I Am the Messenger

Part One: The First Message

A: Four friends find themselves face down on the bank lobby floor while a gunman attempts to rob the teller. Ed and Marv are more worried about the parking meter on Marv’s decrepit Ford Falcon than the gun the robber holds on them. The robber demands the keys to Marv’s car when a traffic cop runs off his double-parked getaway ride. On his way out the door with the bag of cash, the thief drops the gun and fails to get Marv’s car running. Obeying an impulse he doesn’t understand, Ed follows him, picks up the gun, and shoots out the car window when the robber tries to escape. The gun in Ed’s hand feels like it’s liquefying. The local press takes photos of Ed and interviews him as a hero. Ed mentions that a few days later, he receives a message that changes his life.

2: The narrator, nineteen-year-old Ed Kennedy, introduces himself. He grew up in the slums where unemployment and teenage pregnancy are norms. His circle of friends—Audrey, Marv, and Ritchie—play the card game Annoyance several times a week. His father, an alcoholic who mismanaged money, died six months prior, leaving behind his mother Bev. Two sisters, Leigh and Katherine, have moved out. Ed’s younger brother Tommy attends college in the city, an option Ed considers out of reach given his father’s neglect of family finances. Ed compares himself to what Bob Dylan, Salvador Dali, and Joan of Arc achieved by age nineteen. In contrast, Ed is an underage cab driver who lives alone with the aged family dog, Doorman. He fantasizes about dating Audrey but respects the boundaries she erects against intimacy as a result of her rough family life. Ed analyzes his dating history and wishes that sexual prowess were regarded like math skills, with no shame in being clueless.

3: Ed’s heroism in capturing the bank robber gains him wide recognition. He gets an envelope in his mailbox with just his name handwritten on it. It seems portentous as he opens it to find an old ace of diamonds playing card with three addresses written on it. He asks his mother if she sent it and she rudely says no. The next day, Ed takes a walk and finds each address using a street directory. That evening while playing the card game Annoyance with his friends, he tells them about the card and they each deny being the sender. Marv says he doesn’t have the imagination. Ritchie says he doesn’t have the energy.

4: Ed receives a summons to court to testify against the bank robber. The judge criticizes Ed’s casual appearance with distaste. When Ed gives vehement witness testimony vilifying the bank robber as an “ugly bastard,” the judge puts him in his place as not being one to talk. As the police lead off the gunman to jail, the gunman says Ed’s a dead man and tells him to remember that fact every day when he looks in the mirror. Ed initially takes it as a threat, but when he gets in his cab and looks in the rearview mirror, he recognizes the metaphor for his dead-end life.

5: Ed reads that the gunman gets a jail term of six months. The newspaper article carries a childhood picture of the robber and Ed feels the boy’s eyes looking at him. He decides to get started that evening by investigating the addresses delivered to him on the ace of diamonds. At 45 Edgar Street, he sees a big drunk man rape his wife repeatedly over the course of the night while their eight-year-old daughter cries on the porch. Afterward, the wife puts her daughter to bed and sits on the porch in despair. Ed knows that comforting her won’t fix the problem.

6: Ed ponders what he should do about the rapist. He surveils every night for a month and often the man engages in the violence. Ed runs into the mother and daughter in the grocery store and exchanges a kind greeting with the little girl, increasing his sense of urgency.

7: Ed tables the Edgar Street problem, intimidated by the idea of a physical confrontation with the rapist. He decides to move on to the next address in the hopes it’s easier. At 13 Harrison Avenue, an elderly woman eats dinner alone. Ed suspects she is lonely when she speaks to her tea kettle but he watches for signs she is coping. He contemplates visiting her and seeks a sign that he’s on the right track. During the next game of Annoyance, Ed draws the ace of diamonds, confirming he should visit the woman. He dresses up, buys a cake to bring, and arrives at six o’clock. The old woman greets him warmly as “Jimmy,” and Ed plays along. He sees an identification card: she’s Milla Johnson, eighty-two years old. Ed realizes the message for Milla is that her loneliness can be eased.

8: Ed and Bev argue about her returning a coffee table he went to some trouble to get for her. Ed is frustrated that she replaced it on Tommy’s advice. Ed visits Milla again as Jimmy. She asks him to read her favorite book and he guesses Wuthering Heights. In the book is a love note from Jimmy dated January 5, 1941. During the next visit, Milla shows Ed pictures of Jimmy, her husband, and tearfully reminisces about her love for him. 

A few nights later, Ed, Marv, Ritchie, and Audrey play cards on Ed’s porch. Ed gets a phone call from an unidentified voice who calls him Jimmy before hanging up. Later, while visiting his father’s grave, a security guard helps Ed find Jimmy Johnson’s grave. He died in 1942 at twenty-five years of age. Ed does the math and realizes Milla has been waiting sixty years for his return. 

9: Ed pays an early-morning visit to 6 Macedoni Street, a middle-class home, the third address on the card. A beautiful barefoot girl comes out and takes off on a run. Ed judges her age to be fifteen and suppresses his attraction to her. He follows her on one of her runs to figure out what his message to her will be. He introduces himself, but she has already recognized him from the newspaper article on the bank robbery. Noting their age difference, she asks if he’s a pervert. Ed interprets her shyness as low self-esteem. Ed attends one of the Saturday track meets that she competes in. Her family calls her Sophie. She runs her race in a worn-out pair of running shoes and fails to win. Ed receives inspiration for the message he should deliver.

10: The next Saturday morning, Ed knocks on Sophie’s door with a shoe box. He tells her father he has a delivery for Sophie and that he hopes they are the right size. Her father accepts the box with a puzzled expression because he can feel that the box is empty. At the meet, Sophie runs barefoot. She falls after one lap and makes up the distance, running with abandon and almost overtaking the lead runner. At the finish line, she only feels the joy of running and not the disappointment of defeat.

J: Sophie thanks Ed for encouraging her to run barefoot. Her shyness is gone and she can look Ed in the eye as they talk. He tells her she has beauty to further reinforce her confidence. Sophie asks Ed if he is a saint and he replies no, he’s just a regular, unimportant human.

Q: Ed feels ready to face the rapist on Edgar Street. Ed walks into the house but stops at the door to the bedroom. Their young girl Angelina comes out of her room crying and asks Ed in a whisper whether he is there to save her mother and her. He says he is, but he can’t bring himself to confront the man and ends up leaving. At home, he gets a phone call telling him to check his mailbox. Ed finds a gun there.

K: The gun has only one bullet. Ed tries to talk himself out of pursuing the matter any further, but he ends up worrying that the voice on the phone will come for him if he doesn’t take action. He puts on music for inspiration and spends a sleepless night trying to talk himself into murder. The next day he asks his boss to allow him the use of his cab after hours. When his boss erupts in irritation, Ed won’t take no for an answer and quietly reminds him of the overtime he puts in without complaint. That evening, Ed dissolves sleeping pills in a flask of vodka. With the gun in his pocket, he drives to the pubs at closing time and offers the drunk rapist a free ride home. Ed offers him the drugged vodka, which the man drinks, falling asleep. Ed bypasses Edgar Street and heads out of town to a rocky summit called the Cathedral.

Ed stops the cab, hits the man in the face with the gun to wake him, and orders him to get out of the vehicle. Ed walks him to the edge of the cliff at gunpoint and then loses his nerve. The man collapses to the ground and falls asleep again. Ed addresses the reader, asking what he should do. At dawn, Ed tells the rapist he’s going to die for what he does to his wife. The man begs for his life, admits to his crimes, and promises to stop. Ed feels peace and pulls the trigger, the gun again feeling soft and warm in his hand.

Part 2: The Stones of Home

A: Ed deals with disappointment in himself over his decision not to kill the rapist. He shot the gun into the air and left the man cowering on the hill. Later, Ed commits to play in the Annual Sledge Game, a barefoot soccer match. Ed’s feeling of worthlessness extends into the next day, and he and Doorman have ice cream cones in the park on the main street in town. Sophie joins them briefly to ask how Ed is doing and he tells her he waits for the next ace.

2: Two men in balaclavas accost Ed at his home and proceed to rough him up. They introduce themselves as Daryl and Keith, hitmen sent to pick up the gun and deliver a new ace. Ed asks who sent them and they say they don’t know, it’s a paid job. When Ed complains that he doesn’t get paid, he gets punched in the face. Daryl delivers a message that their employer is satisfied with Ed’s performance. Daryl relays that they know Ed spared the man’s life, and Daryl punches Ed in the gut. They leave Ed unconscious on the floor with the employer’s envelope tossed on his back.

3: The envelope contains a note and the ace of clubs. The sender’s note praises Ed’s handling of the three ace of diamonds tasks, particularly the man from Edgar Street, whom he says fled to an old mining town. The note ends with the cryptic observation that Ed’s life depends on completing the tasks. The ace of club's message, “say a prayer at the stones of home,” baffles Ed.

4: Ed visits Audrey for help with the message. Her lover asks who’s at the door and Audrey identifies Ed as someone of little importance. Ed takes offense when she won’t talk to him and indignantly leaves. She comes over later and Ed tells her about the first three tasks. Audrey encourages Ed to take satisfaction in his good deeds with Milla and Sophie. He regrets his high-profile role in stopping the bank robbery and complains about having been chosen for hard tasks. Ed segues into telling her he wants to be her lover. When Audrey tells Ed he’s her best friend, he despairs of having a deeper relationship with her.

5: On his evening shift, Ed picks up a sex worker, Alice, who is kind to him. He fantasizes about making love to her and nearly runs a red light with the next fare.

6: Ed accepts his role as a messenger as an opportunity to change people’s lives for the better. He practices with Marv for the Sledge Game. Ed knows Marv compulsively saves his income and has thirty thousand in the bank. Marv opens up about an old girlfriend, Suzanne Boyd, who suddenly left without saying goodbye. Ed wants to ask him about her but instead, he changes the subject to his general malaise.

Ed does fruitless research on the ace of clubs. He checks on the Edgar Street home, reads to Milla, and watches Sophie run. Toward the end of his evening shift, he picks up a young man who has Ed drive to the river and then refuses to pay the fare. When Ed threatens to take his jacket, the man, a messenger, muses that he’s heard that Ed is stubborn. The man jumps out and starts running toward the river. Ed takes off after him, leaving his cab unlocked, the keys in the ignition, the doors standing open. Chasing the man reminds Ed of losing a foot race to his brother Tommy eight years prior. The man taunts him and disappears. Ed keeps going, following a memory of fishing from rocks in the river. As the sun comes up, the landscape seems to come to life like it’s being painted around him. Ed climbs to the boulder where he and Tommy used to fish from and finds three names carved into the rock which he memorizes: Thomas O’Reilly, Angie Carusso, and Gavin Rose. Returning to his cab, he finds the doors closed and the keys in the sun visor.

7: Ed goes looking for the first name on the list and finds two T. O’Reillys. Tony sends Ed to his brother Thomas in the slums with a message of his own, that greed hasn’t yet ruined him. Tony warns Ed that Thomas is a priest. After he arrives at Thomas’s run-down house, Father O’Reilly invites Ed inside. Father O’Reilly moved from the church rectory to the slums to be nearer to the people he wants to help. The church itself is dying with only a dozen regulars every Sunday. Father O’Reilly believes Ed has a providential purpose and tells Ed to have faith he’ll receive direction. Ed delivers Tony’s message and it touches Father O’Reilly.

At the friends’ card game following his visit to Father O’Reilly, Ed nervously asks his friends to attend a service at the priest’s church. Marv expresses concern about the reputation of Catholic priests as pedophiles. Audrey suspects Ed is on a mission. When Ritchie agrees to go, the other two agree as well. Ed recognizes that his mission is to fill up Father O’Reilly’s church.

8: Ed plans and finances a community event, Meet a Priest Day. The draw will be free beer. The friends round up barbeques, a jumping castle, a karaoke machine, food, and beer. Marv and Ed spray paint an invitation on Main Street at 3 a.m. The day before the event, Ed is stunned when Father O’Reilly visits to tell Ed he sees God working through him. Ed remembers Sophie’s similar words. Ed then invites Sophie, Milla, and Tony O’Reilly. The event the next day fills the church. Father O’Reilly involves his neighbors in music and scripture reading. His sermon speaks about being a community. Father O’Reilly ends with a prayer of thanksgiving for the moment in time. The event is an enormous success.

9: The night of Meet a Priest Day, Father O’Reilly comes to see Ed and chokes up trying to say thank you. Later, the police bring scrub brushes and road wash, and Ed once again is on Main Street at 3 a.m. scrubbing off the invitation he and Marv spray-painted on the pavement. He feels happy to have been of service.

10: Ed finds Angie Carusso, a single mother supporting three young children on a part-time pharmacy job. Once a week she takes her children to the park and buys them each an ice cream. Ed sees she feels trapped in her circumstances. Ed then finds Gavin Rose, a bully whose brother Daniel abuses him.

J: Ed buys Angie Carusso a double waffle cone. She savors it while telling Ed that she loves her children, but she feels very alone in the world. His message to her is that someone sees her sacrifice.

Q: After the Rose brothers fight over Gavin getting into Daniel’s things, Gavin goes to the curb to sulk. Ed brutally attacks him, punching his face and stomach and kicking him. He’s never laid a finger on anyone but he feels it is necessary in this case. Ed calls the Rose house and tells Daniel that his brother needs his help and then hangs up. He sees Daniel helping Gavin limp back to the house.

K: Ed goes back to the river to check the stone with the names. Ominously, someone has etched a checkmark next to Thomas O’Reilly and Angie Carusso but not Gavin Rose. One night while buying medicine to help him sleep, he encounters Daniel, Gavin, and four friends. Gavin identifies Ed as his attacker and they beat Ed, with Gavin delivering the final blows. Ed staggers home with two black eyes, a swollen jaw, and a bleeding nose, surprised to see something similar to the face of clubs looking from the mirror.

Part 3: Trying Times for Ed Kennedy

A:On the day of the annual Sledge Game, Marv treats Ed to breakfast, his uncharacteristic generosity intended to make sure Ed shows up. Ed takes Doorman with him to the game. The players come to drink beer, rough each other up, and win bragging rights for the ensuing year. No one asks if Ed made a police report on the beating that he endured. Ed asks a boy named Jay to look after Doorman during the game. Ed’s defensive position covers an enormous fellow everyone is calling Mimi for his resemblance to a character on The Drew Carey Show. After being tackled twice, Ed knocks Mimi unconscious. Ed vomits and leaves the game to find that Doorman is gone.

2:Ed and Audrey search the park for Doorman before spotting him and Jay back at their original spot. A young woman is with them, giving Jay something. Ed is sure it’s the new ace and he unsuccessfully chases her. Jay refuses to hand over the card and Doorman until Ed pays him twenty bucks. The card is the ace of spades. 

3:The ace of spades has three names, Graham Greene, Morris West, and Sylvia Plath. Ed dreams about Plath’s “Barren Woman” poem and realizes the names are writers. Audrey comes to Ed’s house to watch a movie. Ed contemplates kissing her and convinces himself he’s owed some compensation for all the messenger work. He impulsively kisses Audrey, the sores from his beating opening up and bleeding on her lips. Ed immediately apologizes. She graciously explains again she doesn’t want a physical relationship with Ed and smooths over the situation. 

Ed researches the writers at the library and writes the names of their book titles on a napkin. He checks out eighteen of the authors’ works and is prepared to read them one by one until he finds a different napkin in his house telling him he’s overthinking the process. Ed compares the titles of the works with the street names in an atlas of the town. He determines the house numbers by paging through the associated book for the page numbers that have been marked with a spade. 

4: The friends discuss the annual Christmas card game. Hosting rotates among the four friends, and it’s Marv’s turn this year. He refuses to host and Ed assumes the duty. As a penalty, Marv must bring Doorman a steak and give him a big kiss. Ed starts reconnaissance at 114 Glory Road. One evening the resident, Lua Tatupu, catches him hiding in the bushes and asks about his business. Ed lies that he used to live in the house. Lua invites him to stay for dinner and Ed bonds with Lua’s five children over piggyback rides. Ed determines his intervention as replacing their half-broken outdoor Christmas lights. He buys a new set and installs them on a Wednesday afternoon while the family isn’t at home.

5: The five Tatupu kids come to Ed’s house to thank him by taking him to their home for an unveiling of the new lights he installed. They have waited to turn on the lights until he is with them.

6: Ed observes a tender moment between Lua and his wife Marie Tatupu. Ed sees that beauty is part of who people are, not just their looks.

7: Ed confesses he lied about having once lived in the house when questioned by Lua. They want to know why they were chosen to receive a random act of kindness when their community has ignored them since they arrived. Ed tries to explain the inexplicable. The kids give him a homemade thank-you card. Lua gives him a good-luck piece, a small stone bearing the figure of a cross.

8: Ed takes Doorman to surveil 23 Clown Street, the address found in Morris West’s book The Clowns of God. It’s an Italian restaurant named Melusso’s. Over four nights, they sit across the street on a park bench and eat French fries while Ed waits for inspiration. Audrey comes by Ed’s place to express her unease with the changes she detects in their friendship. Ed tries to reassure her, and himself, that they will retain what they have. The taxi-fare runner comes to Ed’s doorway to tell him to be at Melusso’s at 8 p.m. the next night—and to stop eating the fries. When Ed demands to know who sent him, he tersely asks Ed to consider that he’s not the only one getting aces in the mail. Audrey has overheard some of the conversation. Afterward, she asks Ed to tell her the details of his missions but falls asleep after the first one.

9: Ed parses the messenger’s words from the previous night and realizes they represent a bigger scheme beyond just himself. He goes to the restaurant as instructed. Ed’s mother, Bev, joins a distinguished-looking gentleman who’s waiting for her. His mother looks attractive and confident and Ed sees her as an individual for the first time. Ed thinks of his father, Gregor, who was a hero to Ed throughout his childhood. He feels his mother is betraying his memory. Then he recognizes that he begrudges her happiness because of his own solitary situation.

10: Ed immediately goes to Bev’s home after leaving the restaurant. Ed confrontationally asks if she enjoyed her evening at Melusso’s. She reacts defensively and tries to end Ed’s visit. Ed asks why she hates him and refuses to leave until she gives him an answer. He produces as evidence her double standard, treating his siblings with kindness and him with disrespect. Bev explains that Ed is just like the husband who failed to take her away from her dead end-that life. Ed has similarly not made anything of himself like her other children have. Ed understands it’s not circumstances that hold people back as much as their choices. He asks the momentous question of whether Bev was having an affair while his father was alive. Bev tearfully confirms that she was unfaithful as well as the fact that Gregor knew about it.

J: Ed calls to check on his mother as a kind of olive branch, a reaching out to let her know he loves her. She abuses him as usual and he knows they are on good terms again.

Q: The Bell Street Theater is located at 39 Bell Street, the marked page in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Ed buys a ticket to see Casablanca. The projectionist/owner Bernie Price falls asleep after the first reel and as an apology offers to show any move he wants the next night, and to bring his girlfriend. Ed chooses Cool Hand Luke.

Ed reads Wuthering Heights to Milla and prays that she and the real Jimmy are reunited after her death. Ed invites Milla to Christmas dinner at his place. Audrey gets dressed up for the movie date. During the screening, Ed invites Bernie to watch the movie with them. He does join them. Audrey, sitting between the two men, takes their hands. At the reel change, they see someone in the projection booth who escapes, leaving behind a reel marked “Ed.” Ed asks Bernie what’s going on, and Bernie says that whoever is behind the messages to Ed started at least a year ago, and the reason they do it is that they can.

K: Bernie puts on the reel left for Ed. The film begins with his mugging by the Rose boys and their friends, which brings Audrey to tears. It shows him carrying the eighteen books from the library, the Tatupu Christmas lights, and his confrontation with his mother. The film ends with the words, “Trying Times for Ed Kennedy. Well done, Ed. Time to move on.” Bernie puts on the rest of Cool Hand Luke, and during the scene where Luke’s friends desert him when he’s not cool anymore, Ed feels the same sense of desolation at the illusiveness of answers as to who is behind the aces and why he is being tested and tried. He finds the ace of hearts left on his seat.

Part 4: The Music of Hearts

A: Ed and Audrey leave the Bell Street Theater and Ed recognizes a young man sitting on a bench as the same one sent to the theater. Ed dreads the ace of hearts as the most dangerous but reassures himself it’s the fourth and final ace. He tries to sleep but has noise thrumming through his head, and when he finally dozes off, he dreams of him and Doorman driving on an open road. The ace of hearts has the names of three movies: The Suitcase, Cat Ballou, and Roman Holiday. It’s a few days before Christmas. Ed drives around delivering Christmas cards made from aces from old decks of cards to the people he’s helped.

2: Ed hosts a Christmas Eve dinner for his friends. Everyone brings food and drink except for Marv, who arrives empty-handed, so they invoke the terms of the agreement, forcing him to kiss Doorman on the snout. The three guys go to a Christmas bonfire and overhear a father talking smack to his son, with which they all identify. It’s Ed’s first Christmas without his father. Later, Ed mourns at his father’s grave. He regrets not speaking at Gregor’s funeral about his good qualities to counteract the widespread opinion of him as a drunk. The memory of his family not eulogizing his father makes Ed afraid the same thing will happen to him. He wants “words” at his funeral, and he realizes that for that to happen he needs to have done something for people to speak about.

3: Ed participates in the family tradition of gathering on Christmas Day for a meal and gift-giving. Bev, Leigh and her kids, Katherine and her kids, and Tommy with a new girlfriend Ingrid make up the group. Ed decides not to indulge the polite platitudes from Ingrid and Tommy. Ed and Bev exchange barbs. Later, Ed tells Bev that he plans to become his best self before he relocates anywhere else because it’s not the place but the person that makes the difference. Later, Ed picks up Milla who has bought him a new black suit with an ocean blue shirt. Ed calls a cab to take Milla home and Audrey’s boyfriend, Simon, is the driver he gets. On the way home. Ed and Simon talk about Audrey, and how she’s been so hurt by the people she loved that she now doesn’t want to love. Simon understands that it’s Ed whom Audrey loves, not him.

4: Ed consults with Bernie about the three films on the ace of hearts card and figures out the card’s missions involve his friends. The director of The Suitcase has the same last name as Ritchie. The star of Cat Ballou is Lee Marvin. Roman Holiday earned Audrey Hepburn an Oscar. Ed fears these will be the most challenging messages of all. He decides he must tackle them in the sequence on the card, starting with Ritchie. He watches outside Ritchie’s house for an hour until Daryl and Keith join him where he sits on the ground. They share snacks and tell jokes and stories like old friends. Finally, Keith confronts Ed about hesitating to act on what he already knows to do. 

5: Over several nights, Ed observes Ritchie sitting in his kitchen alone after everyone has gone to bed, listening to the radio until he falls asleep. One night, Ritchie comes back to Ed’s place after the card game breaks up. He asks Ed to stop following him. Ed says he can’t because Ritchie is one of his missions. He confronts Ritchie about the emptiness of his life. Ed tells Ritchie that his inaction is disgraceful to himself. Ritchie accepts this honest assessment and says all he wants is to want something.

6: Ritchie begins looking for a job. Ed turns his analysis on Marv. The pattern of Marv’s obsessive frugality brings Ed’s focus to Marv’s large savings. He debates several tactics to find out Marv’s plan for the money before getting the idea from a panhandler to ask Marv to borrow money.

7: Ed revisits his favorite interventions. His successes with Milla, Sophie, Father O’Reilly, and the Tatupu family give him courage. Ed doesn’t want to fail his two close friends, Marv and Audrey. Ed asks Marv for money and when he shows hesitation, Ed feigns indignation and outrage. Marv breaks down in tears and confesses the reason he saves all his money. Almost three years prior, he got his girlfriend Suzanne Boyd pregnant, and her father out of shame moved the whole family to another town. Marv’s been saving his money for the child whom he has never met. Marv calls it guilt money. He got Suzanne’s address from their mutual friend Sarah Bishop, who warned him that her father will kill him, and he hasn’t gotten up the nerve to go. Ed and Marv agree to go together. 

8: Ed drives Marv to Auburn to see Suzanne and meet her child. It takes Marv fourteen attempts before he knocks on the door and goes in. Thirty seconds later Henry Boyd, Suzanne’s father, throws Marv out the door into the yard and proceeds to beat him. Ed engages with Henry. He tells Henry that his daughter is just as much to blame for the shame put on his family as Marv. He asks him to think of his granddaughter. Ed makes a case for Marv’s decency and respect in that he came to face him. He challenges Henry to think whether that took courage. Ed empathizes with Henry’s mixture of rage and sorrow. Suzanne comes out on the porch and she and Marv stare at each other.

9: Suzanne calls Vacant Taxis and books Ed for a pick-up for herself and her daughter, Melinda. As they drive from Auburn, Suzanne tells Ed she regrets everything and hates herself for refusing to stand up to her father. No one has ever stood up to him as Marv and Ed did. He drops them at a playground and goes to get Marv. Marv meets his daughter for the first time and formally shakes her hand. With Suzanne’s permission, he pushes Melinda on the swing. Afterward, Ed cherishes Marv’s smile and his tears.

10:Ed watches Audrey’s house for three nights. Each night, Simon and Audrey eat, drink, and have sex all night long. He considers Audrey’s avoidance of commitment and decides that for just one moment in time, she needs to own her love for him, Ed.

J: Marv comes by Ed’s house and asks if he still needs the money Ed had asked him for, or indeed if he ever really needed it. Ed confesses it was a ruse to help him understand Marv. Ed explains about the aces as he did with Ritchie. Marv wishes him luck with Audrey.

Q: Ed spends a fourth night across the street from Audrey’s. When Simon leaves at dawn, Ed knocks on her door. She sleepily answers in her nightgown and he leads her across the street to the park. There, he pushes play on the radio and they dance to a tough-and-tender love song. Ed expresses all his love and desire for Audrey in his partnering in the three minutes that they dance, and he feels her return that love.

K: Audrey doesn’t invite Ed into her home and he walks home alone, telling her he’ll see her at the next card game. Ed feels relieved he is done with twelve messages and four aces. He becomes terrified when he receives one last card. The address on the card is his own.

Part 5: The Joker

the laughter: Looking at the card, Ed feels panic. The joker on the card seems to laugh at him. Nothing happens for two days. On the third day, he has to brake hard to avoid a rear-end collision, and the joker card flies to the floor, where it again seems to be laughing at him.

the weeks: Weeks pass. At the end of the first week in February, Audrey visits. Ed tells her about the joker and begs her to admit she has masterminded the whole thing but she says it’s not her.

the end is not the end: A middle-aged man delivers a message that directs Ed to go to the cemetery the next day, the first anniversary of his father’s death. When Ed asks the man if Gregor is responsible for the messages, he states that he doesn’t know who sent him. Daryl and Keith are waiting for Ed at Gregor’s grave. They explain Ed’s there to remember the hopeless case that his father was and to challenge him to avoid his father’s end. Keith tells Ed that Gregor was not their employer and they don’t know who it is. They just do as they are told. After they walk away, Ed belatedly thanks them.

A few days later, Ed’s cab is waved down by a young man who asks to be driven to Ed’s address. Ed recognizes him as the bank robber from the beginning of the story. He has Ed drive him to each of the twelve addresses where Ed delivered messages, and Ed savors the moments. The man pulls out a mirror. He reminds Ed what he told him at his trial, that every time he looks in a mirror, he should remember he’s looking at a dead man. He tells Ed to look in the mirror and asks if he sees a dead man now. Ed admits he no longer sees a dead man. The man counts his jail time as worth it.

the folder: Ed finds his front door open. A young man tells Ed that he not only sent all the aces, but he also takes credit for Ed’s job as a taxi driver, the death of his father, and the Edgar Street man’s raping of his wife. He has brought a folder of notes on everything he invented in Ed’s world. There’s even a note predicting Ed’s next question, “Am I real?”

The young man leaves and walks away down the street, writing in a small notebook he’s pulled from a pocket. Ed recognizes the young man is a writer and suspects he has already written Ed’s story. Ed resents that anyone else could tell his story because Ed was the one who brought the plot to life. He imagines how he would start his story, and it’s the way that the book actually started. For several days he doesn’t leave the house, paralyzed, waiting for life to begin again.

the message: Audrey arrives at Ed’s and asks to stay for good. Ed tells Audrey about the young man with the folder who made everything happen. Ed rifles through the folder to find her declaration of love. She gently tells him it’s not in there, that it belongs uniquely to them. Ed realizes he is not the messenger. He is the message.