Edward Adrift

by Craig Lancaster

  I decide to apply Occam’s razor to things. I turn on the bedside light, pull a notebook from my bag, and begin writing.

  I came here to help Kyle, but he’s beyond my reach.

  I also came here because I was feeling adrift.

  I still feel adrift.

  My father has visited my dreams twice, and both times he has been with me in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado.

  John Charles Fremont and Charles Preuss visited my dreams, and they were explorers who mapped the way for others.

  I need to find my way, and it doesn’t seem that anyone can map it for me.

  Though I have to leave Boise, I don’t have to go home. I have eight days, including this one, before I leave Billings for Texas.

  I’m going elsewhere. I think I will go to Cheyenne Wells, Colorado. Even if my father’s appearance there in my dreams is completely random, I would like to see the town again.

  I’m done with the list now.

  Now.

  Shit.

  I’m determined to stop writing, even though the last thing on my list is a curse word and an odd number. I manage to do it—I’m very proud—but I have to snap the pen in half to keep from writing down the number 12.

  I feel better having made a decision about what to do next, but then my mind goes back to Kyle, and I feel bad all over again.

  When Victor came home earlier tonight, all four of us sat at the kitchen table and talked. Victor impressed me. He was disappointed that Kyle called his mom a bitch and me a freak, but he did not yell at the boy. Kyle did all the yelling.

  “You made me come to this stupid place and this stupid school. I never wanted to leave!”

  Victor spoke to his stepson softly. “Kyle, you’re not the first kid who’s moved. I lived in four different cities when I was a kid.”

  “That’s your problem!”

  “No, it’s our problem. What are we going to do about it?”

  “Like you’d give me a choice anyway.”

  Donna spoke. “I think we need to talk to someone together, all of us, as a family.”

  “Him, too?” Kyle pointed at me.

  “Edward is going home.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re going to be busy here, and because he has to go to Texas to see his mom.”

  “Not for eight days,” I said.

  “Can he stay until then?” Kyle asked.

  “No,” his mother said.

  “Why not?”

  “I just told you. Because we’re going to be busy.”

  “This sucks.”

  Victor pointed at Kyle with his left index finger. “Young man, I’ve warned you…”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  Kyle stood up and shoved his chair hard against the table, and then he ran down the hallway to his room and closed the door.

  Victor looked at Donna and then at me. Donna looked at the table. I looked out the sliding glass door to the backyard. The sky was purple and orange, and the leafless trees looked like spindly (I love the word “spindly”) black monsters against the sky. I don’t think I ever noticed how spooky trees can look. I’m noticing a lot of things I’ve never noticed before, and I’m finding that I don’t like all of the things I see.

  It’s 5:34 a.m. now. I kick off the covers. I have a new route to plot. Time is wasting.

  OFFICIALLY TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2011

  From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

  Time I woke up today: 4:47 a.m. First instance this year that I’ve been awake at this time.

  High temperature for Monday, December 12, 2011, Day 346: 23 (according to the Boise newspaper). Twenty degrees colder than the high the day before.

  Low temperature for Monday, December 12, 2011: 20. Six degrees colder than the low the day before.

  Precipitation for Monday, December 12, 2011: a trace amount.

  Precipitation for 2011: 19.40 inches

  New entries:

  Exercise for Monday, December 12, 2011: Donna, Kyle, and I took a walk but came home early after Kyle mouthed off.

  Miles driven Monday, December 12, 2011: None.

  Total miles driven: 688.3

  Addendum: Much earlier than I’d anticipated, I’m leaving Boise and cutting short my visit with Donna, Victor, and Kyle. I wrote yesterday that “fun” was the key word, and I’m sorry to report that we never managed to have any. I’m sad that I will not get to spend any more time with my friends, but I understand why Donna thinks I should go. As I still have a week before I’m due back in Montana for my flight to Texas, I will be turning south today and heading toward Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, in the southeastern part of the state. Though I do not believe that dreams hold any particular power, I am intrigued that my father has been showing up in mine and that he has been in Cheyenne Wells when he does. On the off chance that I’m wrong about dreams, I figure I better go there. It is 998.9 miles, and I am going to try to make it in two days, which means I’ll be driving farther each day than I ever have before. If I manage to do that, I can spend two days in Cheyenne Wells and still be back in Billings with a day to spare.

  I realize I’m doing something unusual for me, in that I’m driving off the course I originally set and I’m doing so on a whim. But I think this venture will be worth it. If I’m correct and dreams hold no answers about why I am so adrift, at least I will have seen some countryside and a town I visited when I was a little boy. If I’m wrong and my dreams have been guiding me toward something, I will have to reconsider my strict adherence to facts and allow for the possibility that unexplained things, like my dreams, can have profound implications.

  Whatever the case, I think Dr. Buckley would say that I’m allowing myself to live in the moment, and I think she would find that to be worthwhile. Maybe even Dr. Bryan Thomsen would think so, too. I will find out when he and I speak.

  I leave Donna and Victor’s house at first light. Victor shakes my hand, and Donna pulls me in for a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, which makes me feel warm inside. That always surprises me, because I usually do not like to be touched. Kyle, she says, is asleep, and she doesn’t want to wake him because rest has been hard for him to come by lately. I understand and will talk to him another time, after he has overcome his present difficulty.

  “We will do this again, Edward, and we’ll get it right,” Donna says. “Just give us some time.”

  “Yes,” I say, and I hope a single word communicates to her that I will give her and Victor and Kyle all the time they need. They are my friends, and I love them. I wish I could tell them that right now, but such an overt (I love the word “overt”) display of affection is not the way I do things.

  Behind the wheel of my Cadillac DTS, I first look for a gas station so I can begin my long journey with a full tank. It’s a clear, cold morning, and flecks of purple—the last bits of the nighttime sky—mingle with the yellow of the sunrise. I’m driving south and east, into the rising sun. Before the day is out, if I can stick to the schedule I’ve plotted, I will see Idaho and Utah and Wyoming, and I will spend the night in Rock Springs, Wyoming, before heading into Colorado tomorrow. As I stand beside the car, filling it up at a Chevron on West State Street, I think of how the weather has favored me on this trip. No snow is on the ground in Boise, and I have encountered no storms since I left Billings. Given the time of year and the massive shifts in terrain and weather tendencies I’ll be encountering over the next couple of days, I do not expect this good fortune to hold out. Still, expectation and supposition are poor stand-ins for facts. I shall see what the weather brings.

  I peek through the tinted window into the backseat and see the sleeping bags and blankets I made sure to pack in Billings, along with the water and the sunflower seeds I’m not eating anymore. If I should be stranded by inclement (I love the word “inclement”) weather, which has been known to happen this time of year, I will be able to survive with my car as a sort of emergency shelter. I hope this is something I don’t have to prove, but hope is powerless agains
t the forces of nature. I prepared for the worst-case scenario. That is all I can do.

  After fueling—9.747 gallons at $3.0199 a gallon, for a total of $29.43—I make my way through the early-morning traffic of Boise to the ramp for Interstate 84 eastbound.

  Michael Stipe is singing about how he waited for someone to call and he’s sorry. I’m sorry, too, about a lot of things. I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Donna, Victor, and Kyle. I’m sorry I don’t know when I’ll see them again. I’m sorry I don’t know exactly why I am heading to Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, as such displays of whimsy tend to be in conflict with my desire to rigorously plan everything. Still, I am determined to go there. When I plotted the course early this morning, I noticed that much of my route today and tomorrow will take me along the path John Charles Fremont and Charles Preuss followed when they mapped the Oregon Trail. Alanis Morissette would call that ironic, but it’s really only a coincidence. Even so, it’s a very interesting one.

  At least I think so.

  At the 114.6-mile mark of my trip, as Michael Stipe is singing about being the king of birds and as I near the town of Jerome, Idaho, I hear something shift in the backseat. I know I’m supposed to keep both hands on the steering wheel and my eyes forward at all times, but it’s a straight stretch of interstate, so I lean over the seat and try to secure the case of bottled water on the seat so it doesn’t tumble to the floorboards.

  That’s when Kyle throws back the blanket and says, “Good morning, douchebag!”

  It’s hard for me to describe what happens to me physically, because I do not like to use similes. Still, I will try: It’s as if someone sets off a bomb in my chest. The Cadillac veers hard to the left, and I try to pull it back into the right lane. I step on the brake as hard as I can, the car’s tires make a screeching noise, and I can smell burning rubber as I get control of the car and pull it over onto the shoulder. Kyle, the whole time, is laughing at me, and I get extremely angry.

  “What the fucking fuck, Kyle?”

  He’s still laughing. “Oh, man, you totally should see your face. That was awesome.”

  It was not awesome. It was scary and awful. I sit in my seat, my hands still clutching the steering wheel so hard that I can’t feel them anymore, and I expel my breath in short bursts as I wait for my heart to stop doing flip-flops in my chest.

  Kyle can’t stop laughing. Holy shit! How did he get in my car? I am going to have to turn around and go back to Boise. There’s no way I can make it to Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, on time now.

  I reach Donna on my bitchin’ iPhone and tell her that Kyle is with me. She is incredulous (I love the word “incredulous”), and I hear her walking down the hallway to his room and opening the door to see if he’s in there. I’m certain he’s not, because he is right here with me. I can imagine the entire scene. Donna twitches when she is angry, and as I hear her saying, “Oh my god, oh my god,” I know that she is most assuredly angry at what her son has done.

  “I will bring him back now,” I tell her.

  Kyle, to quote Scott Shamwell, goes “apeshit.”

  He starts screaming, so loudly and shrilly that I cannot hear Donna anymore, and he begins to plead in run-together words.

  “Pleasedon’tmakemego, pleasedon’tmakemegoback, pleaseplease pleaseplease!”

  Donna hears this, and she asks me to put him on the phone. I hand my bitchin’ iPhone to Kyle, and he listens to his mother for a few moments. Tears are running down his cheeks.

  At something she says—I cannot hear her end of the conversation—he says, “Please let me stay with Edward for a few days. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. I will do anything when I come back, just please let me stay.”

  Donna says something else, and he hands the phone back to me.

  I hold the phone to my ear and say hello.

  “Edward, can you just wait there for a few minutes? I need to call Victor and talk to him, and I’ll call you right back.”

  I tell Donna that I will wait. Kyle looks at me with expectation, and I shrug. I don’t know what to tell him.

  As we wait for Donna to call back, Kyle tells me how he was able to stow away in my car. It turns out that he’s an ingenious (I love the word “ingenious”) little shit. When Donna and Victor were in the basement with me, helping me to collect my belongings and bring them upstairs to be placed in the car’s trunk, Kyle slipped out his bedroom window, ran around to the front of the house, climbed down onto the Cadillac’s floorboards, and covered himself in blankets. When I was at the gas station in Boise and looked in, I thought the blankets appeared to be a little askew (I love the word “askew”), but I also thought maybe that was just because they had shifted in transit. I will have to begin investigating my observations more rigorously. If I’d found Kyle at the Boise gas station, I wouldn’t have lost much time at all today.

  Kyle tells me that he had a hard time staying quiet for almost two hours, especially when I was singing along with Michael Stipe.

  “Your voice sucks, dude,” he says.

  This hurts my feelings because I did not realize I had an audience and might not have sung at all if I’d known he was listening.

  He says he wanted to make sure we were a ways down the road before he revealed himself.

  I tell him that it was wrong and mean to reveal himself the way he did and that we’re lucky we didn’t crash. I want to tell him that I also think he’s ingenious, but I suspect that would only encourage more bad behavior, so I remain silent on that point.

  Thirteen minutes and seven seconds after Donna and I hung up, the bitchin’ iPhone tells me that she’s calling, and I answer it.

  “Edward, I’m going to tell you the truth. We don’t know what to do. We’ve never seen this kind of behavior out of Kyle, and we’re really at a loss here. He says he wants to stay with you for a few days. How do you feel about that?”

  I look at Kyle, and he’s looking back at me hopefully.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “That’s our answer, too. It seems like to give him what he wants, after he’s behaved so badly, is the wrong thing to do. But Victor and I also talked about how maybe he’ll talk to you about things he’s scared to tell us, and we need that to happen, somehow. Does that make sense?”

  It makes sense.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “How long do you plan to be in Colorado?”

  I tell Donna that if I get to Cheyenne Wells tomorrow evening, as planned, I’ll stay two nights and then head home. I also tell her that I don’t have time in my schedule to go back to Boise on the way home to Billings. She says that’s OK and that she and Victor will meet me in Wyoming to retrieve Kyle.

  “Will you do this, Edward? I know it’s a lot to ask. We clearly can’t control him, so maybe it’s just silly to think that he’ll be tamer for you. We’re operating on a gut feeling here. He trusts you, or at least he used to. Maybe he’ll let you in. It’s worth a shot.”

  I agree. It’s worth a shot. I feel happiness and fear. I’m happy that I’m being allowed to help solve an adult problem; it’s the kind of thing I’m not often trusted to do. I’m fearful that Kyle will keep being mean to me and will make my trip to Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, frustrating and maybe even dangerous. While I am sympathetic to Kyle’s problems, I have my own struggles, and I’m hopeful—despite all the limitations of hope—that I will find some answers. I don’t want Kyle to mess that up.

  “I will take Kyle with me,” I say, and Kyle makes a fist pump.

  “Thank you,” Donna says. “And, Edward, I want you to know—if he gives you trouble you can’t handle, you call us. We will come get him, wherever you are. Impose whatever restrictions on him you feel are necessary. You’re in charge of him. Don’t let him manipulate you.”

  I think that’s good advice. I also think it’s ironic—the real kind of ironic, not the Alanis Morissette kind. Kyle has been manipulating all of us. That has to end. I decide that I’m not driving another mile with him until I’ve set som
e rules.

  “Reach into the backseat and hand me my notebook,” I tell Kyle, who obliges.

  It makes me feel good that he obeys my first order.

  RULES FOR KYLE ON OUR TRIP TO CHEYENNE WELLS, COLORADO

  Kyle is not to do anything that compromises my safe operation of the Cadillac DTS. This includes but is not limited to making loud, scary noises; attempting to cause me to look away from the road, intentionally or unintentionally; grabbing the steering wheel or manipulating any of the car’s propulsive (I love the word “propulsive”) machinery; being in any shape or form a bad kid. “Bad kid” is subject to my definition.

  Kyle cannot call me names.

  Kyle will follow my instructions when I give them. This has to be an absolute rule, because I cannot anticipate every situation that will emerge.

  Kyle must stay with me at all times.

  Kyle cannot curse anymore. Each time he curses, I will write it down and I will show these marks to his parents.

  These are the rules.

  Stop writing.

  Stop.

  Shit.

  OK, that’s it.

  I draw a line through numbers six through ten, and then I hand the notebook to Kyle and tell him to sign it, acknowledging that he understands the rules and agrees to abide by them.

  “What if I don’t sign?” he asks.

  “I will call your parents right now and they will come get you.”

  He signs the paper.

  “And what’s this about cussing? You cuss.”