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part one: The First Message, A♦, 2♦, 3♦, 4♦ 

Summary: A♦ the holdup

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.

Summary: 2♦ sex should be like math: an introduction to my life  

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. 

Summary: 3♦ the ace of diamonds  

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. 

Summary: 4♦ the judge and the mirror  

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. 

Analysis of A♦, 2♦, 3♦, 4♦ 

Ed’s first-person narration establishes a comic tone central to the story. Ed and his friends mock the performance of a bank robber who holds them at gunpoint. Their assessment of the harmlessness of the gunman indicates their jaded, street-wise perspectives. The quips between Ed, Marv, and Ritchie create a strong sense of camaraderie and show that they don’t take themselves seriously. In fact, not taking oneself seriously is part of their ethic. Remaining detached observers of life protects the status quo.

Without understanding why, Ed suddenly behaves out of character and becomes the hero in the situation. He acts impulsively to go after the robber. The gun’s metamorphosis into something soft in his hand has a dream-like quality, as if Ed is a construct of someone’s imagination. In the extraordinary circumstances of a bank robbery, Ed’s disorientation is a normal reaction, but Ed’s perceptions foreshadow events that will unfold over the coming year. Ed’s comment about the message that changes his life marks the bank incident as a turning point in his life.  

Ed explains why he’s preoccupied with the reality that his life needs to change. He gives background information to set the story in the world of poor and dysfunctional families outside the city. People live on the fringes of society, struggling to put food on their tables and keep a roof over their heads. Alcohol will figure as an element that worsens the struggle as it facilitates retreat from responsibility. Ed’s trajectory into adult life was complicated by his father’s drinking when Ed needed to enter the unskilled workforce rather than seek post-secondary education. His father’s death from alcoholism underlies the special antipathy his mother reserves for Ed that she doesn’t exhibit toward her three other children. Ed’s patience with her crude verbal abuse of him shows his strength of character and innate kindness.

Against this backdrop of negativity, Ed searches for inspiration. His cultural literacy gained through wide reading habits provide exemplars of extraordinary achievement. Details culled from the early lives of Dylan, Dali, and Joan of Arc present unrealistic examples that humorously contrast with his failure to launch. Even so, Ed refers often to cultural icons throughout the book to guide his decision-making, showing his aspirations to succeed. With his family drifting apart and Ed’s circle of friends trapped in inertia, Ed is primed to respond to any message from the universe. 

The court hearing brings Ed face to face with himself as reflected in others' perceptions. To the judge, he's an arrogant, loud-mouthed slob with no respect for the institution of justice. To the bank robber, he's a loser who will get what's coming to him, an early death. The mention of mirrors emphasizes this painful self-awareness. The bank robber condemns Ed to think of his own death every day when he looks in the mirror. Ed sees the truth of his dead-end life when he looks in the cab's rearview mirror.


 

Next section part one: The First Message, 5♦, 6♦, 7♦, 8♦

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