Craig Lancaster - Edward Adrift

“Well, then, it’s good that I called. Listen, Son, your car is ready. I hope it’s OK that Jay got you another Cadillac. You know, I figured you’d want the familiarity. He even got the same color.”

“That’s fine.”

“Wonderful! Hey, can someone there write something down for you?”

I look at Sheila Renfro, who is listening intently. “Will you get my notebook and pen?” She pulls them off the table beside the bed.

“OK, Mother, go ahead.”

“It’s at seven-seven-seven Broadway in Denver. You’re to ask for Glenn.”

“Seven-seven-seven Broadway. Glenn. Got it.” Sheila Renfro writes this down. “Mother, is it OK if I don’t pick the car up for a few days?”

“But I thought you—”

“I’m going back to Cheyenne Wells to rest up before I drive home.”

“Back to Cheyenne Wells? Whatever in the world for?”

“My friend invited me to stay at her motel while I recuperate.”

“Her? Who?”

“Sheila Renfro.” At this, Sheila Renfro’s eyebrows go up and her forehead crinkles.

“Who’s Sheila Renfro?”

“You talked to her.”

“I did?”

“She’s the woman who called you to say that I’d been in a wreck.”

“I thought that was a nurse.”

“No, that was Sheila Renfro of Cheyenne Wells, Colorado.”

Crinkly-headed Sheila Renfro continues to look at me. She mouths the words “What’s going on?” I shrug my shoulders, and it hurts. I won’t do that again.

“Well, who is she?”

“She owns the motel I stayed in while I was in Cheyenne Wells.”

“Is she there now?”

“Yes.”

“I want to talk to her.”

I hand the phone to Sheila Renfro, who shakes her head. I purse my lips and push the phone toward her with insistency. Finally she takes it, and soon I’m left to bemoan (I love the word “bemoan”) the fact that I can hear only one side of their brief conversation. That must have been frustrating for Sheila Renfro when I was the one on the phone.

The side of the conversation I hear goes like this:

“Hello, Mrs. Stanton.”

(Pause.)

“I’m thirty-six.”

(Pause.)

“It was my mother and father’s motel. Now it’s mine. They’re in the ground.”

(Pause.)

“I don’t think that’s any of your business, with all due respect.”

(Pause.)

“He wants to come.”

(Pause.)

“But—”

(Pause.)

“Tell him, not me.”

(Pause.)

She hands the phone back to me.

“Yes, Mother?”

“I don’t like this, Edward. I think you should go home before you get into any more trouble.”

“Trouble? I’m not in trouble. Did Jay L. Lamb say something?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. You’re not in trouble, trouble. It’s just that you’ve been through a lot. It’s time to go back home. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Why?”

“I think people are taking advantage of you.”

“Which people?”

“That woman, for one.”

“But she’s my friend.”

“I know you think she is, and maybe she is, but given what you’ve been through, I think it’s best that you just go back to where you live and she goes back to where she lives. I don’t trust her.”

“I do.”

“I think you should go home.”

My mother flummoxes me. I’ve never seen her act this way.

“I’m going to Cheyenne Wells, Mother. It’s just for a few days. Then Sheila Renfro will bring me back to Denver, I’ll pick up the car, and I’ll go home.”

My mother sighs into the phone. She’s not happy.

“I think you’re making a mistake.”

“I think we should see what the facts bear out.”

“Fine. But I want you to call me every day, OK?”

“Yes.”

“Good-bye, Son. Be careful.”

“Good-bye, Mother. I will.”

I hang up and I look at Sheila Renfro, who is biting at her bottom lip.

“You don’t have to come,” she says.

“I want to.”

“It’s going to cause trouble for you with your mom.”

“I’m forty-two years old. I can do what I want.”

Sheila Renfro smiles just a bit at this, the kind of hidden smile she would give me back at the motel in Cheyenne Wells.

“She’s bossy,” she says.

I pee four more times throughout the afternoon. Twice I’m sitting in Sheila Renfro’s chair while she sits on the end of my bed, and those instances make it easier for me to stand, although I still need help getting to my feet. I’ve learned to anticipate the pain from my broken ribs, and at the moment I’m being pulled up I blow out my breath as hard as I can, which seems to help with the discomfort. It doesn’t cause all of the pain to go away, of course. Only when the ribs are fully healed will that happen. Dr. Banning, who comes and sees me one more time before dinner, assures me that will happen within the next few weeks.

After dinner—grilled chicken breast, rice, and cauliflower, which I despise and thus do not eat—Sheila and I watch another episode of Adam-12 on my bitchin’ iPhone. This one is called “Log 172: Boy, the Things You Do for the Job.” It’s the twenty-fourth episode of the first season, and it originally aired on March 22, 1969.

Sheila Renfro again puts her head next to mine as we watch on the tiny screen. In this episode, Officer Pete Malloy and Officer Jim Reed pull over a blonde who is driving recklessly in a foreign sports car. Officer Pete Malloy tells her that in addition to her considerable driving violations, she also has an expired driver’s license. This kind of flagrant disregard for the law flummoxes me, even on a TV show. As Officer Pete Malloy is writing the ticket, the blonde puts on her feminine wiles (I love the word “wiles”) and suggests that they have a date instead. Officer Pete Malloy, being a good, upstanding cop, declines her offer.

Sheila Renfro sits up and looks at me and says, “I bet your mom thinks all women act like that.”

I start to say something, but Sheila Renfro waves me off. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Listen, I’m not really up for watching this show. I’m just going to go to sleep, OK?”

I nod and leave it be, which is difficult.

“Good night, Edward,” Sheila Renfro says as she pulls the hospital blanket over herself.

“Good night, Sheila Renfro.”

I wake up at 1:33 a.m., as if I’ve been jolted. Usually, it’s a dream that causes an abrupt wake-up like this, but I can’t recall any dream. If I was having one, the visions associated with it have left my head.

But, in this case, I do not require a dream to be preoccupied. I’m worried about what my mother said to Sheila Renfro. I tried to get Sheila Renfro to talk about it as she was falling asleep, but she was having none of that conversation.

She said, “Forget it, Edward. It’s not important. Just get some rest, OK? Big day tomorrow.”

It is, indeed, a big day, and technically tomorrow is here. I’m leaving the hospital, first of all. Second of all, I’m going back to Cheyenne Wells to stay at Sheila Renfro’s motel while I recuperate (I love the word “recuperate”) for a few days. Sheila Renfro says she will feed me good food and make sure I exercise and even let me help her with some small repairs at the motel, or at least talk her through some repairs if my injuries don’t allow me to do them myself.

I have to be honest about this: the idea that someone would find me useful for small jobs is making me excited about going to Cheyenne Wells. After I was involuntarily separated from the Billings Herald-Gleaner , having something to do is what I missed most. Not the money. Not even hanging around with Scott Shamwell and listening to his creative cursing, which now I’ll have to curtail because Sheila Renfro does not like it. Once I was consigned (I love the word “consigned”) to my house after being involuntarily separated, I found that I had little interest in doing the household chores and repairs that filled my day before I had the job at the Herald-Gleaner . They no longer seemed important for a man who had been entrusted with painting parking lot lines and repairing inserter equipment and unplugging spray bars on the press. I suppose it’s haughty (I love the word “haughty”) of me to say that, but that’s how I felt.