600 Hours of Edward

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.”
    “Who’s your friend?”
    “My neighbor.”
    “What is your neighbor’s name?”
    “Donna Middleton.”
    “You were at the county courthouse with Donna Middleton, the woman who not two weeks ago asked me to have you stay away from her and her little boy?”
    Now Jay L. Lamb speaks. “On October twenty-first, you were sent a letter warning you about the outburst at Billings Clinic. Your father, in mitigating that situation for you, told you to leave that family alone.”
    “What do you mean by ‘leave alone’?” I ask.
    “You know goddamned well what he means,” my father says.
    “She is my friend. Circumstances changed after that day at Billings Clinic.”
    “I am not interested in what has changed, Edward. I am interested in knowing why it is that you continually defy me, continually land in situations that you must be rescued from, and continually make this situation more difficult than it has to be.”
    “What do you mean by ‘this situation’?”
    “Smarting off is not going to help you here, Edward.”
    “I’m not smarting off. I’m asking you a question. What is the situation?”
    “You know damned well what it is.”
    “I know that you can’t talk to me about anything without your lawyer,” I say, waving my hand dismissively at Jay L. Lamb.
    “That’s not what this is about.”
    “How can it not be about that? Where are we, Father? We’re in your lawyer’s office.”
    “There are legal aspects of our arrangement, Edward, and that’s the reason for the lawyer.”
    “But whether or not I am friends with Donna Middleton is not part of our arrangement. You’re just bossing me around because you can.”
    “I’m trying to protect you, goddamn it.”
    “You’re trying to protect you is what it seems like to me.”
    – • –
    It goes on like that for a while, until my father and I begin to run out of angry words. At 9:22, Jay L. Lamb starts talking.
    “Mr. Stanton,” he says, again addressing me. “I have drawn up a memorandum of understanding. Our wish is that you sign it and your father signs it, and it will constitute the basis of yourfather’s continuing support of you. You should understand that any breach of this memorandum of understanding could be viewed as a sufficient reason to withdraw that financial support.”
    I ask to see the memorandum. Among the codicils (I love the word “codicil,” although not so much today):
    I am to not have contact with Donna Middleton or her son except as is “reasonably neighborly.” (“Giving a wave from your driveway is OK,” Jay L. Lamb says. “Traveling together, eating together, any sort of extended social interaction is not.”)
    I am to live within my monthly budget of $1,200, not counting household utility costs and property taxes. Any overage is to be paid by me to my father.
    I am to clear with my father all household improvements or alterations before embarking on them. (“You’re not going to paint that garage every damned year,” my father says. “Shows what you know,” I reply. “I paint it every other year.”)
    So long as I adhere to these rules, Jay L. Lamb says, I am permitted to live in the house on Clark Avenue “until the end of my natural life.”
    “Can I ask something?” I say.
    “Go ahead,” Jay L. Lamb replies.
    “This part about living within my budget, does it mean from this day forward?”
    My father’s eyes zero in on me. “Is there something I need to know?”
    “There are some bills coming.”
    “What kind of bills?”
    “I bought some clothes. About five hundred dollars’ worth. I am wearing some of them today.” I have on the tan slacks and lavender shirt that I bought at Dillard’s, plus the shoes and the belt.
    My father says nothing.
    “And two hundred and twenty-one dollars and ninety-five cents from Home Depot.”
    “You bought two hundred and twenty dollars’ worth of paint?”
    “The paint was another purchase.”
    “What