600 Hours of Edward (24 page)

Stanton’s death sent shock waves through the Yellowstone County political structure, rattling allies and foes alike, who noted that the county has lost a persuasive, at times bare-knuckled advocate for growth and business development.

One of Stanton’s frequent opponents, fellow commissioner Rolf Eklund, said his presence would be greatly missed.

“While I often didn’t see eye to eye with Ted on how the county should proceed, I always credited the depth of his vision and his powerful commitment to his ideals,” said Eklund, who was elected to the county commission in 1996, four years after Stanton. “He was gifted and strong and a real advocate for this county’s prosperity. I will miss him.”

Stanton, a native of Texas who came to Montana in the mid-1960s as a young oil executive, broke onto the political scene in 1980, winning election to one of the two Ward 5 seats as a Billings city councilman. He worked tirelessly to move the council toward pro-business positions, and his advocacy for growth can be seen in the city’s persistent expansion to the west.

On the council, he also flashed the combative style that, in many ways, defined his public image. In 1984, he challenged a popular mayor, Stephen Benoit, and emerged with a surprising victory by promising prosperity for a city that, at the time, was being lashed by collapsing home prices and the fallout from the energy bust.

“He was, perhaps, a more driving, ambitious politician than we had seen,” said Benoit, reached for comment in Largo, Fla., where he now lives. “You have to remember
that Billings, at that time, was still a fairly sleepy town. But I give Ted Stanton credit: he ran a tough, hard, clean race, and he won.”

Stanton, however, chafed at Billings’s form of city government, which empowers not the mayor but the city administrator, and in his eight years in the post, he clashed repeatedly with a succession of city managers. But there was one constant: the city administrators came and went, and Stanton remained standing.

In 1992, he ran for an open seat on the county commission, winning handily against three other candidates.

“I look at it like this,” Stanton said in a 1993 interview, soon after joining the commission. “I could have stuck around city government for a while, trying to get through to a bunch of knuckleheads whose eye was on negotiating the length of a lunch break with the police union. Or I could go somewhere that would allow me to help make the whole region a better place to live and do business. It was an easy decision.”

While Stanton’s rough-and-tumble style didn’t always sit well with fellow politicians, he was beloved among the business community in Yellowstone County, and he ran unopposed for reelection in 1994, 2000, and 2006.

“If you go stand on the corner of Twenty-Fourth Street and Monad Road and look south and west, that’s all Ted Stanton,” said Billings developer Cody Clines, referring to the corridor of restaurants, auto dealerships, and big-box stores that drive much of the region’s commerce. “It’s his vision that made that happen. He’ll be missed.”

Stanton, a Republican, had one notable misstep, where he broke with his base of support and nearly paid a high
political toll for doing so. He became an advocate for instituting a local-option sales tax in Yellowstone County, which he contended would allow the county to extract revenue from tourists passing through the region. He endured backlash from many quarters, particularly from constituents who endorse Montana’s no-sales-tax status. Stanton was heavily criticized in the press.

“They’re just not ready for it,” Stanton said in a 2006 profile by the
Herald-Gleaner,
one of his frequent sparring partners over the years. “I accept that. I don’t agree with it. But I accept it. It doesn’t detract one iota from what I’m trying to accomplish around here.”

Stanton, a graduate of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, is survived by his wife of forty years, Maureen, and an adult son, Edward Jr. Funeral arrangements are pending, said lawyer and family friend Jay L. Lamb.

“Maureen and the family appreciate all the kind thoughts and gestures at this difficult time,” Lamb said in a statement released by his firm. “Ted Stanton’s adult life was dedicated to making Yellowstone County and Billings a better place, and his family feels secure knowing that he did so and that he touched so many lives in the process.”

I eat my cereal and chase my daily dose of fluoxetine with a glass of orange juice.

– • –

At 9:07 a.m., my mother calls.

“Edward, how did you sleep?”

“I slept.”

“Yes, so did I. I…I’m having a hard time believing this has happened.”

“It was in the newspaper.”

“I saw that. It was a nice write-up, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“It fixated a bit too much on his political fights. It made your father seem like a combative man.”

“Yes.”

“I miss him so much.” I can hear her voice breaking.

“I know.”

“So,” she says, regaining her composure, “Jay has made the arrangements. We’re going to have a very small, private funeral tomorrow afternoon at two. It’ll be you, me, Jay, and some of your father’s associates. I don’t want anything big and public. I don’t think I can handle that right now. Jay says there will be some sort of public memorial in the near future.”

“Where will the funeral be?”

“The Terrace Gardens Cemeteries on Thirty-Fourth. Do you know where that is?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have a small gathering here at the house after. I would like you to be here.”

“OK.”

“Monday morning, we’re to meet in Jay’s office and go over the will and such. Can you be there?”

“Yes.”

“Nine a.m.”

“OK.”

“Edward, I’m so lonely. Could you come up here today?”

“Yes.”

We say our good-byes and hang up, and I look again at the newspaper. Yesterday had a high of forty-nine and a low of thirty-one, with 0.2 inches of rain, all of which I record in my notebook to complete my data.

Today looks to be similarly wet, which I’ll know for sure tomorrow instead of having to rely on a forecast today.

The forecast for tomorrow, the day of my father’s funeral, is for freezing rain.

– • –

At the wrought-iron gate outside my parents’—my mother’s—house, I press the call button.

“Yes?”

“It’s me, Mother.”

“Come on in.”

The gate opens, and I guide my Camry down the drive. I can see that my father’s Cadillac DTS has been retrieved from the Yegen Golf Club parking lot and brought back here. My father gets a new Cadillac every two years. I can remember his telling me one time, years ago when I was just a little boy, that a Cadillac “is the greatest negotiating tool ever made.”

“When they see you coming in a Cadillac, they know two things,” he said. “First, that you know quality. And second, that you don’t need their deal. You know why? Because you’re driving a goddamned Cadillac, that’s why.”

My father loves Cadillacs.

(It occurs to me now that I am going to have to learn to refer to my father in the past tense rather than the present. He got a new Cadillac every two years. He loved Cadillacs. Past tense.)

I park the car, and I can see my mother standing in the open doorway, waiting for me to come inside. Her hand gestures tell me to hurry, as it’s starting to rain.

– • –

My mother sets a glass filled with ice and Coca-Cola in front of me. I’m sitting on a couch in the den. She had asked me if I wanted a soda, and I had said yes. This is what I got. I make the quick decision to just let it pass. It’s my fault for not specifying. I don’t like Coke. I don’t like my soda chilled.

Aside from her bloodshot eyes, my mother seems to have moved on in one way. She is again the perfectly put-together woman I’ve known all my life: every hair in place, exquisite clothing, smart shoes, makeup just so. It’s the eyes that betray her. I suppose there’s no way to cover those up.

She is pacing the room, making random observations that I have to resist the urge to comment on so I don’t come across as snarky. (I love the word “snarky.”) I am relying on every strategy for patience that I ever learned from Dr. Buckley.

“If it weren’t for Jay, I don’t know how I’d make it through this.”

(I would like to try it without Jay.)

“Such happy memories.” She is reaching out and lightly touching a face mask that is on the wall, one of the mementos of a trip to Africa.

(I wasn’t there.)

“He wasn’t from here, but he lived for this place.”

(Some thought that he made sure this place lived for him.)

“Edward,” she says, turning to me. “What is your favorite memory of your father?”

This is an easy question.

“Thanksgiving 1974. We drove down to Midland, then had Thanksgiving dinner with Grandpa Sid and Grandma Mabel. We watched the Cowboys win.”

“I wasn’t there, was I?”

“No.”

Mother suddenly looks hurt and angry. “That’s your favorite memory, one that doesn’t include me, one when our marriage was coming apart?”

I realize that I have stepped in it.

“You asked me about my memory of him. Not of you and him.”

“Edward, your father was cheating on me. Did you know that? He was cheating on me with one of the women in his office, and I told him that I was leaving and that he should think about our future together. And this—
this
—is your memory.” My mother is definitely angry.

“I did not know that. It doesn’t affect what I remember.”

“Oh, really? What’s so special about Thanksgiving and football?”

Now I’m angry.

“Football is all I had with him. It’s the only way he could stand to be in a room with me, is if we were watching football.”

“That’s not true. That is a horrible thing to say about your father.”

“It is! It is true.”

“I don’t know why,” my mother says, her voice cracking and tears welling in her eyes, “you can’t remember something that isn’t so painful for me, something from later on, when he was such a good man who didn’t fool around anymore. Why can’t you remember all of the good things he did here, the things he accomplished, the honors he was given?”

“Because I was never a part of that. Who among your friends now knows me? No one. How many of those awards dinners did I go to? Not a single one. What do I have to remember about all of that?”

“Edward! You talk as if we’re ashamed of you.”

“You are, aren’t you?”

“No.” She is indignant.

“Who did you hide away in a house on Clark Avenue? Who is invited here only once a month for a dinner that no one really wants to have anyway? Who gets letters from a lawyer when Father wishes to speak to me?”

It angers me all the more that my mother would pretend that these things haven’t happened.

“What are you talking about? I always gave you love, always,” she says. “You’re mad.”

“No, Mother, I’m developmentally disabled. But that doesn’t mean I’m crazy.”

I stand up from the couch and stalk toward the front door, and then I turn back.

“You sit around here and pretend that father was a god all you want, Mother. I will not.”

I open the door, step through, and then slam it behind me.

I stop on the front step to catch my breath. I can hear my mother crying on the other side of the door.

– • –

Donna Middleton is sitting on the front step of the house on Clark. I pull into the driveway, set the brake, turn off the ignition, and climb out.

“Edward, I heard the news about your father. I am so, so sorry.” She is walking across the lawn toward me, and when she
reaches me, she presses her hands against my cheeks. Her hands are warm.

“I can’t talk to you,” I say.

“It’s hard, I know your family is going through a terrible time, but I just—”

I grasp her hands and pull them away from me. “I cannot talk to you.”

I push past her to the front door and disappear inside the house. My father’s house. My father is dead. I don’t know whose house this is.

– • –

At 2:01 p.m., the phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Edward, this is Ruth Buckley.”

“Yes.”

“I read the news about your father today. I’m so sorry.”

“Yes.”

“How are you doing?”

“OK, I guess.”

“Would you like me to set aside some time for you today? If you need it, I can do it.”

“I think I will be OK.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Edward, death can be a very a difficult thing to handle. If you need to talk, at any time, you call me. Do you have all of my numbers?”

“Yes.”

“Edward, are you certain that you’re handling this?”

“Yes. I know the stages of grief.”

“Where do you think you are?”

“I’m not in denial. It happened. I know that. It was in the newspaper. I’m always in isolation. I don’t feel angry, except a little bit at my mother, who is deifying my father—”

“Many people do that immediately after the death of a loved one.”

“Yes. I’m not bargaining. I don’t think I’m depressed. I haven’t accepted it yet. I guess I would have to say that I’m dealing with it.”

“OK. That’s good.”

“Yes.”

“Call me if you need anything. And I do mean anything.”

“I will.”

“Good-bye, Edward. I will see you Tuesday, if not sooner.”

“Good-bye, Dr. Buckley.”

– • –

The phone rings again at 6:17 p.m. as I’m clearing away the dishes from my spaghetti dinner.

“Hello?”

“Edward.”

“Hello, Mother.”

“Edward, I want to apologize for yelling at you.”

“OK.”

“I feel so crazy sometimes. This can’t be happening.”

“You’re not crazy, Mother. And it is happening.”

“I know. Will you still be at the funeral tomorrow?”

“I will be there.”

“Thank you.”

“Mother?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry for yelling, too.”

– • –

It is Halloween, but no one comes to the door. This is as I planned. On Halloween, I turn off all the lights and put my car in the garage, and it seems for all appearances that I am not home. That is so much easier than telling eager children at the door that, no, I have no candy for them. Children get sad when you say such a thing to them, and that is difficult enough. But some adults, they get violently angry. That I do not need.