Episode II - Session II: Crystal's Kitchen, Southside
Episode II - Session II: Crystal's Kitchen, Southside
Taylor poured himself another cup of coffee while he watched Crystal reluctantly dial a long-distance number into her cell phone. By the time he had hunted down some sweetener packets from her kitchen cabinets, he heard her talking into the phone:
“Paw-Paw? Hey, this is Crystal. Did I wake you?”
Paw-paw? Taylor stored that one in his head for later, in the “Things to make fun of Crystal For” file.
“I’m fine, Paw-Paw. It’s…five o’clock. I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
Taylor imagined the other end of the conversation in his head. No, See-Saw, I’m always up before dawn on Mondays.
Crystal continued, apparently satisfied that she had not waken her grandfather. “Um…no, I’m back in Birmingham. I…um…met this kid this tonight, Paw-Paw. And he’s in some trouble…Yes sir…”
Taylor wandered back into the living room with his fresh mug of coffee in hand. Willie was stretched out half-asleep on the couch. The prisoner kid was apparently asleep in his chair. Joe was sacked out on the floor in front of the television, watching some Japanese cartoon show with the sound turned way down, his aluminum foil hat perched merrily on his head.
Behind the couch, Crystal had a small desk, loaded down with books and papers. Taylor sat down at the desk, absently rubbed some sleep out of his eyes, and noticed a little bit of sunlight creeping through the closed window blinds. He hoped Crystal’s plan would work. He wasn’t sure what else they could do with the kid now that that he seemed to have come back to his senses.
Idly, Taylor started flipping through Crystal’s books. Native Cemeteries And Forms Of Burial East Of The Mississippi. The Craft: A Witch’s Book of Shadows. The New Encyclopedia of the Occult. Well, just a little light reading for the slightly psychotic. He flipped over another book which rested on top of a magazine, flipped open to an article that Crystal had highlighted. He pulled the magazine from the stack and saw the title of the article, Do you have the right hair style for your body type? Oh, this was a goldmine right here. He could tease Crystal for months about this one.
Taylor caught himself in mind-thought. He was already assuming he would know any of these people months from now. He set the magazine back down on the pile of books. He had known these people less than, what, twelve hours? And in that time he had watched them bluff their way into some weird laboratory downtown, race their cars to a police shootout on Southside, and now hold some kid prisoner while they interrogated him with an aluminum foil hat on his head. And Taylor had not only supported those activities, but he had been an increasingly active participant.
In college, Taylor had been a pretty good chemist. He had made a small, but increasingly profitable, business out of mixing up “party favors” in the school labs for his friends and flat-mates. But when one of his customers flashed a gun during a routine exchange, Taylor had dropped out the business altogether in favor of safer diversions. And when Taylor had been dating that grad student a couple of years back who had suddenly wanted to start bringing knives into their bed, he had exited that situation immediately. (Well, okay, not immediately, but as soon as they got back from their ski weekend, because she was really hot and because, hey, free ski weekend.)
The point was, Taylor decided, he was a pretty wise guy when it came to dangerous situations and dangerous people, and he definitely knew better than to get hooked up with a bunch of…mercenaries or whatever these people were. So why was he here?
It felt right. He couldn’t explain it any better than that. He had definitely had those dreams about these people, but that wasn’t it really. It just felt right to be here, to be a part of this…team.
Taylor shuddered on that one. The sensation that it just “made sense” for him to be a part of this group reminded him an awful lot of the way the kid had said that it just “made sense” for him to follow that White Oak nut into that nightclub.
Fortunately, Crystal came back out of the kitchen at that point. Joe turned the volume on the television down the rest of the way, and Willie sat up on the couch, eager to hear what she had to say.
Crystal looked tired, and more than a little guilty. “My grandfather is going to send some men from the tribe to bring the kid home. And they’ll keep the whole thing quiet.”
Willie relaxed visibly, “Cool. Thanks, Little Wing. I know it ain’t easy to call in a favor like that. Did he know anything else about this White Oak dude?”
Crystal nodded. “He’s heard of him. His English name is Clint Dawson. He’s a member of the tribe, but apparently he just recently started getting involved in some of the ‘Traditional Culture’ groups. My grandfather says that White Oak’s connected with some tribal youth scouting group that’s supposed to be on a hiking trip this weekend. The left town on a chartered bus this weekend. ”
Willie was already dialing into his cell phone. While he was dialing, he asked Crystal, “I can put somebody I work with on the lookout for it here in town. Do you have the name of the company that chartered the bus?”
Crystal shook her head, “No, but I can get it.”
Willie nodded, “Good. If we want to find that spider, we’re gonna need to find that bus.”
. . .
The contents of Brother Cooper’s nightstand were, in order of closeness to the bed, a Bible, a telephone, and a cowboy hat. And under the cowboy hat, a gun. This allowed the portly evangelist to joke to himself each night about “the things he kept under his hat”, while also protecting him from accidentally waking up to the phone ringing, and sleepily holding his gun up to his ear (again).
Brother Cooper thought of these things with a shudder, then stretched, threw the blankets back, cleared his throat, and answered his ringing phone. “Cooper residence, Brother Cooper speaking.”
“Yo, Coop, this is Willie. Saw you on TV last night! Lookin’ sharp!”
Brother Cooper grimaced in memory of the night’s events, “Well, thank you, Wilson. Although I must say I wasn’t really concerned with my appearance at the time. Just doing the Shepherd’s work. There were some grieving families last night that---”
“Yeah, that’s great, Coop. Glad to hear it. Listen, you hear anything last night from the boys in blue about …uh, our eight-legged friend? Or anything about a bus from Mississippi?”
Cooper recognized the mixture of weariness and frenzy in Wilson’s voice. It was a side effect of being up all night and staying awake through a steady supply of coffee. He wondered how much he had missed last night when he had lost touch with the rest of the group. He answered, “No, Wilson, I can’t say that I have. The officers I spoke to last night appeared to be quite bewildered by the whole experience. Then again, I can’t say that I blame them. I’m as lost as anyone to explain the violence in that club last night.” Of course, he added silently, that didn’t stop those victims and their families from turning to him for an explanation, but such was the burden of the shepherd that he had chosen to bear, and complaining about it wouldn’t help matters.
Willie only seemed half-interested in his response anyway. “Alright, well I’m headin’ home for a shower and some shut-eye. Assuming they don’t kill each other first, we got Little Wing and Joe watching the kid, until the tribal police come get him…and that Scottish dude said he was gonna swing by his lab and mix us up some bug-bombs. So if you need me later---”
“Whoa, wait, just a minute there, Wilson…what kid are you referring to?”
Willie sighed before answering, “I forgot you wasn’t there, preacher. Hmmm…what are your plans later this morning?”
“Well, actually Wilson, I have a lot of work to do. I’m putting together this memorial service on Southside for the officers slain in the violence last night, and I have several sessions of grief counseling---“
“Um…okay, preacher, don’t worry about it,” Cooper could hear the exhaustion in Willie’s voice. “I’ll fill you in real quick on what we found out. Oh, but first, you got any tin foil there at your house?”
