Craig Lancaster - 600 Hours of Edward

I am left to wonder if you and I will ever have a similar breakthrough. I am inclined to defer to your wisdom on so many things. I wonder if you will ever talk to me yourself or come over and have a Barq’s root beer with me, instead of having your lawyer write to me.

But wondering is not much different from conjecture. Neither one deals in facts.

So here is a fact: I will continue to hope that we might do better.

I awake with a start at 7:40 a.m. I’m propped up in bed, my forearms flat against the mattress, my elbows holding me up. I can remember only the faintest outline of a dream: My father, ahead of me, walking along a road I don’t recognize. He keeps the same, steady pace, occasionally looking back and waving me to come along. I walk as fast as I can and never catch up to him.

I find the dream both comforting and threatening. I cannot reconcile these two things in my mind, and as my alertness grows, my grasp on the dream loosens.

It’s no use.

I record my awakening time, the thirty-first time in 303 days this year (because it’s a leap year) that I’ve been up at 7:40 a.m. My data is complete. And, as is made plain by the clock, my morning meeting will be upon me soon.

I shower quickly, not savoring the hot water as I generally do. It’s cold today; I could feel that when I threw off the covers and climbed out of bed. How cold, I do not know and won’t know until tomorrow. The Billings Herald-Gleaner awaits on the stoop.

I step out of the shower and dry off quickly, then slip into my terry cloth robe. I’ll have to eat a quick bowl of corn flakes. I can’t say that I’m particularly hungry, as my appetite is being affected by the fact that I have to be at my father’s lawyer’s office. I also cannot imagine facing that on an empty stomach.

At the front door, I stop and sweep the newspaper off the porch. I am in a hurry this morning, but I can complete my data. I see that the forecast calls for snow flurries today. It seems that the TV weatherman, Kent Shaw, whose smiling face is on the weather page every day, and I have a similar sense of things. The difference is that he states his forecast as if it’s fact. I know better. I shall wait for tomorrow for the facts.

I eat spoonfuls of cereal as I thumb through the newspaper. The Billings Herald-Gleaner is the only newspaper I have read consistently in my life, and I like it, although there are some things that bother me about it. I don’t start at the front of the newspaper and look at every page in succession; I would be surprised if many people do, but I can’t really know without taking a scientific survey of the Billings Herald-Gleaner ’s readers, and I just don’t have time for that.

First, I go to the weather page (I have already been there today and recorded yesterday’s high and low temperatures and precipitation, and my data is complete). Then I skip over to Dear Abby (the headline today: “Husband Should Ditch Secretary”), and this is one of the things that bothers me about the newspaper: The page with Dear Abby is in different places on different days. Sometimes, it’s with the front section. Sometimes, it’s with the Local & State section. And sometimes, it is with the Sports section. Every day, I have to check the index on the front page of the newspaper to find out where it is. And that brings up another thing I dislike about the Herald-Gleaner : The index always says something like “4C” or “8A.” The letters mean nothing to me. I want the Herald-Gleaner to tell me what section to turn to, whether it’s Local & State or Sports or the front section. I am flummoxed by the Herald-Gleaner ’s fixation on alphabetizing.

Finally, I turn to the Opinion page. This is my recreational reading, as my father often turns up on the Opinion page—sometimes because a letter writer mentions him, for good or for bad, and sometimes because the Herald-Gleaner editorial board mentions him, and that’s almost always for bad. My father refers to the Herald-Gleaner editorial board as “that full-of-shit, left-wing league of loons.” My father has a creative way of putting words together sometimes. The Herald-Gleaner editorial board, so far as I can tell, has never called my father anything that mean, although I could only guess at what its members say privately about him, and I don’t like guessing. I prefer facts. And it is a fact that the Herald-Gleaner editorial board is generally not supportive of my father as a county commissioner. It routinely criticizes his positions and has, in every election, endorsed his opponent. Today, as it turns out, a small editorial, with the headline “Stanton Misses Again,” takes him to task.

The Big Sky Economic Development Authority has yet to select a new executive director, but it made a smart move by moving on from candidate Dave Akers after his drunk-driving arrest while in Billings for his interview with the group. We can only hope that Akers’s most ardent supporter, Yellowstone County commissioner Ted Stanton, realizes the wisdom in moving on and ceases his incessant criticism of fellow board members.

The Herald-Gleaner has been up front about the ways in which we consider Commissioner Stanton’s stewardship of the county to be lacking, but we would be remiss if we didn’t also acknowledge his keen political gifts and the value of his experience in business and finance. The county’s residents are often well served by that expertise. Nobody is served by his banging the drum—and berating his peers—on behalf of a man who will not get the job to which he aspires.

The waiting area outside Jay L. Lamb’s office is pristine. Unlike Dr. Buckley’s waiting room, which is often in various stages of dishevelment and has such magazines as People and Sports Illustrated , Jay L. Lamb’s is polished and almost antiseptic. The furniture is modern—steel and glass and hard plastic. I find it uncomfortable and unwelcoming. The magazine titles are not the breezy reads favored by Dr. Buckley; they are such things as Kiplinger’s and Inc. and Portfolio. It seems that the biggest story in each has something to do with investing.

“Mr. Lamb says you can go in now,” says the receptionist, who is perfectly made up, perfectly coiffed, and has perfectly angular facial features. She is a good match with the furniture.

I stand up and check my watch. It’s 9:03 a.m. I walk through the office door to the immediate left of her desk. As I push it open, I draw in a big breath.

“Sit down, Mr. Stanton,” Jay L. Lamb says.

I hesitate for a moment, as Mr. Stanton is standing just off Jay L. Lamb’s right shoulder. Jay L. Lamb is sitting behind an expansive glass-topped desk. Then I realize that he is talking to me.

I sit. The chairs in here are just as uncomfortable as the ones outside.

“Hello, Edward.”

“Hello, Father.”

Jay L. Lamb clears his throat as if to speak, but my father cuts him off.

“What were you doing at the courthouse Monday?”

“How did you know I was there?”

“Cut the shit, Edward. We’ve been over this before. I know things.”

Yes, but that doesn’t make sense. My father’s job, aside from being at the courthouse, has nothing to do with court cases. We didn’t cross paths when I was there. Lloyd Graeve isn’t a friend of my father’s, so far as I know.

Wait. Lambert, Slaughter & Lamb, Attorneys at Law. Sean Lambert. Mike Simpson’s defense attorney. That has to be it.

“I was there with a friend.”