Shya Scanlon - The Guild of Saint Cooper

“Why would I be kidding?”

“Well, yeah.”

“He can protect you and your mother, you know.”

“Brian?”

“Russell.”

“What makes you think we need protection?”

“I just mean no one will bother you if they know you’re working with the Editor.”

We turned up 8th Avenue, passed the now silent transfer station, and climbed our way back into the overgrown residential abyss.

“Were you and Russell together before the evacuation?”

Aya braked to let two cats cross the street and checked her rearview mirror after we’d passed them. It brought to mind my mother’s response to sudden stops: an arm springing out to the side, as though she could catch what my seatbelt could not.

“We’ve been together for as long as I remember,” Aya said.

She pulled up in front of my mother’s house. It was now squarely morning. I could hear birds above the hum of the engine.

“We’re not actually lovers,” she said. “That’s a story he tells his guild so they don’t think I’m available. Russell is my father.”

I scrutinized her face. She was smiling, but I’d seen her smile. This was smaller, almost shy, her chin downturned just the slightest bit. This was mischievous. What could I believe of what she said? She and Russell had fairly resuscitated the cranky spirit of the city around me as though waking the grumbling core of a dormant volcano, and although they seemed to have been candid with me, they were in the business of lies.

Suddenly Aya jabbed her jaw across the front seat and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Get some sleep,” she said. “See you soon, I hope.”

THAT NIGHT I WOKE to find my mother watching TV in my room with the sound almost off. The room flickered with blue and green light, and it played across her face, her eyes glassy and her mouth slightly open as if about to speak. She looked like one of her masks, and for a grotesque moment I imagined her staring down at me from the wall. I dragged myself over and sat with her, staring into the cold fire, trying to catch up with the story. It was about a drowning incident in the Gulf of Mexico. A mass drowning. My mother explained that people in several cities along the Gulf, including Tampa, Mobile, New Orleans, Galveston, and Corpus Christi, had walked out of work, home, school, church, and marched straight to the shore and into the water, drowning themselves.

“News is coming in that it happened in Mexico too,” she said.

“Sounds like a death cult.”

“If so, they kept their association a complete secret. No one’s found any connection.”

“Well, the worst way to commit suicide is to tell other people you’re going to do it. Have they found a note?”

“A group note?”

“Any note.”

“Note that I know of.”

In the cool light of the TV, my mother’s profile snaked along the dark wall. Her short white hair stuck up like a dandelion gone to seed. “Did you just make a pun?”

My mother reached for the power button. “Do you want me to leave this on?”

The radio was active that day, the continual crackling and sputtering joined by a strange, ghostlike moaning. Twice my mother put a pillow over the speaker and twice I took it off. We’d be able to hear a real announcement through goose down, but it was the principle of the matter, the slippery slope of it. Also, I was irritated with myself, with what I took as a sign of personal weakness, so I was misdirecting. Specifically, I was sitting on the couch, worrying Zane’s letter and wondering why I was suddenly wavering about Russell’s request. It sounded like an adventure, after all. What did that say about me? What kind of circumstances would lead to an author sabotaging his own integrity — let alone broad social ethics — unless he was getting paid! And what would happen to him if he did? What kind of twisted beast would result? The moaning had reached a crescendo when my mother came in from the back porch, put a single white calla lily in a tall, thin vase, and then walked over and pulled the plug.

“Really, mother?”

“Five minutes, Blake. Just give me five minutes.”

“It’s five minutes now, sure, but soon it’ll be ten, fifteen, an hour. You’ll be saying, ‘Blake, come on, let’s just turn it off for one night.’ Then, you know, whoosh!”

Her shoulders sagged. She turned the lily slowly, looking for the right display, and its single undulating lip seemed to wobble like a coin, hiding and then revealing a bright gold spadix.

“Russell unplugged his,” she said, “and he seems to be fine.”

“Well, Russell also gets followed around by small, highly opinionated rainclouds.”

My mother looked up and frowned. “Are you making fun of me?”

I shook my head and was about to explain when the gurgle of a Harley coming down the street turned us toward the window. Moments later a biker passed the house, riding slowly and holding an open book in one hand. He quickly reached over with the other hand and turned the page. He was reading a book while riding a motorcycle. I took this as a sign.

“What if, instead of working on Russell’s project, I document it? What if I kind of embed myself like a journalist? Watch Russell and his guild from the inside — see how they operate, do interviews, do portraits, unearth scandals. Don’t you think it would make for an interesting portrait of post-evac Seattle?”

My mother squinted, pursed her lips, and caressed her white flower. “The calla lily grows as a weed throughout most of the world. Can you imagine turning a corner and, pow! An entire field of them?”

I got up and stood by her at the table. The radio’s cord was coiled on the floor like a whip. I was going to use it if she didn’t, and she knew it, but I gave her one more chance. “I’ll tell you what. Plug that radio back in, and I’ll talk to Russell about how quickly we could be alerted when the Ross collapses. I’m sure he can have a lackey warn us, someone who lives nearby. Deal?”

She nodded slowly and reached for the cord. “I just think it’s astonishing.”

The moaning resumed. We listened to it for a few moments, the clicking making us cringe.

“What’s astonishing?”

She nodded at the lily. “Cut one, put it in a vase, and presto: weed no more.”

“Well, context.”

“Blake?”

“What?”

“Where’s your wedding band?”

I thumbed my ring finger and met my mother’s eyes. I hadn’t told her what had happened because I didn’t want to scare her. Instead, I’d told her I’d left the bike downtown because it hadn’t fit in the car. I’d told her I’d spent the afternoon sitting by the canal and the evening biking around Seattle. I’d told her I’d had a “lovely day.”

“I’m having complicated feelings about Blake,” I said. “I think I need some clarity I can’t get wearing that ring.”

My mother stared at me.

“Okay,” I said, “that sounded weird. What I mean is…I don’t know what I mean.”

She grabbed my hand and held it. Her soft eyes looked into mine. “I think your idea about working with Russell is a good one,” she said. “I think you need to be working.”

“You do?”

“Blake won’t be back for another, what, two weeks? Three weeks? I know you, and you’re miserable when you’re not working. Forget about the ring for now and see what’s going on with Russell. I think he’d be thrilled to know you want to write about him. Thrilled!”

Her enthusiasm warmed me a little. I envisioned following Russell around, pen in hand, fashioning a narrative, the center of which was one man but which told the story of Seattle as a whole. Of more than Seattle — of a humanitarian crisis. The radio let out a louder-than-usual screech, startling us both.