Shya Scanlon - The Guild of Saint Cooper

Basically, I needed to leave Seattle. Why did I stay? At first I’d had a role to play. After having been witness on that terrible night at Tidemark to the strange dangers of our alien visitors, I’d turned my firsthand account into a kind of cottage industry, selling the story locally, then nationally, then publishing my “expert” perspective as the Lights went from deniable rumor to unwanted guest, to anxious equal, and finally to master. I went on the morning news. I went on the evening news. I went on Oprah. And, for a time, Dale Cooper had secretly supplied me with the inside scoop. He’d been the one to investigate the growing symbiosis between the Lights and Weyerhaeuser, the first to notice that those who’d been Lit, after having awoken from their initial coma, would lead practically normal lives until they were “called,” and the first to observe that the calling was without discernable pattern — that they were simply changing things. Tinkering. I dutifully relayed all this to the media, speaking directly into the camera, wearing the face of a man who understood the gravity of the situation but who’d risen above, who’d empowered himself with information.

Around the house, however, empowerment was nowhere in evidence. Clothes were strewn around and dirty dishes piled on almost every surface. Books, open and closed, lay around the easy chair, accented by crumpled pieces of paper. A disassembled lamp stood beside the dining-room table, its tattered cord wrapped around its neck, its shade, slightly torn, perched above the bulb like a crooked top hat. The place was a catastrophe. But there was something else, too — something deeper and less identifiable. Something a few hours spent picking up wouldn’t erase. The doorbell rang.

Zane had been Lit a few years ago but he hadn’t been called to service yet, at least not that he remembered. Either way, he didn’t wear protection, and despite knowing this, despite having seen him hundreds of times without it, I still suffered a small surprise upon opening the door.

“Hey,” I said, “get in here.”

He grinned.

Inside, he apologized for being late though we’d never agreed on a time, then hooked his thumb back the way he’d come.

“Yeah, they showed up an hour ago.”

He grunted. “Knives locked up?”

Zane asked everyone to lock up anything that could be used as a weapon when he was around. Occasionally, people called to serve ended up injuring, even killing, friends and loved ones who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was some debate over whether these victims were the object of the service or simply got in the way, but it wasn’t something Zane wanted to risk.

“Yeah,” I lied.

He stood at the window for a moment and watched the action across the street. “Hear they found more fallen rhodies?” Zane was a gossip, but he was sincerely invested in the future of the city, and I often thought of him as a kind of town crier. He was referring to a recent spate of defaced and destroyed rhododendrons. I nodded.

“Fuck, man, this is big. They leave some initials in the stump, too. DC. No one knows what it’s about, but it has Weyerhaeuser freaked. And the Lights, of course.”

DC was of course a reference to Dale Cooper — at least, this was the running theory. I was surprised Zane would feign ignorance. Did he not trust me? Perhaps he actually pitied me for having once been so close to the man-cum-myth, the figure many now revered as the only person capable of standing up to the Lights. Having been so close and then unceremoniously cut off. Cooper had suddenly vanished only two years into the new world.

Zane sat on the couch and began digging through his bag. My k-pins were right there on top, and he seemed to be intentionally overlooking them — no doubt making me sweat in that time-honored tradition dealers have, the subtle resentment they’re unable to hide completely from their clientele. For this was our relationship: I was a client, and a good one at that.

“Well, whatever’s going on,” I said, “they won’t get away with it for long.”

Zane looked up, shrugged. It could go either way, he was saying.

“Oh, come on. You really think they have a chance? Why would it be any different than last time?”

Felling rhododendrons had been one of the first responses to the discovery that the Lights relied on them, but it hadn’t lasted. Soon Lights stood watch over every single tree, sent armies of zombied men after anyone who came close. It was a nasty scene. It had been a signal. We sleep. We sheep.

Zane only shrugged, and it occurred to me that he might not be a sympathizer after all. With his attitude of peaceful resignation, I’d always assumed he was a member of the so-called Illuminated, but perhaps there was some layer of grief beneath the calm exterior, or some well-subdued struggle, or anger, or rage. I scanned his smooth, inked skin for twitches, muscle spasms, anything that might betray the energy of internal conflict. I saw nothing. Who the fuck was I kidding? A drop of sweat ran down the side of my face and I flicked my eyes down to his bag.

“Yeah,” he said, “I remember. But this time it’s different.”

His hand, I could see, was gripping the pills, but he kept his arm wedged inside the backpack and looked at me expectantly.

“What?”

“You got the schedule?”

“Oh! Fuck, I’m sorry.”

I leapt up and ran into the back room. One of the programs my mother supervised was a fleet of outreach medi-vans that cruised the city, delivering first aid, counseling, STD tests, and the rest. Identical to the Weyerhaeuser vans for the sake of anonymity, they were also patternless in their routes to avoid overcrowding. Patternless, but there was a schedule, created weekly by management, depending in part on areas of need and in part on what the previous week’s experience had been. There was simply not enough care to go around, and as this was also the case, apparently, for prescription drugs, we had an arrangement.

I brought a copy back out to Zane, who gave it a cursory glance before stuffing it into his bag. Whoever had the schedule could conceivably receive more timely, consistent care, but it seemed to me that if the same people showed up at the vans everywhere, the medics would become suspicious. So what did he use it for? Who cared.

He was counting out the k-pins when we heard someone climb the back stairs. Startled and guilty, I spun around with my hands, holding nothing, behind my back, and Zane stood suddenly, toppling his bag and spilling its contents on the floor before the couch. He sat again as quickly, scrambling to stuff it all back in, and I headed toward the back door, ready to deflect Alice’s attention. But it wasn’t her. A suited form appeared on the porch and, still outside, began to unzip its suit and reach for the door. I knew before she’d opened that it was my mother.

“Hello, dear,” she said and, seeing Zane, nodded.

She closed the door behind her, pulled off her mask, and turned her suit down around her waist, leaving it to flap behind her like coattails.

“You’re home early,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound disappointed.

“I decided to take the evening off. It’s humid, I’m tired, and it’s…Jesus, Blake, it’s hot in here. Why don’t you have the… and the radio! Blake, honey, please don’t muffle the radio. If you got caught up in some service action here I’d never forgive myself.”

As she scolded me she took a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and unscrewed the top. Zane came up behind me and clumsily, I thought, shoved a bottle of pills into my hand, its telltale rattle unmistakable. My mother pretended not to notice.

“Would your friend like a glass of wine?”