Craig Lancaster - 600 Hours of Edward

I’m nervous on the drive home. The rain is coming down even harder than when I went into Albertsons, and the thump of fat raindrops against the windows reminds me of last week, when that car hit me as I was turning left onto Twenty-Fourth Street W. From Albertsons to home is all right turns, thank goodness, but you never know with other drivers.

I’m relieved when I pull into the driveway without incident. As the garage is not attached to the house, I’m facing a small fight through the rain with the groceries, regardless of whether I leave the car exposed or pull it into the garage. I opt for the former, then scramble out of the car, dash around to the back, unlock the trunk, and start wrestling with the plastic bags.

I can nearly scoop them all up, but the bulkiness of the box of Barq’s root beer is too much for me. I stand there in the rain for a minute or two, trying to find the grip that will allow me to move all of the bags toward the front door.

Finally, I get it. I’m holding on to the carrying latch on the box of root beer with just three fingers, and I begin shuffling toward the door. Halfway across the front yard, the root beer box rips apart and slips from my grasp, landing with a metallic thud. A few cans roll toward the sidewalk, propelled along by the slight crown of the yard. One can has blown apart from the fall and is spraying warm, carbonated root beer.

“Holy shit!” I say, and drop the bags of groceries.

“Edward, let me give you a hand.” It’s Donna, splashing toward me from across the street in a yellow raincoat.

“Thanks.”

I collect the groceries again, while she chases down the cans of root beer. I waddle to the door in a half-run, and she’s behind me with an armful of soda cans. I set one bag down and retrieve the keys from my pocket, then unlock the door, gather up the bag, and hustle inside. Donna is right behind me. Tracking rain and mud through the house, we herd the groceries into the dining room and set them on the table.

“Whew,” Donna says. “I think that one can’s a goner, Edward. Sorry about that.”

“It’s OK.”

I start pulling groceries from the bags and organizing them to be put away.

“Do you need help?” Donna asks.

“No, I can do this.”

She looks back into the tramped-through living room. “Oh, Edward, we made a big mess in there.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a vacuum cleaner and some cleaning supplies?”

“Yes, in the hall closet.”

“OK,” Donna says. “You put away the groceries, and I’ll clean the floor.”

By 12:45, we’re finished—the groceries put away, the living room carpet looking as if nobody had ever walked on it, let alone tracked mud and water across it—and we’re enjoying some of what Donna has dubbed The Root Beer That Tried to Get Away. She’s having hers in a glass, with ice. I’m drinking from the can, as I prefer my soda at room temperature.

At 12:47, there is a knock on the door.

I set my can of root beer down on the coffee table. I have no coasters, which started as a rebellion against my parents but now is just one of those idiosyncrasies that Dr. Buckley occasionally counsels me about; I can imagine her now, saying, “How, exactly, does not having coasters figure into your image of yourself, Edward?”

At the door, I look through the peephole. I can see the distinctive blue outfit of the US Postal Service. He’s late today. It must be because of the rain. I open the door.

“Edward Stanton?” he asks. He has been coming to this house for as long as I have lived here.

“Yes.”

“Registered letter. I need a signature.”

I sign where he has indicated, and he hands me a white business envelope.

The sender: Lambert, Slaughter & Lamb, Attorneys at Law.

“Oh no.”

“What is it?” Donna asks.

“A letter from my father’s lawyer.”

“What about?”

“I don’t know. It can’t be good.”

I open the letter, peeling away a corner of the envelope, and then sliding my right index finger through the top of the envelope like a crude blade.

October 27, 2008

Mr. Edward Stanton:

Your benefactor and I would like to talk with you about recent events and their possible bearing on your benefactor’s continued support of you. Please extend us the courtesy of meeting at 9:00 a.m., Wednesday, October 29, at the law offices of Lambert, Slaughter & Lamb, 2600 First Avenue N., Suite 303.

We look forward to meeting with you.

“It’s not good,” I say.

“Can I see it?”

I hand the letter to Donna, who reads it quickly.

“This is so weird,” she says. “Your father uses a lawyer to talk with you?”

“Sometimes.”

“Why does the lawyer refer to him as your benefactor?”

“I guess it’s a lawyerly way of putting things.”

“Why can’t your father just call you up or come by?”

I shrug. That would be nice. That also would never happen. I shouldn’t say that, I guess. I don’t know what will ever happen, as those things haven’t happened yet, and until then, it’s all conjecture. I prefer facts. The fact is, my father has never just dropped by.

“What’s it about?”

“I don’t know. It could be anything.”

“He seemed like a nice man when…well, that day at the clinic.”

“He is when he wants to be.”

“Are you going to go?”

I shrug. “I have to.”

Donna is preparing to leave. She puts her raincoat back on—the pelting continues outside—and turns and faces me.

“Are you OK, Edward?”

“Yes.”

“I enjoyed hanging out with you.”

“Me, too.”

She smiles at me.

“Edward, can I ask you a question?”

“Yes.”

“Would it be all right if I kissed you on the cheek?”

I’ve never been asked this before.

“OK,” I say.

She puts her hands on my shoulders and tiptoes up to me, gently placing her lips against my left cheek. She smells good. I close my eyes.

After she finishes, she releases me.

“Thank you, Edward.”

She opens the door, steps through, and closes it behind her.

Tonight, at 10:00, I settle into the couch and watch Dragnet . The episode, the eighth of the first season of color episodes, originally aired on March 9, 1967, and it is one of my favorites. It is called “The Candy Store Robberies.”

In this one, Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon investigate a string of armed robberies at a chain of downtown candy stores in Los Angeles. For a while, the robberies seem to follow a pattern, but then the robber or robbers—Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon aren’t sure about the number—hit a store that he or they have robbed before. Rolling stakeouts finally break open the case, and two transient men are arrested. It turns out that one of them found a gun, and they have both been using it, hitting the candy stores when they need some cash for liquor. They are actually gentle men, the gun notwithstanding (I love the word “notwithstanding”), and they have become friends because neither can read.

Their crimes are serious, but Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon have empathy for the men just the same. I think this episode is just as much about friendship as it is about the unraveling of a crime.

Friendship, I’m finding out, is a good thing.

The sixth green office folder holding letters of complaint to my father gathers another one.

Dear Father,

I was most disappointed to receive the registered letter from your attorney, Jay L. Lamb, today. It was a dark moment in what had been, for me, a day of breakthroughs and greater understanding.