Sweetgirl (7 page)

“If she was hot, would you have?”

“I can't say I wouldn't have.”

“Yeah,” Shelton said. “That's probably the deciding factor.”

“So what do you say? You want to come up and see if we can't wreck some shit?”

“It sounds good,” Shelton said. “But I've got some things to do around the house.”

“Yeah,” said Zeke. “I know how that is.”

“How's your old lady?”

“June?” Zeke said. “She's mean as ever. I think she's fucking somebody else. She's always online hammering away at the keyboard, then when I come in the room she closes out the screen. Thinks I don't notice.”

“That's too bad.”

“She comes and goes. There's whole days I don't see her.”

“Does she go to your shows?”

“Hell no,” Zeke said. “She thinks the whole thing is childish.
She can't believe a grown man wants to spend all his time pretending to be someone else. That's her word for it, ‘pretending.'”

“She don't support you?”

“No,” Zeke said. “She doesn't. Not anymore.”

“I had a girl like that once,” Shelton said.

“She's got me trapped,” Zeke said. He gave his collar a gentle tug, adjusted the line of the flare in the rearview.

“Sometimes I feel like life don't have no point to it,” Shelton said. “If you want to know the truth.”

“I feel like I've been living underwater,” Zeke said. “Like I can't hardly breathe.”

“You're drowning,” said Shelton.

“The saddest part is, I've started to question myself. That's the real tragedy.”

“Sometimes when I'm happy,” said Shelton. “It don't seem real. Sometimes the sadness is the only thing that feels true.”

“What's true,” Zeke said. “Is that June left me a while ago. She left me without ever leaving the house. And I have no idea what I'm going to do about any of it.”

“Life ain't what they made it out to be in school,” said Shelton.

“That's a fact,” Zeke said.

“My girl will probably leave me soon,” said Shelton. “If I don't find her baby.”

“Do what, now?”

“My girl, Kayla. Her baby went missing here last night. I was out on the sled looking for her when I run out of gas.”

“What do you mean, a baby?”

“A baby,” said Shelton. “In diapers.”

“Went missing?”

“I woke up and she was gone. Like she just up and flew away.”

“You're kidding me.”

“Gone,” Shelton said. “She got took is what happened. That's the only thing I can figure.”

“Shit,” said Zeke. “That's fucked up. Wait. Are you being serious right now?”

“As serious as I can be.”

“I'm starting to feel a little stoned, so I'm trying to make sure I'm understanding all this correctly. You say your girl has a baby in diapers and that it has gone missing here this morning and that you think it has been abducted? Like somebody come and took it?”

“It happened last night sometime,” Shelton said. “But, yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying.”

“And you're not fucking with me?”

“I would not,” Shelton said. “Not about this.”

“Hell's bells,” Zeke said. “I just seen a special on this. On television. There was a special investigative report. It had to do with the human slave trade.”

“Slave trade?”

“Sex slaves, man. Like these sick fucks steal babies and sell them down in Mexico. They raise them up to be prostitutes.”

“In Mexico?”

“It's an international trade,” said Zeke. “But it's big down there in Mexico. Mexico and Russia. Those are the main two on account of their economy and general lawlessness.”

“Motherfucker,” Shelton said.

“And we've got all these fucking wetbacks now, man. All those spics over on Detroit Street. They practically own East Cutler.”

“Grease Cutler,” said Shelton.

“El Cutlero,” said Zeke.

“But those Mexicans are cool,” said Shelton.

“I'm sure some of them are,” Zeke said. “I'm just telling you what I seen on the television. What was on the investigative report. You know any of those boys over there?”

“I know Little Hector Valquez. He does some work for me. He's a good kid, man. He moves a good amount of dope for me.”

“Well, that would be where I'd start,” said Zeke. “I'd go and ask that boy a couple of questions if I were you.”

“Shit,” Shelton said. “He does know about Jenna. I had Kayla and her with me last time I was over there to make a drop.”

“Who's Jenna?”

“The baby.”

“Damn,” Zeke said, and shook his head. “You can't trust nobody.”

“Motherfuckers,” Shelton said.

“I'd go with you,” Zeke said. “But I can't miss this gig, man.”

“Don't even bother with the entry road,” Shelton said. “Just drive me as far up Grain as you can, then I'll walk in the long way and cross the lake.”

“I'll take you up, man. It's no bother.”

“You can't get in the back,” Shelton said. “Not in all this snow. Quicker if I walk in.”

“How you going to get back out then?”

“I'm going to drive right out across the lake.”

“Will it hold?”

“It'll hold,” Shelton said. “I was out there doing donuts a week ago.”

“You sure you don't want me to drive up and see if we can't get in? I still have faith in the 150, Shelton. I'd hate to think you didn't.”

“It's not like that,” Shelton said.

“They didn't take the bailout,” Zeke said. “People forget that, but they didn't.”

“I can't say that I would choose a Ford,” Shelton said. “That's not something I can truthfully put my name to, but I can say that I think they have made some strides in recent years. Obviously I would never paint a vehicle purple, but I have no business reasons to do so.”

“As long as it doesn't have to do with the truck.”

“This is strictly about time,” Shelton said. “Rest assured.”

“Shelton,” he said. “Can I ask you something, man? It might seem a little funny but I feel I need to ask.”

“Shoot.”

“Have you been wearing that helmet the whole time?”

“I wasn't at first, but then I put it on here a minute ago.”

“Thank God, man. I thought I was losing my damn mind.”

“You're straight, Zeeker,” Shelton said. “And right here is good.”

Zeke stopped the truck, but didn't even bother pulling off the road.

“Are you sure?”

“I promise you,” Shelton said.

“I can't see a goddamn thing.”

“Neither can I,” Shelton said. “But I know where I'm going.”

“I'll come by in a few days,” Zeke said. “Make sure all this turned out.”

“It'll turn out,” Shelton said. “I'll turn it out myself.”

Portis handed me Jenna when we got to the shanty, then lit a kerosene lamp and hurried to load his stove from a small woodpile in the corner. I hadn't been inside the shanty since middle school, but as the light flickered on I realized it was exactly as I remembered it.

The walls and floor were unfinished plywood and they were stamped with the Indian head from the Big North lumber company. Portis had a Packer stove that was short and flat and vented through a little hole in the roof, and there was a cot and a lawn chair along opposite walls. There was a pile of clothes in the corner and a milk crate full of gloves and hats. Between the clothes and the stove was a fishing hole where Portis worked at the ice with a hand auger. The whole place smelled funky, like wild animal, but like Portis himself was undercut mercifully with alcohol—an astringent, if nothing else.

We had tried to shield Jenna as best we could but I could see now that her cheeks were burned red from the cold. She wasn't complaining, though. Somehow she was as calm as she could be, just lying there in her papoose like we were at a Sunday school picnic.

Portis looked over at me as he cranked the auger.

“Change that baby's diaper,” he said. “And then we'll deal with you.”

“Deal with me?”

“Don't be a jackass,” he said. “We don't have time for it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said. “But okay.”

“You've been walking on your heels because you can't feel your toes,” he said. “You've been hobbling around like a goddamn penguin all night, thinking I can't notice. Acting like I'm blind or a fool, either one.”

“They're just cold,” I said.

“You're frostbit, Percy.”

“I don't have any frostbite,” I said.

“Then I am the greatest swordsman in all of France.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just change the damn diaper.” Portis was through with the auger and kneeled to scoop the pile of ice shavings into a green, ten-gallon bucket. He took the bucket outside to empty it, then flipped it over to use for a seat. I feared he had cleared the hole to shit in it, but he cracked the seal on his second bottle of whiskey instead. He smoked a cigarette and seemed contented for the moment.

I hated to upset Jenna with her so still in my arms, but I knew
she needed changing. Portis was right about the diaper and it seemed to me that he might be right about the frostbite too—though I did not allow myself to linger on the thought of what his field remedies might include. There were two wool blankets folded up behind him but I did not want to ask him to grab me one. I didn't want him to think I couldn't walk over there and get it myself.

I braced myself before I stepped but couldn't help my wobble. I gritted my teeth and stepped again and when I grunted Portis stood up from the bucket.

“Hurts when it warms, don't it?”

He handed me the blanket and sat back down.

“Piss off,” I said.

“Don't be mad at me,” he said. “Be mad at your toes.”

Portis tipped up his bottle and drank from the whiskey. He sat on his bucket and stared at his little piece of ice-cleared lake.

I spread the blanket on the floor and whispered to Jenna. I told her everything was going to be just fine.

“Just change the damn thing,” he said. “Get it over with.”

“Okay,” I said, and took a breath.

I unzipped the onesie, then offered my finger to Jenna. She gripped it and then looked up at me and said,
dun-dun.

“Hi, Sweetgirl,” I said. “I see you.”

Her eyes were as blue and as clear as pool water and I swear her vulnerability blew a tunnel clear through my chest. I wiped some spittle from the bottom of her lip and she said,
Thththth.

“I'm so sorry,” I said, and unhinged the diaper.

She flinched when the cold air hit, then looked at me in wide-
eyed betrayal. Her chin wavered, then caved. She kicked her legs and flushed purple and I had never heard such terrible screaming, such honest-to-goodness hurt. It was like the screams came from some hidden depth, like they surprised her, too, and her whole body vibrated on their sharp-cut treble.

The welts were red and hard in the cold. They were still oozing at the diaper line and I hurried to put the dry one on.

“Baby girl,” I said.

Jenna heaved with breath, then cried out louder.

I fit the new diaper, zipped the onesie back up, then held her to my chest. And she sobbed for some time like that, with her shoulders going up and down as she wet my shoulders with spit and snot.

“Sweetgirl,” I said, and patted her back.

Portis had stood up from his bucket to look down into his hole. His jaw was clenched and he looked stricken.

“How in the world can that child's mother not have any diaper cream?” he said.

“That's pretty low on the list of her failures,” I said.

“How bad is it?”

“Bad,” I said. “Worse than it was. I think she needs antibiotics.”

“Too bad she don't need decongestant,” Portis said. “Plenty of that around these hills.”

“I don't know what could happen,” I said. “I don't know how long she's been infected. We're running low on that formula, too. I feel like we need to get her to the hospital, Portis.”

Portis ground out his cigarette on the plywood floor, then went to fix Jenna a bottle with the jug water.

“Her diaper was wet,” I said. “Really wet. We should have changed her earlier.”

“Wet is good,” Portis said. “Wet means she ain't dehydrated.”

He handed me the bottle and Jenna took it through her crying and eventually it calmed her. I sat on the cot while she fed and Portis drank his whiskey.

“I can't take it,” he said, and wiped some runoff from his chin. “When she cries like that.”

“I know,” I said.

“I've never been angrier in my life,” he said. “Than when I hear that cry.”

I leaned back against the wall and pulled the blanket up around Jenna. The fire was roaring in the stove but outside it seemed the storm had returned. The wind had reached a full-on howl and I couldn't see a thing through the window—a square foot of glass already buried in the snow.

Jenna was on her way to sleep in my arms. Portis put the papoose on the woodstove to warm it and I wondered if there was anything holding the shanty down. I wondered if we could get blown clear across the lake in the wind, but decided not to ask.

“Don't get too comfortable,” Portis said. “You're next.”

“I don't think you have to worry about me getting too comfortable,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “'Cause we're going to get right to it.”

“Get to what?”

“This little footbath you're about to get.”

There was a water-boiling pot hung from a nail on the wall and Portis took it outside, the wind howling and snapping the
door shut behind him as he went to gather snow. I felt sick inside, like this was about to be some Civil War medical tent type of business, the sort of shit they don't put on the postcards about Cutler County in the winter.

Cutler lived on the summer tourist dollar, but there were fudgies in the winter too—downstaters named for their willingness to drop coin on a particular top-shelf confection. Cutler will always have its beaches and ski hills, but is just north of prime cherry country and so its primary exports remain fudge and the Petoskey stone, which is an interesting and uncommon stone, the state stone in fact—but is mostly just a stone. Still, people went in for it. They bought their fudge and rock ornaments and for a few weeks in December it was all winter wonderland time in northern Michigan.

Downtown was empty now, but it was hopping when they had the lights strung and carolers wandering up and down Mitchell Street. There were wreaths on the streetlamps, stands for hot cocoa with marshmallow floaters, and the football team in Penn Park selling trees. You walk around town in December and it starts to feel like you're in a Dolly Parton Christmas movie—those are Carletta's favorites—but when the fudgies go home for the season the city cuts the power to the twinkly lights. They board up the big houses along the bay and there's nothing left in Cutler but the locals, everybody bracing for the real winter to set in and bare its teeth.

Fudgies get all misty over a white Christmas and they're always snapping selfies in the snow—but the real winter is months long and it will gnaw your goddamn toes off if you let it.

Portis came back inside and dumped a little water from the jug into the snowy pot, then set it on the stove beside the papoose.

“She's got to come to a boil,” he said, then snagged a fishing pole. He baited the hook with a cigarette butt he'd blunted earlier, dropped the line in the water, and plopped back down on his ten-gallon bucket. He had a drink of whiskey and set the bobber. I could not believe my eyes.

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “Are you fishing right now?”

“All along I have planned to fish when we arrived.”

“We don't have time for you to fish.”

“I believe we do,” he said. “I believe that water is yet to boil.”

“You have got to be kidding me, Portis! We need to get this baby some help and I swear I can't believe you'd even consider fishing at a time like this.”

“Why'd you think I cleared the ice?”

“I don't want to say. I don't want to give you any more bad ideas.”

He exhaled dramatically.

“Don't do that,” I said.

“Don't do what?”

“Breathe in that manner. Attack me without having the balls to do it directly.”

“Are you now telling me how to breathe?”

“No,” I said. “I am telling you how not to breathe.”

“Jesus, God almighty!” he said. “Can you let up for one damn moment? Can you let me sit here in peace and fish? Can you please allow me that simple pleasure for the next five minutes?”

“You haven't even dealt with your leg,” I said.

“What would you like me to do to my leg?”

“You should pour some whiskey in it to sterilize the wound, then wrap it to keep off the cold.”

“That is an offense to the whiskey,” he said.

I dropped my head in my hands and breathed out.

“Now you are the one exhaling,” he said.

“I thought you had a plan,” I said.

“This is the plan!” he said. “We are resting and safe from the storm. We are waiting for that water to boil. And while those things happen I would like to wet a line and I refuse to believe that is a problem in any way whatsoever. Despite your harassment.”

“Harassment?”

“This is a cross-examination,” he said.

“That's a little dramatic.”

“No, it is not. It is not dramatic in the least. I think you would make a fine prosecutor of the law, Percy James. I can see you now. One of those fire-breathers in a man suit, stomping around the courtroom and scaring everybody shitless with your short haircut and meanness.”

“Maybe you should try some bait.”

“You don't know nothing about it.”

“What don't I know? That you can't catch any lakers with a Pall Mall filter?”

There was steam billowing from the pot on the stove and I could feel the heat push toward me from the fire. Portis was right: my toes hurt worse the warmer it got, and I braced myself by gripping fistfuls of blanket when he wasn't looking.

He leaned his rod against the wall and watched his bobber
while the whiskey bottle hung loose from his hands. I could see that he was thinking on something heavy. I could tell by the way his brow arched up and made his face narrow and mean.

“I am a fine fisherman,” he said.

“I've never seen you catch a fish in my life,” I said. “Nor have I ever seen a picture of you with a fish in hand.”

“Watch your mouth, missy,” he said. “I am well known across three counties for my expertise and skill as a fisherman and have likely slain more steelhead than any man you have ever met personally in the flesh. I caught two, I repeat two, twelve-foot sturgeon in the summer of nineteen and eighty-eight.”

“You didn't catch any sturgeon.”

“I surely did.”

“That seems like something I would have seen a picture of. Maybe in the newspaper, even. But I have seen no such pictures.”

“This was before the advent of digital technology,” he said. “People could not take pictures with their goddamn phones. So while it is true that there are no pictures to commemorate those victories I implore you to go down to John Parlee's bait shop and ask him who caught the two biggest sturgeon he's ever seen. He will say the name Portis Dale.”

“John Parlee sold the bait shop and moved to Florida,” I said. “It's a realty office now.”

“That is a vile lie.”

“It is not a lie,” I said. “John Parlee met a woman on the Internet and moved to be with her in Lakeland, Florida. They were matched on eHarmony and he has been baptized as a Christian on her request and conditions.”

“You may cause my death,” he said. “Right here in this shanty I may finally give out and die of pure sadness.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “But it's true.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I fish with actual bait, which means I frequented Parlee's. We spoke often. He knew of my association with you and yet never mentioned a single sturgeon, let alone two in the same summer.”

“Go ask Big John the Indian then. Find him over there on the Bear River Bridge this fall, when the salmon run. He was there the day I caught the first one. He will also speak to you about the second one, which he undoubtedly knew of through hearsay.”

I propped myself up on an elbow and tried to ignore the sound of the water boiling, tried to pretend my eyes were not watering from the terrible burning inside my boots. I had touched a sensitive nerve with Portis and was beginning to feel badly. I began to apologize in my roundabout way, but Portis cut me off before I got to the part where I said I was sorry.