Had anybody ever spoken with Shelton about his childhood he might have told them he never quite escaped the echo of those schoolyard taunts. That he took them with him wherever he went, and heard them most clearly when he glanced in the mirror and saw that big head of his. But nobody ever spoke with Shelton about much of anything, let alone his childhood. Maybe that was why he’d nearly killed John Jameson, his drinking buddy, when he leaned toward Shelton at the bar and said, “Pass me that beer, Jughead.”
Shelton’s painful past was so long ago now, but in other ways it felt like it was still happening. Yet all those voices went silent when he slid his helmet on. Shelton looked good and thought maybe he should walk upstairs and a take a picture of himself in the full-length mirror, then text it to Kayla for when she woke.
The issue was he’d have to walk by Old Bo again. He’d have to smell him and remember that he was dead and deal with that whole gamut of troublesome emotions and he simply didn’t have the strength to do it. Not now. Not when there was so much else to be done.
Shelton was ready to roll, but why in the world was that Talking Heads song still playing? And where was the damn remote? Shelton checked the coffee table and then patted the pockets of his snowmobile suit, which didn’t make any logical sense. He’d just put the snowmobile suit on and the CD had been playing all along, so obviously the remote wouldn’t be there. He checked the pockets again, though, just to be sure.
He went into the kitchen next and shooed General Winthrop off the table. The remote was not in the pile of dishes and dirty glasses and he looked at the cat and wondered if he might have run off with it.
“What about it?” he said. “Did you run off with my remote, General?”
The cat exhaled and settled into a curl on the floor. He licked at one of his front legs.
“No,” Shelton said. “You might not be much, General Winthrop, but you are not a thief.”
Shelton opened the refrigerator and closed it. He kicked the keg and it was empty. He paced the kitchen and then walked back into the living room. He squeezed some more gas out of the tank, took a balloon break.
He searched the coffee table again and then picked up the couch cushions and tossed them on the floor. He looked in the couch creases and then beneath the La-Z-Boy recliner. He looked on the mantel above the fireplace and then went back to the coffee table. He picked up an old, upended cereal bowl but there was nothing underneath it.
“Goddamn,” he said.
He picked the couch cushions off the floor and set them back on the couch. He got on his hands and knees and crawled around the carpet. He ran his fingers through the shag and felt for the cool of the plastic.
He had another balloon and then went to the bathroom and looked in the toilet. He walked back into the kitchen and looked on top of the fridge and then inside the dishwasher. He kicked the keg a little harder this time and it was still empty. He opened and shut the pantry door and then walked into the living room.
The irony was, with all the energy he’d just spent he could have walked over and shut the damn power off by hand, could have done it a hundred times. Shelton realized this and felt like a fool, felt for a moment like he was still Gorilla Head Retard, jumping around the schoolyard and acting ape.
Then he looked at Kayla and thought it might disrupt her sleep to shut off the Talking Heads anyway, and what did he care since he was about to fire up the sled and go find Jenna? So it turned out the entire remote incident was a waste of time. Shelton told himself not to dwell on it and blew himself up another balloon.
Shelton had some joints rolled and tucked away in his top-secret drawer in the kitchen, which was also where he kept his Glock with the fancy laser sight. He grabbed the gun and a few hog legs for the road, then blew Kayla a kiss good-bye. He flipped down his visor and walked into the storm. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought he was a hero.
Chapter Five
My feet got cold sitting there in the cabin, waiting. I thought it would be good to get out of my socks, to warm them for a bit by the stove, but I didn’t want to move and risk waking the baby. She needed her rest and I needed the quiet. I did not like the idea of Jenna crying out while Portis was gone and Shelton Potter was out there lurking in the night. I felt lucky to have Jenna calm and was not willing to risk so much as a flinch if it might wake her.
I may not appear to be the feminine, caretaking type, but I have always been good with babies. I had the reputation around town as a tomboy, which is what they call you in Cutler when you don’t wear makeup but are also not a lesbian.