600 Hours of Edward

the gathering hadn’t been marred, I decided that I should go.
    So I did.
    – • –
    At 10:00, I cue up tonight’s episode of
Dragnet
. It is the twelfth installment of the first season of color episodes, called “The Hit-and-Run Driver,” and it is one of my favorites.
    In this episode, which originally aired on April 6, 1967, Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon track down an executive named Clayton Fillmore (played by Robert Clarke) who clipped an old woman and an old man in a crosswalk, killing them. By the time the cops catch up to him the next day, they suspect that he was drunk, but they can’t prove it. Clayton Fillmore is a cavalier man—he doesn’t care that the old people are dead, and his wife is about to leave him because he disregards her. But somehow, he gets off with a suspended sentence.
    Soon enough, however, he drives drunk again. He has a bad crash, killing two teenage girls and critically injuring a couple. His wife, who decided to stay with him, is also hurt, and Clayton Fillmore loses his legs.
    I think that is what is called karma, although karma is difficult to prove. Like Sergeant Joe Friday, I prefer facts.
    – • –
    After
Dragnet
, I prepare yet another green office folder.
    God:
    I have to admit something: It feels odd to be writing to something or someone that I don’t know exists. I do not mean to be disrespectful. I believe in science, I believe in things that I can witness, I believe in things that can beempirically proved. The Judeo-Christian image of God—or even the ones revered by Muslims or Buddhists or Taoists—is not something that can be proved in that way. I hope you understand my hesitancy about this, assuming you exist to understand it. I don’t like to assume. I prefer facts.
    Despite all of that, it would give me some comfort to believe that you exist, especially at this difficult time for me and my mother. I hope you do exist. Even though hope is as intangible as belief, I am not hostile to it. Hope gives me comfort.
    So here is my hope: That you will take care of my father. That you will let him know that I am trying hard to forgive him, even though I will not deify him like my mother does. That you will let him know that I love him. That you will let him know that we miss him.
    I realize that this is not a letter of complaint. I hope you understand. I don’t feel like complaining today, though there is much I could complain about. I’m just looking for some peace. It has been a hard week. It was a hard week before my father died. It’s harder now.
    I have one more hope, God, if you have the time or inclination: Could you see your way clear to send some peace our way?
    With regards,
    Edward Stanton

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2
    When I awake at 7:37 a.m. for the nineteenth time this year (because it’s a leap year), I quickly note two things:
    First, this will be the third full day without my father. I make the notation in my notebook accordingly.
    Second, this day will bring the first Dallas Cowboys game of my life without him.
    Given how much I like to count things, how much I like the Cowboys, and how much my father liked the Cowboys, I think I have found a new entry for my data sheets. I make the proper notations, and for now, my data is complete.
    – • –
    Since my father bought this house for me to live in eight years ago—eight years and 106 days ago—he and I have not watched as many Dallas Cowboys games together as we did before, when we lived in the same house. I should have thought to count the games we’ve watched together in those years, but the instances have been erratic, and I am not as interested in random happenings as I am in patterns. I do spend every Thanksgiving Day at my parents’ house—my mother’s house now—and the Dallas Cowboys alwaysplay on Thanksgiving, so those games would account for the majority of the games we have shared in the past eight years and 106 days.
    Dallas Cowboys games on Thanksgiving Day are a pattern, and so it should not surprise you that I do keep track of those. In the eight games that the Dallas Cowboys have played on Thanksgiving Day since my father bought this house for me to live in, the Cowboys have won four and lost four. That is a .500 record, and it’s not very good, at least for the Dallas Cowboys. I assume that even with my father now dead, I will spend the upcoming Thanksgiving Day at my parents’ house—now my mother’s house—and will see the Dallas Cowboys play the