600 Hours of Edward

Friday is way too smart for that—but I think he would have tried to understand me and the things I do, and if he didn’t approve, he would tell me himself. Sergeant Joe Friday never would have had a lawyer send me a letter. That’s not how he does business.
    But Sergeant Joe Friday never married and never had kids. The man who portrayed him, Jack Webb, married four times—which Sergeant Joe Friday would have never done, I’m sure—and had two children. Sergeant Joe Friday is also off the air, and Jack Webb has been dead for almost twenty-six years.
    I am stuck with the father I have.
    – • –
    I now need six green office folders for my letters to my father.
    Dear Father:
    I can say without reservation that your treatment of me this evening was simply unacceptable. While I can appreciate that you are facing many pressures at work—although
I suspect that you are bringing them on yourself, in large measure—I cannot condone your ruining dinner and my chance to visit with Mother by hectoring me over painting the garage.
    And yet, all of that paled in comparison to coming home to find a letter from your lawyer castigating me for the events of Saturday at Billings Clinic. I find it hard to believe that this is something that we couldn’t have worked through on our own, without legal involvement.
    I don’t know what to do, Father. I don’t know how to please you. I don’t know if you know how I can.
    As ever, I am your son,
    Edward

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22
    When I wake up—at 7:40 a.m., the thirtieth time out of 296 days this year (because it’s a leap year)—it’s because the wind is whipping against the house, rattling windows. My data entered, I strain across the bed and pull aside the curtain on the bedroom window.
    The lone white ash tree in the backyard, clinging to its last maroon leaves, is being bent by the high wind. I glance up at the sky, which is a foreboding gray.
    I have two thoughts about this: First, I think that Montana in fall is about to deliver confirmation of just how off base a forecast can be. Second, I am glad that I have no plans to paint the garage today.
    As the first droplets of rain crash into the window, it occurs to me that I ought to hurry and fetch the newspaper, or else the remainder of my data will be ruined.
    – • –
    At the kitchen table for breakfast, I’m choking down my eighty milligrams of fluoxetine. Here is something I did not tell Dr.Buckley yesterday: When the dreams started, I thought perhaps that I should go off my medication, just to see if that would toggle the dreams away and bring back my peaceful sleep. I can only imagine what Dr. Buckley’s reaction to that would have been. She would have asked me to think about all the trouble I had before we got my dosage right, about all the moments when I felt like an unwilling passenger in a car driven by a madman—only I was the madman.
    She would have been right, too. The fluoxetine, in large measure, keeps day-to-day life from being more of a mess than it sometimes is. I get credit for some of that, and Dr. Buckley would not hesitate to give it to me. Using some of the coping strategies she has given me—closing my eyes, counting backward, visualizing the path out of danger—I have often averted situations that, before Dr. Buckley, would have escalated into horrible confrontations that my father would have had to defuse. I think it’s those coping skills plus the medication that have done it for me. I wouldn’t want to try life without either one.
    Had I gone off my medication, Dr. Buckley’s reaction would have been predictable. My father’s would have been apocalyptic. (I love the word “apocalyptic.”) If I think my father and his lawyer are acting badly now, I should try them after I’ve ditched my medication.
    I have trouble enough. I down the last pill and get on with it.
    – • –
    Inbox (1).
    I have been waiting for this.
    I click the link.
    Dear Edward,
    Awesome! Seven p.m. it is at the wine bar. Your totally cracking me up with this
Dragnet
stuff. You have to tell me all about it.
    I will see you Friday.
    Joy
    – • –
    The wind and rain are complications I do not need today, but they will have to be dealt with. If I am to go on an Internet date, I will need new clothes. The ones I have are fine for painting the garage, or puttering around the yard, or seeing Dr. Buckley, but they are not acceptable Internet date clothes by a long shot. Today has to be the day for that. It is