling at her hip. It’s not hard to make someone who smokes on oxygen go away. Jefferson was passed out drunk when the fire ate them up.

These days I wake in a wormy sleeping bag and gnarl my way into unsteadiness. I’m etched with loss like some kind of crippled king. I’m twenty-four but I look twice that age. Miss Mary was it for me, with her smile and bright promise. My one shot. The hours I spent with her I knew all of life. Now I’m dirt. I ghost the town. Break in places for food. Steal from sheds and gardens. Cop cars spit gravel at me when I’m out walking. I’m the freak at the gas station missing a finger, the one who scrapes change for a short dog of wine, the one they say kills pets for food, the one whose eyes linger on your clean high school girl in her cheerleader skirt. Dirt. Even the Nation of Islam guys by the post office ignore me. I stay in a tent out in the woods near the slave cemetery. Sometimes I walk over there and I can hear the old bones singing about the meanness of the new bones and I know that’s the same meanness that chased Miss Mary through life. Me, I got broken by being so close to kindness.