Heaven, INC: Chapter 58: BEACH BUMS

The most absurd and reckless aspirations
have sometimes led to extraordinary success.
— MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES

SUNSET CLIFFS PIER,
OCEAN BEACH
1:54 PM PDT/BEACH BUMS

LOOK AT ‘EM. Buncha goddamn hippies ain’t worth a shit, traipsing about the boardwalk with their hippy beads and their hippy guitars and their dirty hippy feet, begging for handouts and singing Kumbaya and shit, like the whole world owed them something.

Fucking losers.

Big Ed sat in the van— backed into a parking space up against a wall so nobody could open the back door or see the blood that kept running out of the van no matter how many times Ed seemed to wipe it down—

Fucking blood.

— Ed sat there sipping Jack Daniels and ruminating on his luck, all these close calls like God was out to get him and Ed thinking, shit, maybe he needed a shock to the system, get his luck back in order. Which is partly how come he decided— against all sane and rational reason— to park the van right here in this lot not more than thirty yards from a little police sub-station— couple pussy-ass beach cops in shorts and gay-ass helmets sitting on mountain-bikes out front— Ed parking in a risky place like that on account it was part of his life-long philosophy that sometimes you gotta double down at the most unlikeliest times if you want to come out on top.

Ed scratched at his arm and got another handful of skin; whatever was happening to him, he knew it was more than just a sunburn on account he was losing big pieces of skin even in places ain’t never see the sun and that aloe vera he’d picked up at that drug-store wasn’t working for shit. Plus, Ed had a touch of the fever and the glands on his neck was getting swole up some and he had a little bit of a headache that he thought might be from a bit too much of the old speederino, Ed didn’t know, but the aspirin sure as hell wasn’t helping none . . .

Shit. Least the horn-honker fucker had shut up. Course, not until he’d run his mouth some more and Ed was forced to pull over and really smack him. Ed’d considered killing the guy right there, but the fact he claimed to be some super important doctor could get Ed a million bucks, well, Ed got to wondering whether the guy was blowing smoke out his ass or if maybe, just maybe, he really was telling the truth. And shoot, at this point, with 6 dead and one dying in the back of his van, what did Big Ed really have to lose? Go for broke, baby. Even though Ed had never heard of this Ducroix fella, like them other famous doctors, like Dr. Phil and Dr. Ruth.

You know, real doctors.

Course, that was a while ago. Now, Dr. Smarty Pants was back there snoozing— or maybe he was dead, Ed wasn’t really sure, not that it mattered any, cause the guy was probably just a big ol bragging liar anyway— Dr. Smarty Pants was snoozing while Ed watched the hippies with their guitars slung around their necks and the cops in there little helmets on their pussy little bicycles, Big Ed sat there pondering a change of luck and whether to believe this guy and thinking, hell, if he did get a million bucks, if he really did, well then, shit, a man could do all kinds of things. Like buy himself a big ol’ Ford F-150 and raise her up, get a kick-ass stereo system, some skinny chicks, a boat and a fat bag of tweak, yeah, cowboy. Show up at Mom’s house and show Jarhead John what a big man his son had become—

No thanks to you, you fucking fuck.

— then kick the old man’s ass once and for all, oh hell yeah, wasn’t such a bad plan at all if Ed could just get out of this parking lot without those faggotty ass bicycle cops seeing him and the blood running out the back of the van, right, just easy as she goes, ain’t nobody paying no attention to the Edster just a-minding his own business, alrighty, here we go . . .