Edward Adrift

by Craig Lancaster

  At the clinic, I simply tell the receptionist my name and sign off on my list of medications. The only medication I take is eighty milligrams of fluoxetine daily. Dr. Buckley gave me that medicine twelve years ago, as part of my treatment for Asperger’s syndrome and its associated obsessive-compulsive tendencies, which were ruining everything. I’m forty-two years old, and taking fluoxetine is now just part of my life, like breathing or recording the daily temperature readings.

  Once I’ve cleared the paperwork, I set about my usual business. I go from table to table and arrange the magazines by title and edition number. I have to do this every time I am here. The other patients do not take good care with such things, and while that is frustrating, I’ve learned that there is no way to stop it. I do what I can to offset the damage they’re causing.

  Here’s something that bothers me about seeing Dr. Rex Helton: My appointment time says 11:45, but experience tells me that it could be 11:48 or 11:55 or even 12:01 before my name is called. That never happened at Dr. Buckley’s office. With her, I had a 10:00 a.m. appointment every single Tuesday, and she never failed to have me in her office by that time. I can only conclude that the Broadwater clinic isn’t as interested in precision as she was.

  Here’s another thing that bothers me about seeing Dr. Rex Helton: When the nurse finally calls my name, at 11:47 a.m., and after I’m weighed (290.2 pounds—holy shit!) and my blood pressure is taken (138 systolic, 92 diastolic—holy shit!), I’m placed alone in a room at 11:51 a.m. and told that Dr. Helton will see me shortly. (I don’t like a word like “shortly.” It’s imprecise and owes too much to individual interpretation. Dr. Rex Helton’s “shortly” and my “shortly” could be two completely different things.)

  When Dr. Rex Helton finally comes in—at 12:02 p.m.—he says “Hello, Edward,” and then he gets right to it. Directness is the only thing I appreciate about Dr. Rex Helton.

  “I’ll be blunt. It’s not good,” he says. “It’s not good at all. It’s not just the weight, which you know is going in the wrong direction. We’ve seen the results of the fasting plasma glucose test you took a couple of days ago, and you’ve tipped into type two diabetes.”

  “What was the reading?” I ask.

  “Well, your six-month average is two hundred and twelve. It’s far outside normal.”

  Holy shit!

  Dr. Rex Helton goes on. “I’m also worried about your blood pressure. We need to get aggressive with this. You have to eat better, you have to exercise, and you’re going to have to go on medication.”

  “How much medication?”

  “Fifteen milligrams of lisinopril for the hypertension. Forty milligrams of furosemide, a diuretic to leach some of the water out of your body. Thirty milligrams of actos, which will help increase your sensitivity to insulin. A thousand milligrams twice a day of metformin, which should help control the glucose in your blood. And, finally, a daily potassium chloride tablet to help with your kidney function. That furosemide is going to put a lot of stress on them, so we don’t want problems there.”

  “You mean, I’m going to be peeing a lot?”

  “Yep.”

  “Holy shit!”

  I can’t believe I actually said this out loud, in front of Dr. Rex Helton.

  “Edward, I know it sounds like a lot. It is a lot. But we have to get out in front of this thing. Lose the weight. Control your diet. You don’t have to take this stuff forever. I’ve seen people come off it. But you have to do the work. Is there any reason you can’t?”

  I could make a lot of excuses about all of the things that have happened to me this year, but I don’t.

  “No, Dr. Rex Helton. There’s no reason I can’t. What should I weigh?”

  Dr. Rex Helton doesn’t know this, but it’s better for me when I have tangible goals.

  “Less than you do now, OK? It’s not just about weight. It’s the whole picture. You’re tall”—in fact, I am 6 feet 3 5⁄16 inches tall—“but you’re still overweight. Lose some of the weight, adjust the diet, and we’ll see improvement.”

  “But how much?” Dr. Rex Helton is not answering my question.

  “Let’s say you should weigh two hundred pounds.”

  Holy shit! I do the math in my head. I need to lose 31 percent of my weight. More than that, really. I don’t have time to calculate the fractions of a pound before Dr. Rex Helton is talking again.

  “Now,” he says, “here’s what I want you to do. Get a notebook and keep track of how much you exercise. Thirty minutes a day, Edward. It can be as simple as a brisk walk. As for meals, imagine a plate divided into thirds. I want two-thirds of that to be vegetables—salad, carrots, green beans, peas, whatever you like. The other third can be lean meat. You can have pasta, but it needs to be an occasional thing, not the everyday meal it’s been. Those days are over. And look into sugar-free options for dessert. There are a ton of them. You need to be serious about this. Do you hear me?”

  I smile. Dr. Rex Helton smiles back at me. I hear him. I’m getting new entries in my daily logbook. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that type 2 diabetes has been a good development, but I’ve found a silver lining, at least.

  When I go home, I don’t follow my earlier route in reverse. That would transform all of my right turns into left turns. Instead, I get into my candy-apple-red Cadillac DTS, which used to belong to my father, and turn right onto Broadwater, right on Twenty-Fourth Street West, right on Grand Avenue, and right into the parking lot of the Albertsons on Grand Avenue and Thirteenth Street West.

  Dr. Helton has called my new prescriptions in to the pharmacy, and sure enough, when I tell the pharmacist (her name tag says LUELLA, which I think is a pretty name) who I am, she has them ready to go. I pay the $122.57 with my credit card.

  From the Albertsons parking lot, I am again a right-turning kind of guy. Right on Grand Avenue, right on Fifth Street West, and right on Clark Avenue, and then a right turn into my driveway.

  I’m pretty smart sometimes.

  In my absence, the mailman has come. I used to obsess about the time of the mail’s arrival, because it bothered me that there could be such wide variances given that the mailman walks the same route every day. It didn’t make sense to me. But Dr. Buckley worked hard with me to help me figure out the difference between things that matter and things that don’t. She helped me to see that as long as I receive the mail each day, it doesn’t matter what time it arrives. Dr. Buckley is a very logical woman. Besides that, I have been reading a lot in the Billings Herald-Gleaner about the financial trouble the United States Postal Service is in—how delivery might be curtailed on certain days and how letters may take longer to go from one place to another. While I don’t like conjecture, it’s easy for me to imagine that the postal employees are under a lot of stress, and I don’t think it would be fair for me to add to it by obsessing about delivery times.

  I have only two pieces of mail. I can tell from the script handwriting on the envelope of one that it is from my mother, who is spending the fall and winter months in North Richland Hills, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth, where she is from. She and her sister, Corinne, spend about half the year together in Texas now that their husbands are dead, and they do all sorts of things, like traveling and going to concerts and shows and spending time with some of their childhood friends, many of whom have also lost their husbands. All this death makes me wonder sometimes if marriage kills men. I asked my mother one time if she would think about getting married again now that my father is gone, and she wrinkled her nose and said, “Why would I want a smelly man around my house?” I didn’t have an answer for that, and she didn’t insist on one.

  The other piece of mail is from Jay L. Lamb, my lawyer. I don’t feel so hot in my stomach when I see that envelope.

  I open the envelope from my mother and remove the contents as I step through the doorway into my living room.

  Dear Edward,

  Here is your ticket to fly to Texas for Christmas. You’ll be leaving at 6 a.m
. on December 20th, which I know is early, and you’ll be going back on December 27th. All of the information is on the ticket that I’ve enclosed. Did you know it cost an extra $25 for a printed paper ticket? That’s highway robbery, or skyway robbery. Be sure to take your credit card and your driver’s license when you get on the plane. They’ll charge you for your bag, and you’ll have to prove who you are.

  I can’t wait to see you, son. We will have a real good time. Did you know the Cowboys are playing on Christmas Eve? Guess what? You’re going!

  Merry (early) Christmas!

  Love,

  Mom

  My mother asked me two questions, both of them rhetorical. That means she doesn’t really want answers, but I feel compelled to offer them. First, I didn’t know that about paper tickets, and I agree with my mother. Second, of course I know the Cowboys play on Christmas Eve. They will be playing the Philadelphia Eagles, whom I hate. Not hate as in I wish them ill health. I just don’t like them. The Dallas Cowboys, on the other hand, are my favorite football team, and I have wanted to see them in their new stadium since it opened for the start of the 2009 season. That was a good year for the Cowboys. They finished 11–5 and won the NFC East division, although they lost 34–3 to the Minnesota Vikings in the second round of the playoffs. In any case, it was way better than the next season, when they went 6–10 and didn’t even make the playoffs. Right now, in 2011, they are 7–5, but I’m not feeling too good about them. Still, I can’t help but root for the Cowboys, because I always have and because my father did. I do understand, however, that not everyone likes the Dallas Cowboys. Scott Shamwell hates the Dallas Cowboys. He calls them “America’s Douche-Canoes.” I don’t like it when he says that, but I have to remember that Scott Shamwell is a Minnesota Vikings fan and has never seen his team win a Super Bowl. The Cowboys, on the other hand, have won five. I will just be thankful for my team’s good fortune.

  Feeling happy about my Christmas trip and seeing the Dallas Cowboys, I open the letter from Jay L. Lamb and prepare to feel worse. I will concede that this preemptive (I love the word “preemptive”) feeling of dread is an effect of years past, when Jay L. Lamb, under my father’s direction, would write me letters telling me what to do and threatening to cut me off from my father’s support if I did not follow his directions. Since my father died and my mother yelled at Jay L. Lamb and instructed him never to speak to me without her permission, I have not had any trouble from him. Feeling dread at his letters is what Dr. Buckley would call a “conditioned response,” and those are hard to break, like habits. I’m trying. I will try harder.

  Edward:

  As I relayed to your mother and she asked me to relay to you, I have found private health coverage for you now that you are no longer employed by the Herald-Gleaner. I will direct the human resources department at the newspaper to suspend your participation in the COBRA program. Though this new insurance will be more expensive than your employer-provided plan, it is in any case less costly than COBRA. I will be in touch soon with plan details and your insurance card. Please let me know if anything has changed on the medical front.

  Also, some additional good news—the strategic steps we took to position your money in late 2008 have paid off handsomely. We have recovered the recessionary losses and then some, and your holdings as of this writing total $6,123,817. It’s safe to say that you need not work another day in your life.

  With all the best regards,

  Jay L. Lamb

  Jay L. Lamb has a talent for saying something that is innocuous (I love the word “innocuous”) and offensive at the same time. I appreciate his getting me new insurance and taking care of my money, and I will endeavor to tell him so. As for his comment about my not needing to work, it just goes to show that while Jay L. Lamb may be my lawyer, he doesn’t know me. My father made that money in the oil business and in investments after he retired and became a politician. Jay L. Lamb thinks my money is what keeps me alive. He’s a fool. But I won’t tell him that.

  I go into the room adjacent to my bedroom, where my computer desk sits, and I compose a letter to Jay L. Lamb. I’d like to get this in the mail as soon as possible so all the necessary details of my new health coverage can be put in place.

  Jay L. Lamb:

  Thank you for your note of the 7th. I am writing to you to fulfill your request about details on the medical front. Today, I saw Dr. Rex Helton at the St. Vincent Healthcare Broadwater clinic, and he has informed me that I have type 2 diabetes. I have gone to Albertsons and picked up the medications that Dr. Rex Helton recommends as a deterrent for this new condition, and I am sure Dr. Rex Helton can provide any details you need beyond this letter.

  Thank you for attending to this and for the update about my money.

  Regards,

  Edward Stanton

  As long as I’m writing letters, I might as well compose one to Mr. Withers at the Billings Herald-Gleaner. I have spent three weeks and a day thinking about the circumstances of how I was fired (or involuntarily separated), and I have built a substantive case for being rehired as soon as possible.

  Mr. Withers:

  As you may recall, you had to involuntarily separate me from the Billings Herald-Gleaner on November 16th. At our last meeting, which you euphemistically called an exit interview, you suggested that this was a result of “business challenges” and not a commentary on the quality of my work.

  While I am not privy to the newspaper’s business challenges, I think that once you reconsider things, you will see that I should continue to be employed as the night-shift maintenance expert.

  I have included here a short list of the things that need to be done at the Herald-Gleaner. All of these things would have been done by me had I remained an employee:

  The steps on the south side of the building need to be squared off with a liquid concrete bonding agent. As it is, these steps are a safety hazard.

  The landing on the north entrance needs to be retiled.

  Given the unseasonably warm December we have been enjoying, there is time to prune the trees on all sides of the building.

  Again, given the unseasonable warmth, the parking lot lines can be repainted.

  As I wrote earlier, this is just a sampling of the chores left undone by my involuntary separation. By the time I finish these items, there will no doubt be many more things for me to do. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that maintenance at so large a plant is an ongoing concern. I stand ready to assume my previous position and assist you with these tasks.

  I look forward to hearing from you.

  Regards,

  Edward Stanton

  I am proud of this letter. I fill out the envelopes for Jay L. Lamb and Mr. Withers, seal the letters inside them, affix a stamp upon each, and clip them to the mailbox so they go out first thing tomorrow.

  For the first time in three weeks and a day, I feel content. I like it. I feel so content, in fact, that I will lie down for a nap after I take my medicine. It’s not even 3:00 p.m.

  When I wake up with a start at 10:48 p.m., four unrelated thoughts are in my head.

  The first is that I have to pee really badly. I run into the bathroom, which fortunately is adjacent to my bedroom, and I just manage to get my pants down before the pee comes. It’s like my tallywhacker (I love the word “tallywhacker”) is a miniature fire hose, the way the pee shoots out of me. It is a clear, strong stream, and just when I think I’m about to be done, more comes out. I don’t think I’ve ever peed this much, although I must concede that it has never occurred to me to measure my pee output on a consistent basis. While the idea has some appeal—I love keeping data on things—I quickly recognize this as one of the compulsions that Dr. Buckley always told me I had to work hard to control.

  In any case, I can now see that Dr. Helton was right: my new medicine will make me pee a lot. Not enough to lose 31.08 percent of my body weight, but a lot. (I just made a joke. I’m pretty funny sometimes.)

  My second thought concerns t
he new TV show I’m trying to get into. When I call it a new show, I mean it’s new to me. It’s actually an old show called Adam-12, and it was produced by Jack Webb, the star of Dragnet, so it ought to be good. My mother gave me the DVDs for the first season of the show back in February, after I got the news about Dr. Buckley’s retirement. My mother thought it might cheer me up, but it didn’t. I just put the box on a shelf in my den. It wasn’t until Mr. Withers fired me twenty-two days ago that I started watching Adam-12, since I had nothing else to do. While I can definitely see some similarities to Dragnet, in that it’s about Los Angeles cops, I’m a little frustrated by the show. That’s what I’m thinking about now. Take as an example the episode I was supposed to watch tonight, if I hadn’t fallen asleep. It’s the twenty-second episode, and it’s called “Log 152: A Dead Cop Can’t Help Anyone.” It comes immediately after “Log 102: We Can’t Just Walk Away From It,” and immediately before “Log 12: He Was Trying to Kill Me.” I’m sure you can see what my trouble is. The stupid logs don’t go in order. I guess the characters, Officer Pete Malloy (played by Martin Milner) and Officer Jim Reed (played by Kent McCord), are all right, although they’re no Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon. But this show leaves a lot to be desired in terms of consistency.