Craig Lancaster - Edward Adrift

Sheila Renfro comes into my hospital room and closes the door behind her.

“Don’t get comfortable, silly,” she says. “You have to get up and walk. Doctor’s orders.”

It’s amazing to me that it’s nearly 2012 and the only cure for broken ribs is to let time heal them.

I don’t find that approach altogether appealing when I’m made to get out of bed and walk. There is no other way to say it: it hurts like a motherfucker. That’s not a precise statement. Of course there are other ways to say it, but why would I say it any differently? My way is direct and emphatic (I love the word “emphatic”).

I swing my legs off the left side of the bed, a maneuver that hurts no matter how delicately I try to perform it. As my torso torques (that rhymes, sort of), I try to scoot my back along the bed so I don’t have to aggravate my ribs. I manage this somewhat successfully, but then my feet are on the floor, I’m on my back, and my butt is sliding toward the edge of the bed. This isn’t good.

Sheila Renfro and a nurse, whose name is Sally, reach for me.

“Give us your hands,” Sally says.

I lift my arms, and my ribs scream. Not literally, of course. Ribs don’t have mouths or voices.

They grip my hands and drop their rear ends like anchors.

“On three,” Sally says. She counts it off: “One…two…three.”

Sheila Renfro and Sally pull hard on my arms, and I try to shove myself up with my feet. The pain is the worst it has been, and I scream.

Sally, I guess, has seen a lot of people scream. She seems unconcerned. Sheila Renfro cups her palm on my face and tells me, “You did good, Edward.”

Sheila and I make two laps around the hospital hallway. I tell her that I have to pee, and she says, “Go ahead. They put a catheter in you. What do you think this is?” She taps a bag that hangs from the monitor I’m pushing. It has yellow liquid in it.

“My pee?”

“Well,” she says. “It’s not mine.” And then she laughs.

Sheila Renfro is pretty funny sometimes.

“What are you going to do when you get out of here?” she asks me.

“I don’t know. Drive back to Billings, I guess.”

“It’s a long way when you’re feeling bad. It’s a long way under any circumstance.”

“Yes. The distance is unchanged by my physical condition.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Dr. Banning told me he didn’t want me to fly.”

“You could come stay at my motel for a while.”

“You’d let me?”

“Of course. You’re going to pay, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

Sheila Renfro laughs. “I was just kidding. You don’t have to pay. You can be my guest.”

Sheila Renfro is pretty funny sometimes.

“I could pay, you know,” I say. “I’m fucking loaded.”

She puts a hand on the small of my back. It feels warm, and for just a moment, I forget the pain.

“I know you are, Edward,” she says. “Don’t cuss around me.”

Sheila Renfro says she’s going to stay with me in the hospital. She doesn’t put it in the form of a request. It’s a declaration.

I tell her I don’t know if they’ll let her, that hospitals have rules about such things. When Sally comes into the room to give me my Percocet, which is a kind of painkiller, I ask her if Sheila Renfro can stay in my room.

Sally says, “Absolutely, we can set up a reclining chair for her in here, if you’re OK with that.”

Sheila Renfro says, “He is.” And she’s right, although I don’t think Sally was asking her for the answer.

I eat a little bit of orange-flavored gelatin for my dinner, but, to be honest, I’m not very hungry. I ask Sally, when she comes by to change the bag I’m peeing into, if it’s Jell-O brand gelatin, but she says she doesn’t know, that those details are handled down in the kitchen. I suppose it doesn’t matter.

There isn’t much on TV, which surprises me. Unlike Sheila Renfro’s motel, St. Joseph Hospital has an array (I love the word “array”) of cable television channels. Maybe Sheila Renfro is correct and people shouldn’t watch so much TV, if tonight’s selection is any indication of the baseline level of quality offered on cable these days. Even if she is correct, what am I going to do? I have broken ribs. My options are limited.

“Do you want to watch Adam-12 on my bitchin’ iPhone?” I ask Sheila Renfro.

“That will be fine,” she says. “Don’t cuss around me. I keep telling you.”

I queue up the twenty-third episode of the first season, “Log 12: He Was Trying to Kill Me.” This episode originally aired on March 15, 1969. As the video comes up, I think of how much things have changed for me in just a few years. In my years of watching my favorite TV show, Dragnet , I never would have let so many days go between viewings, but here I am, watching Adam-12 for the first time since the day I left Billings. If I’d known then what would happen to me on this trip—which was impossible, of course—would I have come? I don’t know. I’m asking myself unanswerable questions lately, and that’s not like me. Maybe I’m changing, or maybe I’m just off my game because I’m hurt and discombobulated. If I’m changing—and changing this profoundly—I have a big adjustment to make. If I’ll be back to my old self eventually, I wonder if I will recognize the signs.

I’m watching Officer Pete Malloy and Officer Jim Reed, but I’m not paying attention; I’m more looking through them, beyond the bitchin’ iPhone in my hands. Beyond this room and even beyond this day. I’m trying to see what’s coming, but that is a silly pursuit. We never know. I don’t, anyway. It’s all a surprise, and I’m having to learn to live with surprises even though I prefer certainty. Certainty allows you to plan your life, and there are few things I like better than planning. Surprises make you adjust along the way, and I’m not very good at that.

Sheila Renfro has pulled her chair up tight against my bed, and her head is tilted to the right and resting on my pillow, next to my own head. I can smell her, and it pleases me.

I’m glad she stayed.

From the logbook of Edward Stanton, as recorded by Sheila Renfro:

Time Edward woke up today: Repeatedly. It’s like he discovers all over again just how hurt he is every time he wakes up, and that’s heartbreaking. I wish there was something more they could do for him, but the prescription is rest and exercise.

High temperature for Friday, December 16, 2011, Day 350: 44 in Billings. Also, Edward wants me to point out that although he appreciates Kyle’s attempt to keep track of things yesterday, it’s important that the temperatures be correct. I was able to find yesterday’s paper down in the dining area, and it said that it was a high of 33 in Billings on Thursday, December 15. Edward was relieved that I was able to find this out. He is peculiar, but I like that about him.

Low temperature for Friday, December 16, 2011: 23. And the low was 18 on Thursday.

Precipitation for Friday, December 16, 2011: 0.00 inches. Same as Thursday.

Precipitation for 2011: 19.41 inches

New entries:

Exercise for Friday, December 16, 2011: We did three sets of two laps around this floor of the hospital. As Edward says, it’s hard to prove these things empirically, but he seemed to get better each time. The only bad part is that it hurts him so bad when we have to pull him out of the bed. It’s heartbreaking.

Miles driven Friday, December 16, 2011: No mileage for Edward, I’m afraid. I was able to do some research and piece together how many miles he drove Thursday before the crash. It’s 86.8 miles from Cheyenne Wells to Limon, where he got on Interstate 70. I came upon the wreck a little more than seven miles after that. It’s not precise, but it’s close enough. As far as gas usage goes, I have no idea. It doesn’t matter.