The Edge

By George Benda

Life and death. The edge between existence and … what?

Jack Slack is back in a time-warping adventure. Tracked and attacked by a rogue FBI undercover operative and his team, Jack learns the real stakes in the card game of life. Join the dialogue with Jack as he unravels the mysteries of life on the edge.

The Edge floats in time as it explores the meaning of existence, confronting tough moments in which the difference between living or dying may be a decision or, perhaps, just a matter of luck. Jack is joined again on this journey by his graduate school buddy, Ben. Peer deeper into Jack’s family and a broader circle of friends and lovers. Together, they ponder the deepest questions of the universe and the meaning of life. All the while, the story of Jack’s torment by the rogue FBI agent unfolds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483589725

Book preview

Hawaii

Prologue

Ashen gray face. Mouth opening. Stench of stale whiskey and cigarettes. No sound, no sound. Reverberations.

I’m going to kill you, you little piece of shit.

Words slur from the stinking mouth.

Arm encircling from the back, around the neck. Hand grabbing at the crotch. Belt pulling, slipping from the loops on the jeans. Flying. A snake. No, the belt. Push, push away.

I didn’t do anything. It’s not a conspiracy.

Words swallowed in the chokehold.

Knee in the back. Can’t breathe. Slipping, slipping. Belt rough against the throat, cutting. Head spinning. No air. Coughing.

Got nothing.

Lifting, neck stretching. Pain shooting down the back.

Hands slap the bed.

Jack bolted upright in bed, wrenched from sleep. Gasping for air. Gasping.

Long days, waiting for people to stop at the booth, huh? asked Jack Slack, making conversation with an old guy at a booth at the Lake County Fair, summer of 1973, Grayslake, Illinois, just north of Chicago near the Wisconsin border.

You got a name, punk? responded the old guy, Hans Vernacht, proprietor of HanSilhouette, thick German accent.

Sorry, didn’t mean to be rude, sir. I’m Jack Slack. I’m here for the Illinois EPA, as you can see by my booth. I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.

Jack grinned, then broke into a deep guttural laugh.

You seen what I seen, you won’t be laughing, Hans said. Come over here, better we talk than stand here looking stupid.

I see you work in multiple media. That looks like oil. But the rest, is that ink, or is it? Can’t be. Really… cut black paper?

Jack talking as he looked up and down, leaning in and backing away to take in Hans’ booth, packed with paintings and framed silhouettes.

You are young, Hans said. You ever see Hitchcock on TV? Where he walks into his silhouette?

Sure.

I cut that. Worked Disney and Warner and all the studios. Started with Charlie Chaplin. Cut, cut, cut.

It’s amazing, Jack said.

From the Shoebox: Photo of Jack and His State Car

I pressed pause on the remote, halting the DVD narrative I had recorded many years ago – one of the video-journals for my long-planned autobiographical, fictional, philosophical dialogues, or whatever. This one came from the shoebox labeled Older – organized by Anna, love of my life, now deceased. I missed her with all of my heart. The fact that she had so chronicled our lives brought me inexplicable joy and relief, along with the pain of remembrance.

Anna had even saved things from before I met her. Hence the label, Older. Read, pre-Anna. Must have been a little weird for her, photos and things from old girlfriends, events she wasn’t a part of, things for which she might have felt some jealousy.

I took a faded color photo from the Older box and immediately recognized that 1972 AMC Ambassador station wagon. Big state seal on the side, Official Use Only, State of Illinois. It had eight miles on the odometer when they handed the keys to me, along with a gas credit card and a sheaf of vouchers that would pay for hotel rooms throughout the state.

There I was standing beside it in the bizarre polyester plaid sport coat and white polyester pants that were in style. I’d won a statewide competition and become a Governor’s Intern. An official employee of the State of Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. All pursuant rights, privileges, and responsibilities. That and $2.50 an hour, the minimum wage of the day.

My assignment, which I had chosen to accept, was to represent the Illinois EPA as an ombudsman on the issue of regulation of agricultural practices to reduce pollution. New regulations had just been issued. I was to explain them to farmers in the northern half of Illinois by setting up a booth at half a dozen county fairs.

Two weeks of training. A plywood booth. Two boxes of printed handouts. A car. Travel vouchers and expense account rules. A schedule of county fairs. A state map. I was ready. I was nineteen years old.

Hans continued: I go around the country to the fairs. Live half the year in Chicago, half in Florida. Travel in the summer. Got a big Airstream. See everything in this great country.

Hans, always choppy in his speech, reminded Jack of his grandfather, albeit a shorter, skinnier version. Dirt floor underfoot, freshly cut fields and manure piles, these country smells reminded Jack of his grandfather, too.

You make a living cutting paper images at County Fairs? Jack asked.

Some state fairs, too, Hans said. But no, I got rich on Hollywood in the thirties. Chauffeur and everything. Everybody famous wanted their silhouette. Plus, scenes for movies and cartoons. When they were black and white. Before sound, too. Charlie Chaplin, he made me big. Now I do what I do for fun. Cut, oil paints, charcoal. End of every year, I sit down with my kids. I set aside enough for the next year. I give them the rest. They like me.

I imagine so. Jack said, but thinking, must be nice to have a sugar daddy.

Let’s me be out in the wide open spaces, Hans continued. Where I was born, in Germany, near Berlin. No open spaces there. I left in twenty-four. Inflation. So bad that people burned money to cook and heat their homes. Cheaper than coal. So I sat with scissors and cut, cut, cut. Until I could cut the bills perfectly, the heads and faces, before I threw them in the fire. Then I came here. Land of opportunity, land of milk and honey. And it was.

That’s amazing. You just walked in to see Charlie Chaplin and he gave you a job? Jack asked.

Not so easy as that, but almost. Boom times in Hollywood. Right place at the right time. Right skills. Imagination. Now it lets me be on the open road.

You’ve mentioned that a couple of times, Jack said. Wide open spaces. I like being in the wilds, too. I backpack in the mountains when I can. In the woods here every free moment.

That is good Jack. It improves your chances.

My chances? Jack, confused.

Out where there is nothing, Hans said. That is where I get to meet my friends from the heavens.

Hans, pointing upward.

Um… Jack, ever the articulate.

Astral friends, boy, those who travel the universe, replied Hans.

Aliens?

Jack liked Star Trek, but this was a little much.

There are a few of us, boy, who have something the aliens find interesting. Plus, they put some here. I think their term is data probes.

Some what?

Jack not afraid because it was a public place, figuring what could it hurt to indulge the guy? Plus, Jack didn’t not believe in extraterrestrial life. He just had never met anyone who said they had conversations with aliens before.

You have a cousin of sorts, adopted from the old country, yes? Hans asserted more than asked, blunt and clear-eyed.

Uh, yeah, Cousin Billy. How did you know that? Jack, now a little worried.

I met him, Hans said. …on an astral voyage. They picked me up near Roswell, New Mexico. I was going from the California back to the Florida. Back roads, night time. They stopped my engine and lights. Picked me up with a force field. Something.

Okay, Jack said, backing up a few steps.

No need to be afraid, Jack. Billy was there and told me I would meet you soon. He was sent to gather data in Poland before the war. Bad timing. Your uncle saved him from starving when they liberated the camps. Your Uncle Pep and your father, George. They kept at it until Billy was here with his older sister, also a probe. Billy met you on visits, right? Growing up with Pep’s kids and all your cousins. He said he lives with Pep and Jarmie. Your aunt, right?

Hans pronouncing his aunt’s name correctly as Yar-mee.

How could you know all of this? Jack asked, really worried now, looking for an exit. Billy was older and always seemed retarded to Jack.

I told you, Jack, Billy told me.

When was this?

It doesn’t matter, Jack. Time as we know it. The time you tell with your fancy watch. That kind of time is an illusion, Jack.

Hans poking a finger in Jack’s direction.

What does that mean? Jack said, shaking his head.

He looked at his cheap Timex.

I know you are a thinker, Jack, Hans said. Figure it out.

A plain manila envelope. Office size, nine inches by twelve. No address. Closed with the clasp. Taped shut. Sealed with its glue.

Anonymous.

Slipped under the door of Jack’s Hyde Park apartment.

He tore through the seals layer by layer.

Inside, a single sheet of paper. Xerox copy. Shadows of two holes at its top, evidence of the office punch used to bind it into the case book.

Redacted, heavily:

MEMORANDUM

From: Agent Brown, the alias for…

To: J. Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation Re: Imminent threat of domestic terror attack

… Agent Brown interviewed the informant, …, a second year teacher at Lyons Township High School in La Grange, Illinois after she filed a telephone tip to the FBI hotline. …

…. She reported that five former students…, and…. …were rumored to have ties to the Students for a Democratic Society…. …may be tied to a Weathermen chapter.

… imminent attack on a major metro area. … explosive devices…. … military grade weapons…

Brown and his team …

… requesting approval from J. Edgar Hoover to… all means necessary …at any cost.

Chapter 1:

Time

"Heidegger posits that being is time." Ricouer, last lecture for the quarter.

Thursday, May 27, 1976, University of Chicago. Ricouer, the famous Continental philosopher, Phenomenologist. Friend of Heidegger, but more than twenty years his junior. Heidegger had been a friend of Ricouer’s father.

Martin Heidegger came to the end of his time on this earth last night.

Ricouer paused and pinched the bridge of his nose.

I will talk of him today.

Another pause, eyes red. A tear?

Steam still hissed from the old radiators, overheating the Swift Hall lecture room. Windows open, the steam’s oily smell wafting over the flowery spring breeze.

His death leaves me alone in this world. He and I were the last of a generation who lived through the Second World War. We were survivors. We have had students, but none will fully understand what happened to us through that war, through the reach of the Nazi Party, through the indignities suffered in order to survive.

Even through Ricouer’s heavy French accent, the grief, the agony, translated. This was improvisation. This was speaking from the heart. This was something philosophers rarely do in public, in front of students, no less.

Jack and Ben, Jack’s classmate and jousting partner in philosophy, exchanged glances. This was news to them. It was not an event covered in the Chicago Tribune or Daily News. It wasn’t on radio or TV.

Ricouer’s emotion filled the room, raw and disquieting.

Shit, Jack muttered under his breath.

He fiddled with his camera. Out of film.

The man walking around Jack’s car wore a gray trench coat with a gray hat, otherwise nondescript. The man’s car was a brand new ’72 Chevy Biscayne, fresh off the assembly line. Dark blue or black. Plates obscured.

Jack huddled on the edge of the second growth oak and hickory forest along Donlea Road, about a hundred yards from his car – a beige ‘63 Buick LeSabre his father inherited. He obscured himself in the brush and looked through the telephoto lens to see more detail.

The man checked the doors on Jack’s Buick. Locked. Kneeling down near the driver’s door, the gray man looked, then reached under the car.

What the hell is he doing? Jack, again under his breath.

Backing into the woods a little, he grabbed a branch off the forest floor and tossed it. The branch fell back through tree branches above, making a noise as if it had fallen on its own.

Jack saw the man start. Slipping from beneath the car, the gray man stood up, walked briskly to his car, and drove away. Jack sat down in the leaves and grass, shaking.

From the Shoebox: Dubious Circumstances

I was bouncing between video tapes and a DVD, some of the stuff in the shoebox labeled The City, other stuff from the Older one. The video tape from the shoebox marked The City had been on pause. It restarted on its own when I wasn’t ready. As I reached for that remote control, I dropped the other. I was flustered.

Sitting in the box labeled Older, beneath the remote I had just dropped, was a news clipping. It was from the Analyst, August, 1972. It was an odd clipping since I hadn’t really started reading the Analyst until 1975. Who knew how Anna selected these things.

War Protester Dies in Dubious Circumstances

By Charlie Wheelhouse, Staff Reporter

Thomas J. Weber was found hanged in his Federal Penitentiary cell. Weber had been accused of acts of civil disobedience and violent protest against the Vietnam War. Better known as Tommy, he had been among the many arrested in the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. The Federal prison officials at Marion reported that they suspect it was a suicide.

Interviews with six protestors, who wish to remain anonymous, suggest the Federal announcement may be a cover-up. One protestor, whom I shall call Andrew at his request, indicated that he had been in clandestine correspondence with Tommy, and that Tommy was in good spirits as recently as last week.

I had notes from Tommy on Tuesday and Thursday. He suggested some direction for our peaceful protests and encouraged good spirits and hope for a victory soon, said Andrew. The Thursday note said that Tommy felt the wave that had started with the Kent State Massacre in 1970 would be cresting soon and force Nixon to change course.

Tommy had been released after the Chicago Democratic Convention. The experience had energized him and made him more committed to ending the War in Vietnam. He was arrested earlier this month at the home of his girlfriend, Jane Schmidt, in the Chicago suburb of La Grange Park.

Inquiries with Federal agencies indicated that Tommy had been transferred to maximum security holding in the Marion prison facility because of his high risk profile. He was awaiting preliminary hearings prior to his trial.

Jack, what did you do to stir them up?

This was Susan, Jack’s then current college girlfriend circa July, 1972. On the phone. She lived in Freeport, about a hundred miles away.

Jack at a pay phone at Jiminie’s, a local greasy spoon in Barrington, about three miles from the Donlea Road event. Phone, sticky from old grease, binding to his shaking hands. Oil slimed windows darkening the brilliant day. Rancid, sunbaked emanations hitting his nose alongside the smell of fresh burgers and fries.

I don’t know, Jack said. Honestly, I haven’t been up to anything lately.

They’re reading the mail, Jack. Everything has been steamed open. Messy, like they want us to know. You must have done something.

Susan’s frustration audible.

I don’t get it, Jack responded, I’m employed by the State now. All they have to do is ask my boss at the Nature Preserves Commission. I mean, yes, I’m pissing off George Dunne and some of the other machine politicians with the work I’m doing. Which is just what the law requires me to do. But this guy looked like a Fed. And if your mail is being opened, that’s gotta be FBI.

Jack, pulling at his jowls.

Who is this Dunne guy? I thought George was your boss, Susan poked.

Two Georges. George Fell is my boss. He is with the Nature Preserves Commission. George Dunne is a Chicago politician. He was appointed by Mayor Daley and now he is the Chair of Cook County Board of Commissioners, which makes him the Chairman of the Cook County Forest Preserves Commission. I know it’s confusing. The Nature Preserves are on Cook County land. But they’re supposed to be managed according to Nature Preserve rules. State rules. None of it has to do with the Feds.

Look, Jack, I’m in this now. Even my parents noticed the mail had been tampered. My dad wants to know what an eighteen-year-old boy could possibly have done to trigger all of this. You better tell me everything.

I haven’t messed with a Federal project in over a year, Susan. When George hired me to be the Nature Preserves field representative for the summer, he told me to follow the rules, even if the County didn’t like it. So that’s what I’ve been doing.

Jack, I know how you follow rules, said Susan, angry voice.

No, Susan, really. I was up at Spring Creek yesterday. There was a forester who was walking the northern quadrant of the preserve looking at the trees. He said that he was planning to trim them.

And…?

I told him we don’t trim trees in Nature Preserves. Leaving things alone is more what we do. It was all very collegial.

I assume that he went back and told the County people what you had told him.

Apparently, Susan. It’s not a Federal offense to do your job. But, uh, okay, so George, my George, George Fell, called me this morning and said that he had a screaming call from George Dunne last night about keeping his nose out of their business. Apparently Dunne knew my name from the forester and demanded that George fire me.

And did George fire you?

"No, he told me I must be doing something right to get old George Dunne that mad. My George,