“A dead man”
This metaphorical phrase for someone quite literally alive who is doomed because of threatened retribution for something they have done is repeated throughout the book. The incompetent bank robber who gets sentenced to prison in part due to the narrator’s eyewitness testimony levels the phrase “You’re a dead man” at Ed as he walks past him in the courtroom. Ed is haunted by the threat, but even more so by the metaphorical truth, telling himself the robber was not far off in his estimation of Ed being a dead man, a phrase that forces him to " think of my life, my nonexistent accomplishments and my overall abilities in incompetence.”
Ed, the Doggedly Coward
The playing cards which Ed receives at first contain addresses and times of day and he realizes they are bizarre instructions for a mission of some sort. The activities taking place at these addresses at these times are not always necessarily the kind of thing one wants to intervene with. After all, Ed’s not making quantum leaps through space and time as soon as his mission is done in a way that get him out of danger. Ed has a cowardly streak, but at least he is willing to admit it. In fact, he is willing to transform his yellow streak into something approaching poetry:
“I don’t move because my cowardice tramples me, even as I try to lift my spirit from its knees. It only keels over. It sways off to the side and hits the earth with a silent, beaten thud. It looks up at the stars. They’re stars that dribble across the sky.”
He’s no Joan of Arc
Ed is asked by one of the people the cards send him to help if he is a saint or something. He silently snorts in dismissive self-deprecatory laughter as he considers what he is in relation to being a saint: cabbie, deadbeat, bad at cards and being the opposite of a ladies’ man. Then he sums up it all up in one metaphorical description that encompasses his entire life to date:
“Cornerstone of mediocrity.”
The Ace of Hearts
The last ace in the deck that Ed receives for his mission is hearts and on it are written three movie titles. He learns that the three titles all have one thing in common: each is a veiled reference to his friends Audrey, Marv and Ritchie. He’s not sure what to expect considering how the previous missions have turned out and is overcome with anxiety which metamorphizes into metaphor:
“The smell of street struggles to get its hands on me, but I shrug it off and walk on. Each time a shudder makes its way to my arms and legs, I walk harder, deciding if Audrey needs me, and Ritchie and Marv, I have to hurry.
Fear is the street.
Fear is every step.”
Ritchie’s Dark Room
Ritchie is a lot like Ed: drifting through life without aim or purpose. Only he’s even worse off since he is unemployed and spends too much time drinking and gambling. Ed finally confronts his friend with the shocking news that he is now one of the missions on the cards. Ritchie posits that Ed may be mistaken, but Ed not only knows he is not mistaken, but that it is time to take off the gloves and get brutally honest:
“Ritchie’s pleading with me, but I don’t let it get in the way. I can’t let him slink off to that darkness place inside him, where his pride is strewn all over the floor in some hidden room.”
