Craig Lancaster - Edward Adrift

“I knew there was something about those two,” she said.

“What happened?”

She walked past me into the room. I closed the door.

Sheila Renfro sat at the foot of my bed and invited me to sit down with her.

“They were selling crank.”

“What?”

“Meth.”

“Meth is bad. And illegal.”

“Very, very bad. And totally illegal.”

“Totally illegal” is redundant; something is illegal or it’s not, subject of course to the vagaries (I love the word “vagaries”) of the local ordinances. Meth is illegal everywhere.

Sheila Renfro put her hand on her chest and fluttered it.

“That’s a lot of excitement,” she said.

I was flummoxed by that. I felt only fear, especially when the deputy sheriff was walking toward me with his gun.

“Edward, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to take you to Denver in the morning. I mean, I know you want to go, but the cops are going to be in and out of here tomorrow, and I really need to stay.”

“It’s OK.”

“I can ask around town, see if anybody’s going to Denver tomorrow. Maybe we can find you a ride.”

“No, I want to ride with you. I can wait.”

Sheila Renfro reached for my hand, and I let her have it.

“I was hoping you would,” she said. “I know you have to go home eventually. But it would be nice to have a little more time.”

“Yes.”

Sheila Renfro looked down at the floor. Her left foot was thumping up and down.

“Can I ask a favor?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Can I stay here with you tonight?”

“I—”

“No kissing or funny business,” she said. “I just don’t want to be alone.”

Her eyes, normally fixed and unblinking, were looking around the room with uncertainty. She looked scared, not excited, and that made sense to me.

“OK, Sheila Renfro.”

She had no trouble falling asleep. We watched the late news, and then we subdivided the blankets so she would have hers and I would have mine. By 11:27 p.m., she was lightly snoring, a tendency I did not notice when she slept next to me at St. Joseph Hospital. I suppose I was preoccupied with my own problems then.

At 12:14 a.m., she rolled toward me and set her arm across my lap, which was in her path because I continue to sleep—or try to, anyway—in a sitting position. She has violated our agreement to segregate (I love the word “segregate”) the bed, but I am not going to call a penalty. I’m going to let her sleep. One of us should.

I keep looking down at her resting head. In my mind, I draw patterns by connecting the small freckles on her nose. I think about the R.E.M. song where Michael Stipe sings about secretly counting his lover’s eyelashes, and I wonder where Michael Stipe must have been sitting when he did that. I cannot count Sheila Renfro’s eyelashes from here.

She stirs just a bit. I hold my breath. She falls back into slumber, and she grips me tighter across my hips.

She looks peaceful.

She is beautiful.

From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

Time I woke up today: 3:18 a.m. and then again at 8:37 a.m. Sheila Renfro was already up and gone, which did not surprise me. She has to wake up early to get this motel moving. I threw on yesterday’s clothes and hustled out to the lobby for breakfast. The deputy who walked toward me with a gun last night was there, eating a muffin.

“How’s it going?” he said.

“Fine. I’m sorry I left the room.”

“No harm, no foul.” That’s a sports euphemism.

High temperature for Monday, December 19, 2011, Day 353: 35 in Billings, a 15-degree drop from the high the day before. Might we finally be seeing some seasonable weather? Let’s see what the facts bear out.

Low temperature for Monday, December 19, 2011: 18. That’s a 17-degree drop from the day before.

Precipitation for Monday, December 19, 2011: 0.07 inches

Precipitation for 2011: 19.48 inches

New entries:

Exercise for Monday, December 19, 2011: I took a long walk with Sheila Renfro during which she suggested that she struggles with an affliction similar to mine. She did not go into specifics, and I did not ask, because I don’t like people asking me what’s wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with me, and there’s nothing wrong with Sheila Renfro.

Miles driven Monday, December 19, 2011: None.

Total miles driven: Holding steady at 1,844.9.

Gas usage Monday, December 19, 2011: None.

Addendum: It’s strange how just the passage of a few hours can change things so profoundly. When I retired to my room last night, it was with the full expectation that I would be going to Denver today to pick up my new Cadillac DTS and begin the drive back to Billings, Montana. Now, because of the meth bust in Sheila Renfro’s motel, I am going to be staying at least another day. Sheila Renfro said she thinks we can leave tomorrow. To be honest, that makes me happy and sad at the same time. I’ve been gone from Billings, Montana, for more than a week, and that’s the longest I’ve ever been away as an adult. But I also want to enjoy my remaining time with Sheila Renfro.

After I shower and change clothes, I see Sheila Renfro for the first time today. She is laundering bed linens. Ed Piewicz has checked out, she says, and of course the cops ended the stay of her other two guests. She says there are no reservations for today.

“Do you want to take a walk?” she says.

“Yes.”

“Let me get this last load into the wash and we’ll go.”

Before we leave, Sheila Renfro checks in with the sheriff in room number six and makes sure he doesn’t need her. He asks her to bring him back a cup “of that good coffee from the Kwik Korner and not this instant swill you serve here.”

This makes Sheila Renfro super-mad, as well she should be, I think.

“You listen to me, Pete. You’re lucky I don’t bill the county for all the coffee and food you and your men have been drinking and eating. You’re a lot more solvent than I am, that’s for sure. If you want a different kind of coffee, you can go get it yourself.”

The sheriff holds up his hands in a surrender pose.

“All right, all right. Jesus.”

“And don’t you cuss around me.”

She turns and walks toward the door in short, choppy steps, and I notice that she walks exactly the same way that Donna does when she’s mad. I like this.

In the parking lot, I put a hand on her shoulder to slow her down. With my achy ribs and recovering lung, I cannot keep up.

“You really told him,” I say.

“That paternal son of a…doo-doo head!”

The last syllable emerges from Sheila Renfro in a squeak, and I begin to laugh but throw my hand over my mouth. I don’t want to join Sheriff Pete on Sheila Renfro’s bad side.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go for a walk.”

We take much the same route we followed the day before, past the lumberyard and across the brown courthouse lawn, which is mottled with bits of snow that hasn’t melted in the past couple of days.

“How is your endurance?” Sheila Renfro asks.

“Good.”

“Want to go farther?”

“Yes.”

We leave the business district and head into the residential streets, and I see Cheyenne Wells as I’ve never seen it before, not even when I was here as a little boy in 1978. Most of the houses sit on generous lots, as if the original builders figured that, yes, they were part of a town but there was no reason to be too close to one’s neighbors. That’s an ethic I can appreciate.

The houses are not much different from the ones on my street. Most of them are wooden, built in a bungalow style. Yards are a patchwork of well-tended lawns and weed farms. The overwhelming characteristic of Cheyenne Wells, in my memories and in my vision now, is the sky. Nothing intrudes on it. This terrain is flat in all directions.