Uptown

5:06 flash

Ed found a man on the Red Line and the man got off at Wilson, Uptown, and Ed followed him toward the lake. Half a block, and Ed brained him and dragged him into the alley. He wasn’t all the way out, the man, only mostly. The eyes were half-mast. Ed went through his pockets—hip pockets, jacket pockets.

“I’m sorry, bud,” Ed said.

The man groaned, then whined.

“You’ll be okay.” Ed stood up. He had the man’s wallet. “Sit up, and when you feel alright, just walk over Weiss. You’re practically there now.”

He opened the wallet. Martin Jones, from Arkansas. There were one hundred and twenty-four dollars in it.

“What the hell are you doing in Chicago, Martin Jones?” Ed pinched out the money, the cards—card, there was only one—and stuffed the wallet back into Jones’ pocket. He slid the money and the card into his own pocket.

“I’m sorry,” Ed said, “Believe it or not.”

Jones’ eyes rolled back. Blood from the back of his head crept out onto the blacktop in a little halo.

“Shit,” Ed said.

That night, at the Mission, they preached a sermon on saving grace. ‘Do you have it, do you have it?’ the preacher kept saying. They had it. Ed had it. Everybody had it. Ed dug his hand into his pocket, felt the money, all that was left, a couple singles, a quarter. After the sermon, they let them eat. Ed took his sandwich and his soup to the corner of the great big room and drank the soup from the lip of the paper bowl and the soup went down the sides of his mouth, his chin and neck, and into his shirt, where it turned cold. The sandwich went into his pocket with the leftover money.