– • –
My usual Tuesday series of right turns delivers me into the Albertsons parking lot. On a Tuesday morning, when most of the rest of Billings is at work, my shopping goes easily: ground beef, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, Banquet meals, DiGiorno pizza (supreme this week), twelve-pack of Diet Dr Pepper, corn flakes, milk, and ice cream.
The self-checkout stand is a breeze, and soon I’m back in the 1997 Toyota Camry, right-turning my way home.
At Grand Avenue and Eighth Street W., two blocks from where I’ll turn off Grand for the final run home, Billings drops away into a bowl that leads downtown. This is my favorite view of the city, better even than the one from atop the Rimrocks. I can see the First Interstate Bank building cast against a backdrop of the canyon, called Sacrifice Cliff, which borders the Yellowstone River.
It’s really pretty.
– • –
Back at home, I square away the groceries, and then I opt for an early lunch of Banquet Swedish meatballs. I don’t want to eat too much, as I will be dining at my parents’ house tonight, which I do monthly. I also don’t want to eat too little, as I may be making an early exit. I can never tell at my parents’ house.
It is often a torturous evening. My mother treats me like a child, and my father treats me like just another constituent, except when he’s treating me like a failure and a disappointment. Given the events of the past week, it’s not hard for me to imagine which version of him I will get tonight. Still, I won’t know until I’m there. I remember what Dr. Buckley has said, again and again and again, when it comes to my father: Do what I can to control my own behavior and hope for the best from his. Dr. Buckley is a very logical woman.
– • –
At Montana Personal Connect, I see what has become a familiar sight:
Inbox (1).
I click the link.
Dear Edward,
Your SOOOO funny again. I think I can forgive you for not liking Garth Brooks.
Would you like to do something Friday night? Maybe we could meet in downtown Billings at that new wine bar on Broadway. Ive heard good things about it.
8 all right? I know I must seem pushy but I guess since its my idea, Id just throw it out there.
Let me know…
Joy
I write back:
Joy:
I would very much enjoy meeting you at the new wine bar Friday night. Can we please make it seven? That will give me time to get back home for Dragnet.
With regards,
Edward
– • –
My parents’ house sits atop the Billings Rimrocks, giving them a view of the bustling city of 100,000 below. It is a huge home for just two people: 6,200 square feet, with stone floors, a kitchen with side-by-side Sub-Zero freezers, an indoor lap pool and sauna, and gardens for my mother to spend her days tending. On the south side of the house, the side that faces town, there are huge windows. I have heard my father, when leading visitors through the house, say that the windows allow him to always see “the city I love.” At this altitude, I think it’s more likely that the windows allow him to see his minions without their seeing him. This is a mean thing to think, and it’s not so much conjecture as an informed opinion, but perhaps it would be better for me to wait for the facts.
I always feel foreboding when I drive to my parents’ house, and it’s not just because of my parents. When I make the drive up the Rimrocks along Twenty-Seventh Street, then turn west at the airport and ride two more miles to their turnoff, I have to make many left turns to get there, and those left turns—I prefer right turns—lead me out of my world and into theirs. Theirs is not the house I grew up in. When I was a young man, which I will concede was a long time ago, we lived in a nice three-bedroom house in West Billings. During the latter part of the 1990s, when I was still living there with my parents, my father made some fortuitous (I love the word “fortuitous”) investments in technology, and then he got out of them before taking on the losses that other tech investors saw in early 2001.
Once I was out of the house and put into the place on Clark Avenue—because of the “Garth Brooks incident”—my father and mother sold that house and moved up here. It is their place. It is not mine.
At the wrought-iron gate, I press the call button. After a few moments, I hear my mother’s voice.
“Yes?”
“It’s Edward.”
“Come on in, dear.”
The gate opens. I feel like I want to throw up.
– • –
“So there’s the hospital hero,” my father bellows as I step into the foyer, with the last of the late-afternoon light hitting me from the skylight above.
“Hello, Father.”
He sidles up to me but offers neither a handshake nor a hug. He is dressed in a pink-and-white golf shirt, impeccably pressed slacks, and penny loafers—no socks. My father has been rocking this look for thirty years. (I love the phrase “rocking this applicable noun.”) From the smell wafting toward me, I am guessing that he’s on his second scotch and soda. Maybe his third. I don’t like to guess. I prefer…Well, never mind. It doesn’t matter.
“How have you been, Edward?”
“Fine.”
“Fine, eh?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t seem too fine when I saw you last.”
“It’s OK now.”
“I heard what happened.”
“What?”
“You called the cops and got that boyfriend of hers busted.”
“Did the police call you?”
“No, Edward. But I’m a goddamned county commissioner. I know things.”
“Yes.”
“Scumbag.”
“What?”
“That guy. He’s a scumbag.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Well, you did good on that. I have to give it to you, Edward.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“Come on in, then.”
– • –
My mother is in the kitchen, scurrying from island to stove to refrigerator and back to island as she prepares dinner.
“There’s my boy,” she says as I come into her view, and she dashes over to squeeze my cheeks and coo at me. I hate this part.
“We’re having your favorite: pork loin, grilled asparagus, rosemary potatoes.”
“My favorite is spaghetti.”
“But you like this, too.”
“I guess.”
“That’s good.” She’s now away from me and back to her cooking. My mother is the sort of woman who is dressed to the nines at all times, even when cooking dinner. She has been this way for as long as I’ve known her, which is all of my life. When I was a child, I was not permitted to see her until she had showered and put on her makeup and fixed her hair. She was a lovely woman then—tall and lithe, dirty-blonde hair, everything in its place. You can still see that beauty in her, though at sixty-three she is fighting a losing battle against the hair, which is rapidly graying, and the waistline, which is expanding. Her clothes and nails and shoes, as ever, are flawless.
My father is in the dining room, staring out a window into the approaching dark.
“Cocksuckers,” he says to no one.
“Ted,” my mother scolds him.
“Ah, shit, Maureen, I’m sorry.”
When my father drinks, as he is doing now, his incidence of curse words—the “shits” and “fucks” and, yes, even the “cocksuckers”—increases exponentially. It can be amusing to watch, if you’re not the target of them.
“It’s just this goddamned economic development thing. Those assholes are killing me on this.”
I have been reading about this in the Billings Herald-Gleaner. The county’s economic development council, on which my father and the two other county commissioners sit, has been trying to hire a new director. My father put forward the name of a friend of his, someone who worked with him in the oil business years ago. The man came up to Billings for an interview a
nd did quite well—so well that he appeared to be a lock for the job. While in town, though, he was cited for drunk driving, and now the council is cutting him loose as a candidate. My father is his lone backer, and he and the other commissioners have been sniping at one another through the newspaper and television news programs.
I do not know who is right, as it doesn’t really concern me, but I will note that my father often ends up on the other side of the fence from his fellow commissioners. Make of that what you will.
“Those assholes are so fucking high and mighty,” my father says. “Dave blew a zero-point-eight—a zero-point-eight. One glass of wine before leaving the restaurant, and they’re saying he’s a drunk. Had those fucking cops stopped him two blocks later, he would have been fine. Now these guys are busting my balls over the whole thing.”
“Well, Ted, why don’t we just forget about it and have dinner?”
“Assholes.”
“Ted!”
“Yeah, yeah, OK. Well, come on, Edward, let’s eat.”
– • –
My father is holding a forkful of pork loin, and he’s jabbing it in the air toward me.
“Edward, what are your plans?”
“Plans?”
“Yes, plans. You know, those things that give some guidance to life. You do know what plans are, right?”
“Dear, please,” my mother says. Her dinner is dissolving into a family quarrel. Again.
“Yes, Father, I know what plans are.”
“Do you have any?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Plans, Edward. Surely your plan is not to paint your garage every day between now and the end of time.”
“You know about the garage?”
“I don’t just know about it. I have seen it. All three iterations of it, in fact. What the hell is that about?”
“You’ve been by my house?”
“It’s my house, Edward. Yes, I have been by. I’ve seen you up on that ladder, painting away. It’s goddamned ridiculous. And I’ll tell you this: I have half a mind not to pay that bill when it comes due. I’m not your goddamned bank.”
I look at my mother, who isn’t looking back at me. She isn’t looking at either of us. And my father is wrong: Under the rules for my living, set up and overseen by my father after the “Garth Brooks incident,” that’s exactly what he is. He is my goddamned bank. I do not point this out, however. I try to defuse the situation with calm, which is difficult for me but something that Dr. Buckley endorses.
“It would have been nice if you had stopped and said hello.”
“I was busy, Edward. I was on my way to somewhere else.”
Clark Avenue is not on the way to somewhere else. It is not a thoroughfare. If my father were on his way to somewhere else, he would have been on Central or Broadwater or Grand, or maybe even Lewis. He would not have been on Clark.
“Three times?”
“Yes, Edward, three times. How come you’re not answering my question?”
My mother speaks up. “Ted, just leave it be.”
“Maureen, all I want is some answers from the boy.” My father is sneering at me.
I look at him and say, “When I have some plans, Father, I will let you know.”
– • –
After dinner, I politely decline dessert and bid my parents goodbye.
My mother comes over to me and wraps me in a hug. In my ear, she says softly, “He doesn’t mean it. He’s under a lot of stress right now.”
On my way out, I stop at the entryway to the living room. My father is on the couch, drink in hand, staring.
“Good night, Father.” He doesn’t move or look up.
– • –
You know how on an airplane when it’s coming down for a landing and your ears pop and your breathing slows down? That’s how I feel as my Toyota Camry descends the Rimrocks on Twenty-Seventh Street. I have not been as high as an airplane, but it was too high for comfort.
– • –
Back at home, on my way in the front door, I fetch what little mail I’ve received out of the box. There are two coupons for local pizza places and a letter with the seal of Lambert, Slaughter & Lamb, Attorneys at Law.
There on the front stoop, I open the envelope.
October 21, 2008
Mr. Edward Stanton:
This letter is in regard to your actions at Billings Clinic on the morning of October 19, 2008. We wish to remind you that such action will not be tolerated by your benefactor, Mr. Edward M. Stanton Sr. Any further action that warrants police involvement or puts the reputation of your benefactor at risk will be cause for revisiting the arrangements made for you, up to and including the elimination of all payments and benefits.
Regards,
Jay L. Lamb
– • –
On the other end of the phone, I hear my mother’s tired voice. “Stantons’ residence.”
“Mother, put Father on.”
“Oh, hello, dear. Your father is asleep. He has had a difficult night.”
“Put him on the phone.”
“He’s sleeping, dear.”
“Put him on the goddamned phone,” I bark at her.
My mother lets out a small yelp. I hear rustling in the background and her voice, urgent: “It’s Edward. It’s Edward.”
“Edward?” My father sounds groggy.
I am now shouting. “I was just there. Why can’t you talk to me? Why does it always have to be the goddamned lawyer?”
I slam the phone into its cradle.
– • –
Tonight’s episode of Dragnet is the first one of the first season, called “The LSD Story,” and it is one of my favorites.
Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon go out on a call because a boy has been seen putting his head in holes and chewing the bark off trees. This strikes Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon as peculiar behavior.
What they find is a boy named Benjy Carver, only nobody calls him that. He is known as “Blue Boy.” His face is painted half blue and half yellow. And he has been taking lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD. This presents a quandary for the cops, as the drug is not yet illegal in California.
Soon, Blue Boy is passing the drug all around West Hollywood, and lots of kids are getting sick from it, including two nice teenage girls named Edna May and Sandra. After the California Legislature finally makes LSD illegal, Edna May and Sandra help Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon find Blue Boy. Unfortunately, Blue Boy is already dead, having consumed too much of his own product.
This episode of Dragnet is a morality tale.
I think I would have liked to have had a father like Sergeant Joe Friday. I couldn’t have put one over on him—Sergeant Joe Friday is way too smart for that—but I think he would have tried to understand me and the things I do, and if he didn’t approve, he would tell me himself. Sergeant Joe Friday never would have had a lawyer send me a letter. That’s not how he does business.
But Sergeant Joe Friday never married and never had kids. The man who portrayed him, Jack Webb, married four times—which Sergeant Joe Friday would have never done, I’m sure—and had two children. Sergeant Joe Friday is also off the air, and Jack Webb has been dead for almost twenty-six years.
I am stuck with the father I have.
– • –
I now need six green office folders for my letters to my father.
Dear Father:
I can say without reservation that your treatment of me this evening was simply unacceptable. While I can appreciate that you are facing many pressures at work—although I suspect that you are bringing them on yourself, in large measure—I cannot condone your ruining dinner and my chance to visit with Mother by hectoring me over painting the garage.
And yet, all of that paled in comparison to coming home to find a letter from your lawyer castigating me for the events of Saturday at Billings Clinic. I find it hard to believe that this is something that we cou
ldn’t have worked through on our own, without legal involvement.
I don’t know what to do, Father. I don’t know how to please you. I don’t know if you know how I can.
As ever, I am your son,
Edward
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22
When I wake up—at 7:40 a.m., the thirtieth time out of 296 days this year (because it’s a leap year)—it’s because the wind is whipping against the house, rattling windows. My data entered, I strain across the bed and pull aside the curtain on the bedroom window.
The lone white ash tree in the backyard, clinging to its last maroon leaves, is being bent by the high wind. I glance up at the sky, which is a foreboding gray.
I have two thoughts about this: First, I think that Montana in fall is about to deliver confirmation of just how off base a forecast can be. Second, I am glad that I have no plans to paint the garage today.
As the first droplets of rain crash into the window, it occurs to me that I ought to hurry and fetch the newspaper, or else the remainder of my data will be ruined.
– • –
At the kitchen table for breakfast, I’m choking down my eighty milligrams of fluoxetine. Here is something I did not tell Dr. Buckley yesterday: When the dreams started, I thought perhaps that I should go off my medication, just to see if that would toggle the dreams away and bring back my peaceful sleep. I can only imagine what Dr. Buckley’s reaction to that would have been. She would have asked me to think about all the trouble I had before we got my dosage right, about all the moments when I felt like an unwilling passenger in a car driven by a madman—only I was the madman.
She would have been right, too. The fluoxetine, in large measure, keeps day-to-day life from being more of a mess than it sometimes is. I get credit for some of that, and Dr. Buckley would not hesitate to give it to me. Using some of the coping strategies she has given me—closing my eyes, counting backward, visualizing the path out of danger—I have often averted situations that, before Dr. Buckley, would have escalated into horrible confrontations that my father would have had to defuse. I think it’s those coping skills plus the medication that have done it for me. I wouldn’t want to try life without either one.
Had I gone off my medication, Dr. Buckley’s reaction would have been predictable. My father’s would have been apocalyptic. (I love the word “apocalyptic.”) If I think my father and his lawyer are acting badly now, I should try them after I’ve ditched my medication.
600 Hours of Edward Page 9
