Craig Lancaster - Edward Adrift

It’s 12:09 a.m. and I haven’t been able to keep my eyes closed for more than seven minutes and twenty-seven seconds since I came down to the basement at 10:04.

I don’t know what to do.

Victor and Donna were great. They understand me completely and work hard to be good friends to me. After we finished greeting each other on the street, they helped me bring my things in. Once we were inside and in better light, they saw my bruised nose and they were very concerned when I told them what had happened in Bozeman.

Kyle, for the first time, said something.

“He hit you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t like the University of Montana, I guess.”

“Did you hit him back?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It didn’t occur to me.”

“You should have.”

“He was gone by the time I was exactly sure what had happened.”

Donna and Victor told me to sit down on the couch in the front of the TV. The Cowboys were playing the New York Giants, and the second half was just under way. They knew I’d need to see the rest of the game, and even though what I probably should have done is focus on visiting with them, they made allowances for me. That’s what good friends do for each other.

“It’s a tight one so far,” Victor told me.

He said Tony Romo had played great in the first half, with two touchdown passes, and the Cowboys led 17–15.

Donna asked Kyle to come over and sit with me and watch the game. He was standing against the far wall and hadn’t said anything after all the questions about my being punched.

“I hate the stupid Cowboys,” he said.

I worked hard at not responding to that. Kyle and I have been over this subject before, and while I understand and appreciate that he is a Denver Broncos fan, he has never been willing to appreciate that I am a Dallas Cowboys fan. I have been ascribing (I love the word “ascribing”) that to his youth, which often comes with bullheadedness. But he’s getting older—he’s now 191 days older than he was when I last saw him in Billings—and still he persists. It’s getting to be a pain.

Donna was calmer than I would have been, so I’m glad she’s the one who spoke first. “But you like Edward, so maybe you ought to focus on that.”

Kyle didn’t say anything to that, but he did walk over and sit on the far edge of the couch, away from me. He still had a twisted look on his face, the kind of face that my grandpa Sid used to call “puckered up like a chicken’s asshole.”

I waited for a commercial break to talk to him.

“How tall are you now?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You were five feet six and seven-sixteenths inches tall on June first. You look a lot taller than that now.”

“Duh.”

“Can we measure you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s weird, you douche.”

“Hey!” Victor said.

Donna, clearly mad, came over from the recliner she was sitting in and put her face directly in front of her son’s.

“You know I hate that word. I won’t have it here, or anywhere else. You apologize to him right now.”

Kyle didn’t even look at me. “Sorry.”

The game was back on now, so I left him alone. After stopping the Giants on their first second-half possession, the Cowboys were trying to get moving, but Tony Romo got sacked.

“Come on, Romo,” I said.

I have said this many times since Tony Romo became the Cowboys’ quarterback—far too many to count, and I’m glad I don’t keep track of such things.

“Suck,” Kyle said.

“Huh?”

“They suck.”

“They’re still ahead, Kyle.”

“You suck.”

Donna was on her feet. “That’s it. You’re done, kid. You can’t be with civilized people, you’ll be alone.”

She grabbed Kyle by the arm, lifted him to his feet, and led him out of the living room. Kyle swung his left arm violently and dislodged her hand. That’s when Victor left his chair and stepped toward Kyle, who seemed to shrink physically, although that’s not technically possible. But he definitely knew that he was in trouble and that he didn’t want to tangle with his stepfather.

“Bed,” Victor said. “Now.”

Kyle didn’t protest further. He left the room, with Donna trailing him.

Victor sat back down and faced me.

“He doesn’t mean it, Edward. He’s angry. Confused. There’s a sourness in him that we just have to ride out.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Hormones, maybe. It hasn’t been an easy transition for him, being here. He doesn’t know these kids very well. Junior high is a pretty tough time under the best circumstances, as I recall.”

I nodded. All of school was tough for me—not necessarily the subjects, although some of them were. I didn’t have friends, and that’s hard for a kid. That’s hard for anybody, as I’ve learned since all my friends left Billings. I’ve been so frustrated with Kyle today, and now, remembering what things were like for me thirty years ago, when I was his age, I feel like I understand him. I wouldn’t want him to live through the kinds of things I experienced.

“He’s so big,” I said.

Victor laughed. “Tell me about it. Four inches, at least, since the end of the summer. He wears a size ten shoe. We’ve had to buy new clothes twice.”

“What should I do?” I asked.

Victor’s face went from laughter to solemnity (I love the word “solemnity”) in a single moment.

“To start with, keep being his friend. He needs one. We’ll see how it goes.”

That’s what I’m contemplating here in the darkness. Being Kyle’s friend.

The fact of the matter is that Kyle was my first good friend. Donna and I are close now, and I can feel myself becoming better friends with Victor. But Donna and I didn’t start out that way. I didn’t like Donna when I first met her, and I don’t think she liked me very much, either. Kyle, though, made things fun the first time I met him, on October 15, 2008, when he helped me paint my garage.

Maybe that’s what is missing from Kyle—fun. He looks miserable, and he surely is making his parents miserable. He’s making me miserable, too. As Dr. Buckley would say, that’s an awful lot of power we have given one boy over all of us.

In fairness to Kyle, he’s not the only reason I’m in a bad mood. The Dallas Cowboys really messed up tonight. They led by twelve points, 34–22, with five minutes and forty-one seconds left in the game, and they still managed to lose. Eli Manning passed for one touchdown, and Brandon Jacobs ran for one, and with a two-point conversion, the Giants won 37–34. The Dallas Cowboys blow a lot of big leads. In this case, it wasn’t Tony Romo’s fault—he threw for four touchdowns. A lot of times, though, it is Tony Romo’s fault.

I shake my head and remember that I’m here for Kyle, not for the Dallas Cowboys. I make myself a promise in the dark, but not like the kind in the Pat Benatar song. I promise that I will work hard while I am here to have fun with Kyle, to show him what fun is, to remind him of the good times we used to have together and can have again.

It feels good to have settled on a course of action. It’s 12:48 a.m. now. The fun starts in a few hours.

From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

Time I woke up today: 8:33 a.m. (not counting the hours I stayed up past midnight). Fifth time this year I’ve been awake at this time.

High temperature for Sunday, December 11, 2011, Day 345: 43 (according to the Boise newspaper). Same as the day before.

Low temperature for Sunday, December 11, 2011: 26. Just one degree colder than the day before.