600 Hours of Edward

by Craig Lancaster

  – • –

  After breakfast, I thumb through my voluminous (I love the word “voluminous”) data sheets, and I am correct: Before today, I have never awoken at 7:28 a.m. Today is a landmark.

  – • –

  Because I have many things to do today, including my weekly appointment with Dr. Buckley, I will have to put off my Internet time until later. I meet with Dr. Buckley promptly at 10:00 a.m., just as I have every Tuesday of every month of every year since I started seeing her, save for one.

  On Tuesday, June 11, 2002, Dr. Buckley had to move my appointment to 11:00 a.m. It was a disaster. All I could think about was that the shuffling had put my 10:00 p.m. viewing of Dragnet—episode number sixty-four, “Frauds: DR-28”—in jeopardy, and so I could not answer questions about how my medication was doing or what projects I was working on or how my letters of complaint were working out. Dr. Buckley cut the session short, which mitigated against the damage done to my schedule, and we both agreed that from then on, we would meet at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesdays.

  This is one of the things I like about Dr. Buckley. Although she sometimes makes mistakes, she is a very logical person.

  – • –

  My first stop is Home Depot, in the paint department. I have decided to paint the garage. I need a new project, and the ten-day weather forecast looks as though it will allow me to do this. I don’t like forecasts, though, as they are notoriously off base. I will have to wait for the actual data, and it is my hope that by then the garage will be painted.

  There are more paint varieties and colors here than there were the last time I was at Home Depot. There must be an entire arm of the paint industry dedicated to coming up with new colors and combinations, and I instantly wish that I had looked at some possibilities on the Internet before coming here. I’m frustrated with myself for not thinking of this.

  The man in the paint department, who is supposed to assist me, isn’t helpful at all. He asks many questions, faster than I can answer them, and he is talking about things like ambience, things that I don’t care about. I just want to find the right paint.

  “Leave me alone,” I say.

  The paint man trudges away, shaking his head.

  Did you know that there are NFL team colors available in paint? I am intrigued by this. I like the Dallas Cowboys, but I don’t think that I would want their colors on the garage. I will have to think of a project that would work with Dallas Cowboys team-color paint. This is something I would like to do, sometime after I finish the garage.

  After I spend a few more minutes looking at swatches, it’s obvious that the paint situation is hopeless. I cannot decide on a color, and I can feel the urge to rip these swatches from the wall welling up inside of me. I close my eyes, as Dr. Buckley has suggested that I do when I feel this way, and I try to breathe. Dr. Buckley says that when I feel overwhelmed by frustration, I should think before I act and find the path that will carry me away from the frustration.

  Dr. Buckley is a very logical person. I do as she has counseled me, and my path becomes clear.

  I walk over to the unhelpful man and say, “I would like three gallons each of the Behr mochachino the Behr parsley sprig, and the Behr bronze green.”

  As the unhelpful man walks over to gather the supplies needed to mix my paints, he is shaking his head again.

  – • –

  I like Dr. Buckley’s waiting room. The walls have dark wood paneling, and the lighting sets me at ease. Dr. Buckley also plays soft music in her waiting room. I prefer rock music—my favorites are R.E.M. and Matthew Sweet—but I think that if Dr. Buckley played Matthew Sweet, some of her patients would not like it. Matthew Sweet has a song called “Sick of Myself,” and I am pretty sure that is exactly the wrong song name for a therapist’s waiting room.

  I try to arrive at least ten minutes early for my 10:00 a.m. appointment, although I can never be sure exactly what time I will get here. Things like stoplights and the uncertainty of where in the parking lot I will find a place for my car affect it. I once asked Dr. Buckley if I could have my own parking space, but she assured me that was not possible.

  I arrive early for two reasons: First, as I said, the lighting and wood paneling and the soft music help set me at ease. Second, Dr. Buckley’s other, less-organized patients are always getting the magazines out of order. I sometimes need the full ten minutes to organize the magazines by title and date. I would do it after our appointment, when I have more time, but Dr. Buckley prefers that her patients not linger.

  Today, however, the magazines are not badly out of sorts, and so I have three minutes to just sit and listen to the music.

  – • –

  When Dr. Buckley emerges from her office to summon me in, I look down at my digital watch, and the time is 9:59:28. I tell Dr. Buckley that it is not quite time for my appointment, and so we stare at each other for thirty-two seconds.

  – • –

  There is a rhythm to my talks with Dr. Buckley. She asks many of the same questions every week, but it’s not by rote. She is interested in my answers. Dr. Buckley has never been less than professional, and she is a very logical person.

  “How has your week been, Edward?”

  “Very good, I think. My data is complete, and before I came here today, I bought some paint for the garage.”

  “It’s a little late in the year for that, isn’t it?”

  “The ten-day forecast looks good.”

  “You’re trusting forecasts now?”

  “No, but you’ve told me that I should have a little faith, right?”

  “Very good. Have you been taking your medication?”

  “Every day. Eighty milligrams every day.”

  “Any problems with the Prozac?”

  “I prefer the term fluoxetine.”

  “Any problems?”

  “No.”

  “Excellent. Are you still writing letters?”

  “I wrote one to my father last night.”

  “But you didn’t send it, right?”

  “No.”

  “What was your complaint to your father?”

  “I don’t think he’s even considered radiant floor heating. Do you realize how much money he could save?”

  “Radiant floors are nice. Do you know why this is so important to you?”

  “It’s not that it’s important. I’m frustrated that he hasn’t thought of it. It doesn’t speak well of him.”

  “Do you think, perhaps, that it might be too much to expect that your father has thought of radiant floors just because you have?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. He makes me mad.”

  “We can talk about that some more.”

  – • –

  Tuesday is also the day that I go to the grocery store. It just makes good sense. Dr. Buckley’s office is at Lewis Avenue and Sixteenth Street W., which means that I can go north on Sixteenth to Grand Avenue, take a right turn, and be at the Albertsons store three blocks later. After shopping, I can take a right turn on Grand, then another right turn on Sixth Street W., then another right turn on Clark Avenue, where I live.

  I like right turns much better than I like left turns.

  At Albertsons, I buy the same things every week: three packages of spaghetti, three pounds of ground beef (the kind with only 4 percent fat), three bottles of Newman’s Own roasted garlic spaghetti sauce, a twelve-pack of Diet Dr Pepper, a big box of corn flakes, a half gallon of milk, a quart of Dreyer’s vanilla ice cream, five assorted frozen Banquet dinners, and one DiGiorno pizza (usually spicy chicken).

  I can get three meals out of each box of spaghetti; spaghetti is my favorite food. I mix the spaghetti with a package of ground beef and one of the bottles of spaghetti sauce. That’s nine meals total. The five Banquet dinners bring the total to fourteen meals. I can get seven bowls of cereal from the corn flakes, so that’s twenty-one meals, or three a day for the seven days of the week. The ice cream and the DiGiorno pizza are treats.

  Ever since the
Albertsons on Grand put in self-checkout stands, I have been a happier shopper. Before, I sometimes had to wait behind several people in line, and that threatened to affect the projects I had at home and, conceivably, although it never happened, could have caused me to miss the 10:00 p.m. start of my Dragnet episode. I’m no longer permitted to go to the Albertsons on Sixth Street W. and Central Avenue, which is actually closer to the house that my father bought for me.

  It was a dumb situation: I was in the checkout line behind an old woman, and she and the checker were talking a lot, and the line was moving slowly. I asked if they could quit talking so I could leave faster, and the checker shot me a mean glance and then kept talking. So then I said, “Please, hurry up because I have to leave soon.” The man behind me didn’t like this and pushed me, and I ran into the old lady and knocked her down.

  The store manager called the police, and my father had to come to the store and tell the police that he would make sure it never happened again, even though I told them that it was not my fault and that I wouldn’t have run into the woman if I had not been pushed. Nobody believed me.

  You can probably guess that the whole thing ended up involving a letter from my father’s lawyer, who ordered me not to go back to that Albertsons ever again.

  But now that the Albertsons on Grand Avenue and Thirteenth Street W. has self-checkout stands, I think it’s a moot point. I don’t have to talk to anyone to pay for my groceries now.

  – • –

  After I get home and unload and put away the groceries, I notice that the mailman has already been to the house. Ideally, I would like to add to my data sheets the time that the mail is delivered each day, but my projects and appointments sometimes take me away from the house, and so I don’t always see the mailman when he comes by. I might be able to rig up a video camera that would record his visit even when I’m not home, but Dr. Buckley says that is the sort of impulse that I need to work on controlling.

  I don’t receive much mail. My bills go directly to my father, and he pays them. My name is not on this house or on my car, and so even junk mail is scarce. That’s how the junk mail people find out who you are and where you live. They go snooping around in public records, like home and car titles, and then they write to you. Also, if you apply for credit cards, you are sure to get all sorts of junk mail. The only credit card I have is for my expenses, and the bill goes to my father. If this card has resulted in junk mail, I can only assume that my father is receiving it. I don’t like to assume. I prefer facts.

  Today, there is one letter in the mailbox. It is from my father, in an envelope from his office. I am relieved that I am not hearing from my father’s lawyer, but hearing from my father isn’t necessarily better. I will have to open the letter to find out.

  Edward:

  I have received your credit card bill from last month. Everything looks to be in order, but I am confused by one charge: $49.95 for eHarmony.

  Call me so we can address this.

  Ted Stanton

  I had a suspicion that this was going to happen. Now it is a fact.

  I go inside the house, pick up the phone, and dial the number at my father’s office.

  “Yellowstone County Commissioners.”

  “It’s Edward Stanton. Let me talk to my father.”

  “One moment, please.”

  I listen to the orchestral version of a pop song—Muzak, it is called. Paul McCartney’s “My Love.”

  “Ted Stanton.”

  “Father.”

  “Edward, thank you for calling. How are you?”

  “I am fine, Father.”

  “Can you tell me about this forty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents?”

  “I signed up for eHarmony.”

  “What is that?”

  “It’s an online dating service.”

  “You’re dating?”

  “I am looking at online personal advertisements.”

  “Does Dr. Buckley know about this?”

  “My treatment with Dr. Buckley is between me and Dr. Buckley.”

  “Online dating, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  My father’s voice softens. “Well. This could be interesting, Edward. This could be something good for you.”

  “You’re going to pay the bill?”

  “Sure. Yes. Why not?”

  “It’s the only one you will get. I canceled the membership.”

  “Oh.”

  “Good-bye, Father.”

  – • –

  I guess I should tell you about eHarmony. I spend a lot of time on the computer looking at websites on the Internet. I used to keep track of how many hours and minutes I spent on the Internet, but I don’t do that anymore. It was easy when you had to pay for the time on the Internet, because you could just write down the time when you got the bill. Now the Internet is hooked up through my cable television, and I can spend as much time as I want on it for one price, which my father pays. It bothers me sometimes that I don’t keep track of the time I spend on the Internet, but I’ve learned to “let that go,” as Dr. Buckley says. Dr. Buckley was very happy for me when I stopped tracking my Internet time. I’m not sure why she cared.

  Lately, I have been spending most of my online time at Internet dating sites. On the television commercials, everyone who is finding dates online seems so happy, and all of them have found a “soul mate,” whatever that is. I doubt that they have any scientific proof that they have found their soul mate—for all they know, someone even more special is out there dating someone else—but I cannot argue with how happy they all are. I am envious.

  I have not gone on an Internet date. I think I would like to go on an Internet date, but so far I haven’t met anyone who keeps track of weather data, and I think it is important that whomever I date on the Internet have something in common with me.

  I have not told Dr. Buckley about the Internet dating yet, as there is nothing to tell. I wouldn’t have told my father, either, but he got the bill and asked me about it, so I had no choice.

  I now use Montana Personal Connect. I tried eHarmony, because I liked the white hair and glasses of that guy on the commercials, and his manner was gentle, but eHarmony told me that its system and its twenty-nine levels of compatibility couldn’t find anyone for me.

  That hurt my feelings.

  – • –

  At 10:00 p.m. sharp, I watch episode number ninety-two of Dragnet, which originally aired on March 5, 1970.

  The episode, the twentieth of the fourth and final season, is called “Missing Persons: The Body,” and it is one of my favorites.

  In this episode, Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon have only two clues to identify a woman who was found dead under the Venice Pier in Los Angeles: a wadded piece of paper and a ring. But because of their doggedness, they eventually find out who she was and crack the case. Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon are good cops.

  When I started to learn my way around the Internet, I found that the actors who appeared on Dragnet were, in many cases, not difficult to track down. Most of them were not big stars, and some even have listed phone numbers and addresses. That’s not the case with the main actors in this episode, Anthony Eisley, Virginia Gregg, and Luana Patten; they are all dead. A lot of other people who were in the ensemble are dead, too, but some are alive. I exchanged some mail with an actor named Clark Howat, who appeared in twenty-one episodes of Dragnet. He was very nice. He told me how the star and creator of the show, Jack Webb, who plays Sergeant Joe Friday, didn’t want his actors to act because the series had such a small budget and could not afford more than one take on each scene. Instead, Jack Webb had them read their lines off teleprompters. Mr. Howat said it was hard to get used to, as actors’ training is to be more natural. But, he said, Jack Webb’s methods worked. I wrote back to Mr. Howat five or six times, and even invited him to have a cup of coffee with me if he ever came through Billings, but he never wrote back. It’s just as well. I don’t like coffee, and I think
it would be difficult to sit at a table with a stranger and talk, even if he was in Dragnet twenty-one times.

  – • –

  I am flummoxed by my letter of complaint tonight. (I love the word “flummoxed.” I heard a man use it once, and I immediately incorporated it into my lexicon. I also love the word “lexicon.” I had to look it up first, though. I used to write down the words and definitions I looked up, but I stopped doing that because the words are right there in the dictionary, and I can look at the dictionary anytime I want. It’s harder to keep a record of daily temperatures, because you would have to store a lot of old newspapers in the house, and so I decided it’s best that I focus on that and not the words. That way, I ensure that my data is complete.)

  I would like to complain to my father for his rudeness about my credit card bill, but I don’t like to complain to the same person two times in a row. It’s bothersome enough that the complaints themselves don’t follow any particular pattern; I don’t need the added aggravation of bunching up my complaints about one person, not even my father.

  I think I will complain to Matthew Sweet. This will require that I start a new green office folder.

  Mr. Sweet:

  It pains me to have to write this letter to you, as I am very much a fan of your music. However, two things are bothering me.

  First, I can’t listen to your music when I am waiting to see my therapist, Dr. Buckley. She prefers quiet, more reflective music, and while it would be unfair to say that you’re not reflective, I don’t think “Sick of Myself” is emblematic of the sort of healing and self-respect that Dr. Buckley strives for in her practice. Perhaps you could consider something more upbeat, should you, yourself, someday feel a little more optimistic about things.

  Second, as I’m sure you’re aware, the middle songs on your album Blue Sky on Mars are substandard. From “Hollow,” the fourth song, to “Heaven and Earth,” the eighth, you appear to have accepted half-baked songs. You cheapened your talent and swindled your fans by not insisting on a higher level of performance.