Shelton put his helmet back on and made for the highway. He must have come farther south on the trail than he realized because it wasn’t long before he reached the road. The wind pushed harder in the open and the snow was whipped off the ground until he couldn’t tell it from what was falling. There was one advantage to the bad conditions, though: Shelton figured people would be more likely to give him a ride if they couldn’t see through the blizzard and tell that it was him.
Shelton had never seen such a storm. He’d watched Lester Hoffstead track her all week and while the weatherman had seemed downright histrionic, if anything Shelton believed he’d undersold the storm’s wrath and devastating power.
She came down from Canada across Lake Superior and hit the Upper Peninsula first. Munising and the sandstone cliffs. Then she pushed inland and bleached the hayfields and the pines and balsam firs, the great emerald forests, the evergreen spine of Michigan’s vast and big-hearted peninsula. She was slowed some by the trees but pushed through to Lake Michigan anyway, to Mishigami, the great water, where she rallied on the cold, black depths and finally struck Cutler in a full-blown rage.
Yes, Lester Hoffstead had done them all a disservice. Lester Hoffstead should have done everything in his power to whip his viewers into a panicked frenzy. He should have stood on his head and flapped his arms like a chicken, then read a chapter from Revelation while the camera panned across his Doppler radar.
Speaking of the Bible, Shelton had come to feel a bit like Jonah, trapped in the belly of the whale. It was as if the storm had swallowed him whole, especially now that he was beyond the trees on the highway, where everything was flat and folded into the violent, swirling gray.
He hated the storm, but he respected it, too, as he turned his back to the wind and stuck out his thumb. And miracle of miracles, the first truck he saw pulled over to pick him up.
It was Zeke Turner in his F-150. Shelton could tell because who else but Zeke had a pickup painted so brightly purple that it shone through the storm like a giant Easter egg. Shelton ran to the passenger-side door and Zeke hit the auto locks and waved him in.
“Get in, man,” he said. “It’s cold as a witch’s titty out there.”
Shelton shuddered as he climbed in the cab and Zeke tilted the heating vents in his direction.
“Thanks,” Shelton said, and pulled off his helmet.
Zeke Turner had always been a stand-up guy. He would not deny Shelton a ride even if he’d been in prison for ten years. Shelton considered him a friend, or as close as he came to one.
“I thought that was you,” Zeke said. “I couldn’t tell exactly through the snow, but then I said, who else could that big motherfucker be out here by the hills but Shelton Potter?”
“I thought the same thing,” Shelton said. “I knew it was you right off, because who else has a pickup that looks like a big ole gay Easter egg.”
“Shit,” Zeke said. “You find an Easter egg that isn’t gay, you let me know. I’d say gay and Easter egg go hand in hand.”
“Which begs the question,” Shelton said.
“The purple is to draw your attention to the signage on my side panels. ZEKE TURNER ENTERTAINMENT.”
“Okay,” Shelton said. “Well, that actually does make some sense.”
Shelton remembered then that Zeke was a singer. Or at least he was trying to be. Mostly he worked at the plastics plant, but he had dreams of his own, which would also explain why he was wearing a black cowboy shirt with white piping and sequin swirls stitched into the collar. He had on matching black pants and snakeskin boots. He wore a straight-banged black wig that sat on his head like an inverted bowl.
“You ain’t wearing a coat?” Shelton said.
“Can’t crease the shirt,” Zeke said.
“You got a show then?”
“Rock and roll,” Zeke said.
“Where at?”
“All the way to the Sault.”
“Even in this storm?”
“Slot machines are inside,” Zeke said. “I’m playing the brunch buffet.”
“You look like Elvis,” Shelton said. “But I know you ain’t.”
“Roy Orbison,” he said.
“That’s right,” Shelton said. “I’m sorry.”
Zeke waved him off.
“I get it all the time,” he said.
They drove into the flurries and the freshly dropped sky. There wasn’t another car on the road.
“It wasn’t snowing,” Shelton said. “And then, boom!”
“I saw two flakes come down all innocent, and then the fucker just opened right up,” said Zeke. “It’s like the planet Hoth out here.”
“Well, I appreciate you stopping,” Shelton said. “And I got a little doober for your trouble, if you’re interested.”
“I would say I’m keenly interested,” said Zeke.
Shelton lit the joint and passed it to Zeke first. Zeke had a toke and passed it back. They smoked the joint quietly, deliberately. Shelton looked at Zeke and tried to decide if he was wearing makeup. He thought he might be. He thought it was strange for a man to put on makeup, but supposed things were different in the entertainment industry. He pinched the joint off at the roach and dropped it in the console.
“For after the show,” he said.
“You’re all right, Potter,” said Zeke. “And I’ve never said otherwise.”