Craig Lancaster - Edward Adrift (10 page)

Anyway, my father hated weigh stations. Every time we would pass one, he would say something like “money-grubbing assholes” or “two-bit quasi-cops.” I asked him one time why he hated weigh stations so much, and he said the people in them liked to give a hard time to the drilling crews he supervised. He told me about this one time when a driller named Jim Quillen got stopped at a weigh station near Grand Junction, Colorado. The weigh station personnel came out and checked the paperwork on his big drilling rig and a smaller truck with a water tank on the back. They climbed onto the cab of the drilling rig, measured the overhang on the mast, and told Jim Quillen that it went too far over the snout of the truck.

“Quillen was a hothead, but he was smart, too,” my father said. “He knew that if he kicked up a fight, they’d just shut him down permanent. So you know what he did, Teddy?”

I did not know what he did, and I told my father so.

“He brought that water truck around front of the rig and backed it right up till they were almost touching. Then he lashed
the trucks together, and he hauled out of there. No more overhang. Quillen said that when they went by the shack, those guys’ mouths were open to the floor. Serves ’em right, the fuckers.”

My father told me this story and he laughed so hard that his face turned red. I could tell that it was one of his favorite stories. It was a pretty good story, I guess. I don’t rate these things, but it’s not the best story I’ve ever heard. All the same, I’m thankful that he told it to me, so I could remember it now and think of him.

The route I’m traveling, Interstate 15 South into Idaho, takes me through some beautiful country, and twice I pull off to take a picture along the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. I’ve never been much of a picture taker. I tend to remember so many things that I don’t need the pictures to remind me, but I must concede that I’ve been glad to have all the pictures of Donna and Kyle and Victor that have been taken and given to me in the past few years. When I’m feeling especially lonely, I bring them out and remember the good times when they were taken. These pictures from this trip, which I’m taking with my bitchin’ iPhone and sending to my “cloud,” might serve a similar purpose for me sometime. Part of me wishes I could leave the interstate and do some exploring. Virginia City, which was the territorial capital of Montana, is not too far away. Neither is Bannack, which was the territorial capital before Virginia City. I learned about these places in my Montana history class in the eighth grade at Will James Middle School, and I would like to see them someday, but I have hundreds of miles to go and can’t deviate (I love the word “deviate”) that far.

My predeparture peeing program seems to have paid dividends. Before I cross over into Idaho, I stop only once to drain
my main vein and make my bladder gladder, and that’s in Dillon, 66.1 miles into my trip. I drive into the parking lot of an Exxon station and half-jog inside. I’ve planned well. Unlike yesterday, I don’t feel as though I’m about to burst, and so I’m able to get to the bathroom without drawing attention to myself by holding my tallywhacker. Two minutes and seven seconds later, after I’ve washed my hands thoroughly, I pay the store cashier for a pack of sugar-free gum and I’m headed back to the car.

At 11:28 a.m., I am on the interstate and headed for Idaho.

This is a good day already.

I’m 24.7 miles beyond Dillon when my bitchin’ iPhone makes a noise at me.

I pick it up, and this message is on the screen:
Whats up. LOL.

That doesn’t make sense.

With one hand on the wheel, and glancing repeatedly between my phone and the road, I type back:
Who is this?

I put my right hand back on the steering wheel and try to keep my eyes focused on the road, but curiosity is stronger than my desire to drive in the recommended safe manner. I keep moving my eyes so I can see the phone’s screen.

Finally, another message comes through:
The cops. LOL. Turn around and go home. LOL.

I’m really flummoxed now. Again, I split my attention and spell out a reply:
How did you get this number? And what’s so funny?

I’m not stupid; I know that LOL means “laughing out loud.” I also know what ROFLMAO means, and I have figured out most of the things that are known as emoticons. I do not like them.
Internet culture is destroying the way we communicate with each other.

I look down again at my phone, waiting for a response. When I look up, I’ve drifted too far to the right, and I have to pull hard on the steering wheel to keep the Cadillac DTS from leaving the road. That was a close one. My heart pounds.

In comes the next message:
I know everything. LOL.

As I reach down to respond yet again, blue lights fill my rearview mirror. A Montana Highway Patrol car is pulling me over.

Well, slap my ass and call me Sally. That’s just a saying, by the way. Scott Shamwell used to say that sometimes. I don’t want my ass slapped, and I prefer to be called by my own name, which is Edward.

I pull over and wait for the officer.

After the patrolman gives me a $250 ticket for reckless driving—and scolds me for texting while driving, saying that I’m lucky I didn’t kill myself or somebody else or worse, which seems silly to me because what could be worse than killing or being killed?—I remain in my turned-off car on the side of the interstate.

Who is this, really?
I type.
Don’t lie.

A few moments pass.
Kyle. LOL.

You just cost me $250 and got me in big trouble with the Montana Highway Patrol.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!

The taunting messages from Kyle keep coming. He tells me to be a “gangsta” and not pay my ticket. He tells me that the Dallas Cowboys suck and that the Denver Broncos and Tim Tebow rule. He tells me that he’s going to whip my butt on all his Wii games, which is probably true; I never was very good at Wii. He tells me that his parents are stupid and that his school is full of “douches.”

I watch the messages as they continue to come through as I drive, which I’m probably not supposed to do, but I can’t help it. I’ll be stopping to eat in American Falls, which is 170.6 miles away, and I can answer his many text messages when I get there. In the meantime, I will monitor them.

At 12:37, however, I receive a message that causes me to turn off the bitchin’ iPhone.

Dont be all stupid when your here.

I blink twice when I see it. The words sting me. Kyle, as much as anybody, should know that I’m not stupid. I explained my condition to him soon after I met him, and I know Donna has told him about it, and still he saw fit to message my bitchin’ iPhone and call me stupid. I’m not stupid at all. I’m very smart. I know a lot of things, and I know how to do a lot of things. The world sometimes doesn’t make sense to me. Other people regularly flummox me. I’m bad with crowds, and I don’t know what to do when people are emotional, but none of that means I’m stupid. The irony is now I’m the emotional one. Kyle’s message makes me want to stop this car and beat on it with a hammer.

Also, Kyle has some nerve calling me stupid when he doesn’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re.”

I try to imagine what Dr. Buckley would tell me to do, which is a poor substitute for actually hearing from her. For one thing, it forces me to use conjecture, and I’ve been clear all along that conjecture can be a dangerous thing. I guess I have no alternative now.

I suppose Dr. Buckley would say that Kyle is a boy, and boys can be cruel. She might also say that his ugliness toward me is just a misplaced manifestation (I love the word “manifestation”) of his frustration with himself. Dr. Buckley often said that when we say nasty things about other people, we’re really criticizing something in them that we don’t like in ourselves. I’m not sure I ever fully understood what she meant by that, but taking that and applying it to Kyle somehow makes it easier to process. I know Kyle is having a tough time in his new town and at his new school. Maybe people are calling
him
stupid. Maybe he’s putting that on me so it’s not on him any longer. That’s a lot of maybes, which makes me uncomfortable.

Finally, I remember Dr. Buckley once telling me that the children who would make fun of me when I was young were, in many cases, simply dealing with differences the way children often do. Children are perceptive about differences, and they sometimes fall victim to a sort of mob mentality where a lack of conformity is identified and punished. It saddens me to think that this might now describe Kyle, because up until this point, he and I have never let our differences—like our age—keep us from being good friends. When he and Donna and Victor left Billings 190 days ago, he hugged me in their old driveway, and I hugged him back, which is hard for me. Now he’s speaking (writing) to me this way. What if we can’t be friends anymore? I don’t think that’s something I want to contemplate.

I resolve to leave the bitchin’ iPhone off until I arrive at Donna and Victor’s. I won’t get to take pictures of Idaho, and if I’m late in arriving, I won’t get to follow the Dallas Cowboys’ game tonight against the New York Giants, but I also don’t want to be confused by Kyle any more than I already am.