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 a series of crimes in the northern Midwest, 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 Harding, 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 Harding, there must be 150 houses like this, and on the southwest, 150 more. Harding’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 East 11^th Street, 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; Randy’s Pizza and Lonnie’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 Harding’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 Moran, 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 Micah 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 Harding 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 in a suburb outside the Twin Cities 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 Iron Range Trades & Tech, 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 Harding 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 Ann’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 Harding with her boyfriend Fernando and into the duplex with his brother Diego.

Misty and Fernando 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 Fernando’s mom, who said she was from Durango, ended up in Thief River Falls, but he and his siblings had all grown up there. Fernando 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, Fernando came up with a plan: they’d leave town and start over in Harding where she was from and his brother Diego was already living.Fernando had problems in town of his own.

One morning that summer, instead of going to work, Fernando picked her up in his van and they left. Diego’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 Diego, it’s all hers. Diego moved out before Thanksgiving in the aftermath of a fight that brought half of Harding’s on-duty police force to their place. It started out as a fight between Diego and Crystal, Micah’s mom, and her boyfriend Quinton—who were all, along with Crystal’s five other kids, living downstairs. Fernando 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. Fernando 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? He kept texting for money when they owed rent but he was basically chill. The downstairs of the duplex was trashed but still, he let Crystal’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 Micah, Brittney’s boyfriend, and Crystal. They’d been on the Iron Range—first Colberg, then Harding—since 2015. Before that they’d lived in Pine County, down by the Cities an hour or two north. Crystal and Quinton, her boyfriend, drove back to Pine County 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 Crystal Facebook friended each other right away, which was how Misty met Evan, who liked or loved all of her posts. Evan 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 Fernando when he got out of jail, and Evan had just broken up with his ex. After one of the fights between Evan and Kristen, his ex, he messaged Misty, Feeling it – it hurts, I’m scared, and most of the time she felt like that too. Evan was staying in Hinckley, about two-and-a-half hours away with his brother Jamie at his Aunt Linda’s place. Jamie and Linda weren’t Evan’s bio-brother or aunt but they felt like his real family, a situation to which Misty could almost relate. Still. When Linda got cited by Housing for Evan vaping inside she told him he’d have to move out. This happened just before Christmas and then the whole plan fell into place. Evan would move up to Harding and into the duplex, he’d pay half the rent and get Misty’s landlord off her back. And then when Fernando got out of jail things would be really clear. Everyone thought this was a good idea.

Evan’s truck was impounded, so Crystal and Quinton drove down with Misty to Hinckley to pick him up in Crystal’s Explorer. They sat in the front, and she and Evan 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 with a heart and a ring.

And now, since returning from treatment, Brittney is dating Micah! They’d met at IRTT and gotten together at a party the day after Christmas. Before meeting Evan, Misty hadn’t really noticed Micah. 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. Micah’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 like disturbed, maybe Asperger’s or ADHD? He had a bad temper for sure. The whole big fight started with something Micah did or said to Fernando.

Micah is eighteen, the same age as Misty. She’s never known Brittney to date someone that young. What does she see in Micah? Misty can’t really understand anything Brittney does anymore. Still, her thing with Micah 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 Tyler 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 Evan 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 Tyler.

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 Micah.

And just in time, because after that Misty’s friend Felicia calls her from work wanting a bag. Two days ago Felicia sold her a half-gram of crack to share with Evan, now she’s looking for weed.Felicia wants to bring over a 20 while she still has it, but Misty’s not home. She doesn’t want Brittney to see Felicia giving her money because she’s never told Brittney about the dealing arrangement she has with Micah. Would Brittney care? She’s not sure. Therefore, it’s better if Felicia could stop by her place and leave the money out on the living room table, and Felicia tries, but she texts Misty when she arrives, the front door is locked and Evan’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 Mikels, a divorced guy in his 40s trawling SugarBabies.com wants to know. He’s messaging Brittney who he knows only as “Cherry,” 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 Irma 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 Mikels 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 Micah but it goes straight to mail. Where is he? At Blanca and Jared’s? Or maybe down in his room in the basement of Crystal’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 Jeremy 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

Micah 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, Micah’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 Micah hang out with his mom and Quinton. They all get high. Except for the littlest kids, everyone’s up. She goes home around 1. ♦