Heaven, INC: Chapter 49: BIG ED WALKER'S 'HELP THE HOMELESS' CAMPAIGN

Lola looked at me and said, ooo, you look so weird.
She said, man, there’s really something wrong with you,
One day you’re gonna self-destruct.
—Destroyer,
THE KINKS

AN ALLEY SOMEWHERE IN
GOLDEN HILL
12:43 P.M. PDT

“LA LA LA LA LA LA LA . . . I can’t hear you . . . La la la . . . I’m not listening!”

Fucking guy. Complain, complain, complain, it’s all he did, like a big baby, whining so much it made Big Ed’s meth-swollen head hurt.

The dying fuck whining, “Help me,” and, “Get these bodies off me, I can hardly breathe,” and “Please, I need a doctor.” And, the absolute best: “I’m dyyyying.”

Whaah. Like he was the only one with problems.

Big Ed was parked in an alley, puzzling through his situation and not liking it one bit, nosirree bob—

“Please . . . I beg of you . . . It hurrrts.”

— because, even with the plates switched, if the cop had got the word out before Big Ed bopped him, well then it didn’t matter van #2, van #3, van number what the fuck ever, they’d be pulling over carpet-cleaning vans—

“I can make you a rich man if you help me.”

—any white van, for that matter probably police pulling vans over and checking ‘em out, the nosey goddamn bastards.

Christ, you kill one lousy cop, the rest of the pussies freak out. Like killing a cop was soooo much worse than killing regular folks, something cops did every damn day.

In the alley was a dumpster and at the dumpster was an old woman poking around, beside her a shopping cart full of the crap homeless people thinks got value: shoes they don’t wear, a lamp won’t never light and a lotta other useless homeless-people crap. The old woman was jabbing a stick in the dumpster. She’d pull out the stick and study something stuck to the end, then sometimes pluck off whatever it was off and shove it in her mouth

Frankly, Big Ed felt the situation was totally disgusting and, despite the gravity of his situation . . .

“Please, I will give you anything for a sip of water.”

. . . something that clearly needed to be dealt with. So right there, Ed decided he’d seen more than enough of that homeless woman picking through the dumpster and eating what she found, so Ed climbed out of the van—glancing around, making sure no nosey cops were watching— and walked up behind the woman. On account of Big Ed’s ninja-like silence, she was none the wiser and still digging for something to eat when Ed got up close enough to smell her stinking almost worse than Ed’s passengers.

Ed glanced around, making sure no one saw what he was about to do, before reaching into his pocket—

Bamp, just like that, the crafty old bat spun around, taking measure of what was in Ed’s hand and pointing her stick at him. On the stick was stuck a pizza crust and to the crust stuck an olive.
Frowning in disgust, Ed said, “Here, take that, you old bat,” and handed her 96 bucks. “Lay off the dumpster dining and go get yourself some decent chow and a place to stay the night. And a damn shower, y’ol stink bag!”

The old woman’s eyes flicked between Ed and the money— wary eyes that reminded Ed of that time his dad caught a neighbor’s puppy and teased it, offering the starving puppy food and then slapping it, over and over again, torturing it until little Ed cried and Jarhead John called him a pussy— the woman watched Ed that way before snatching the money in a quick grab.

A smile bloomed on Ed’s face as this strange feeling took hold of him, a feeling that had nothing to do with meth—normal people would recognize it as happiness— that made Big Ed feel pretty good as he watched the old woman slowly back away.

Slowly, that is, until her eyes shifted to the van. Spinning, she suddenly began a shambling run down the alley.

“Hey, y’old bat, you left your shopping cart!”

Ed turned and . . . Shit! . . . there, visible through the van’s front window, was that dying gimp bastard with his head sticking out from between the rubber curtains and his face covered in blood. Soon as he saw Ed looking at him, the gimp’s eyes widened in fear, too, as the fuck suddenly reached for the horn—

Bonk-bonk!

— and made a terrible racket that echoed up the alley as Ed ran to the van—

Bonk-bonk-bonnnk!

— and, upon opening the door, hit the bloody fucker with a punch that sent him straight through the curtain and into the back of the van.

Then, lickety-split, Ed was in the driver’s seat and pulling away, saying, “Why, you selfish damn bastard, y’oughtta be ashamed of yourself! I’m out there helping a fellow human-being, you’re in here causing trouble and only thinking about yourself!”