Brittney’s house, Friday night is the first of three installments from influential writer Chris Kraus’s in-progress book, The Four Spent the Day Together (working title); each "chapter" or section is being published exclusively by Pioneer Works Broadcast roughly every two months. Inspired by the real-life crime the Mesabi Trail Murder, the book dives deep into the small-town dramas of Hibbing, Minnesota—in the state’s Iron Range—leading up to a homicide on a snowmobile trail.

Hibbing, January 2019

A one-and-a-half story old wood-frame house on the east side of Hibbing, Minnesota: built by the mine companies in the 1930s, it’s looked exactly the same for as long as anyone here can remember, a mustard-beige house with brown trim partly hidden behind two half-dead Hemlock trees. The half-story is an expanded attic with boat-ceiled rooms under the eaves. All of the houses are set close to the street. In front of each one, a short concrete walk runs from the sidewalk to three or four cement steps leading up to the front door. On the southeast side of Hibbing, there must be 150 houses like this, and on the southwest, 150 more. Hibbing’s professional class, resigned to pursuing careers in a spent mining town four hours north of the Twin Cities, six when the weather is bad, keeps itself hid.

Two streets away from this house on Third Avenue East, First Avenue runs the mile from Highway 169 to Howard Street, downtown’s main street. Downtown is the Veteran’s Thrift Store and the Goodwill and the Salvation Army; a couple of mom and pop antique stores that are closed more often than not; a China Buffet; Rudy’s Pizza and Sammy’s Pizza for takeout; a closed Mexican restaurant, a closed chiropractor’s office, a closed shoe store; a hair salon, closed; another hair salon, expensive and open; a tattoo studio, a bike shop and the Howard Street Office Suites.

Everything else—the Walmart, the Lowe’s, the hospital, the DMV and the Municipal Center, Comcast, Super One, Holiday Gas and the Chevrolet dealership—takes place on Highway 169 outside of town. The east and west sides lie on either side of the old downtown but so far, no one has thought to call it a historic district, paint their front door Tangerine or French Blue or put an Everyone Is Welcome Here sign in their yard. The only yard signs you’ll see are for mining or Trump. We Support Mining/Mining Supports Us. … which is no longer technically true, almost 50% of the town’s jobs are in health care and the rest are in retail or service; but mining is Hibbing’s origin myth, a legend that goes back to the days of the clean-living working class family supported solely by dad, a time no one alive now remembers, did it even exist? A time when a family needed only one car, mom walked down to the Blue Hen IGA on First and Howard to buy groceries while the kids were at school, and they all went to hockey games, Knights of Columbus and church.  

It’s 4:20 pm on the first Friday in January and Brittney French, 17, 5’2”, skinny but not a jock, is upstairs in her room with the door closed. The dull granite sky outside the house has nearly faded to black. Her friend Misty is there. A sheer orange scarf tacked over a window that rattles whenever it storms turns the closet-sized room into a bright cozy hive. Brittney’s hair is cut short, long pieces on top, razor-shaved on the side and the back, but she softens the look with lip gloss and soft smoky eyes. Brittney’s on the narrow twin bed under the eaves and Misty’s sprawled on a pouf on the floor. They’re both hard at work on their phones.  

Waking up around noon, Misty did this and that, waiting until 4pm when Brittney and her boyfriend Dajon would get home from school. Since getting laid off at Walmart Misty’s been helping her grandmother’s boyfriend do odd jobs around town, but there was no work today. The last couple days had warmed up, turning the bright Christmas snow into slush so it wasn’t freezing today, but in Hibbing without transportation you couldn’t do much. She’d thought about walking over to First to do laundry but decided against it. Instead, she signed up for LiveMe and downloaded some new filters from Snap.  

Technically Brittney is “grounded,” but she and her mom understand that at this point the word doesn’t mean shit. She’s run away so many times, she’s been in treatment and juvie and treatment again, and besides she is seventeen, old enough now to be out on her own like Misty’s been since she arrived back in Hibbing after Thief River Falls, a frozen town in the middle of nowhere four hours away.

The last treatment Brittney was in was a teens-only place all the way down in St. Paul and she’d actually done well. She graduated in time for Thanksgiving, and she and her mom reached a détente: she could come home and move back into her room so long as she enrolled at ERATS, a charter school without formal classes, to get her high school diploma, or at least try. Her dad by that point was too pissed to care. The second time she’d been arrested they couldn’t find her a place in rehab anywhere so they sent her to juvie, an hour away in Duluth. Both of her sisters moved out while she was gone, but somehow it seems like her mom has more time for her now. Technically Brittney and Misty are best friends, but if Brittney were pressed to reflect, she’d say it was more like Misty, like the rest of her quote unquote Hibbing friends, was just always around. We were in diapers together! Misty’s said more than once now that she’s dropped out of school and given up on her childhood as an unwanted thing of the past. Misty can actually remember being plopped in a crib alongside Brittney at her Grandma Barb’s house. She remembers when they were five, maybe six, watching out for wild rabbits and climbing trees in the yard. She doesn’t like to remember much that occurred after that.

A plump strawberry blonde in fleece leggings, Misty turned eighteen last August and immediately formalized her non-attendance at school, filling out all the forms at the Municipal Center, signing them with her own name as an adult. She didn’t want any trouble. She had just moved back to Hibbing with her boyfriend Marco and into the duplex with his brother Javier.  

Misty and Marco met while she was living in a group home in Thief River Falls. She had to get out of her grandmother’s place and there were no beds anywhere in the county so CPS sent her there, taking a bad situation and making it worse. At Thief River Falls High, where she knew no one, they made her repeat sophomore year. Misty never understood how Marco’s mom, who was from Durango, ended up in Thief River Falls, but he and his siblings had all grown up there. Marco sold weed and other drugs and hung out with a lot of the kids. He was older than her, 23, and being around him made her feel good. When she got in trouble for missing curfew over and over again, Marco came up with a plan: they’d leave town and start over in Hibbing where she was from and his brother Javier was already living. Marco had problems in town of his own.  

One morning that summer, instead of going to work, Marco picked her up in his van and they left. Javier’s apartment was a cluster of rooms upstairs in a two-family house painted white with black trim. And it was on the same street as Brittney’s, just four blocks down. Which was weird but in a mostly good way, being brought back to the scene of her childhood by these two older Mexican guys. Technically CPS could have reported her disappearance to the police but they were in different counties, and she was about to age out of the system, so they just let it slide.

An abandoned mine pit filled with water from the aquifer.Courtesy of the author.

But now six months later, the apartment no longer belongs to Javier, it’s all hers. Javier moved out before Thanksgiving in the aftermath of a fight that brought half of Hibbing’s on-duty police force to their place. It started out as a fight between Javier and Shannon, Dajon’s mom, and her boyfriend AJ—who were all, along with Shannon’s five other kids, living downstairs. Marco kicked in a window, and even though half of Misty’s face was torn up she didn’t talk, didn’t tell, didn’t snitch. Marco was so drunk and angry he spit at a cop. As soon as he sobered up, he asked the detective downtown if he could talk to the cop face-to-face and he said he was sorry, but they still put him in jail for six months.

Misty’s face healed and she started working at Walmart until she got laid off. She was alone now and the biggest problem was paying the rent. The landlord Bob, who was a friend or acquaintance of Brittney’s dad, managed the place for a couple of guys out of state he called his “investors.” Bob was okay, a little weird, maybe a former meth-head? With an Aspberger’s kid. He kept texting for money but he was basically chill. The downstairs of the duplex was trashed but still, he let Shannon’s family move across the alley into a house that he owned, the house where he and his wife had brought up their kids.

After the fight Misty started spending more time with Dajon, Brittney’s boyfriend, and Shannon. They’d been on the [Iron] Range—first Chisholm, then Hibbing—since 2015. Before that they’d lived in Isanti County, down by the Cities an hour or two north. Shannon and AJ, her boyfriend, drove back to Isanti every month to see friends and buy weed, a pound or a half at a time. Whatever they didn’t use they gave to the kids to sell to their friends. Misty and Shannon Facebook friended each other right away, which was how Misty met Alan, who liked or loved all of her posts. Alan was two years older than her, he liked working on cars, he was cute. A couple of comments, and then he started messaging her, and then they were messaging eight times a day.  

She’d already decided to break up with Marco when he got out of jail, and Alan had just broken up with his ex. After one of the fights between Alan and Amber, his ex, he messaged Misty, Feeling it – it hurts, I’m scared, and most of the time she felt like that too. Alan was staying in Hinckley, about two-and-a-half hours away with his brother Brandon at his Aunt Karen’s place. Brandon and Karen weren’t Alan's bio-brother or aunt but they felt like his real family, a situation to which Misty could almost relate. Still. When Karen got cited by Housing for Alan vaping inside she told him he’d have to move out. This happened just before Christmas and then the whole plan fell into place. Alan would move up to Hibbing and into the duplex, he’d pay half the rent and get Misty’s landlord off her back. And then when Marco got out of jail things would be really clear. Everyone thought this was a good idea.

Alan's truck was impounded, so Shannon and AJ drove down with Misty to Hinckley to pick him up in Shannon’s Explorer. They sat in the front, and she and Alan sat holding hands in the back. That night they slept together for the first time and the next day he posted on Facebook Everyone that’s messaging me asking if I’m single I’m not I’m taken thank you Misty Hart with a heart and a ring.

And now, since returning from treatment, Brittney is dating Dajon! They’d met at ERATS and gotten together at a party the day after Christmas. Before meeting Alan, Misty hadn’t really noticed Dajon. He was the intense-looking kid living downstairs who seemed to come and go on his own. He looked like Edward Scissorhands or one of those Columbine kids who shot up their school. Dajon’s skin was paler than pale, his hair was thick raven black and he wore a long black wool overcoat. He was definitely different. Not slow, more mentally ill or Asperger’s maybe. He had a bad temper for sure. The whole big fight started with something Dajon did or said to Javier.  

Dajon is eighteen, the same age as Misty. She’s never known Brittney to date someone that young. What does she see in Dajon? Misty can’t really understand anything Brittney does anymore. Still, her thing with Dajon has brought them together again—the two girls, the two guys, all of them friends—in a new grown-up way. It’s cool and it’s fun.  

And now here they are hanging out in Brittney’s blue bedroom as if they were 12.  

Hey Taylor from Moose Lake texts Misty.

They met a few hours ago when Misty signed up for LiveMe. She didn’t feel right texting from home where Alan could walk in the door so she asked him to message her back. Heyy.

Gonna bend over for me is the question?

Maybe. Depend.

So you’re a bratty lil girl huh

Oh yeah

I won’t have any problems making u submit

Misty isn’t sure how this should go. The space heater purrs, turning the small room into a sauna. Brittney’s already changed into a tank top and shorts but she’s sweating in fleece.  

Pinning you down

Kissing your neck

She’s already set up a PayPal.me to collect money but she’s never done this before—

I’ll pull your hair

Mmmm     

Does this make her a whore?

Are you gonna send me those pics here? And also a list of your kinks?

Well alright. Brittney has a body count of over one hundred, Misty can’t even begin to imagine, her friend Brittney is fearless, and that count isn’t counting online. And it’s not like Misty’s actually doing anything with Taylor.

Want me to slide my head back and forth over your pussy until you’re dripping then slide in really fast causing you to gasp—

Hey, I’ll have that $60 tonight, she texts to Dajon.

And just in time, because after that Misty’s friend Samantha calls her from work wanting a bag. Two days ago Samantha sold her a half-gram of crack to share with Alan, now she’s looking for weed. Samantha wants to bring over a 20 while she still has it, but Misty’s not home. She doesn’t want Brittney to see Samantha giving her money because she’s never told Brittney about the dealing arrangement she has with Dajon. Would Brittney care? She’s not sure. Therefore, it’s better if Samantha could stop by her place and leave the money out on the living room table, and Samantha tries, but she texts Misty when she arrives, the front door is locked and Alan's not home. Misty decides she’ll walk back, it’s only four blocks away.

She puts on a powder-blue parka found at the Goodwill and gestures that she’s coming back but Brittney’s deep into her phone.  

Do you cheat, John Cole, a divorced guy in his 40s trawling SugarBabies.com wants to know. He’s messaging Brittney who he knows only as “Frenchy,” from his mom’s basement in International Falls. No but I work. Wat you mean work wat kinda work. Brittney sighs. I blow glass—(She really, literally, does. She has a friend with a bench and a torch. At first she just made smoke shop pipes, stuff he could sell, but then later he let her make all kinds of things … strange animals, cave icicles)—I’m a PCA worker—(Her Grandma Barb had just been approved for ten hours of Personal Care, $140 a week, which of course they would split)—I also sleep with people for shit. John Cole replies Ok if we were together would u ever do that knowing ur wit me? He doesn’t mean Personal Care. What is his point? Does he think they’re dating?

Cash is cash, she texts back and then shuts down the app. This guy seems even more stupid and selfish than most.

Alone now, she tries calling Dajon but it goes straight to mail. Where is he? At Chica and Andy’s? Or maybe down in his room in the basement of Shannon’s new place? The wifi there sucks.  

What you doin, she texts.

A half hour later, Brittney’s still alone in her room when he messages back, Everything good sorry phone died.

I figured

The 20 Brent gave me fell out my pocket and I can’t reup till tomorrow. He is back at home, in the room he’s set up for himself under the house: a twin bed, the empty black nylon holster that holds his mom’s gun, and his phone. I’m having the worst day.

I’m sorry love

I just really wanna shoot someone

Dajon has Gangster Disciples stuff all over his page but he calls himself Pineapple Man from the dumb stoner movie that came out in ‘08. He’s a wannabe thug who’d do anything to protect his mom. To Brittney, Dajon’s aspirations seem less scary than sweet.

That cant be your go-to every time you’re upset, she texts back.

But it helps make the anger go away

Yeah so does sex

Tru but you’re grounded

She smiles, texts him a pink heart and gets off the phone.  

Later, when her parents are crashed out for the night, she slips out to his house. She and Dajon hang out with his mom and AJ. They all get high. Except for the littlest kids, everyone’s up. She goes home around 1. ♦