I Am The Messenger

Ed often berates himself for not achieving more with his life. He feels that he has “[n]o real career. No respect in the community. Nothing” (15). Legally, taxi drivers must be at least 20 years old, so he and Audrey lie about their age. He grew up in an impoverished neighborhood of the suburban town where he still lives. Ed loves to read, but he struggled in school. He has two sisters named Leigh and Katherine, a younger brother named Tommy who is studying to be a lawyer, and a cantankerous mother. He describes his father as “a lonely, kind, quiet, hard-drinking deadbeat” (19), who died six months ago. Ed inherited his father’s dog, a loving but foul-smelling 17-year-old Rottweiler-German shepherd mix named the Doorman. Ed’s happiest when taking his dog for walks or playing cards with his friends. He’s in love with Audrey, but she doesn’t want to trade their friendship for a physical relationship. She has boyfriends but refuses to fall in love with anyone due to a painful home life. Indeed, Audrey tells Ed that she “won’t even touch” him precisely “because she likes [him] more than anyone else” (22). Although Ed has had a few girlfriends, these relationships did little more than convince him that he’s subpar at sex and remind him of his feelings for Audrey.

The newspaper articles about Ed’s act of heroism prompt visits from his friends, and even his mother expresses a rare sense of pride in him. A few days later, Ed receives a mysterious envelope containing an ace of diamonds. Three addresses are written on the back of the playing card. Each one has a time scrawled beside it, but Ed doesn’t recognize the addresses. His mother calls to shout at him for forgetting to pick up her new coffee table, but Ed tunes out her tirade and believes the card could be “a piece of destiny” (26). The next day, he locates each of the three addresses: a dilapidated house on Edgar Street, an old but tidy home on Harrison Avenue, and an expensive house on Macedoni Street. The next time that Ed gathers with his friends to play cards, he asks if one of them sent the ace of diamonds. None of them did, but Audrey has a theory. She suggests that the person who sent it read about Ed’s heroics with the bank robbery and wants him to intervene in their town. She says, “[s]omething’s going to happen at each of the addresses on that card, Ed, and you’ll have to react to it” (34). Although the idea fills Ed with dread, he resolves to visit the first address soon.

Ed is called to testify at the bank robber’s trial. He arrives in his cab driver uniform, and the judge treats him with disdain. After the trial, the robber tells Ed that he is “a dead man” and that he wants Ed to remember this threat “every day when [he looks] in the mirror” (38). Ed considers the criminal’s words considering his “life, [his] nonexistent accomplishments and [his] overall abilities in incompetence” and decides that the description is accurate (39).

The gunman is sentenced to six months in prison, and his threat haunts Ed. After a few failed attempts, Ed musters the courage to go to the first address on the playing card. He’s somewhat familiar with the rough and ramshackle area because Marvin used to date a girl named Suzanne Boyd who lived there before she and her family moved suddenly. Around midnight, a large, drunk man comes home to the dilapidated house at 45 Edgar Street and verbally and sexually assaults his wife. Ed listens in horror, wondering how the world can be indifferent to the woman’s suffering and to the weeping of her eight-year-old daughter. Ed wishes that he could rescue the woman, but he already knows that he’s been sent there to confront the man, not comfort her.

As the nights go on, Ed continues to stand vigil outside the house on Edgar Street. Audrey asks Ed about the playing card and tells him to be careful, but he doesn’t tell her, his other friends, or the police about what he’s witnessed because he’s certain that “[s]omething beyond all that needs to be done” (43). One day, Ed sees the woman and her daughter, Angelina, in the grocery store. The mother looks ready to crumple with despair, “dying to fall to her knees but not allowing herself” (44). Ed decides that he needs to act soon.

Although Ed feels cowardly for the delay, he decides that he needs “a few wins under [his] belt” before he confronts the man at 45 Edgar Street (45). At 13 Harrison Avenue, Ed watches a kind and lonely old woman eat dinner by herself. Later that night, Ed plays cards with his friends. He tells them that he threw the mysterious playing card away, but Audrey knows he’s lying. When he draws the ace of diamonds, he takes it as a sign to visit the elderly woman. The next evening, he dresses in his nicest clothes and knocks on her door. She tells him, “I knew you’d come, Jimmy” (50) and hugs him tight. Ed plays along to ease the 82-year-old Milla Johnson’s loneliness. When he returns home, he feels jubilant and like a true messenger.

Ed visits his mother, and she makes unflattering comparisons between him and his siblings. He prefers being Jimmy to being Ed. He gives Milla the reassurance she needs when she asks, “I did right by you, Jimmy—didn’t I?” (57). One evening, he reads to Milla and finds a love letter from the real Jimmy between the book’s pages. A few nights later, Ed’s phone rings, and a mysterious voice asks, “How’s it going, Jimmy?” (58). Ed takes this as a sign that he’s given Milla the help she needs and that it’s time for him to move on to another address. That night, Ed locates Jimmy’s gravestone and learns that he died 60 years ago.

Ed is still too afraid to intervene at 45 Edgar Street, so he moves onto the final address, 6 Macedoni Street. The card instructs him to go at 5:30am, and he sees a barefoot teenaged girl named Sophie out for a morning run. Over the next several days, he watches the girl train. Sophie recognizes Ed from newspaper stories about the bank robbery and doesn’t mind that he follows her. However, she is shy and requests that they don’t talk. Ed attends one of Sophie’s athletic meets and sees that she has a nurturing, supportive family. She wears a battered old pair of shoes for luck, but she comes in second place. Ed believes that she deserves better and has an idea of how he can help.

Audrey asks Ed if he’ll receive more cards, and he answers that one is already difficult enough. He continues visiting Milla in the evenings, and he watches Sophie lose another race. The next Saturday, Ed goes to 6 Macedoni Street early in the morning. He gives Sophie’s father an empty shoebox, saying that he hopes “they’re the right size” (71). Later that morning, Sophie competes barefoot just like she trains. Although she falls, bloodies her knees, and comes in second place, she’s filled with “the feeling of freedom and the purest sense that she’s alive” (72).

After the race, Sophie has more confidence. She thanks Ed and asks him if he’s “some kind of saint or something” (74). He answers that he’s “just another stupid human” (74).

Ed can’t escape the dread he feels toward 45 Edgar Street or his conviction that the time has come for him to act now that he’s succeeded in helping Milla and Sophie. He returns to Edgar Street on a Thursday night. As Ed listens to the man abuse his wife yet again, he loathes himself for “taking the easy options night after night,” and he feels self-hatred “hack at [his] spirit and [bring] it to its knees” (77). Ed goes to the front door, introduces himself to Angelina, and promises that he’ll try to save her and her mother. Fear prevents Ed from confronting the man, but Angelina hugs Ed tight and thanks him anyway. Later that night, Ed lies awake as fear and guilt torment him. His phone rings, and a “dry, permanently cracked” voice instructs him to check his mailbox (80). Inside, he finds a gun with a single bullet.

Ed borrows his taxi for the night and skips cards with his friends so that he can implement his plan. He picks up the intoxicated man on his way home from a bar and gives him vodka mixed with sleeping tablets. As the man sleeps, Ed drives to the Cathedral, an area he describes as a “rocky summit of a mountain that looks over miles and miles of bushland” (87). At gunpoint, Ed makes the man walk to the edge of the peak. Ed is convinced that he’s supposed to kill him, but this undertaking seems impossible when he thinks he’s “surrounded by nothing but [his] own human frailty” and knows that killing the man will kill a part of himself as well (88). Desperately, Ed seeks another solution. He makes sure that the man feels the same terror that his wife feels every night and then pulls the trigger.