Craig Lancaster - 600 Hours of Edward

But what’s done is done. I cannot reverse it now.

I wonder if Joy will think I’m weird for painting the garage three times. Maybe I can wait before telling her. Maybe I’ll put it off to sometime between our first meeting and our discussion about the kids.

I am in nearly the same spot on the garage and at nearly the same time as before when Kyle shows up. I prefer to be more precise than “nearly,” but I did not write down the time of Kyle’s last visit, as I did not expect that it would be the sort of regular occurrence that would require data keeping on my part. Here, again, is the problem with assumptions. They are sometimes wrong. I prefer facts.

This time, I don’t almost hit my head on the eave when he speaks, because I hear him coming. I also expected that he might show up, and I am right. Sometimes, expectations aren’t so problematic.

“Can I help?” he asks.

Again, I back down the ladder and face him.

“Yes. I have paintbrushes for you.”

Kyle goes over to the lined-up brushes, chooses one, dips it into the mixing pan, and starts sloshing the Behr mochachino on the garage door.

“You should use a steady stroke in the same direction.”

“Like this?” He is holding the paintbrush rigidly and moving it up and down quickly.

“Relax your wrist and slow down a little bit, and paint in one direction.”

“Like this?” He has done as I asked.

“That’s better.”

“Why are you painting the garage again?” he asks.

“It’s part of my plan.”

“Like a secret plan?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“And I’m like your partner.”

“Yes. On this garage plan, you are my partner.”

Kyle giggles.

I let him paint.

“Hey, Edward.”

“Yes?”

“I’m nine years old and two hundred and fifty-one days today.”

“Yes.”

Boys who are nine years old and 251 days talk…a lot. I am leaning against the hood of my 1997 Toyota Camry, drinking a can of Diet Dr Pepper while I watch Kyle paint. His Diet Dr Pepper is sitting in the driveway, unopened.

Kyle talks about his school. He doesn’t like his teacher. He likes math. And he likes a girl. I ask him if she knows that he likes her. He says no. I ask if he’s going to tell her, and he giggles again.

Kyle talks about his house, the one he and his mother moved into on September 12. He has a PlayStation 2 but wishes he had a Wii, because those “totally rule.” He asks if I want to come over sometime and play PlayStation 2, and I pretend that I didn’t hear him, and he goes back to painting.

He talks about his mother. She is a nurse at Billings Clinic, and she works Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in the emergency room. She is thirty-four years old, he offers. She has lived with many men—I count a Donald and a Troy and a Mike in his anecdotes. He tells me that the reason they moved into this house is that Mike hit her, and she filed a restraining order against him. I ask him if he saw Mike hit his mother, and Kyle says softly, “Yeah.”

“Where do you go on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays when your mother is working?”

“I stay with my grandma in Laurel.”

“Your mother’s mother or your father’s mother?”

“My mom’s mom. I don’t know my dad.”

“I know my father.”

“What’s he like?”

“He is a Yellowstone County commissioner.”

“What’s that?”

“He runs stuff around here.”

“Oh.”

“He’s not very nice sometimes,” I offer. “Maybe it’s better that you don’t know your father.”

“I don’t think so.”

A little before 5:00 p.m., while Kyle and I are washing out the paintbrushes, his mother walks across the street.

“Kyle, it’s about time to go.”

“I know.”

“OK, run home and grab your overnight bag for Grandma’s house.”

“See ya, Edward,” Kyle says, and he lights out.

She smiles at me.

“Hi, Edward.”

“Hello.”

“Kyle wasn’t any trouble, was he?”

“No. He’s a very good painter now.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I taught him how to do it.”

“That’s great.”

I nod.

“Listen,” she says, “I want to thank you for being nice to him. He doesn’t get much of a chance to do these kinds of things.”

“OK.”

“I’m sorry if I was accusatory the other day.”

“OK.”

“You don’t have a lot to say, do you?”

I stare at her.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That didn’t come out very nice.”

“OK. I have to go now.”

“OK, Edward.”

I gather up the brushes and head to the front door, then stop and turn around.

“Donna?”

She’s halfway across the street.

“Yes?”

“What’s your last name?”

“Middleton. What’s yours?”

“Stanton. I told you that the other day.”

“Right. Sorry. I forgot.”

We’re looking at each other.

“Good-bye, Ms. Middleton.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Stanton.”

First, dinner. I will have the DiGiorno pizza.

It’s good, but it doesn’t taste like delivery, no matter what the TV commercial says. I don’t think delivery has a taste. It’s nonsensical. Delivered pizza has a taste, but that’s not what the commercial says. Imprecision frustrates me.

Second, I will write back to Joy. I haven’t given my reply as much thought as I’d hoped, what with spending the day with Kyle and, for a few minutes, his mother. But I can’t put it off much longer, for I fear that Joy will think I am rude.

I decide to wing it. I don’t like winging it. I like plans.

Joy:

I hope this note finds you well.

Thank you for responding to my profile. I enjoyed reading yours. It has given me much to think about. It’s hard to know what to think of this online dating. I wish a kind face (yours) were a reliable barometer. But it seems that one has to be willing to take a chance. I don’t like chance. I prefer reliability and facts.

Here are some things about me:

* I am thirty-nine. I was born on January 9, 1969, and so I am really thirty-nine years and 282 days old, if you’re counting. I always count.

* I like to track the weather and keep track of other things.

* I am six foot four and a bit heavy. You said heightweight proportional but also that a spark was most important. I will take you at your word.

* I am a nonsmoker.

* I have never married.

* I have no children. You spoke a lot about children in your profile. I would like to wait to have those discussions.

* I live in Billings. You live in Broadview. That’s thirty-one miles. I would be willing to travel for the right person. How do you feel about this?

I hope to hear from you.

I hit send. Holy shit!

Third, at 10:00 p.m. sharp, I will watch tonight’s episode of Dragnet .

This one, the twenty-third episode of the fourth and final season, is called “I.A.D.: The Receipt,” and it is one of my favorites. It originally aired on March 26, 1970. In this episode, a woman accuses two detectives of stealing $800 from a dead man, and Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon are called in to investigate. They eventually prove that the detectives did not steal the money, because they follow clues relentlessly until the truth emerges.

You may be wondering why, in 2008, my favorite television show is one that was made largely before I was born. I will tell you.

Sergeant Joe Friday, played by Jack Webb, is no-nonsense. He wants only the facts, which he repeatedly tells anyone with whom he is talking. The facts lead Sergeant Joe Friday to the truth, and that allows him to put the bad guys away and make Los Angeles a little bit safer. There are not many TV shows like that anymore. The ones today are full of moral equivalencies, and there seems to be little celebration of the truth. I do like shows like Law and Order , which is made by Dick Wolf, who is a big fan of Jack Webb. But even shows like that end up mired in the ambiguity that Sergeant Joe Friday disdained.