Louis Shalako: The Shape-Shifters, Chapter Fourteen. Louis Shalako.

Under observation.

Chapter Fourteen.

A free man can shovel snow any time he wants to...

Jean gently probed at her mind, drawing the young woman out bit by bit.

“Maybe you could help me, while I have you here. Can you tell me where the employment office is, stuff like that?”

“Oh, um, it’s—it’s.” As she began again, Jean pulled out a small notebook from inside his coat. “Yes, ah, it’s downtown, half a block north of the post office.”

He asked her stuff like where was the best department store in town, was there a dollar store? Which was the best pharmacy? That sort of thing. She found it a lot easier to talk about safe subjects like that, especially after her earlier burst of emotional dumping. Janet found herself pretty comfortable with Jean, who was a good listener.

She drew him a simple map with two or three major streets marked on it, and funny, blank little side streets that petered out into nowhere.

Janet wrestled with the next piece of information before letting it out breathlessly.

“And this is Macdonald Street.” Her eyes were downcast. “That’s where we live.”

He took this information soberly and with little fanfare.

“Oh, that’s great.”

He watched as she swigged down the rest of her coffee, still not quite meeting his eyes.

He walked her out the door and to her pickup.

Good with neutral subjects...

“So, maybe we’ll see each other around, then?” Jean pulled the shovel out of the back end of the truck.

He didn’t want to lose that. She smiled at him.

“Er, oh, yeah, maybe.” She agreed, again with that little flutter in her abdomen.

Jean stood there until the vehicle safely started up, and then with a wave, he went on his way, still thinking of her. She sure was nice. Jean Gagnon had a kind of restlessness about him. He couldn’t just sit around the house all day. His house. Hard to fathom it, so he shoveled snow for three or four hours a day, while it lasted, and had about three…no four days into it. He’d managed to scrape up another three hundred bucks. After years in a cell, it was really something.

A free man could shovel snow any time he wanted to—what an amazing thought.

He knew it wouldn’t last. What the hell kind of work he might get around here eluded him. By all accounts so far, the town was in pretty bad shape for employment.

While Janet hadn’t exactly invited him over, at least he knew where she lived. He could always go over and shovel the driveway. It might be as simple as that. Jean’s thoughts turned to her kids, with their father dead at such a young age.

He shook his head. On the one hand, an instant family had a weird kind of attraction.

The babies were out of diapers, for one thing. Yet he wondered if he could do it. Could he actually step in as a dad, and be like a normal human being? It was a fair question after seven years in jail, which wasn’t exactly the most socially-redeeming background. It didn’t prepare you for a normal life. Six years before that in the Forces.

Again, it didn’t exactly prepare you for a normal, rational, civilian life. A family life.

Jean decided to take his shovel home and then walk uptown to the employment centre.

It couldn’t hurt, and you never really know. You might find something. The whole family thing preyed on his mind. At his age, he figured he was simply un-cool to younger women, those with no kids. It was hard to imagine it working either way. To shovel a driveway offered the opportunity to talk. Everyone pretty much said the same thing. No work in this town until spring. Even then, things didn’t look too good. Deep inside, he wondered if he was even capable of normal, family-type relationships, or even friendships, anymore.