Edward Adrift

hear him clearing his throat.
    “Edward, my boy, I’ve always shot straight with you, haven’t I?”
    I’ve never seen Mr. Withers use a gun, but I recognize this idiom.
    “Yes.”
    “I intend to keep doing so,” he says. “I heard you were here last night, trying to fix those steps on the south side of the building.”
    “Yes.”
    “You can’t do that. I don’t want to hear about you being here again. Am I clear?”
    I want to cry. “Yes.”
    “Now, listen,” he says, more softly than when he told me never to visit the
Herald-Gleaner
again. “I know it’s hard. My boy, I would have never let you go if I’d had any other choice. Now, I’m not supposed to tell you that, but again, I’m shooting straight with you. Working here is something you’re going to have to let go. It’s hard, and you did good work, and you don’t deserve what happened to you. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it’?”
    “Yes. Clint Eastwood said that in
Unforgiven
.”
    “That’s right. You’re a talented man and a good worker, and somebody will appreciate that and give you a job, if you want one. But it won’t be here. If you need a recommendation, I willwrite you one. If you want to have lunch sometime, I’ll buy it. But you’re not getting your job back. Do you hear me?”
    “Yes.”
    “OK. Edward, have a good Christmas. Life is so much more than where you work. Find something you want to do, something that belongs to you and nobody can take away, and do that happily for the rest of your life. I know you can.”
    “I will try.”
    “That’s good. Take care.”
    Mr. Withers hangs up.
    I want to go back to bed.
    Unfortunately, I have to pee first.

    It’s 1:57 p.m. when I wake up for good. I woke up thirty-three minutes earlier and an hour and twelve minutes earlier to pee. While I have no statistical data to back this up, I can say with near-certainty that I’ve never peed this much in my life.
    The reason I woke up for good is an idea. It’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever had. Again, tracking my number of ideas and their respective qualities is not something I ordinarily do, so I’m making this statement not based on empirical fact but on gut feeling. I don’t imagine that I’ll ever completely warm up to gut feelings, given their intrinsic (I love the word “intrinsic”) lack of reliability, but in recent years I’ve learned to accept that I have them.
    Now that Mr. Withers has stated without equivocation (I love the word “equivocation”) that I will not be going back to work at the
Billings Herald-Gleaner
, I am not bound to be in this house or in Billings. Furthermore, as my lawyer, Jay L. Lamb, has made clear, I’m fucking loaded. I have never really thought of it thatway, but I remember that was Scott Shamwell’s reaction when I told him how much money my father left me when he died. “Bro,” he said, “you’re fucking loaded. Why are you working here?” He meant it as a rhetorical question, but in time, Mr. Withers answered it for him by involuntarily separating me.
    But back to my current situation. The world is my oyster, as the saying goes, and a stupid saying it is. Kyle doesn’t need to come here. I will go to him. I am not due anywhere for eleven days, when I’m scheduled to fly to Texas to see my mother. I have plenty of time.
    I head for the phone, detouring to the bathroom first.

    This is going to be so great.
    Donna said she and Victor would love to host me in Boise, that they have a finished basement like mine and a good bed down there. She even puts Kyle on the phone, and although he sounds glum when he says “Hi, Edward,” I am sure that our being together again will improve his mood. It’s hard to be sure about something like that, but again, I have a good feeling.
    I tell Donna that because we have been enjoying unseasonably mild weather, I would just as soon drive my Cadillac DTS to Idaho. It has been a long time since I got out and saw the western part of Montana, and by a long time I mean that I haven’t seen it since June 15 to 23, 1986, when I was seventeen years old and I rode along with my mother and father on a family vacation to Seattle and back.
    Donna tells me to be very careful and that before I leave, I should go to the cell phone store at Rimrock Mall and get myself a cellular telephone so I have a way of getting help should I run into trouble. She’s a very logical woman.
    When I think about going to