600 Hours of Edward

by Craig Lancaster

  Also, I have an idea.

  – • –

  I’m in the basement, and I’m taking inventory.

  The front wheel and the pedals on my eighteen-speed bicycle will work. It’s not like the bike is getting much use from me. My parents gave it to me for Christmas in 2002. I took it out once and nearly got run over by a car on Lewis Avenue. It has been down in the basement since.

  I know the big back wheels on my mulching mower, which is out in the garage, will work. Taking them will render the mower useless, but I won’t need to worry about that until next spring.

  I’m going to need some lumber and some hardware—bolts and nuts and such—and some paint and some lacquer and some other things, too. I need to write my inventory down and take some measurements. Home Depot will be open in two hours and forty-three minutes.

  – • –

  My idea—for now, I am going to call it “The Big Project”—is one of the best that I have had in a while. I used to have a lot of big ideas, and I have never made any secret of the fact that I enjoy new projects, but many of them never came to fruition. (I love the word “fruition.”) It’s not that I couldn’t do them; it’s that they often collided with my other, more established projects, like watching Dragnet every night.

  I am confident, however, that The Big Project can get finished. It will require close attention not only to the fundamentals of the project itself but also to the clock.

  My idea has come on the day that the Dallas Cowboys play football.

  – • –

  Today’s trip to the Home Depot store in the West End of Billings goes so much better than the one Tuesday I can hardly believe it. But it’s a fact, and I trust facts.

  This has happened for a couple of reasons. First, I know exactly what I need and exactly where to get it, so there is no need to seek out potentially unhelpful store employees. Second, there are no choices involved—even with the spray paint. I can see in my mind exactly what color The Big Project will be, and so I simply grab the appropriate cans and put them in the cart.

  As I wheel the heavily laden cart to the front of the store, I see that Home Depot even has self-checkout stands. If I kept data on such things, this might be the best day ever. Until today, however, it never occurred to me that the days were worth rating.

  – • –

  The total bill at Home Depot comes to $221.95. This sounds like the sort of cost you might hear on a late-night TV commercial, but in Montana, it’s common. Montana has no sales tax, which is something that most of its residents seem to appreciate. My father, as a Yellowstone County commissioner, is not so ebullient about it. (I love the word “ebullient.”) My father often bemoans the fact that the county doesn’t extract more money out of tourists by imposing a sales tax on them. He even led an unsuccessful charge against the state legislature to get it to empower individual counties to impose sales taxes as they please. An editorial in the Billings Herald-Gleaner criticized my father over this and said, “In his zeal to tax visitors to Montana, Commissioner Ted Stanton apparently fails to realize that he would also be soaking the many thousands of people who live here and pay his salary.” My father did not talk to anybody from the Billings Herald-Gleaner for several months after that.

  Here’s something else that my father will not be happy about: a bill for $221.95. He will get it next month. I will surely hear about it thereafter—perhaps even from his lawyer.

  – • –

  I arrive home at 9:23 a.m. The Dallas Cowboys will play in an hour and thirty-seven minutes against the St. Louis Rams. I am nervous about this game. The Cowboys’ best player, quarterback Tony Romo, is not going to play because he has a broken finger. The Cowboys ought to be able to win without Tony Romo because the St. Louis Rams are terrible, but I am still nervous.

  You are probably wondering why I am a Dallas Cowboys fan. I will tell you. First, the Dallas Cowboys are “America’s Team.” People call them this all the time. I don’t think America took a vote on it—and there are probably a lot of people in America who don’t even like professional football, although I can’t know for sure without taking a scientific poll, and I already have The Big Project.

  Also, my father grew up in Dallas, and his parents—my Grandpa Sid and Grandma Mabel, who are both dead now—were very good friends with Tom Landry, who used to be the Dallas Cowboys’ coach. Tom Landry is dead, too. The only time I saw my father cry was the day Tom Landry died. He didn’t cry when Grandma Mabel and Grandpa Sid died, at least not that I saw.

  Tom Landry must have been a very good man.

  In 1978, when I was nine years old, my father took me with him to Dallas on a business trip. I mostly stayed with Grandpa Sid and Grandma Mabel while Father did his business. He worked for an oil exploration company then, and he was in charge of its Montana and North Dakota operations, which is why we lived in Billings. He didn’t become a politician until a few years later, after the oil business “went in the crapper,” as my father likes to say. By then, he had made a lot of money and didn’t need to be in the oil business anymore. He was a Billings city councilman for a while and then mayor of Billings and then Yellowstone County commissioner.

  But back in 1978, when he took me to Dallas with him, he was still in the oil business. One day, when he didn’t have meetings, we went to Irving, where the Dallas Cowboys work out. I got to meet Tom Landry and Dan Reeves, who was an assistant coach with the Cowboys at the time and later went on to be a head coach in places like Denver and New York and Atlanta. I also got to meet Roger Staubach, who was the Cowboys’ quarterback and my favorite player. I also met lots of other players, and they all signed my autograph book. I still have it.

  It was a great day. I felt very close to my father then.

  – • –

  Before the Cowboys start playing, I haul the stuff from Home Depot downstairs to the basement and organize it in the order that I will need it later. I can’t start The Big Project just yet. There’s not enough time before the game, and I have to prepare. For one thing, I have to grab the newspaper off the stoop and record my weather data so it is complete.

  – • –

  At 2:16 p.m., I am sitting on my couch, facing the TV, agape. (I would say I like the word “agape,” but I don’t like anything right now.) My authentic white Tony Romo jersey—I also have a blue one for when the Cowboys wear those—has been stripped from my torso and is in a wadded ball in the middle of the living room.

  It was horrible.

  First, not having Tony Romo is going to be tougher than I thought. His replacement, Brad Johnson, did not do well today. He threw three interceptions. Tony Romo also throws many interceptions, but he throws a lot of touchdown passes, too. Brad Johnson threw for one touchdown. That is not enough.

  Second, the Cowboys’ defense was terrible, and Tony Romo doesn’t play defense, so I don’t see how anyone can use his absence as an excuse.

  The St. Louis Rams’ running back, Steven Jackson, ran for 160 yards and three touchdowns against the Cowboys. That was not Tony Romo’s fault.

  Third, I think the Cowboys are not as good as they think they are. They have lost three of their past four games and now have a record of 4–3. Even when Tony Romo was not hurt, they were not playing so well.

  Fourth, the Cowboys lost 34–14.

  If I kept data on the quality of a day, and I’m thankful now that I do not, this would no longer be the best day ever.

  – • –

  Ordinarily, I do not write my letters of complaint until just before I go to bed, but I think that I need to do it earlier today so I can clear my mind and concentrate on The Big Project.

  I have a thick green office folder of letters to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

  Mr. Jones:

  I am sure you know why I am writing to you today. Your Dallas Cowboys played pitifully against the St. Louis Rams, and I have begun to fear that they will not make the playoffs. After all, Tony Romo will miss at least two more weeks.


  I cannot hold Tony Romo’s injury against you. Injuries are part of the game, and no one can predict when they might occur. This would be difficult for me to accept if I were in your position, as I prefer facts and things that I can rely on. However, you do not seem to be bothered by the capriciousness of injuries.

  I can hold against you, however, the fact that, as a backup quarterback, Brad Johnson appears to be far short of acceptable. This is something you should have known and accounted for in building a roster, as it is at least a reasonable possibility that the backup quarterback will have to play occasionally. With Tony Romo injured, it’s not possibility—it’s reality.

  Finally, I must lay some of the blame at the feet of your defense. I have seen grandmothers who hit harder than some of your players. (This is not actually true. I have never seen a grandmother hit, and I could not, without some physical experimentation, say for certain that any grandmother could hit harder than your players could. This is a literary device called hyperbole.)

  I thank you in advance for your kind attention to these pressing matters.

  Regards,

  Edward Stanton

  After filing away the letter to Jerry Jones—the thirty-eighth one I have written to him—I remember that I have more writing yet to do. I am corresponding with more people than I ever have before, and it exhausts me.

  I log on to Montana Personal Connect and write a note to Joy.

  Joy:

  Yes, I agree that we should talk about meeting. You should know, however, that I do not like Garth Brooks. I hope this doesn’t make you reconsider meeting me.

  Regards,

  Edward

  I think it is better that I wait a while before telling Joy about the forty-nine letters of complaint that I sent to Garth Brooks.

  – • –

  My mind cleared of the unpleasantness of the Dallas Cowboys and the anxiety of having to respond to Joy, I am free to turn my full attention to The Big Project. I work away at drilling and sawing and connecting and screwdrivering (which isn’t really a word), and I think only a little about how the anxiety of responding to Joy is gone but that the anxiety of actually perhaps meeting her is very much here.

  The work goes quickly; I did well for myself by sketching out some plans beforehand. It helps that I am very good with tools. I do not say that to be boastful. It is a fact, and I prefer facts. When I was at Billings West High School twenty-one years ago, the only class I liked was wood shop. There was no high school social strata there. The only question anyone had was whether you could do the work, and I could. Mr. Withers even made me the shop assistant my senior year. He told my parents when I graduated that I was the best student he had ever had. My father was so proud he was beaming. I still get notes from Mr. Withers on occasion. I think he might be the only person who ever noticed that I was at Billings West High School at all, although I would have to take a poll of everyone who was there at the time to know for sure, and I just don’t have time for that right now.

  I might have liked to have been a shop teacher, but I do not think I could have put up with the rowdy kids and the parents and the paperwork and the demands of the principals. I am sure I could not. I don’t think there is enough fluoxetine in the world or enough wisdom in Dr. Buckley to get me through that.

  The tool work done, I roll The Big Project up the stairs, out the back door, and into the garage. It’s time to paint—The Big Project, not the garage. The garage will come tomorrow.

  – • –

  Tonight’s episode of Dragnet, the twenty-fifth and penultimate (I love the word “penultimate”) of the fourth and final season, is called “Burglary: Baseball,” and it is one of my favorites.

  G. D. Spradlin, an actor who appeared in three episodes of Dragnet, plays a man named Arthur Leo Tyson, and he cracks safes for sport. He’s an ex-convict who is on parole, and it turns out that he misses being in prison. This is a condition called “institutionalization,” and it sounds awful to me. And yet, Arthur Leo Tyson has much to look forward to when he gets back in “the pen.” The inmate baseball team at San Quentin expects to have a good season, and he wants to be a part of it. This amuses Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon, who take a liking to Arthur Leo Tyson even though he is an unrepentant criminal. It’s nice to think that police officers can be a little human.

  G. D. Spradlin is one of the more recognizable actors on Dragnet, and he went on to be a character actor in many shows and movies over the years. He has a very distinctive face: It’s kind of round, and he has crinkled eyes and a perpetually pursed mouth—the kind of mouth that “looks like a chicken’s asshole,” as my Grandpa Sid used to say. He has a raspy Southern accent, the kind that Grandpa Sid had, too. If you ever saw the movie One on One, starring Robby Benson as a basketball star, then you know who G. D. Spradlin is. He played the coach, and his mouth looked like a chicken’s asshole for most of that film.

  I would have liked to write to G. D. Spradlin about his experiences on Dragnet, but he was well known enough that I never found out his address. I looked him up on the Internet a couple of years ago, and he seemed to still be alive, although he hasn’t worked in a long time. He would be old now—eighty-eight, according to the Internet.

  That’s how old Grandpa Sid would be, too, if he were still alive.

  Time flummoxes me.

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 20

  I’m awake at 7:38 a.m., the 223rd time out of 294 days this year (because it’s a leap year). While I seem to be tacking back to normal, if in fact normal can be defined, I don’t feel normal at all. I don’t want to leave my bed. Michael Stipe’s headache gray is settling over me, the residue of my late-to-bed-early-to-rise act yesterday.

  I drift away.

  – • –

  I’m not a part of the scene I’m witnessing. Joy, my online paramour (I love the word “paramour”) from Broadview, is standing in a parking lot that is filled not with cars and pickups and SUVs but with a throng of people who stand around her.

  Joy is holding a huge controller in her hands, something that looks like a TV remote, only much larger. It has buttons and a joystick. She holds it over her head, and the crowd behind her cheers. The gathered people then start chanting: “Show it! Show it! Show it! Show it!”

  Joy turns away from the crowd, lowers the giant remote control, and starts punching buttons. Above her and the crowd, pressed flat against the side of a building, a giant plasma TV screen flickers awake. And there I am, ten times as big as life, sitting at my computer desk. I am naked. Worse than that, if anything could be worse than that, I am cooing as I type on my computer: “Oh, Joy. You are my little chickadee. You are my sweetie.”

  In unison, the crowd belts out a thunderous laugh, and Joy turns around, a smile drawn across her face, her dimples carving holes in her cheeks, her eyes alight.

  The crowd turns around, too, and they’re all pointing and laughing.

  I look down and I am no longer on the plasma screen but in the parking lot, naked.

  I look up in horror, and Donna Middleton is in the middle of the front row of hecklers, laughing at me.

  – • –

  I’m awake again at 10:26. My data is all fouled up, of course. I’m entering uncharted territory here, and so I improvise. I reach over, grab my notebook and a pen, and record two times:

  First awakening: 7:38.

  Second awakening: 10:26.

  I don’t feel rested or happy.

  – • –

  After recording my weather data—a high of fifty-five yesterday, a low of thirty-four, a forecasted high of fifty-seven today (I’ll know for sure tomorrow)—and consuming a bowl of corn flakes and eighty milligrams of fluoxetine, I am ready for the day.

  I must give the ten-day forecast its proper due: It has been on the money, allowing me to take another run at painting the garage, which is long overdue. That horrid mocha chino has been on it for three days now, and I will not countenance (I love the word “countenance”) another day of the gar
age’s being a neighborhood eyesore. If I hustle, I can overcome the time I have lost to extra sleep and bad dreams.

  To do so, I resolve to not check Montana Personal Connect until this evening, after I’m done. I’m anxious about Joy’s reply—and, I have to admit, freaked out (I love the phrase “freaked out”) now that she has invaded my dreams, although I know logically that there are no giant TV remotes, no plasma screens on buildings in Billings, and that I never, under any circumstances, type on my computer when I am naked. There is some explanation for these dreams, and I will look to Dr. Buckley to provide it.

  I have read that everyone dreams, and that even animals dream. There is a whole field of study, called oneirology, that is dedicated to examining dreams. The statistical probability that, before the past few days, I did not dream is beyond remote. But I do not remember dreams before the past few days; the ones lately I cannot seem to forget.

  One of my favorite R.E.M. songs is called “I Don’t Sleep, I Dream.” It contains words about dreams that an oneirologist would probably find fascinating. I’m not sure what it’s all about. Michael Stipe uses words in fascinating and strange combinations. I don’t know, for instance, why he says “hip hip hooray” in that song or what a cup of coffee has to do with anything. I think not knowing is probably part of the point for someone like Michael Stipe. I do know that Michael Stipe sang a lot more about sex on that album Monster than he did before or since. It wasn’t until today, the 294th day of 2008 (because it’s a leap year), fourteen years after that album came out, that I realized the title of this song could now be about me.

  – • –

  By 2:00 p.m., I have made good progress on the garage. The bronze green is covering up the mocha chino, and I like this color a lot better. It’s the best of the three. I think I will be able to stick with this, at least until the year after next, when it will be time to paint the garage again.