The Edger Collection

by David Beem

  I go in after him.

  He goes straight for his Xbox controller, pops the back off, and replaces the batteries. The TV is on. He’s got Call of Duty WWII paused.

  “What the hell, dude?” he says, turning to face me and chucking the controller onto the couch.

  “I know, I know—”

  “So, what? Coming in here and, and—and acting like nothing’s happened. Now you’re going to ask me to forgive you. Aren’t you. For not letting me know you’re okay. That’s not the answer, Edge.”

  “No, that’s the question. Yes is the answer.”

  “Uh-uh, you don’t get to do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Come in here with your stupid jokes. They’re stupid, Edge. Your jokes are stupid.”

  “Okay,” I say, using the surrender hands and taking a deep breath.

  “Your apartment blew up!”

  “Yeah, it did…”

  “I thought you were dead. Crap—I coulda been dead! What if I’d let myself in through the Fabio door? Did you ever think of that? Crap, dude!”

  “I did. It’s kinda why I’m here now.”

  Fabio frowns. “The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  And so I lay it out. I take him through the last ninety-six hours, just like it happened. I tell him about the terrorists and the gay pride parades. I tell him about the power grids. The football game and the nightclub. I even tell him about Dad—and what Doctor Hamilton said about Gran. I tell him how she can still have a normal life, but how I never will again. I tell him how he’s always been my best friend, and how I’m going to need him, everything being so crazy now, and when I’m done, he stands there with his mouth hanging open, and the TV is flashing: reconnect controller, reconnect controller, reconnect controller. And so this is us. Best friends are like video games. You can’t play video games without controllers, and controllers don’t work without batteries. Now, I don’t know where this metaphor is going, all I know is, if your controller dies, everyone starts killing you. And then you pop back to life, and they kill you some more. It’s horrible.

  Reconnect controller.

  Reconnect controller.

  Fabio looks at the TV too and, despite this endearing moment we’re having, there are some things that just take precedence.

  “Didn’t you just change the battery?” I ask.

  “Goddamn Wang,” he says, looking at the opened package of batteries. “He said these were good. Fuck.” He shuts off the console. “Dude. You want me to pretend you’re dead?”

  I take a deep breath and let it out before nodding.

  “And so everyone at work… I’m just…supposed to…lie to them?”

  I bite my lip and say nothing. It’s a big ask. Hearing him repeat it back to me is somehow harder than asking in the first place.

  He expels a burst of air from his mouth. “Yeah, buddy. Okay.”

  My knees buckle with relief, and I fall into the couch. But Fabio’s still talking.

  “I mean, best friend,” he says, pointing with two thumbs at himself. “So, you know. As best friend favors go, I’ve heard worse.”

  “Fabio, you are the best.”

  “I know.”

  “You could’ve told me to go stick my head in an ostrich vagina. And I’d totally get that. If that’s how you felt about it.”

  Fabio frowns. “It’s like we share the same brain. God. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Do ostriches even have vaginas?” I ask.

  “I mean, probably?” he says. “Does that mean you’re considering it?”

  “No, dude. No faking my death is worth the head in the ostrich vagina.”

  He shrugs. “Well, okay, then. In that case, walk with me to the Circle K. I wanna get some batteries.”

  Fabio and I head down to the Circle K. The streetlights are dim. We pass a gutter clogged with plastic cups and empty snack packs. I use my foot to clear the drain, then glance at my watch. Not even eleven o’clock. What with everything that’s happened, it feels like today should already be tomorrow.

  “You need to get going?” asks Fabio.

  “No,” I reply. “Just thinking about Gran.”

  “You sure you’re up for this?”

  My lips compress. I swallow against the lump growing in my throat. Fabio shrugs like he’s given up on an answer.

  “I know what I’m going to do,” I say. “I—it won’t be all right. But she’ll know I’m all right. If that makes sense.”

  Fabio rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

  “There’s not gonna be a family reunion. There was never gonna be a time when my mom and dad come back and live with me and Gran. And the Zarathustra stuff is never going away. Whether I’m up for it isn’t a factor. I’m in it now. And you know, I think Gran knows that too.”

  “Yeah?” he says. “Why’s that?”

  “Something she told me last night. Endings are messy. That’s what she said.”

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah. She said endings are messy.”

  “Well, this is one friggin’ messy ending, all right,” he says, rolling his eyes and shaking his head again, and we leave it there.

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  The thing about faking your death is that it’s a lot easier when you’ve got spies and the Collective Unconscious to handle the tricky parts—which is to say, all of it. As it turns out, Mary already has the pieces in place, though she’s insisted we hold off discussing it until getting me to Fortress, where she, Caleb, and Doctor Hamilton are waiting.

  Stepping off the elevator and into Fortress for the first time is a lot to take in at once: cement walls lined with guns and ammo, katana swords, throwing stars, grenades, gas pellets, computers, lab stations, conference tables. It’s pretty much every secret-base trope I’ve seen on TV where there’s one person stationed at a computer remotely assisting another person who is fighting bad guys, usually in dark alleys. The difference here, though, is that this secret-base trope has an abundance of Chargers memorabilia.

  “Hey, bro. Welcome to Fortress.” Caleb claps a hand on my shoulder, then turns and gestures to a conference table where Doctor Hamilton is seated near a forty-two-inch Panasonic TV screen, a model we carry at the Über Dork.

  “Mr. Bonkovich,” she says, smiling faintly.

  “This is so surreal,” I reply, taking down a Chargers mug off a shelf. “You guys loot the gift shop upstairs?”

  Mary comes up on my other side, loops her arm through mine, and leads me to the table. Doctor Hamilton picks up the TV remote and presses the power button. The screen resolves into a slow aerial shot of a coastal resort. There are no young people on the beach, only senior citizens. I shift sharply in my seat to face Doctor Hamilton.

  “Is that Pine’s Place?” I ask. She nods. “What is this?”

  Mary touches my leg. “It’s okay. This is to show you. We have her under surveillance. She’s safe, Edger. That’s what you want, and as long as we keep an eye on her, we don’t have any reason to think that’s going to change.”

  “I’m a reason.”

  “But no one knows you’re Zarathustra.”

  “Except Nostradamus.”

  “Who now thinks you’re dead. Edger—anyone can be Zarathustra. As far as they know, your dad gave the formula to someone else. So, when Zarathustra rides again, they’ll have no choice but to conclude your dad’s doing what he’s been doing for twenty years. Fighting the good fight. Finding the next worthy person.”

  My eyebrows come down.

  “So this is what?” I ask, gesturing to the screen. “Witness protection?”

  “Is that what you want? WITSEC?” asks Doctor Hamilton.

  “What I want is her in Pine’s Place. That’s the whole point of doing this, faking my death. Like you said. Giving her a normal life.”

  Doctor Hamilton shrugs and gestures with the remote to the TV. She presses a button, and the scene changes to inside Gran and Shep’s kitchen. My throat clenches; there they
are, unpacking and talking. Shep is plugging in the espresso maker I bought him for Christmas. Gran is grinding the beans in the grinder I bought her.

  “There’s no sound,” I say, my voice hitching in my throat. I swallow, and it hurts.

  “We have audio capability,” says Doctor Hamilton. “Out of respect for their privacy, I’ve shut off.”

  I try to say thank you, but the words won’t come. My eyes sting. Mary squeezes my hand. On TV, Shep comes up from behind Gran and slips his arms around her. He holds her close like that, and she nuzzles her head backward into his chest, eyes closed. A tear escapes the corner of her eye.

  “I know it’s complicated,” says Caleb, reaching across the table and powering off the TV. “You dad used to say it never got easier. But he did it. You can do it too.”

  I close my eyes and shake my head. Faking my death. The pain I’m inflicting to keep her safe and her life normal. Is this what it feels like to be my dad?

  “It’s so extreme,” I hear myself say, my eyes still closed.

  “I wish my parents had done what you’re doing,” says Mary. “It would’ve spared me a lot of pain.”

  “Look,” says Doctor Hamilton, and her no-nonsense tone pulls me out of my head. I open my eyes, and her dark gaze is boring into me. “It’s called compartmentalization. You can do your job knowing she’s safe. I know it’s hard to accept, but this is the least complicated—least extreme solution.”

  My chest tightens. The tension creeps around my shoulders and into my back. I’m sick with the dread from this already. How can this be the best solution, knowing it feels like this?

  “Edger,” says Mary. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “Of course not,” I reply, my voice affecting a casualness I’m not feeling. “But you know, when Gran lost Dad and her daughter-in-law twenty years ago, that was the end of something too. But her raising me was the beginning of something else. And that beginning led to a whole new story. We had a life together. We had ups and downs. It was good. I can’t know if what we’re doing now is right. To see the hurt and pain makes me think it isn’t. But I do know she’s got a beginning in front of her again. She’s got plenty of good years left in her. That’s something. And I think she knew this was coming. She made me promise to do something for myself, live a little, and so I’m keeping that promise. She told me endings are messy. But you know what? So are beginnings.”

  My cheeks go hot. That may’ve been the longest speech I’ve ever given. Caleb claps his hand on my back. Mary smiles faintly, then peers into her lap. Doctor Hamilton breaks the awkward silence.

  “This is going to make a lot of things easier on our end, Mr. Bonkovich.”

  “Please,” I say, rolling my eyes and spinning in my chair three hundred sixty degrees. “I am so not a mister.”

  Doctor Hamilton, the steely-faced beauty, gives me a mysterious smile. “Okay. Edger,” she says, her tone softening. “I’m Alex.”

  Mary sits forward, framing her face in front of Alex’s. “I think what Alex is saying is that if you’re dead, we don’t need to worry about you going immediately into the field. It gives us some breathing room.”

  “Yeah, bro,” says Caleb. “Lying ain’t as easy as it looks. And once you get a new identity, you’ll be lying to like, everyone. Seriously. No offense, bro, but you’d suck at it.”

  “No offense taken,” I reply, and a new thought hits me. “So, what about Mikey?”

  “What about him?” asks Caleb. Mary leans back to exchange an unreadable look with Alex.

  “I mean, why isn’t he here? Isn’t he, you know, kind of our team leader?”

  Another exchange of unreadable looks go around the table.

  “What?” I ask.

  Mary takes a centering breath before answering. “Edger, Mikey thinks you’re dead. As far as he knows, he thinks it’s his fault.”

  “Well, that’s terrible!” I exclaim. “You can’t leave it like that. You have to, I don’t know, maybe you could tell him I don’t blame him or something. I mean, like I told you before I died or something? I could write a note—”

  “Edger,” says Mary, her forehead tightening. “He chose you because he thought you were expendable! Remember?”

  I shrug. “Well, yeah. But that’s only because I am. I mean, I was.”

  “Naw, bro,” says Caleb. “I owe you everything. You saved my academic career, my football career, and my spy career. You’re not expendable. Not before, not now, not ever.”

  “But Mikey,” I reply, my cheeks burning again. “This is his thing. I mean, he invented the Tron-Tron. He’s been working on it since forever.”

  “We’re not giving you back to Mike Dame,” says Alex, her tone final.

  “You don’t trust him?”

  “That’s not the point,” says Mary, her eyes on Alex.

  “The point is,” says Alex, her gaze taking us each in turn, “we’ve taken Zarathustra from him. We’ve taken it from our respective governments. And we are not giving it—you—back.” Her dark gaze searches Mary’s eyes before continuing. “We can’t give you to the CIA. We can’t give you to any government. Edger, you single-handedly defeated terrorism in one night. Your first night as a superhero. You’re already that powerful. And your power is only going to grow. The fact is, for all the debate our respective spy chiefs have had over how this was going to go down, we’re in uncharted territory now.”

  “I agree,” says Mary.

  Caleb’s lips compress. He eyes each of us thoughtfully.

  “Caleb, you know he’s too powerful—and way too naïve to serve an intelligence agency!” cries Alex.

  “And you do know I’m sitting right here?” I fire back.

  “I don’t know.” Caleb shakes his head. “It could be treason. And if it isn’t treason, we’ll def get sent to jail for the rest of our lives if we’re caught. So, say we lie to our bosses. Then what? Keep superheroing from the shadows? That could so totes ruin my careers, guys. Like, even my Calvin Klein contract.”

  “It’s what Edger did for you,” says Mary, pinning Caleb under her legendary Scrutiny Eyes. He shifts in his seat uncomfortably and casts a glance my direction.

  “Yeah, okay,” he says at last. “I guess… I guess it’s less than what you did for me, bro. Unless I get caught. In which case we’re even. Okay?”

  I use my surrender hands. “Hey—you don’t owe me Jack,” I lie, flashing back to the seared mental image of him kissing Kate.

  I take a deep breath and release it. We all sit around in awkward silence for a few minutes. I focus on my breathing and try to master the conflicting forces scraping inside of me. I focus on the people. Caleb, our history finally making some sense; Mary—my soon-to-be roomie and bodyguard; Alex, darkly beautiful and mysterious, and risking her career for her faith in a stranger.

  “I guess that’s it,” says Mary. “We’re a team.”

  “Team Zarathustra,” says Caleb. “Yeah. PMA. I like it.”

  “Team Zarathustra,” repeats Mary, casting an oblique gaze and lopsided smile at me.

  “Z-Team,” says Alex, somehow managing to glower and smile at the same time. When every head turns to face her, she tips her head back and laughs. “Z-Team,” she says again, sardonically. “Just to be different—and so nobody gets any ideas with the fucking acronyms.”

  Chapter Ninety-Seven

  A week passes before my funeral. Mary and I stake out a spot up on the hill near a mausoleum. It’s a blue sky. The sun is halfway up, or a quarter of a day gone, depending on how you look at it.

  The spectacle is surreal. I feel terrible. Ashamed of myself. It’s all I can do not to charge down that hill and confess; I focus instead on memorizing the scene. Gran and Shep, praying. Wang and Shmuel hanging back and smoking a joint. Jama Jan, my boss at the Über Dork, blowing her nose and throwing her arms around an embarrassed Fabio. To think, there was a time when I thought if I threw my life away to become Zarathustra, no one would miss me. I measured my
worth by my job, by Kate, and by my failure at Notre Dame. But they didn’t measure my worth that way at all.

  I clench my teeth and fight back tears. Mary slides her hand into mine. She pulls me nearer, wraps her arm around mine, and squeezes. Her touch is as thrilling as ever. Her gaze is sincere and ice blue. It’s easy to picture those eyes peering through her rifle scope before she snipers somebody to death. It isn’t easy to picture waking up in the same house together and not fearing for my life. We’re supposed to move in together. But she’s a spy and a killer. Who can say where this is going? Still holding my gaze, she gently brushes a tear from my cheek with the backs of her fingers. Her lips compress, and she turns her attention back to the scene below.

  The chaplain’s words are faint, something about finding victory in death. Boy has he got it wrong. Dying only to live on in the Collective Unconscious, watching the next generation come along and muck up everything you tried to build, that’s not victory. But all that pain at the bottom of the hill isn’t victory either. A part of their lives—me—has been cut out. And they can never get it back. That’s the definition of losing. For everyone. Because even though I’m still walking this earth, I’m also walking with the soul-stars. I’m like them now. Condemned to a purgatory of watching everyone go on without me, no longer participating in their lives and decisions. Does that make me dead, alive, or something else?

  The chaplain is winding things down. Mary and I head out ahead of the rest. We say nothing, and I’m still spinning on death being neither a victory nor loss per se. Because even though we miss our loved ones, and we mourn them, we also carry them with us. I know, it’s cheesy. But it’s true. They may not have the power to interact with the living in the way I do, but we nevertheless feel their love at random times, and in random things. A bird landing on the railing. A flower blooming at just the right moment.

  This is where my head is at when we swing by a mailbox on the way out. I drop an envelope inside, addressed to Gran at Pine’s Place. She was never into Calvin and Hobbes comics as much as me or Dad, but that isn’t the point in sending them to her. My hope is she’ll open it, see what’s inside, and she’ll know in her heart it’s from me. She’ll sense I’m okay. She’ll know I’ll always love her. She’ll know I’m with her, and keeping an eye on her. And that’s all any of us dead folks can really do.