This Is The Story Of Big Head Ed

This is a story about another story that I had forgotten for a long time, and with good reason. It takes place when I was a junior in high school and also sort of when I was nine. It’s a little disturbing and quite insane, but so was most of high school.

Where I grew up (New Orleans), sending your kid to private school was really popular because the public school system was a bit of a joke. These private schools, they made you do what were called “service-hours” where you had to complete X amount of community service before the end of the year or you wouldn’t pass.

Say what you will about the practice, but all that community service looked good on a college application and the system was fairly easy to game. By my junior year I had it pretty much figured out and applied to volunteer at the public library as soon as they posted the sign-up sheet. See, not only was the library a plush gig, but it was also indoors (which meant air conditioning) and super close to my house (which meant I could sleep that much later on the weekends when I was scheduled to volunteer).

Since then, I had been spending every other Saturday shelving books at the massive cathedral-like building which, aside from a few rows of obsolete PCs, hadn’t been updated since the 1950s. Though, things didn’t get really interesting until I arrived at the library early one morning and Beth, who was the librarian in charge of the volunteers, told me to head on up to the attic and give Julie a hand.

“Julie?” I asked, almost to myself.

Beth gave me a distrustful look. “Yes, Julie. She’s a student volunteer like you and she’s a girl. Think you can handle that?” she asked.

I tried to conceal my shame as I nodded. “Of course,” I said.

Beth furrowed her brow at me and I hurried out of there before I could embarrass myself any further. I made my way to the rear of the building and slowly climbed the two flights of stairs leading up to the attic. The library was creepy enough with its high shadowy ceilings and persistent silence, but compared to the attic, the rest of the place might as well have been Disneyland.

It was basically one long triangular room that ran the length of the building and was lit by a series of suspended light bulbs that always seemed to flicker no matter how often you changed them. Years worth of the library’s overflow had been boxed and stored here and the clutter filled either side of the room in equally excessive measure to the point where the entire space had been reduced to one long corridor of dusty boxes and old furniture.

I didn’t see anyone when I first reached the attic, but I stepped inside and the floor beneath me emitted a loud creak. An attractive blond girl suddenly stuck her head out from behind a stack of boxes roughly halfway down the corridor and glared at me. She looked startled.

“Julie?” I asked and pointed at her.

“Yeah,” she said. “You here to help me with the chairs?”

I sighed in response to the word “chairs”.

“It would appear so,” I said.

“Well excuse the fuck out of me,” she muttered while rolling her eyes.

She disappeared behind the stack of boxes as I neared. I rounded the corner to see Julie gesturing at several dozen folding chairs, which had been stashed behind several boxes overflowing with what looked like ancient encyclopedias.

“I figured we could each carry down four at a time. That way, we’ll only have to make two trips,” she said.

“Sounds like a plan,” I replied and helped her clear the rest of the encyclopedias out of the way. We started to collect the first load of chairs, but I caught sight of something that froze me in place. It wasn’t what I had seen that made me lock up so much as it was the sudden onslaught of memories that came with it.

The look on my face must have been pretty telling because Julie immediately stopped what she was doing and followed my line of sight over to the large flesh-colored papier-mâché sphere perched on the bottom shelf of an old bookcase that had been mostly hidden by the encyclopedias we just moved. The sphere had a simple cartoon face with a large crazed-looking grin painted on one side of it.

“That’s pretty creepy,” Julie said.

At first, the only thing I could remember clearly was nine-year-old me riding my bike past the library one night and seeing a man wearing that same papier-mâché head while looking down at me from a second floor window. I could also remember his name.

“Big Head Ed,” I whispered.

Julie examined the head and nodded.

“Sounds about right.”

“The library had this summer reading program when I was a kid,” I said as the rest of it came rushing back to me.

I had been an avid reader since the age of four. While other kids were still struggling with Encyclopedia Brown, I was breezing through A Study in Scarlet. By the time the rest of the class was just starting to discover Goosebumps, I was already halfway through Stephen King’s It. So when nine-year-old me saw a flyer for “Big Head Ed’s Super Fun Summer Reading Spectacular” taped to the library’s front door, I begged my mom to sign me up.

And as cheesy as it no doubt was, I remembered genuinely enjoying my time at Big Head Ed’s, which was essentially a literacy-themed day-camp that the library provided throughout June and July. Of course, the titular Ed, who functioned as the camp’s mascot/main source of entertainment, was my favorite part.

Sometimes he put on skits or played his acoustic guitar, but mostly what Ed did was read to us. All sorts of stuff too; not just children’s books. In fact, it was here that I first discovered my love of short horror fiction. Ed also liked to begin and end each day with a sing-along to what he called his “all-time favorite song” and the lyrics became so ingrained in my little mind that I could still remember them nearly ten years later:

Reading books makes you smart,

Books are words turned into art,

If you don’t read, you better start,

Reading books makes you smart!

There’s an adventure on every page,

And books are fun for every age,

Forget the screen and the stage,

There’s an adventure on every page!

With books you use your imagination…

And that’s better than any rock station!

An open book means the fun’s just begun,

With books, you use your imagination!

(Everybody, now!)

Reading books makes you smart,

Books are words turned into art,

If you don’t read, you better start,

Reading books makes you smart!

I was wearing the papier-mâché head and doing an impression of Ed singing the “Reading Books” song to Julie, who was in return laughing hysterically, when Beth stormed into the attic to find out what was taking us so long.

I had yanked off the Ed-head as soon as I heard the door opening, but I could tell by the expression on Beth’s face that we were already busted. She looked me over and slowly shook her head.

“I want to be mad at you, but I’m too impressed. Did you write that yourself?” Beth asked.

Apparently, Big Head Ed had been before Beth’s time. I considered going with it simply to keep her from getting pissed, but my inner writer wouldn’t let me take credit for another’s work and so I came clean and told Beth about Ed and the Summer Reading Spectacular. When I was finally done, Beth looked borderline excited.

“Do you know why they stopped doing it?” she asked.

“No,” I said and shrugged. “I was nine at the time.”

“That’s a shame. It sounds like a lot of fun.” Beth pointed at the papier-mâché head in my hands. “Who played the Ed character?” she asked.

“Again, I was nine, so…I don’t know.”

“I bet Margo does. She’s been here since Cleopatra was still a virgin. Will you do me a favor and clear out a box big enough to store that head in and bring it down to my office?”

“Sure thing.”

Julie let out an indignant scoff. “What about the chairs?” she asked.

Beth looked at her and then back at me. “And when you’re done, help Julie with the chairs.”

I waited for Beth to exit and then handed the Ed-head to Julie. “I’ll get the chairs,” I said.

Julie’s eyes went wide and she smiled. “REALLY?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s only fair. I mean I’m the one with all these muscles,” I said in a joking tone. Julie laughed.

“Thank you,” she said and then paused for a moment. “I have a boyfriend, just so you know.”

I took two chairs under each arm and started for the door.

“I’m sure you do.”

I could tell Beth was thinking about reviving the Summer Reading Spectacular even before anyone said anything and I knew that it could end up being good for me, especially if I was the only one who remembered the songs or how the program operated. Maybe she would let me collect the rest of my service hours by helping them develop the project. It would certainly beat transporting chairs and digging through silverfish-riddled boxes all day.

This train of thought was brought to an abrupt halt as I finished dropping off the first load of chairs and exited the meeting room to find Margo waiting for me in the hallway outside. As Beth mentioned, Margo had been working at the library for as long as I could remember and she was probably in her late 70s by this point, though there was still a fire in the old girl’s eyes that was burning bright with anger as she glared at me.

“Why did you tell that nosey bitch Beth about the summer reading program?!” she shouted.

“Why not?” I asked, more than a little stunned by the old lady’s enraged tone.

“Because now she wants to start the whole thing up again!”

“And that’s bad because…?”

“You remember the reading program and you don’t remember WHY it was canceled?” Margo asked me in a tone that implied just how ridiculous she thought that was.

“Yes! I was nine! How much of nine do YOU recall?!”

Margo’s shoulders slumped and her eyes narrowed as she said, “You really don’t remember what happened to the Blackwell boy?”

“The Blackwell boy?” I repeated, and the name triggered another sudden flood of memories. “You mean Toby Blackwell?”

“So you DO remember.”

Toby Blackwell was the only other boy attending Big Head Ed’s that summer and so naturally we had become friends. He was kind of weird (and in retrospect, probably slightly autistic), but it’s not like I had a lot of options. Plus, we both lived close enough to ride our bikes to and from the library, so most days we ended up hanging out even after camp let out.

And then one afternoon, Toby went missing. We hadn’t ridden home together that day because I started little league practice the same afternoon and the playground was in the opposite direction. We had parted ways at the bike-rack outside the library and that was the last time I ever saw him.

Only that wasn’t exactly true, according to my recently recovered memory of the night I rode my bike past the library and saw Big Head Ed standing in the window. I now realized that this had happened the same day Toby went missing because that was the start of the little league season and our first practice had run long, which was how I ended up biking home so late. I could see it all just a little bit clearer now.

I was wearing my brand new baseball uniform, having christened it with the first of many dirt stains at practice earlier that afternoon, and I could still smell the playground’s freshly cut grass as I neared the library. The immense building looked truly ominous in the dark. I glanced at it out of sheer reflex as I rode past and that’s when I saw him…

Big Head Ed was standing at a window on the second floor. He was waving at me and his other hand was on Toby’s shoulder. Toby was standing beside Ed and looking terrified, his wide fearful eyes glaring down at me as I peddled away.

The next thing I remembered was waking up the morning after and my mom telling me that the library’s summer reading camp had been canceled. When I asked her why, my mom tried to explain it to me as best she could, considering my age at the time.

“Because your friend Toby is missing and the library was the last place anyone remembers seeing him. So now the police have to keep the building closed while they look for clues.”

“Why can’t they look for clues while I go to camp?”

“Because, sweetie, it doesn’t work like that. You being there will mess up the clue-finding process.”

“Nuh-uh! I swear! I swear I won’t mess up the clues! PLEASE?!”

Not my proudest moment, but fuck if I didn’t love that library. I guess me seeing Ed and Toby in the library window the night before had either been a dream or so inherently weird that my child’s mind couldn’t process it and simply suppressed the memory instead.

That would explain why I didn’t think to mention it when two detectives came by to question me that afternoon. It wasn’t until years later, as I stood there listening to Margo run through a bullet-point version of Toby’s disappearance, that the memory finally returned and I started to connect the dots.

“Who WAS Big Head Ed?” I asked once Margo was finished recounting what had happened.

“Edward Morgan. He was a librarian here at the time. The cops questioned him and he had an alibi for the entire day. Besides, Ed was the sweetest man. The summer reading program had been his idea. But it wasn’t enough to save him from the stigma of being connected to the Blackwell boy’s disappearance… Especially after they found the body.”

“They found Toby’s body? I never heard that part.”

“Your parents would’ve probably skipped over it, considering the state of him. The things they did to that poor boy…” Margo trailed off as she began to slowly shake her head. The look on her face said that she was done talking about it.

“Did you tell all of this to Beth?”

“Yes. She didn’t care because she wasn’t here when it happened. She doesn’t remember the way people looked at us. Ed was forced to resign simply for being QUESTIONED and now that bitch is so gung-ho about reopening other people’s old wounds, she’s already sent an email to the board of directors about it.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied, and I was. I could see now that what I had at first mistaken for a look of anger on Margo’s face was actually intense regret and I could hear the grief in her voice.

“Just do me a favor. When Beth asks for your help with all of this, say no,” she pleaded.

I told her I would and it probably wasn’t a lie, but to be honest, at that point Beth wasn’t really my main concern. I needed to find out if my memory of Toby standing in that window with Big Head Ed had been real, a dream, or something in between.

I found Julie on her way down from the attic and told her that I needed a favor. To my surprise, she agreed.

“Can you lure Beth away from her office and distract her for like 10 minutes?”

Julie gave me a dismissive wave.

“Cake.”

I waited just out of sight of Beth’s office while Julie delivered the box containing the Ed-head and a few moments later, I heard Beth follow her back out into the hall. I listened to their footstep as they began to climb the stairs leading up to the attic and, just to be safe, I waited until they had reached the second floor before finally sneaking into Beth’s office.

Once inside, I located her personnel files and eventually found a folder labeled “Morgan, Edward.” I wrote down the home address listed on his file and quickly got the hell out of there. When my shift was finally over later that day, I practically sprinted out to my car and was about to drive off before I spotted Julie waving for me to wait. I rolled down my window as she approached. ”

Hopefully, my interference was helpful,” she said.

“It was. Thanks again.”

“Please. I live to annoy that woman… So, any chance you wanna tell me what you were looking for in her office?”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“What’s the TL;DR version?”

“I’m investigating the nearly decade-old murder of a childhood friend and Beth had an address for someone I need to question.”

“Cool! Are you going there now? Ew, can I come?!”

I shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

I unlocked the passenger door and Julie climbed in as she dialed a number on her cell and put the phone to her ear. After a beat she said, “Hey, Bae… No, I’m helping a friend with a murder mystery so I don’t need a ride home… You too. Bye.”

Julie turned to look at me as she hung up.

“Sorry about that. So does this have anything to do with that creepy head we found in the attic?” she asked.

I filled Julie in on the rest of the story as we made our way to the address listed in Ed Morgan’s file. The house wasn’t hard to locate and I was about to knock on the front door before Julie finally stopped me.

“Hold up. So, just to be clear, this guy MIGHT be a vicious child killer?” she asked.

“Maybe… I mean no… Honestly? I have no idea. That’s why I need to talk to him,” I said.

“Okay… Sorry.”

“Not a problem. You ready?” I asked, my fist poised to knock on the door. Julie nodded and I knocked. After several very tense moments, we heard someone approaching and then a middle-aged woman opened the door.

I smiled at the woman and started to tell her hello when Julie suddenly held up her library I.D. and said, “Afternoon, ma’am. We’re student volunteers over at the library and we were curious to know if one Edward Morgan still resides at this address?”

The woman looked a bit baffled as she said, “Uh… can I ask why?”

Julie gestured at me as she responded, “Me and my partner here are working to revive one of Ed’s old projects and we were just hoping to pick his brain, as it were.”

“OH…” the woman said, looking noticeably relieved. She thought for a beat and then stepped aside as she gestured for us to enter. “Would you mind waiting out on the deck while I go and get him?”

“Not at all,” I said, cutting Julie off before she could respond. I was worried that her detective shtick was going to get us busted. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop Julie.

“I love decks,” she said.

Julie winked at the woman and she returned the gesture with a smile.

“Oh, great,” the woman replied.

Ed’s wife guided us through an impeccably decorated living room and then over to a sliding glass door that led out onto a large wooden deck overlooking Bayou St. John, as I figured it would when we first arrived at the posh home that was Ed’s last known address. Stigma or no, the guy was apparently doing pretty well for himself.

The woman gestured for us to have a seat and then closed the sliding glass door as she disappeared back inside the home. When she was out of earshot, I turned to Julie.

“Hey, fucking Faye Dunaway? You wanna knock it off?” I whispered.

Julie shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like she was definitely buying it.”

“You remember the part where this is about my MURDERED FRIEND, right?”

“Yeah, that’s why we need to establish a sense of authority right off the bat. It lets potential perps know that we can see right through their bullshit. Trust me. I got us this far.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Your face is debatable.”

The sliding glass door opened and we both stood as Ed stepped out onto the deck and shook my hand. I looked him over. A thin man with a headful of gray hair combed boyishly to the side.

“Mr. Morgan? Pleasure to meet you. My name is Joel. Me and Julie here volunteer at Library where you used work and we recently found a prop from your Big Head Ed summer reading camp…”

“Oh wow,” Ed interjected, looking vaguely embarrassed. “Was it the head?”

“It was. And that’s basically why we’re here. The library wants to revive the program.”

“Seriously? WHY?”

I shrugged. “They think it’s a good idea. I know I loved it as a kid,” I said.

Ed smiled, looking genuinely pleased by this. “You were one of the kids that summer?”

I nodded. “So what would you say to possibly reprising your role as Ed?”

“See, that’s actually a common misconception. I didn’t play Ed. Not physically. I was just his voice and of course I wrote all the bits, but I wasn’t the guy in the head.”

Initially, I was shocked to hear this, but it made sense as soon as I thought about it. You couldn’t really sing through the Ed-head or read aloud to a room full of kids. With that thing on, you couldn’t read ANYTHING.

“…And to answer your question, I would say ‘Hell no.’ I would also tell whoever’s spearheading this thing to let it go. Trying to provide a service for children is inviting trouble.”

“I’ll pass that along. So, who was the one actually wearing the Ed-head?”

I could tell he was trying to suppress it, but a pang of betrayal still managed to seep through Ed’s pleasant demeanor.

“That’s not really something you need to know. Plus, he died four years ago so it’s not like he can help you,” he said.

Julie and I exchanged a brief look to ensure that we had both heard the same thing and then Julie looked at Ed.

“I’m sorry. Were you close?” she asked.

“No,” Ed scoffed.

“And you’d prefer to have no involvement in the new Big Head Ed summer reading program?” I said, desperately hoping that if I continued to ask him slightly different variations of the same questions, would somehow make him slip and give us the name of the man beneath Ed’s big head.

“I would prefer if you set that hideous thing on fire.”

“Which hideous thing is that?”

“That goddamn head and I’m SERIOUS! Look…” Ed paused and for a moment it seemed like he might clam up, but instead he leaned in close and gestured for us to do the same as he said, “The guy who used to play BHE on stage was named Julian McCarthy and he really did die four years ago. He was drunk driving and wrapped his car around a telephone pole. He was a piece of shit but he could play guitar and needed the work…”

The problem was Julian became a bit of a flake after he relapsed and started doing heroin again. Julian called Ed one Friday afternoon and said, “Sorry I was a no-show this week but I swear I’m gonna be there Monday. Cross my heart.”

The fact that Julian hadn’t been at work was news to Ed and he said, “Well, whoever you got to cover for you might just become my full-time Big Head. He hasn’t missed a single mark all week. I thought you had turned over a new leaf and were growing into a person who actually took pride in his work.”

Julian laughed and said, “Nope… Hold up though, I didn’t get anyone to cover for me. The doctor said I’ve been in a coma since Saturday, so I haven’t really had a chance.”

Ed heard this and it felt like the bottom of his stomach had fallen off. “Then who is in your dressing-room right now, prepping for the afternoon sing-along?”

“Unless my dressing room is in the ICU at Charity, it’s not me.”

Ed slammed the phone receiver down onto its cradle with a satisfying THWACK as the fear he was feeling quickly turned to outrage. Ed stormed out of his office and over to the back corner of the children’s section of the library where the small raised platform that acted as the stage for BHE’s daily performances was located.

A nearby supply closet had been converted into a dressing room for Julian and Ed figured that’s where he would find his mysterious stand-in. Ed yanked the closet door open and tugged on the string hanging in front of him, switching on the closet light and revealing a freakishly tall man standing there, wearing the Ed-head. He was dressed in BHE’s patented striped shirt and overalls and was positioned just inside the doorway. The stand-in didn’t react during any of this; even when Ed let out a startled scream right in his papier-mâché face.

“HEY!” Ed tried to sound pissed as he shouted this. Unfortunately, Ed had already used up the last of his courage when he resisted the urge to shit himself at the sight of the man in the closet and Ed’s forced tone ended up causing his voice to crack as he said, “Yo-ou… you are doing a great job. I just wanted you to know that.”

There was still no response from the man in the papier-mâché head. After several awkward moments of standing there silently, Ed decided to continue to pretend like he still had no idea anything was wrong. He figured this psycho wouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary as long as Ed continued to treat him like he was supposed to be there and Ed would simply call the police once the kids were gone.

Ed took his place behind the curtained off space beside the stage and switched on his microphone. The sing-along started and the stand-in appeared, still wearing the Ed-head and strumming an acoustic guitar, his shoulders bouncing up and down in time with Ed singing the “Reading Books” song. In all honesty, it was probably their best performance that summer.

“…But you wanna know the REALLY fucked up part?” Ed asked me after reaching what I had assumed was the conclusion of his story.

“Why not?” I said and gestured for him to continue.

Ed glanced around, ensuring that we were still alone.

“That was the same day Toby Blackwell went missing. It was almost as if Julian’s stand-in had known the jig was up because he disappeared right after the sing-along and I assumed the Blackwell kid going missing had been him taking one for the road,” he said.

“Jesus,” Julie said and frowned at Ed. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. I never told the cops because I knew they would think I was either crazy or lying to try and save my own ass. But if you ask me, that’s who killed that boy.” Ed sat back in his chair and nodded at me. “That’s why you need to burn that fucking head,” he said.

It was dark out when we finally left Ed’s. I began to bring Julie home when both of our cellphones chimed almost simultaneously. I glanced down ay my phone.

“It’s from Beth,” I said.

“Mine too. She says it’s an emergency and we need to come back to the library ASAP.”

“This late? WHY?” I said and quickly steered us into the right lane just in time to catch the next exit.

“Shit, you don’t think we’re in trouble for question Ed, do you?”

“Probably not.”

Julie sighed with relief. “Okay, good.”

“If anything, they have me on camera sneaking into Beth’s office and assumed you were my accomplice.”

I pulled up to the library and parked beside Beth’s red Nissan Versa, which was the only other vehicle left in the lot. The library was dark but the front entrance was unlocked and I could see that the light in Beth’s office was on, so we started inside. The library’s general eeriness was only magnified at night and we didn’t have to go very far, but it felt like it took us an hour to finally reach the office.

I knocked on the partially ajar door and when no one answered, I pushed it open to reveal Beth’s dead body slumped in the chair behind her desk. Julie let out a gasp and I assumed it was because of Beth but then I saw that she was looking in the direction of the stacks. I turned to follow Julie’s line of sight and that’s when I spotted Big Head Ed standing in the darkness.

For a moment, I was almost relieved. I thought, Well this is clearly a nightmare. Any second now, I’m going to wake up and I won’t be in this creepy-ass library anymore, facing off against my repressed childhood memories. I’ll be in my bed and I’ll be safe and warm and things won’t suck.

But I wasn’t in a dream and it totally did suck. Big Head Ed began to approach us, each of his slow deliberate steps echoing across the otherwise lifeless library as the man in the papier-mâché head slowly grew closer. My fight-or-flight instinct finally kicked in and I grabbed an electric pencil sharpener off of Beth’s desk and chucked it at the figure.

The pencil sharpener nailed him directly in his creepy cartoon face and he cried out as he pulled off the papier-mâché head, revealing the face of Edward Morgan as he cupped a hand to his bloody nose.

“Fucking kids!” he shouted.

I saw the glint of stainless steel as Ed slid something from his belt and sprinted toward me. I managed to get a hand between myself and the large hunting knife as he attempted to stab me in the stomach and I felt the blade scrape against bone as it slid clean through my hand.

Julie took off running and Ed pulled the knife from my hand.

“Shit!” he shouted.

I stuck my foot out as he turned to chase after her and Ed tumbled to the ground, his face hitting the floor with an audible smack. I caught up with Julie just as she reached the library’s entrance and discovered that it was now locked.

Julie heard my rapidly approaching footsteps and let out a sigh of relief as she looked back to see me coming towards her. I was still clutching the wrist of my wounded hand, which was dripping a pretty steady stream of blood by this point, and I was still trying to fight through the wooziness of what it felt like to be stabbed when Ed’s voice emanated from the darkness behind us.

“I fucking HATE kids!”

“Fire exit,” I said and gestured toward the stacks. To avoid being seen, we took the long way around to the other side of the first floor where the nearest fire-exit was located. As we neared the exit, Ed suddenly darted out of the darkness and grabbed Julie by her hair. She cried out in pain as Ed turned her to face away from him pressed the large hunting knife to her throat.

I held up my hands. “Fuck, WHY?! Why are you doing this?!” I shouted.

“It’s your own goddamn fault. You just HAD to go digging up the past and that’s going to make things difficult for me.”

“Because you’re the one that killed Toby,” I said, though I had meant it as more of a question.

“Duh, obviously.”

By this point, Julie had tears pouring from her eyes, but she somehow still managed to sound indignant as she said, “I gotta admit you had me going with that story about the mysterious stand-in.”

“Actually, that part was true. That really happened,” Ed replied, sounding sincere.

Julie scoffed. “SURE…”

“No, seriously.”

“I believe you,” I said and smiled at Ed.

He returned the smile with a sarcastic grin. “I’m touched,” he said.

That’s when the REAL Big Head Ed clamped a massive hand down around evil Ed’s and pulled the knife away from Julie’s throat. Looking dumbstruck, Julie turned and started to back away as she watched the seven foot-tall man with the papier-mâché head bring his fist down onto Ed as he was still muttering, “What the fu…”

Ed’s eyes rolled back into his head as he dropped to the floor with an audible thump. The real BHE waved to me as he dragged Ed’s unconscious body off into the darkness and I returned the gesture with a grateful smile.

As we exited the library, I used my cell to call 9-1-1 and the cops were pulling into the parking lot what felt like less than a minute later. We were waiting outside on the front steps and I started to greet the responding officers as they approached us but was interrupted by Evil Ed suddenly shouting, “I’M SORRY!”

His “sorry” became a scream as Ed was then thrown from the attic window three floors up and came crashing down onto the steps between us and the cops. Naturally, they had a lot of questions.

Julie and I tried our best to provide the officers with a satisfactory answer for what happened but we were still in for a long night. There was one silver lining to all of this, though: My school excused me from ever having to do another service hour. Of course, they said it was because I had been deemed “a liability” by the school’s insurance and that I wasn’t being rewarded. I respectfully disagreed.