Craig Lancaster - Edward Adrift (26 page)

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.”

TECHNICALLY SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2011

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.

As long as I’m being honest, I have to carry it over—I’m excited about spending more time with Sheila Renfro. I do not make friends easily, and the ones I have moved away from me in this shitburger of a year. To be able to make a new friend as easily as I have with Sheila Renfro—and under such difficult circumstances—makes me happy. I’ve also noticed that she’s a lot like me in that she’s no-nonsense and doesn’t spend a lot of time talking around things. If something needs to be done, she does it. She doesn’t talk about doing it. I appreciate that.

On the negative side, she does put more energy into conjecture and generalities than I am comfortable with. Take what she said about my mother as an example. I’m reasonably certain, from what I heard of their phone conversation, that my mother said something that upset Sheila Renfro. I don’t like that, but I cannot control what my mother says. Whatever my mother might have said, it’s no excuse for Sheila Renfro to extrapolate (I love the word “extrapolate”) that statement into a much broader assumption about my mother. Sheila Renfro said, “I bet she thinks all
women are like that,” in reference to the Penny Lang character from
Adam-12
. I don’t know if Sheila Renfro was being serious about wanting to lay down a bet; if she was, she’s doubling down—that’s a gambling term—on assumption, and I think that’s a risky thing to do.

I also think it’s odd that I’m suddenly being fought over by women in my life. That’s never happened before. By the time my mother found out about Donna Middleton (now Hays) a few years ago, we had already been through some tough situations, like dealing with her mean ex-boyfriend Mike and learning how to be friends with each other, and my mother was just happy I’d found someone who liked me. Now I’ve made another friend, and my mother isn’t so happy, apparently. That’s not consistent behavior, and I think my mother owes me an explanation. She might even owe Sheila Renfro an apology, although it would be wrong to assume anything at this point.

I’ve decided what I am going to do. Tomorrow, I’m going to take advantage of being in a truck with Sheila Renfro to try to get her to tell me what happened between her and my mother. Later, after we’re in Cheyenne Wells, I will call my mother on my bitchin’ iPhone, as I said I would, and I will try to learn her side of things.

I may have to broker some sort of agreement between my mother and Sheila Renfro, and I feel a little bit devious when I realize that I’m hoping this is the case. It’s the kind of grown-up problem that I’m not often allowed to help solve.

This could be a breakthrough for me.

And now, suddenly, I realize I have to pee really, really badly. I find the nurse call button and I push it four times. But I’m too late. Holy shit!

OFFICIALLY SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2011

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

Time Edward woke up today: He’s still awfully embarrassed, so I’ll try to piece this together. He says he woke up at 1:33 a.m. and did some thinking, which he must have done quietly because I didn’t wake up and this chair is killing my back. (Edward wants me to point out that “killing my back” isn’t meant to be taken literally. I am in no danger of dying.) This thinking went on for maybe 10 minutes, until Edward realized he had to pee. He didn’t make it.

High temperature for Saturday, December 17, 2011, Day 351: 44 in Billings, the same temperature as the day before. (Edward wants me to point out that this is a remarkably seasonable December, and that he will do some in-depth calculations when he gets back to Billings and has access to his full dossier—Edward loves the word “dossier”—of weather data.)

Low temperature for Saturday, December 17, 2011: 29. That’s six degrees warmer than the low from the day before.

Precipitation for Saturday, December 17, 2011: 0.00 inches. Same as Friday.

Precipitation for 2011: 19.41 inches

New entries:

Exercise for Saturday, December 17, 2011: As Sally directed, we did five sets of laps around this floor, and we also had Edward sit upright in my chair three times for an hour at each stretch. Edward wants me to point out that it remains difficult to quantify the degree of his physical improvement but that he definitely feels better than he did the day before. He also says he’s getting antsy to stop walking with the monitor he has to push, and that he’s eager to wear regular clothes again.

Miles driven Saturday, December 17, 2011: Not a one. (Edward wants me to point out that “not a one” is a weird way of saying “none,” that it uses more words than is necessary. I point out to him that my daddy used to say that and I don’t care how many words it takes.)

Total miles driven: Edward wants me to point out that he’s reviewed the past entries and that we’re way off on the mileage, so we’ll correct it here. He says that he and Kyle drove 27.4 miles while looking at oil pumps, so the grand total is 1,846.1 miles, not 1,838.7. Edward also wants me to point out that we don’t know exactly how far he had traveled on Interstate 70 before the wreck, so even this number is suspect. He says we’ll try to find the wreck site on the way home. I don’t understand what the big deal is, but he says that’s what we’re going to do. So there.

Gas usage Saturday, December 17, 2011: None.

Addendum: Edward is trying to lean over and see what I’m writing, but every time he does, his ribs hurt. That’s why I am sitting on his left. I’m not dumb.

He needs to get over the fact that he peed the bed. Yeah, under normal circumstances, a 42-year-old man should not wet the bed, but he should know by now that these are not normal circumstances.

I’m antsy to get back to the motel. I don’t make much money there, but even so, a three-day shutdown is going to affect my bottom line in a bad way. Edward pointed out to me again last night that he’s “fucking loaded,” and I really wish he’d stop saying that. He said he will compensate me for my losses. That made me really mad. He doesn’t get it sometimes.

EDWARD, I KNOW YOU’LL BE READING THIS EVENTUALLY SO STOP LEANING IN AND HURTING YOURSELF!!!!

Dr. Banning said it probably won’t be till noon or later that Edward will be discharged. I’m going to leave for a little while and get ready to go.

I’m really nervous about this. EDWARD, JUST WAIT!!!!!!

OK, I’m going to go now.

I can’t believe I peed in the overnight nurse’s shoes.

I know she was mad about it, too. She tried not to let me see that she was. She said, “It’s OK, Edward. This isn’t even close to the worst thing that’s ever happened here,” but after she left my room to go get new shoes and socks and the outfit that the nurses call “scrubs,” I could hear her tell her supervisor at the desk what happened, and she sounded really disgusted by it.

Sheila Renfro tells me that I need to forgive myself for doing what I did. It would be different, she says, if I’d intended to do it, but it most definitely wasn’t my intent. (“You didn’t mean to do it, did you?” she asked after asserting that I did not, as if she needed verification. That flummoxed me.) She says that accidents happen, especially in a health care environment. She actually said that: “Especially in a health care environment.” I think I’m starting to rub off on Sheila Renfro a little bit.

She’s probably correct. It’s just really embarrassing, and I’m not someone who deals well with embarrassment. I’m not sure I’d
want to know someone who deals well with embarrassment. That would suggest a person who regularly messes up on a grand scale. I think those people are best avoided.

I’m also embarrassed about something else—the Dallas Cowboys played last night, and I completely forgot about it. If you had told me before this trip that I would forget about a Dallas Cowboys game, I would have politely but firmly disagreed with you. But now there’s proof. The one plus, I guess, is that the Dallas Cowboys won against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That’s good, but it’s not surprising. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are terrible.

Sheila Renfro is acting weird. She seems annoyed at me because I was trying to make sure all the data got recorded properly in my notebook. She kept telling me “I know how to do it,” which was completely beside the point. I know she knows how to do it. My point is that I’ve been doing it longer than she has, and thus I know better.

Finally, Sheila Renfro left. She didn’t say where she was going, just that she would be back in time to get me loaded into her truck after I am released from the hospital. But she did take my notebook with her, which is damned dirty pool. (When I say “pool,” I’m speaking of billiards, not a swimming pool. Besides, if I were speaking of a swimming pool, that sentence would have required the indefinite article “a,” as in “That is a damned dirty pool.” The absence of the “a” is a giveaway as to the nature of the noun “pool.” I hear people say that grammar is difficult to understand, but it’s really not if you just pay attention.)

When I awake from my nap at 10:37 a.m., a uniformed police officer is standing at the side of my bed. This alarms me. I’m not a fugitive from the law, so I have no reason to fear cops, but my past interactions with them have not been good. This is another instance of what Dr. Buckley would call a conditioned response.

“Are you Edward Stanton?” he asks me. This is a dumb question. My name is written on the dry-erase board over my bed. Still, I am self-aware enough to not tell the officer that he’s being dumb. Nobody likes to hear that. Policemen take it particularly personally.

“Yes,” I say.

“This is for you.”