Edward Adrift

by Craig Lancaster

  I resolve to leave the bitchin’ iPhone off until I arrive at Donna and Victor’s. I won’t get to take pictures of Idaho, and if I’m late in arriving, I won’t get to follow the Dallas Cowboys’ game tonight against the New York Giants, but I also don’t want to be confused by Kyle any more than I already am.

  After dinner at the Pizza Hut in American Falls, I settle back into the seat of my Cadillac DTS and turn on my bitchin’ iPhone. I can’t help it.

  A voice mail is waiting for me.

  “Hi, Edward, it’s Donna. I got hold of Kyle’s phone and saw the crap he’s been sending you. I am so, so sorry about the ticket. We’ll pay for that. And you can bet you won’t be getting any more messages. This young man seems intent on digging himself a bigger hole than the one he’s already in. Gosh, we’re really so excited to see you, if you can stand to come still. See you in a few hours. Call if you’re going to be delayed. Bye now.”

  Hearing Donna’s voice makes me feel funny, but not ha-ha funny and not bad funny, either. It’s like a warmth inside my body, something similar to the way I would feel when I was a little boy and I was sick and my mother would stroke my forehead and tell me stories about bunnies who live in the clouds, which is of course impossible. It’s something I haven’t felt at all since Donna has been gone. She is my best friend. Kyle was also my best friend, and I’m hopeful that he can be again, but right now Kyle and I are in difficult circumstances. Kyle seems to be in difficult circumstances with a lot of people.

  That Donna would offer to pay my traffic ticket just shows what kind of person she is. That’s silly, though. I would never let them do it. I know Donna and Victor are financially comfortable, but $250 is a lot of money, and it’s not like they did anything wrong. If anybody should pay the ticket, it’s Kyle; he’s the one who caused it. But Kyle is just a boy, and he probably doesn’t have $250.

  I’ll pay the ticket. Regardless of what Kyle did, it’s my responsibility. And fuck it, I’m loaded.

  A half-hour’s drive down the road, after the sun has dipped below the horizon, I see the headlights coming at me from the eastbound lanes as long streaks of light. I’ve already stopped once to pee, which I should have done back at Pizza Hut. I’m close now, less than three hours away if my calculations are correct, and they usually are. (I’m not including gas in that statement, as those calculations continue to flummox me. In American Falls, I needed 13.013 gallons of gas to fill up, at $3.0699 per gallon. That came to $39.95, which sounds like a television commercial price. From Butte to American Falls, I traveled 278.3 miles, which means I got 21.4 miles per gallon.)

  Despite my relative freshness, I do not like driving in the darkness, and I especially do not like it on a road that I haven’t been on before. At home, in Billings, I know the roads just fine, and I even know most of the right-turn-only routes through town. Here, on the interstate, at least I have the knowledge that I will be heading in a consistent direction: west. What I don’t know are things like where the rises are, if any patches of the interstate are in disrepair, or whether lanes will be closed due to construction. I will find these things out as I go, in the darkness. And that’s why I’m ill at ease.

  I remember that one time my father had a bad wreck in the darkness. He and my mother had been in Sheridan, Wyoming, visiting some friends, and my father hit a deer on Interstate 90 as they were coming back that night. It was a bad wreck. The car—a Cadillac, naturally—wouldn’t drive anymore, and a tow truck had to come and get it and bring my father and mother the eighty-something miles back to Billings (I do wish I knew the exact distance, but I never did find out). The insurance company said the car was totaled, and it gave my father the money to buy a whole new Cadillac, which he of course did. My father wouldn’t drive any other kind of car. He used to call the Cadillac the greatest negotiating tool in the world. He would say, “When they see you coming in a Cadillac, they know two things: first, that you know quality, and second, that you don’t need their deal. You know why? Because you’re driving a goddamned Cadillac, that’s why.”

  I also remember that my mother was very angry with my father about that crash. Every time the subject would come up, her face would twist and she would say, “Ted, you should have never been driving.” I’m not sure what she meant when she said that. My mother never drove, not when my father was around.

  I will be seeing my mother in nine days. It will be the first time since August 28, which makes it 105 days since I’ve seen her. She spends only part of the year in Billings, and it seems like her stays have been getting shorter. Last year she went to Texas in September and she came back to Montana in April. The year before, she came back in March.

  It’s been a long time since I talked to my mother about my father. Lately, I have been thinking about him more than ever, and that surprises me, because I’ve had a lot of time—three years, one month, and eleven days—to get used to the fact that he’s gone. I wonder if she thinks about him, too. I wonder if she misses him, like I do.

  I will have to ask her, I guess.

  It’s 7:53 when I see the lights of Boise, and Michael Stipe is singing about bang and blame, and I have this rush of happiness inside me that feels like a Coke bubbling over into my cranial cavity. I try to concentrate, though, because I know I’ll need to stay alert. It’s four right turns—and, unfortunately, two left turns—to get to Donna and Victor’s street, but finally, the Cadillac’s tires are on the pavement of North Twenty-Fifth Street. I drive along slowly, because it won’t be far now and because I cannot see the house numbers in the dark, and I’ve only seen pictures of their place. Michael Stipe is telling somebody not to go back to Rockville.

  The house is not hard to find. Victor’s red Dodge pickup truck is parked in the driveway.

  I pull along the curb and park.

  When I pull myself out of the seat of the Cadillac, a dull ache is in my legs and my shoulders. I stretch.

  I close the door to the car and head for the trunk to retrieve my things.

  And then I hear her voice. “Edward!”

  I pivot back toward the house, and Donna is bouncing toward me—she is literally bouncing; this is not hyperbole. She is running and leaping and calling my name, and behind her is Victor with a big smile, and he’s extending a hand for me to shake.

  I walk toward them and Donna hugs me around the neck. Victor shakes my right hand and slaps me on the back friendly-style with his left hand.

  They are happy to see me.

  I am glad to be here.

  In the doorway, under the light, Kyle stands.

  He’s gotten so big.

  TECHNICALLY MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2011

  It’s 12:09 a.m. and I haven’t been able to keep my eyes closed for more than seven minutes and twenty-seven seconds since I came down to the basement at 10:04.

  I don’t know what to do.

  Victor and Donna were great. They understand me completely and work hard to be good friends to me. After we finished greeting each other on the street, they helped me bring my things in. Once we were inside and in better light, they saw my bruised nose and they were very concerned when I told them what had happened in Bozeman.

  Kyle, for the first time, said something.

  “He hit you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t like the University of Montana, I guess.”

  “Did you hit him back?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “It didn’t occur to me.”

  “You should have.”

  “He was gone by the time I was exactly sure what had happened.”

  Donna and Victor told me to sit down on the couch in the front of the TV. The Cowboys were playing the New York Giants, and the second half was just under way. They knew I’d need to see the rest of the game, and even though what I probably should have done is focus on visiting with them, they made allowances for me. That’s what good friends do for each other.


  “It’s a tight one so far,” Victor told me.

  He said Tony Romo had played great in the first half, with two touchdown passes, and the Cowboys led 17–15.

  Donna asked Kyle to come over and sit with me and watch the game. He was standing against the far wall and hadn’t said anything after all the questions about my being punched.

  “I hate the stupid Cowboys,” he said.

  I worked hard at not responding to that. Kyle and I have been over this subject before, and while I understand and appreciate that he is a Denver Broncos fan, he has never been willing to appreciate that I am a Dallas Cowboys fan. I have been ascribing (I love the word “ascribing”) that to his youth, which often comes with bullheadedness. But he’s getting older—he’s now 191 days older than he was when I last saw him in Billings—and still he persists. It’s getting to be a pain.

  Donna was calmer than I would have been, so I’m glad she’s the one who spoke first. “But you like Edward, so maybe you ought to focus on that.”

  Kyle didn’t say anything to that, but he did walk over and sit on the far edge of the couch, away from me. He still had a twisted look on his face, the kind of face that my grandpa Sid used to call “puckered up like a chicken’s asshole.”

  I waited for a commercial break to talk to him.

  “How tall are you now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You were five feet six and seven-sixteenths inches tall on June first. You look a lot taller than that now.”

  “Duh.”

  “Can we measure you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s weird, you douche.”

  “Hey!” Victor said.

  Donna, clearly mad, came over from the recliner she was sitting in and put her face directly in front of her son’s.

  “You know I hate that word. I won’t have it here, or anywhere else. You apologize to him right now.”

  Kyle didn’t even look at me. “Sorry.”

  The game was back on now, so I left him alone. After stopping the Giants on their first second-half possession, the Cowboys were trying to get moving, but Tony Romo got sacked.

  “Come on, Romo,” I said.

  I have said this many times since Tony Romo became the Cowboys’ quarterback—far too many to count, and I’m glad I don’t keep track of such things.

  “Suck,” Kyle said.

  “Huh?”

  “They suck.”

  “They’re still ahead, Kyle.”

  “You suck.”

  Donna was on her feet. “That’s it. You’re done, kid. You can’t be with civilized people, you’ll be alone.”

  She grabbed Kyle by the arm, lifted him to his feet, and led him out of the living room. Kyle swung his left arm violently and dislodged her hand. That’s when Victor left his chair and stepped toward Kyle, who seemed to shrink physically, although that’s not technically possible. But he definitely knew that he was in trouble and that he didn’t want to tangle with his stepfather.

  “Bed,” Victor said. “Now.”

  Kyle didn’t protest further. He left the room, with Donna trailing him.

  Victor sat back down and faced me.

  “He doesn’t mean it, Edward. He’s angry. Confused. There’s a sourness in him that we just have to ride out.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Hormones, maybe. It hasn’t been an easy transition for him, being here. He doesn’t know these kids very well. Junior high is a pretty tough time under the best circumstances, as I recall.”

  I nodded. All of school was tough for me—not necessarily the subjects, although some of them were. I didn’t have friends, and that’s hard for a kid. That’s hard for anybody, as I’ve learned since all my friends left Billings. I’ve been so frustrated with Kyle today, and now, remembering what things were like for me thirty years ago, when I was his age, I feel like I understand him. I wouldn’t want him to live through the kinds of things I experienced.

  “He’s so big,” I said.

  Victor laughed. “Tell me about it. Four inches, at least, since the end of the summer. He wears a size ten shoe. We’ve had to buy new clothes twice.”

  “What should I do?” I asked.

  Victor’s face went from laughter to solemnity (I love the word “solemnity”) in a single moment.

  “To start with, keep being his friend. He needs one. We’ll see how it goes.”

  That’s what I’m contemplating here in the darkness. Being Kyle’s friend.

  The fact of the matter is that Kyle was my first good friend. Donna and I are close now, and I can feel myself becoming better friends with Victor. But Donna and I didn’t start out that way. I didn’t like Donna when I first met her, and I don’t think she liked me very much, either. Kyle, though, made things fun the first time I met him, on October 15, 2008, when he helped me paint my garage.

  Maybe that’s what is missing from Kyle—fun. He looks miserable, and he surely is making his parents miserable. He’s making me miserable, too. As Dr. Buckley would say, that’s an awful lot of power we have given one boy over all of us.

  In fairness to Kyle, he’s not the only reason I’m in a bad mood. The Dallas Cowboys really messed up tonight. They led by twelve points, 34–22, with five minutes and forty-one seconds left in the game, and they still managed to lose. Eli Manning passed for one touchdown, and Brandon Jacobs ran for one, and with a two-point conversion, the Giants won 37–34. The Dallas Cowboys blow a lot of big leads. In this case, it wasn’t Tony Romo’s fault—he threw for four touchdowns. A lot of times, though, it is Tony Romo’s fault.

  I shake my head and remember that I’m here for Kyle, not for the Dallas Cowboys. I make myself a promise in the dark, but not like the kind in the Pat Benatar song. I promise that I will work hard while I am here to have fun with Kyle, to show him what fun is, to remind him of the good times we used to have together and can have again.

  It feels good to have settled on a course of action. It’s 12:48 a.m. now. The fun starts in a few hours.

  OFFICIALLY MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2011

  From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

  Time I woke up today: 8:33 a.m. (not counting the hours I stayed up past midnight). Fifth time this year I’ve been awake at this time.

  High temperature for Sunday, December 11, 2011, Day 345: 43 (according to the Boise newspaper). Same as the day before.

  Low temperature for Sunday, December 11, 2011: 26. Just one degree colder than the day before.

  Precipitation for Sunday, December 11, 2011: 0.00 inches

  Precipitation for 2011: 19.40 inches

  New entries:

  Exercise for Sunday, December 11, 2011: None, unfortunately. I drove, I ate, I watched the Dallas Cowboys, I went to bed. I need to rectify this today.

  Miles driven Sunday, December 11, 2011: 464.9

  Total miles driven: 688.3

  Addendum: I’m in Boise now. “Fun” is the key word. Kyle clearly isn’t having any, and neither are his parents. Neither am I, if I’m honest about the situation, and I always like to be honest. I am here now, and I want to make the best of this visit, because soon enough I will be going home and then on to Texas to see my mother, and I do not know when I will see my friends again.

  Fun. It’s the most important word there is right now. That seems odd to say. I’ve never considered whether words ought to be ranked in terms of importance, although I know that etymologists like to track the frequency with which words are used. But frequency and import are not necessarily the same thing. Let’s just say that fun is a very important word for Donna, Victor, Kyle, and me right now. There is no need to give it any more gravity than that.

  I have a breakfast of oatmeal, which is fast becoming one of my favorite foods now that Dr. Rex Helton has recommended it to me as I battle my type 2 diabetes. Donna sits with me and we talk. I tell her about my diagnosis, and she’s greatly interested in that, because she’s a nurse and has
seen the effects of unchecked diabetes up close.

  “Helton is absolutely right, Edward,” she says. “This is different than juvenile diabetes. You can beat this thing. You can shed the weight and get your sugars under control, and you can come off this medicine.”

  “It makes me pee a lot.” I pop a hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry. It’s impolite to talk about peeing.”

  I hear Kyle’s voice coming up from behind me. “Peeing is cool.”

  He says it like those cartoon characters on the music television channel, and then he chuckles stupidly like those two guys do.

  “OK, wise guy, come have some breakfast,” Donna says.

  She slides a bowl toward him, and he sits down in the chair to my right. I get a better look at him in the morning light, and he gets a better look at me.

  “Looks like your face is healing, dude,” he says.

  I touch the skin around my nose.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Man, you really got your ass kicked.”

  Donna snaps, “Don’t even start, young man.”

  He looks up at her, then digs into his breakfast.

  “Had you ever been beaten up before?”

  “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to, Edward,” Donna says.

  I put down my spoon. I don’t mind answering.

  “Beat up? No. I got picked on a lot. There were even boys who might have tried to beat me up, if they thought they could have gotten away with it. But, no, nobody ever did that before. I wasn’t ready for it.”

  “Are you going to learn to fight so it doesn’t happen again?”

  Kyle’s interest in this topic flummoxes me.

  “I don’t want to fight,” I say.

  “But what if someone wants to fight you?”

  “I’ll walk away.”

  “What if you can’t?”

  “I can’t imagine that circumstance. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen. I just can’t imagine a situation where I wouldn’t have a chance to leave and extricate myself from what was happening. ‘Extricate’ is a good word, by the way. I love it.”