Okay, okay, I admit it, I have been putting this off because it is going to get very complicated very quickly but it’s time.

When people are mountain climbing and they tie themselves together because at any moment one of them could step off the ledge, tumble off the path because of conditions… well it is kind of like that. So I am now securely fastening our little leashes together because—in the narrative fog we are about to go through—I guarantee we will get separated. Plus my memory, although exacting, is the only little Sherpa dude that we have available to help with the transport…plus some press clippings.

In high school, in a big high school (mine had 5,000 students) there are a lot of people that at one time or another you hang out with. If you intersect on a lot of touch points then they are your day-to-day friends, intersect on just a couple and you see them, do stuff, hang out and then it fades. Maybe you bounce it back and maybe you don’t. Steve Pera was like that. He was very smart, had some affectations, maybe a slightly fey haircut, but was an excellent photographer. He was kind of funny but not completely portable, if you know what I mean. If you were hanging out with him you could not readily flow into other social situations, meld easily with a different group of people or different types of conversations. He was most comfortable at his parents’ house on the southwest side of Evanston, Illinois. He had a nice bedroom area that was a redone attic. Here is the first narrowing of our trail: when you went to his house you immediately noticed that there were upside down crosses over most doorways, again in this nice upper middle class suburban home. His father was an elementary school principal, very well thought of. But his Mother, also a nice middle class housewife, was a devout, practicing witch who had zero problem describing herself that way, hence the upside down crosses.

The parental relationship to Steve Pera was also odd. If you were there at dinner time you would hear a knock on his door. He would open it and there would be a tray silently placed on the top of the last stair in front of his closed door. So, yeah, the communication thing seemed a little limited. What had to have happened for them to finally arrive at that arrangement God knows.

But as far as the witchcraft, hey, it was 1970 and who are we to judge? Steve knew a lot about witchcraft and would ask us if we wanted spells placed on someone. If he got pissed at you because you didn’t want to go to a concert or something it was immediately implied that there might be some “issues” coming at you that you would have to deal with. As wacky as that might sound it had a solemnity to it, nothing gaudy or even overt, it was very matter of fact and that gave it a certain gravitas. Plus we had seen the inverted crosses and the Pentagrams.

For a period of about three months I hung out with him a lot. He took a lot of band photos for us, he did a short silent film Hard Day’s Night style at Lighthouse Beach that we all knew was terrible and immediately abandoned. His work was stellar, we were the idiots. I still have a picture he took of me when I was seventeen that my wife liked and framed. He was a really good photographer. I even went with him on an interview for a Chicago magazine downtown after classes where he showed some editor type his portfolio. The guy complimented Steve’s work and said he might be able to use him. He looked at me and asked what I did, meaning why the hell was I there. I replied “quality control” and he laughed in my face which I deserved as my comment was both ridicule worthy and nonsensical. So we hung out and then we didn’t. We graduated and everyone moved on.

Before I could go to college I needed to make money to be able to go. I reviewed my list of marketable skills and hilariously there weren’t any. I also had shoulder length hair. It was autumn of 1970 and I needed a job. Now, looking back I am not really clear as to why I accepted the very first job offering that I got, namely to be a runner on the floor of the Midwest Stock Exchange. The money was marginal-horrible but I expected that. What I struggle with even today is why I took a job where I had to commute on the elevated train (EL) from Evanston to downtown Chicago for crap money but in a field that I had zero, and I mean zero, interest in and was really representing the enemy politic of the day. This was before brokers and stock traders were younger and recreationally hip with more zip in their lifestyle. That was less than five years away but not yet. Many of my friends, including an eventual girl friend who I hadn’t met yet, would go to work and do very well on the various Stock Exchanges but not yet. Most of the traders that I dealt with were (duh) huge Nixon supporters, Viet Nam war fans, counter culture hating zealots, my whole work world seemed, as Zippy says, “Republicans and Meat.” Why did I feel like I had to go behind enemy lines?

So again, why I decided that trade–off was worth it I will never understand. There was a job and I took it. I am now a freshly barbered runner for Ralph W. Davis Incorporated, Members Midwest Stock Exchange. The back office people were fine, it was the traders who were complete and utter assholes. One guy, last name of Murray, was the worst. When I handed him his trades he would scowl at me, and to him my longish hair and I would always say “thank you Mr. Pig F*****, as close to audible as I could without actually having the actual phoenetics surface. I would say it very fast but as I said it every time, multiple times a day to him, I think he became numb to it, numb to the subsonic vibrations of it without ever actually hearing it even as it got louder.

An admittedly long build-up, but you need to picture the mutual contempt that existed, rarely flaring but always present in passive aggressive ways.  I was about as low on their food chain as it got, my hair was getting longer and it was now very obvious that a “hippie” had infiltrated their cozy crypto fascist ranks. Org-chart wise I did not work directly for them and I think it would have required too much effort to replace me primarily because on the financial market Darwinian natural selection scale I was just above “salamander.” No opposing thumbs here….The funny thing is that I would not have argued with that ranking, nor cared.

So imagine this: I am on the Elevated on an early morning January commute and as everyone on the crowded car is reading either the Chicago Sun Times or the Tribune I pass about 50 front pages on the way to my seat.  I am seriously counting on getting an additional 45 minutes of sleep on the trip downtown, it is not an option but an imperative. Yet something is really weird: big block headlines and what appears to be Steve Pera’s picture on the front page. I laugh at the absurdity, the zero chance of this and know that I definitely need more sleep.

At 8:30 that morning I walk into the trader room and it is a smaller version of the EL car, about ten traders all sitting, drinking coffee before the opening with the more conservative Tribune covering their fat faces. For the first time I have a clear, non-motion look at the front page; incomprehensibly there is this block letter huge point headline screaming “POISONING OF CHICAGO WATER SYSTEM AVOIDED” and, yes, there is a big picture of Steve Pera.

Without thinking and in shock I loudly blurt out, “Holy Shit, I know that guy!” On cue, like in a 1940’s Capra film all of the papers snap back at the fold so the ten brokers can look over the top of the papers and see, as if they didn’t already know (to presage Sarah Palin’s vitriol) “who was palling around with terrorists?”

Umm, apparently that would be me. As I began to realize what this looked/sounded like to everyone in the room, I tried a little damage control, “Uh, I haven’t seen him forever but I was in high school with him…Jesus.”

Papers flip back up, all distrust and dislike about me present and accounted for, suspicions spectacularly confirmed….check.

But obviously I cannot believe it, I immediately get a paper. The first thing that jumps out at me is that the arrest in this political election year was by State’s Attorney Eddie Hanrahan, the same piece of work who, a year earlier– and this is not an exaggeration– had an unarmed black militant named Fred Hampton shot to death in his apartment by a tactical unit that pleaded self defense. Although Eddie and the 12 officers were indicted it was Chicago and the fix was in and they never received punishment despite the absurdity of their claims. The trial showed 87 bullets fired into the apartment and not one returned. The one bullet hole that the police tried to show as an example of return fire was proven to be an actual nail hole. I am not joking or making this up, I wish I were. Yet, again this was seen somehow not to contradict their testimony of “returning fire.”  Eddie had been famously described within his own party as a “political pig” and later went down in a self-induced political conflagration. So, this same Eddie Hanrahan was the hero who at the last minute saved the day by figuring out this epic plot to poison the entire Chicago water supply with biologicals by my boy….Steve Pera.

Chicago – Two college students, Allen Schwander and Steve Pera, are charged with conspiracy to commit murder in what was a plot to poison water supplies in the Midwest with typhoid and deadly bacteria. The aim was to build a master race among the survivors of the poisoning who would have undergone treatments to make them immune.

This story, as fantastic as it could be with all of the sensationalism that newspapers and television could ever want (the term media was not common yet), died down very quickly, suspiciously fast. As if even they could not believe it.  Who amongst us does not enjoy a good Master Race to the finish story? But there were a lot of plot device problems. If they were caught in the act ready and able to put most of Chicago “behind them” then when exactly were they going to undergo these “treatments” to make them immune? And while intelligent, Steve was not a scientist or researcher, biological or otherwise. I know he was attending the very prestigious City Colleges of Chicago but did anyone have a kick ass immunity pill for “typhoid and deadly bacteria” in 1972?  Did I miss that? Is there one now? Maybe it was the indicted-for-murder stink that continued to waft off of State’s Attorney Ed Hanrahan who had brought the charges that reduced the fervor, the spotlight for this one. But the story calms down very quickly, I can tell you that.

Now maybe if they had the Mother as practicing witch angle it would have really exploded. That, my friends, has ABC TV Movie of the Week written all over it. But they didn’t.

So, imagine Mr. Pera senior; his son has just been arrested and indicted on mass murder charges and he still has to look at upside down crosses every time he goes into the kitchen. I never really met him but by all accounts he was a good guy, a stand up guy. This proves it: Mr. Pera immediately puts a second mortgage on his very nice house to get his son out of jail. I don’t know the exact bail amount, I wish I did, but let’s assume it is mass murder – major metropolitan metrocide worthy…big bucks even after dividing by ten which is how they factor the amount to spring someone.

Sure, Steve is sheepish as he gets out of the car and walks into the house…”thanks Dad” he might have said, “don’t worry, I’ll pay you back.”

Here is how Steve Pera paid him back: He immediately jumped bail. He jumped bail rather spectacularly by hijacking a plane with his accomplice, Allan Schwander (whom I never met) to Jamaica and then from there to Cuba. Instead of receiving the attempted mass murder of Imperialist dogs hero’s welcome, Fidel! Hola! Como esta? ….which I think we all would have counted on… both were promptly jailed.

Steve is there for three years. In January of 1975 he is released, returns to the U.S. and turns himself in receiving exactly five years probation. So, plot device questions must really have lingered to get only five years probations for attempted mass murder, jumping bail and hijacking a private plane. His co-pilot Allan was not so fortunate, apparently having been beaten to death in that Cuban jail.

So, we cannot trust Eddie Hanrahan. Obviously. It was an election year and he still had some ‘splainin’ to do for the rest of his life to the community about the execution of Black Panther and Community Organizer (Sarah Palin, be quiet) Fred Hampton.

But at the same time I am not suggesting that Steve Pera was framed or completely innocent. I don’t believe that. But I do believe that he was doing/saying ridiculous things now stretched into grandiose destructo narratives and even thinking he was going to do this, even wanting to.  Motive, maybe…means no way. This is not to say that he didn’t have a beaker of some ridiculous toxic shit or something on his person when he got nabbed, but I think it became very clear, very fast to everyone that this premise of taking out an entire city was a lot of talk-talk. Hijacking a plane? Apparently they must have but I can’t picture Steve Pera hailing a cab. Seriously.

I am sure Steve Pera bragged to the interrogators that he was about to do this and that.  I had seen him like that on occasion; it was really just hurt feelings turned inside out in adolescent brag-revenge speak. Only this time there was allegedly a beaker or something incriminating. Heartbreakingly ridiculous; a gigantic 4^th of July float celebrating their massive ego-naiveté slowly parading down our trail. Hey, everyone wave as it tumbles off the cliff in silent, slow motion tragedy, disappearing into the fog.

It is 1980. I am on the EL station platform at Davis Street in Evanston. I am headed north. No one has mentioned anything about Steve Pera for years. Even after the arrest and the rumors about hijacking a plane, you would think that a story, a fable like that would get a lot of bandwidth, a lot of gossip even with just the people that knew him in high school. But oddly that didn’t even happen, not even an epic story like that.

That moment I am thinking about the tenth year high school reunion coming up in a couple of months  and wondering if I am actually going to attend. I can see the upside and the downside. Then I look across the EL track at the platform on the other side, for those going south. Standing right there, directly across the tracks, fifty feet away, looking much thinner and not all that great is Steve Pera. I blink but it is him. I open my mouth to yell something (God knows what). He is looking at me and I am looking at him. That exact second the southbound train intersects our vision, it pulls in, pulls out and he is gone. I stand there with my mouth open still trying to think of something to say.

I do go to the tenth year reunion. It is kind of a mess. I am not happy that I came but there I am. They ask for a moment of silence as people are getting their seats for dinner to read the list of those who have left the planet. For a population pool that has not hit thirty it is a surprisingly long list. Of course there were about 1,000 plus in my graduating class so that is a factor. But when they read off Steve Pera’s name I was surprised and then I wasn’t. Someone said to me, “Hey, didn’t you just see him?”

I nodded but then I said, “I did and I didn’t.”

Chicago – Cook County State’s Atty. Ed Hanrahan, a top assistant and 12 other law officers are indicted for conspiracy to obstruct justice in connection with a police raid in which two Black Panthers were killed. Slain were Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Four Panthers were wounded.

Chicagoan Killed in Cuba Jail?
by Art Petaque and William Braden

A former Chicagoan accused of conspiracy to poison the city’s water supply in 1972 was beaten to death in a Cuban prison in 1974, according to skyjackers kicked out of Cuba.

The death of Allan C. Schwandner was reported by six skyjackers who were ejected from Cuba last week, federal sources said Tuesday.
Schwandner, then 19, and Steven Pera, then 18, were arrested here on Jan 18, 1972, when they were students at the Amundsen-Mayfair branch of the City Colleges of Chicago. They were charged with planning to introduce deadly bacteria into Chicago’s water as part of a fantastic scheme to create a master race by the mass murder of most of the world’s population.

Schwandner and Pera skipped bond in March of 1972 and reportedly hijacked a private plane from Jamaica to Cuba. Pera returned to Chicago and surrendered in January, 1975, and was subsequently sentenced to five years’ probation. He said at the time that he and Schwandner split up as soon as they arrived in Cuba, but he said Cuban officials had told him Schwandner was being held in prison on an attempted murder charge.

Federal authorities said information supplied by the six hijackers virtually confirmed that Schwandner was fatally beaten by the director of La Cabana prison.

One of the six, Garland J. Grant, said he saw the director attack a fellow prisoner in a drunken rage and beat the man’s head against a steel gate. Grant said a guard and other inmates told him the following day that the man had died of head injuries.

Grant said he had known the beaten man as Allan Switzer. But federal authorities appeared all but certain the man was actually Schwandner.

The six skyjackers were expelled from Cuba as troublemakers and dumped in Jamaica, where they were arrested by the U.S. marshal there and transferred to cells in Jacksonville, Fla. The story of Schwandner’s death came out when Federal Bureau of Investigation agents questioned them to gather intelligence on conditions in Cuban prisons.

Chicago Sun Times (March 29, 1978. p.5.)