Edward Adrift

by Craig Lancaster

  I’m pretty funny sometimes.

  I’ve finished in the kitchen, taken the wheelbarrow back into the garage (Scott Shamwell left it outside, just like he said he would), had a shower, put on my good clothes, and had my breakfast of oatmeal—along with my fluoxetine and new diabetes drugs—when the phone rings.

  “Hello?”

  A voice I know instantly comes back at me.

  “Edward, it’s Nathan Withers.”

  This is incredible. The mailman hasn’t even picked up my letter and already it’s gotten results.

  “Hello.”

  I hear him clearing his throat.

  “Edward, my boy, I’ve always shot straight with you, haven’t I?”

  I’ve never seen Mr. Withers use a gun, but I recognize this idiom.

  “Yes.”

  “I intend to keep doing so,” he says. “I heard you were here last night, trying to fix those steps on the south side of the building.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t do that. I don’t want to hear about you being here again. Am I clear?”

  I want to cry. “Yes.”

  “Now, listen,” he says, more softly than when he told me never to visit the Herald-Gleaner again. “I know it’s hard. My boy, I would have never let you go if I’d had any other choice. Now, I’m not supposed to tell you that, but again, I’m shooting straight with you. Working here is something you’re going to have to let go. It’s hard, and you did good work, and you don’t deserve what happened to you. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it’?”

  “Yes. Clint Eastwood said that in Unforgiven.”

  “That’s right. You’re a talented man and a good worker, and somebody will appreciate that and give you a job, if you want one. But it won’t be here. If you need a recommendation, I will write you one. If you want to have lunch sometime, I’ll buy it. But you’re not getting your job back. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. Edward, have a good Christmas. Life is so much more than where you work. Find something you want to do, something that belongs to you and nobody can take away, and do that happily for the rest of your life. I know you can.”

  “I will try.”

  “That’s good. Take care.”

  Mr. Withers hangs up.

  I want to go back to bed.

  Unfortunately, I have to pee first.

  It’s 1:57 p.m. when I wake up for good. I woke up thirty-three minutes earlier and an hour and twelve minutes earlier to pee. While I have no statistical data to back this up, I can say with near-certainty that I’ve never peed this much in my life.

  The reason I woke up for good is an idea. It’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever had. Again, tracking my number of ideas and their respective qualities is not something I ordinarily do, so I’m making this statement not based on empirical fact but on gut feeling. I don’t imagine that I’ll ever completely warm up to gut feelings, given their intrinsic (I love the word “intrinsic”) lack of reliability, but in recent years I’ve learned to accept that I have them.

  Now that Mr. Withers has stated without equivocation (I love the word “equivocation”) that I will not be going back to work at the Billings Herald-Gleaner, I am not bound to be in this house or in Billings. Furthermore, as my lawyer, Jay L. Lamb, has made clear, I’m fucking loaded. I have never really thought of it that way, but I remember that was Scott Shamwell’s reaction when I told him how much money my father left me when he died. “Bro,” he said, “you’re fucking loaded. Why are you working here?” He meant it as a rhetorical question, but in time, Mr. Withers answered it for him by involuntarily separating me.

  But back to my current situation. The world is my oyster, as the saying goes, and a stupid saying it is. Kyle doesn’t need to come here. I will go to him. I am not due anywhere for eleven days, when I’m scheduled to fly to Texas to see my mother. I have plenty of time.

  I head for the phone, detouring to the bathroom first.

  This is going to be so great.

  Donna said she and Victor would love to host me in Boise, that they have a finished basement like mine and a good bed down there. She even puts Kyle on the phone, and although he sounds glum when he says “Hi, Edward,” I am sure that our being together again will improve his mood. It’s hard to be sure about something like that, but again, I have a good feeling.

  I tell Donna that because we have been enjoying unseasonably mild weather, I would just as soon drive my Cadillac DTS to Idaho. It has been a long time since I got out and saw the western part of Montana, and by a long time I mean that I haven’t seen it since June 15 to 23, 1986, when I was seventeen years old and I rode along with my mother and father on a family vacation to Seattle and back.

  Donna tells me to be very careful and that before I leave, I should go to the cell phone store at Rimrock Mall and get myself a cellular telephone so I have a way of getting help should I run into trouble. She’s a very logical woman.

  When I think about going to Rimrock Mall, I feel a little queasy in my stomach. I don’t really like it there, with all the people. Also, there’s just no way to get there without taking left turns. I know. I’ve tried.

  I’m also thinking about all the other things I have to do to get ready. I have to pack. I have to plot out a route, including gas stops and food. I have to get the oil changed in my Cadillac DTS. And I have to call Dr. Bryan Thomsen and tell him that I will not be at our 10:00 a.m. appointment Tuesday.

  This will be weird. I’ve seen Dr. Buckley or Dr. Bryan Thomsen every Tuesday of every week of every month of every year since June 11, 2002, when Dr. Buckley moved my appointment from its regular 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and it was nearly a disaster. She never made that mistake again, and from then on, my appointments were at 10:00 a.m. No matter what else has been unreliable in my life, my Tuesday counseling session has held steady. Now I’m going to miss one by choice. That’s difficult for me to believe.

  On the other hand, I’m troubled by the fact that Dr. Bryan Thomsen, whom I’ve been seeing now that Dr. Buckley has retired, has missed the 10:00 a.m. mark seven times in our thirty-two one-on-one meetings. I’ve held my tongue because I haven’t wanted to wreck things with him, but if his sloppiness continues, it will have to be addressed. By skipping an appointment, I will avoid that potentially uncomfortable conversation for now.

  “Are you sure about this, Edward?”

  This is something I do not like about Dr. Bryan Thomsen. What kind of question is that? Of course I’m sure. That’s why I called him and told him he wouldn’t be seeing me Tuesday.

  It’s not like Dr. Buckley never questioned me about my choices. Believe me, she did. But her questions would always have a degree of specificity (I love the word “specificity”) that Dr. Bryan Thomsen’s lack. She would say something like, “Have you thought about ‘blank,’” with the blank being some consequence of my decision that I would have to account for before committing myself to a course of action. But Dr. Bryan Thomsen just asks me a lame question with no specificity whatsoever.

  “I’m sure. I’m driving to Boise, Idaho.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Before December twentieth, because I have to go Texas.”

  “Will you promise to schedule an appointment as soon as you can after you get back? I don’t want to lose momentum on the good work we’ve been doing.”

  “I promise.”

  “Do you have my numbers? If you need to call me from the road, you can.”

  “I have your numbers.”

  “OK, Edward. I’ll talk to you when you get back.”

  “OK.”

  I hang up, and as I do, I realize something: December 20 is a Tuesday. Even if I weren’t going to Boise, my streak of every-Tuesday counseling sessions would have ended this month. How did I not notice that before?

  It seems like everything I can rely on is slipping away from me.

  If not for the fact that I have to do it, I would
not choose to be at Rimrock Mall today.

  First, the parking lot is so full that I have to park way in the back, almost to Twenty-Fourth Street West, the busiest street on the west end of town. Here’s how bad it was: I had to make six left turns in the parking lot as I drove up and down the lanes before I finally found a spot for my Cadillac DTS. Those were six highly dangerous traffic maneuvers. I should feel fortunate that I emerged from them without crashing, but it’s hard to feel fortunate when my heart is pounding.

  It’s also hard to feel fortunate when I have to pee and the entrance to the store is so far away.

  I make my way through the parking lot at a light jog—fast enough to get me into the mall before I wet my pants, but slow enough that the agitation does not aggravate my impulse to pee. This is a difficult balance to strike.

  When I emerge from the men’s room—stopping in the food court to pull up my zipper—I see what I am up against. This mall is teeming (I love the word “teeming”) with people, and though looks can be deceiving, I must say that not many of them look merry and bright. I’m intimidated.

  I stick close to the wall as I walk toward the center of the mall to ensure that I touch as few people as possible. When I was here a few years ago, some woman plowed directly into me with her giant Orange Julius, and that is a scene I wish to avoid today. When I reach the intersection of all the mall paths, I stop and jam my back against the wall as I look for the cell phone kiosk. At last I see it. It’s manned by a pretty young woman wearing a Santa hat. She looks friendly. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all. Both of those things—the woman’s apparent friendliness, the notion that this won’t be bad—are conjecture, and conjecture is not good enough. I need facts, and there is only one way to get them.

  The woman in the Santa hat sees me coming.

  “Happy holidays, sir,” she says. “How can I help you?”

  “I need a cellular telephone for my trip to Idaho.”

  She gestures at the array of phones adorning the kiosk.

  “Well, we can certainly help with that. Did you have a particular model in mind? We have Blackberries, iPhones, Androids…”

  “Just a phone that calls other phones.”

  She smiles.

  “You’re funny, sir. Let’s look at this Droid Razr. It’s has one gig of LP DDR2 RAM, a four-point-three-inch display, it runs on the 4G LTE network—”

  “Does it call people?”

  “Yes, of course it does. It also has some bitchin’ apps.”

  “What?”

  Her face flushes.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said ‘bitchin’”

  She flummoxes me.

  “I don’t care,” I say. “If it’s bitchin’, you should be honest about that.”

  “Oh, good. What kind of data plan do you need?”

  “What’s a data plan?”

  “You know, web browsing and stuff.”

  “I have cable Internet at home.”

  “Right, but for your phone, I mean.”

  “This phone has that?”

  “Of course. And it has a camera so you can send pictures to people, and text-messaging capability.”

  “Text messaging?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “Is there any other kind?” I ask.

  “Any other kind of what?”

  “Messaging.”

  “Not on this phone.”

  “OK. I like to send messages.”

  “OK, so you’ll want to go unlimited with that.”

  “Yes, I don’t want to be limited.”

  “You know what?” she says. “The Razr is good. But I think I have the right phone for you, sir. You want the best.”

  “Yes.”

  She brings out what she calls the Apple iPhone. It has everything I would ever want to do, she says. I can talk on it, I can use it to surf the Internet, I can send and receive messages, I can listen to music, I can take pictures. She says it’s the best phone there is.

  She also tells me that it’s $399 and that the full data plan—“You’ll want that,” she says—will run me about $150 a month. Both of those numbers seem steep to me, but I remember that (a) I’m fucking loaded and (b) I wouldn’t want to disappoint this woman who keeps telling me how smart I am for zeroing in on the iPhone.

  I give her my credit card.

  It’s 11:23 p.m. I have spent the past six hours and thirty-four minutes playing with my bitchin’ iPhone, minus the time it took for eight pee breaks.

  It is the greatest thing I have ever owned. That might be hyperbole, but I don’t care.

  I will be able to get rid of my television set.

  I will be able to get rid of my VCR, which I don’t use anymore anyway, now that my Dragnet tapes are gone.

  I will be able to get rid of my DVD player.

  I can watch Dallas Cowboys games anywhere.

  I barely need my computer anymore.

  I have every song R.E.M. has ever released saved to my phone.

  I just plotted out the entire trip to Boise, including gas stops, food, and lodging in Butte the first night, then I sent the files to my printer from my “cloud” so I have backup paper copies, which is just smart planning.

  I love my “cloud.”

  I don’t think my bitchin’ iPhone is enough to countermand (I love the word “countermand”) my declaration that 2011 has been a shitburger of a year, but maybe it can make 2012 the best year ever.

  I leave tomorrow.

  FROM BILLINGS TO BOISE: A TWO-DAY ITINERARY BY EDWARD STANTON

  Dates of travel: December 9–10, 2011.

  Beginning address: 639 Clark Avenue, Billings, Montana.

  Ending address: 1313 N. 25 Street, Boise, Idaho.

  Beginning odometer reading: 27,156.8 miles.

  Anticipated ending odometer reading: 27,848.3 miles (this accounts for the 686.5 miles from here to Donna and Victor’s house, plus gives me 5 extra miles for getting off the highway for food and gas. I wish there were some way to be precise about this, but there isn’t).

  Anticipated gas mileage: 22.7 miles per gallon on the highway, based on current figures.

  Size of gas tank: 18 gallons.

  Number of fill-ups needed to complete trip: Two. In Butte on Day 2, and later that day in American Falls, Idaho.

  Anticipated amount/cost of fill-up in Butte: 9.925 gallons at $3.23/gallon, for $32.06. Gas prices are highly volatile, however, and this estimate is based on online reports of the average cost of gas in Butte, Montana, today. I have no way of knowing what the prices will be the day after tomorrow.

  Anticipated amount/cost of fill-up in American Falls: 12.078 gallons at $3.18/gallon, for $38.41. See my note above about the volatility of gas prices.

  Anticipated amount of remaining gas upon arrival at Donna and Victor’s house: 8.666 gallons, or enough for 156.9 miles of city driving at 18.1 miles per gallon. That’s way more than I should need, I would think. The facts will reveal themselves in due time.

  Planned accommodations in Butte: I have reservations at the Best Western Plus Butte Plaza Inn on Harrison Avenue. It has a four-and-a-half-star rating on the basis of five reviews on Google. Pros: Easy access from the interstate, a Perkins restaurant adjoining (I love the word “adjoining”). Con: $110 a night. But fuck it. I’m loaded.

  Snacks procured: Dr. Rex Helton would no doubt prefer that I eat carrots and celery, but I cannot do that. Aside from the fact that I don’t like celery, there is the issue of freshness to be considered. I am driving 691.5 miles. Therefore, I have unsalted sunflower seeds and a case of bottled water.

  Music: Everything R.E.M. has ever released, piped in through my bitchin’ iPhone.

  Other details: A few things I need to keep in mind:

  Remember the medicine and take it every day.

  Remember to take a walk every day and to keep a log for Dr. Rex Helton. I haven’t started this yet, and I need to.

  Keep the car at 65 miles per hour at all times on the interstate
. Others may drive faster. At 65, I will get excellent fuel efficiency at a legal speed, thus better ensuring that my fuel usage estimates have a high degree of accuracy.

  Be on the lookout for interesting things on the drive. Stop and take pictures with the bitchin’ iPhone camera. Enjoy the trip.

  Be safe.

  Stop making this list.

  OK, stop now.

  Now.

  Shit.

  I can’t end on 9, so I will end here.

  Thank goodness.

  Shit!

  I

  Guess

  I’ll

  End

  It

  At

  Number

  20.

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2011

  From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

  Time I woke up today: 6:17 a.m. The first time all year I’ve been awake at this time.

  High temperature for Friday, December 9, 2011, Day 343: 33

  Low temperature for Friday, December 9, 2011: 21

  Precipitation for Friday, December 9, 2011: 0.00 inches

  Precipitation for 2011: 19.40 inches

  Addendum: I will be on the road for a few days, so I will have to rely on out-of-town newspapers for the official Billings weather data. That should not be a problem, although I am worried about whether those newspapers use the same source of information that the Billings Herald-Gleaner does. I will have to accept their numbers, I guess, and reconcile them against the Herald-Gleaner when I get home. It’s not an ideal situation.

  Because I wish to travel light, I am not carrying my full accompaniment of weather data notations, so I say this in the admittedly sketchy vein of personal recollection: this is the prettiest December I’ve ever seen. I notice this in particular at 8:03 a.m., twelve minutes after I departed, as I’m merging onto Interstate 90 westbound, staring at a clear sky and the Crazy Mountains in the distance.

  I’ve eaten my oatmeal and consumed my fluoxetine, lisinopril, potassium chloride, metformin, actos, and furosemide. I’ve packed a large duffel bag with all the clothes I will need for at least a week. Donna and I did not agree on a date when I would return home. It’s unlike me to be so informal about things, and yet somehow, today, that does not bother me. Which bothers me.