Shya Scanlon - The Guild of Saint Cooper

Saying this, he stood up and the dog rushed back to its owner, a man in a red plaid shirt who waved and kept walking.

“Wow,” said Dale. “It is just an absolutely beautiful day. This is the kind of day you want to relive right after it’s over.”

I looked around for Blake as Dale kept talking.

“Did you know that here in Seattle lives the man credited with defining the term ‘déjà vu’?”

She wasn’t anywhere I could see, and as I scanned the park I realized that the man whose dog had come over was nowhere in sight either. In fact, Cooper and I seemed to be the only people here.

“Vernon Neppe is his name. His definition of déjà vu is ‘any subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of the present experience with an undefined past.’ I’ve often considered that phrase: inappropriate familiarity. Let me ask you something, Blake.”

I was relieved to see Blake appear finally beside one of the barracks and wave. She was wearing the same white summer dress she’d worn when we’d met downtown a few days ago, and it made her stand out from the lush green around her like a hole in the world.

“Shoot,” I said.

“How would you describe yourself? Actually, let’s narrow that down. What do you think one of your most essential traits is? What is that characteristic you believe sets you apart?”

Blake began to walk toward us, a shard of light shining down the small hill, and along with a renewed confidence I felt defensive. Dale Cooper, I thought, surely wanted me to name one of those self-important qualities young men love to believe of themselves: smart, perhaps, or insightful, even deep. And though I wouldn’t necessarily argue with these descriptions, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. And that was probably why, thinking of how far I was prepared to go to prove something — I wasn’t even sure what — to an ex-girlfriend, I chose something else, a kind of low-hanging fruit I’d never really considered to be impressive. It was something I didn’t expect, and so I thought he wouldn’t expect it either.

“I’m determined,” I said.

Cooper looked into the distance and nodded gravely. “The truest wisdom is a resolute determination, said Napoleon. Yes, determination. A mature choice, Blake, a mature choice. I’m very impressed.”

“Well,” I said, now a little embarrassed, “you just do what you have to.”

“Exactly. You do what needs to be done, and there’s humility in that, which is actually one of the most unsung but essential qualities of an agent, if you don’t mind my saying.”

Blake was now close enough to hear what he’d said, and joined in with a cheery, “What did I tell you?”

I searched her face for some hint that there was more to the exchange than what I understood but could find none. There was only Blake’s easy smile, her dark hair blown by a salty breeze across her flushed, delicate skin. There was only her hand reaching out for mine, the warmth of her touch. I knew the meaning of these things. I could name it. I held her hand and turned my face to the bluff.

I SLEPT FITFULLY, WAKING up hourly with the sense that something was wrong, that I wasn’t where I should be, that I’d overslept. I worried about the mission in a general sense, and worried too about whether going along with the plan would be “good” for Blake in some deep but unarticulated sense — wouldn’t it be better for me to express my misgivings about her relationship with Dale? Shouldn’t I try to force Blake, or at least encourage her, to admit the peculiarity, the vague perversity, of her liaison with this creepy older dude? More specifically, I was anxious about the writing. I’d been asked to provide notes about what I saw and encouraged not to let Cooper’s assessment hinder or alter in any way my own. But I was already overthinking it. As I dragged myself downstairs, my exhausted mind circled repeatedly, stupidly, around the same thoughts they’d been circling all night.

This was an opportunity, after all. Mine would be the official report, or the foundation for it, the raw material. “Write what you see” was my only instruction, but Cooper’s only evidence of what I’d seen would be what I’d written. In truth I’d have free rein to write anything I wanted. I could discover evidence of foul play in even the most banal encounter, or find no evidence of anything at all. I could find something entirely different — I could send Cooper on a wild goose chase! Nothing that wouldn’t stand up to plausible deniability, of course, but I couldn’t deny the mischievous impulse to tinker. I’d feel no compunction sending the FBI after Bobby what’s-his-name. The world could do with a few fewer cult leaders. Wasn’t a cult just a more subtle and insidious form of human trafficking? Self-elected, willful enslavement to a cause that didn’t serve those who enacted it? Who lost the ability to judge themselves, let alone their leader, with any degree of objectivity.

Kent had left for some overnight camping trip, and I thought the house was empty until my mother appeared from the bathroom, carrying a mask.

“Morning,” I said. “What’s that?”

She lifted the thing to her face and peered out through its narrow eye slits. The mask was made of stained wood and was roughly cut — chiseled, it looked like — with gouges in the cheeks and lines in the forehead and a little howling, round mouth.

“I found it at Goodwill,” she said, and held it up to the wall across from the bathroom door. “It spoke to me.”

I shuffled past her into the kitchen. “I hope not literally.”

“There’s something about masks, don’t you think?”

“What is it about that one in particular? It seems…I don’t know, I want to say elemental .”

“This is the mask of my new life. This is my new face.”

“Are you okay, Mom?”

She finally found the right spot between two windows in the dining room and began to hammer in the tack. Once the mask was up she grabbed her purse and headed toward the back door.

“Have to run, sweetie. Still catching up on what I missed while I had cancer.”

After she left I stood before the mask. Its expression wasn’t anything familiar, was instead a kind of ur-expression, a summation of all possibilities a moment before the facial muscles conspired into something sympathetic.

When Blake arrived I was sitting on the couch listening to Dylan’s Hard Rain , feeling misty and nostalgic. She saw my watery eyes and she looked concerned, sat down beside me. Hot, flat light pressed everything down’ outside, the still day looked fake, and as Blake put her arm around me Dylan challenged his blue-eyed son, his darling young one, to face the ugly world.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just exhausted.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“Look at the mask she brought home.”

Blake walked up to it and frowned, nodded. I couldn’t tell whether she was missing what I’d seen, or whether it was easier for her to accept. She peeled me off the sofa and we locked up the house. I could see Alice up the street in her front yard, which meant Josie was home, but as we drove by I didn’t see her in the darkness beyond the yawning front door, and before long we were heading south on I-5, Mount Rainier jutting up in the distance like a whitehead. A few years ago, my mother had taken my brother and me to a place partway up the mountain called Paradise where you could park and hike a little in the snow, and I remembered being told to stop running because the air was thin. It was the first time I’d ever considered air being anything but air.

The truth was, I did know what it was. My confusion, having turned quickly into acceptance and relief, had finally, having nowhere else to go, settled into a stagnant pool of self-hatred.