Heaven, INC: Chapter 22: THE SECRET LIFE OF BIG ED WALKER

In all chaos there is a cosmos,
in all disorder a secret order.
—CARL JUNG

EASTBOUND ON IMPERIAL,
SOME WHERE IN ENCANTO
10:17 AM PDT

BIG ED WALKER WAS BORN in a Los Angeles suburb not far from the Rose Bowl, Brady Bunch track homes in six different designs with backyard pools and converted-garage rec rooms. Ed’s incubator was a normal-looking house administered by an abnormal father, Jarhead John Walker, a flat-topped bully who administered discipline the way it was administered to him: the United States Marine way. By his fifth year, Ed could make his bed with hospital corners you could bounce a quarter off. By six, could flawlessly execute— with broom serving as rifle— the 16-Count Manual Arms. By seven, he learned to field strip an M-16, the Service .45 and an eight-point buck, the latter’s liver he was forced to eat raw as a test of his manhood. Little Ed subsequently threw up the liver, eliciting from Jarhead John a slap and condemnation for being a pussy.

At eight, Ed vied against the other cub scouts in Troop 356 to win the diorama-making competition and all the other kids brought in cool dioramas with stuff like dinosaurs battling at a water hole or a miniature version of the Indy 500. Ed brought in a scale model of Jarhead John’s combat unit suppressing Viet-Cong sympathizers at the village of Lai Phu, with realistic touches like tiny huts made of real grass. The most realistic aspect was the figurine of Jarhead John wielding a flamethrower: push a button and a mist of lighter fluid ignited, the flame aimed directly at a group of Viet-Cong being ordered from a bunker. The little metal VCs— blackened from Jarhead John testing the flame-thrower— featured life-like expressions of agony. When the diorama got Ed kicked out of the troop, Jarhead John beat the shit out of Ed for his Scoutmaster being such a pussy.

At ten, when Ed got caught shoplifting Abba-Zabbas from the neighborhood U-Totem, a minor thing, really, two pieces of candy valued at 20 cents stolen by a runty kid in a Weeblos uniform, the store manager told the police he’d be happy to release Ed into his father’s recognizance. But Jarhead John Walker said no, that it was best to throw Ed into Juvie to learn him a lesson, same as his father’d learned him; the difference, of course, was that John Walker did his juvie time in Des Moines in 1941, not in L.A. in 1979. Significantly, it was the seed of this fatherly betrayal that— along with remarkable bad luck, the careless diligence of the California penal system and a truly awful addiction to crystal methamphetamine— that little Ed the boy matured into Big Ed the homicidal maniac. Following his arrest for armed robbery and other stuff, Ed Walker was for nine years beaten and sodomized almost daily and, on two occasions, stabbed. It was a testament to the hatred brewing within him that he lived, the hatred an energy of survival he’d stoked with careful, behind-bars planning of what he planned for the world on his release, the frenzy of killing and hurting, the dream of off-loading onto others a life-time of misery and misfortune with one last blast of drug-fueled mayhem.


THE PROBLEM with doing so much meth— besides the raging, homicidal psychosis— the problem with meth was that it always made Ed need to take a dump so even before getting more whiskey, he whipped into a Jack In The Box for a visit to the facilities. Got off a good one, too, a real hot-and-stinky he could see on the face of the fella coming in after him, looking like he was gonna puke. Then headed back to the van by way of the liquor store and another bottle of Jack and unlocking the door and climbing in . . .

“Jeheezus H. Christ!”

. . . he got a blast of stench that wasn’t moldy carpet-cleaning pads but Ed’s ‘passengers’. Never mind the fact that the inside of Ed’s nose was burned away from all the speed, soon as he got some fresh air, even he could smell the fact somebody back there had ‘turned’; Ed bet it was the banker or the smart-alecky homo with the big mouth and when Ed peeked through the curtain into the back of the van, sure enough, Smart-Alecky Homo was giving him the eye, the dead, fish-eyed fuck. With the dead, they always wanted to watch living.

Fucking dead fucks.

Ed resolved on the way back, he’d keep an eye peeled for dumpsters in secluded areas and disembark the two dead sons-of-bitches.

“First though,” said Ed, “another little line of pick-me-up. Block out that smell with a little of Biker’s Best.”


BY THE TIME Big Ed returned to the scene— by way of a dumpster behind a Mexican taco shop where he unloaded the cop and the smart-alecky homo— by the time he returned, the place was even more of a Mexican fiesta because one thing is for certain: Mexicans just love a party. Throw in a pinata or a dead body, they invite the whole family.

Fucking beaners.

That Latino music, with the trumpets and the conga drums and shit, it blared from somewhere so loud Ed could hear the crap even with the windows rolled up, and all kinds of people were hanging around outside the police ribbon, kids on their dad’s shoulders, hell, there were even sidewalk vendors selling sno-cones.

Ed parked ChemSteem Van #3 round the corner and up the hill a ways and jumped out, taking care to lock the van in case some thieving wetback tried stealing it. Among the things Ed learned in the joint was the fact a beaner would steal anything not locked down, including a ratty-ass carpet-cleaning van full of dead bodies.

Fucking spics.

Ed whistled walking down the hill, enjoying the sights, the hot chiquitas, even the fat ones, all of them was putting Ed in the mood to chase some cooter as his dick hardened against the barrel of the 9mm shoved down his pants and covered by the ChemSteem shirt.

Ed bought himself a sno-cone from a beaner for a buck and stood amid the crowd, watching cops and FBI fucks and sneaking peaks at chiquitas; Ed smooth about the peeking here, no winks or bold stares, on account he knew how firey the beaners got when you looked at their women. In fact, only people’s temper could match Ed’s was a spic, maybe worse.

Fucking wetbacks.

The sun was awful bright and Ed turned his head enough to keep the sun off his speed-dilated pupils, licking his shaved-ice and watching spic cuties in their halter-tops and the heavy, beaner make-up, oh, yeah, he could go for some wetback cooter . . .