FICTION

Darkness His Canopy

by LN Lewis

     You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning — yes, that living room light above her, the floor lamp beside her, her two table lamps, the kitchen light, and the light in the bathroom, too. She invokes the Holy Word, and her oven, refrigerator, and microwave intone with her: The Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones.

      The highest possible energy must be maintained. She longs to burn frankincense and myrrh, hyssop and Nag Champa, but cannot even afford candles. And here is something almost as good: water. Clean, pure, precious water. The pot seething on the stove will raise the vibration and banish the thunder at her door.

* * *

      Georgette Featherstone’s heart shuddered to a stop at 9:12 p.m. in the July heat of McHale, Illinois, U.S.A.

      By 11:49 p.m., the story had ricocheted from the national newswires to the internet, to network news, and to cable.

     At 2:27 a.m., Gwynnie Tate-Schaefer awakened, rested her hand on her sleeping husband, and then reached for her phone. She silenced the insistent chime of the app her assistant had installed and lay in the dark watching the curated feed of video extracted from AP, UPI, CNN, and Reuters.

     A news clip opened on a small, white, clapboard house with its porch light aglow. Gwynnie was reminded of a childhood cross-country drive when her family stopped in Dayton to visit relatives. Their house was also a small, wooden box whose drab interior featured Aunt Barbara’s gray sectional and a stained carpet where Gwynnie sat playing Monopoly with her cousins Tyrus and Malika.

     After the visit ended and the cousins were waving at the departing Volvo, Iris Tate turned to the backseat and whispered to her daughter, “That’s what a 4.0 means. Never having to live a in place like that.”

      An endless loop focused on a slight woman in a gauzy bathrobe lifting a sauce pan from a stove, declaring “May God have mercy on you,” and then falling.

     “May God have mercy on you,” and then falling.

     “May God have mercy on you,” and then falling.

      The woman collapsing to the kitchen floor, the thick, blue torso labeled SHERIFF, and the pairs of muscled, inked arms closing their fists around the day-glo grips, had all been recorded on, as captioned in the screen’s upper right corner, a CyEye 3.

     The phone blinked as the inevitable call from Blake Paulson came in and Gwynnie gave Blake the inevitable response. She disconnected and sat up, knowing there would be no return to sleep, glancing enviously at Jonah.  

* * *

      …My light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?

      In her doorway stands darkness, and beyond that, more darkness. A large, boxy head floats far above her, and deep set eyes aim at her. The wide mouth widens and reverberates: “What took you so long”

     Past that apparition, on the steps of her porch, another emerges. Fear stifling her, she addresses them, calling on words of protection.

     “I love you.”

* * *

     “I love you, too!” called Gwynnie. It was 6:35 a.m., the door had shut, and Jonah was probably already striding down the hall to the elevator.

      The face in the make-up table mirror beamed satisfaction as she towel-dried the short, clipped curls that she usually straightened into a sleek pixie cut. Today she was wearing her hair natural, putting  her heritage on display.  

      At 2:40 a.m., she had sat in her home office facing three monitors, the first screen playing a queue of late breaking stories on the Georgette Featherstone case, the second screen tracking Cyklops pre-market numbers, and the third screen displaying her text being sculpted into taut soundbytes. At 5:07, she celebrated her news with Jonah. By 5:30, she was sprinting on the treadmill. She cooled down doing stretches and visualizing the faces of former colleagues, old friends, and sorority sisters who had disapproved of her taking the job at Cyklops. Iris Tate had pursed her lips and shaken her head.

      “You could do so much better than that…”    

      Cyklops is a synergy of mission-driven innovators united to engineer tools to uphold safety and defend life. The Buzzz Less Lethal™ family assists in de-escalation and peacemaking, but when peacemaking fails, Buzzz™ enforces stopping power from 10 to 50 feet. The body worn CyEye™  records and transmits an audio and visual record of incidents, enhanced by communication capability between the officers in the field and at the command.

     Gwynnie leaned toward the mirror, patting Lavish Hot Chocolate foundation into her skin and followed up with the Fyx Toffee concealer. I’ve done all right. I’ve done just fine. Except for a few strands of gray that the salon touched up every two weeks, she looked the same as she did on the day she stepped off the elevator for her first interview at Cyklop’s Chicago office. A heavy-set blond receptionist assessed her, rose from her ergonomic chair, and walked her past huge placards of police officers sprinting, crouching, leaping and pointing at the CyEyes affixed to their Kevlar as they brandished Buzzzes.

      Gwynnie entered the conference room and smiled at three men in chinos and polo shirts who stood in unison to clench her hand. Over the next three Mondays, she met individually with Blake Paulson, T.J. Schoolcraft, and Chase Brooks, and on the fourth Monday, Lara in H.R. called to invite her to join the Cyklops public relations division.

     Chase was the skeptic. In the middle of a conversation, the former police commander would interrogate Gwynnie on the difference between a clip and a magazine, on what caused excited delirium, or on why North Lawndale was so violent.

      T.J. was the jokester. On the elevator, he asked Gwynnie if she wanted to hear how his daughter said the alphabet, and grinning, sang the ABC song with D.E.I., H.B.C.U., and other acronyms inserted.

     Blake was the educator. He gave her books, sent her to seminars and lectures, and arranged face-to-face meetings with law enforcement. He also listened to her ideas on how to grow relationships and manage perceptions.

     She, too, needed to “grow relationships and manage perceptions.” She went on girls’ nights outs, did drunken karaoke, choked down sugary desserts, and focused a subtle charm offensive on Mackenzie the receptionist. Mackenzie was too smart to not know that she was being wooed with daisies on her birthday and shared bars of Ghirardelli, but she was flattered nonetheless.

      Another opportunity to win allies presented itself via email: IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN. HOW CAN WE KNOW YOU ARE A BADASS IF YOU DON’T SHOW US? COME GET BATTLE TESTED IN THE GALLERY THIS FRIDAY AT 4PM. EMAIL tjschoolcraft@cyklops.com TO GET BUZZZED.

     She was chatting with Mackenzie when T.J. strolled past. “You getting buzzzed, Gwynnie?”

     “You know I am.”

     They watched T.J. round a corner, his laughter trailing after him, but Mackenzie still lowered her voice. “Do you know what battle testing is?”

     “Yeah, employees get to experience Buzzz.”

     “Get to experience?” Mackenzie shuddered.

      “Did you get battle tested?”

     Mackenzie nodded, her face grim. She whispered, “Pro tip: don’t eat or drink anything twenty-four hours before.”  

      A cold breeze swept over Gwynnie. Later in the day, she opened an email with the heading PLEASE SIGN. The attachment contained fifteen variations on risk of death, may cause death, may result in death, may cause or enable sudden death… She printed and signed the waiver absolving Cyklops of any legal responsibility and carried it to T.J.’s office. His assistant grinned at her. “You feeling okay?”

     She had walked into the job interview certain of her due diligence on Cyklops’ history, management team, market share, and profitability, and she had also read company fact sheets on their products, presuming were safe. Now, alone in her apartment, on her own laptop, she researched current, charge, and microcoulombs, which made little sense to her, and news reports of “buzzzed during a mental health crisis,” “buzzzed in restraints,” and “buzzzed in the shower, followed by cardiac arrest,” which she understood all too well.

      Why didn’t I know this?

      Because I didn’t want to.

      On Friday, in black yoga pants, a black t-shirt, and no make-up, Gwynnie arrived early. She sat at the bottom of the raked seats, close to the stage, deafened by the sound system blasting Blow Fly as employees swaggered in, head-banging, howling, and throwing up rock on hand signs. Chase, Blake, and T.J. loped on stage and showed off dance moves to wild cheering.

     “All right, all right, settle down, you Cyklops badasses” grinned T.J. “You all have seen five new faces in the office, in hallways, in the lunchroom, and probably in the head, but let’s have some formal introductions. Please stand up Avalon, Trent, Dalton, Sundar, and Gwynnie.”

    Gwynnie quickly rose and dropped back into her seat.

     “All right, my badasses, tell our esteemed FNGs, how many of you have got buzzzed?”

     The gallery roared.

     “And right now, these esteemed FNGs are going to join our illustrious band. But first, I am going to introduce Dr. Joel Farnsworth, our good friend and a cardiologist at Stanley Memorial Hospital, who’s here just to make sure we’re safe. Let’s get started. Can we have a volunteer?”

      Two hands shot up.

      “Sundar and Gwynnie! I like it. Do we need to rock, paper, scissors?”

      “Ladies first,” grinned Sundar.

      “What a gentleman! Gwynnie, come on up.”

      “Look, she’s shaking!”

      “I’m not shaking, you’re shaking,” retorted Gwynnie.

     “You got this,” whispered Blake. The type of blue, padded mat she remembered from gymnastics lay at her feet. Blake held her right bicep, Chase secured the left, and fifteen paces from her back, T.J. was raising the Buzzz.

     “Okay, on the count of three. One. Two…”

     The current drilled under her right scapula. The charge tore through her arms to her fingertips, burned down her sciatic nerves to her feet, jagged up her spine, and jittered in her heart. Her jaws wrenched open. Praying that she wasn’t screaming, she blacked out.

     Like Georgette Featherstone, her ordeal was captured on video. Unlike the McHale mother of two, she lived to find the video clip in her email inbox. A copy was probably also kept in her digital file in H.R.

     That was seven years in the past, a lifetime ago. That Gwynnie limped from her cubicle, caught a Lyft home, and nearly fell when she exited on south Kedzie. She staggered into her twenty-one hundred dollars per month studio apartment, and alone, cried herself to sleep.

     This morning, this Gwynnie faced herself in the full-length, azulejo-framed mirror that Jonah shipped home from their honeymoon in Portugal. She slid into her raw silk blazer and stepped into her Garavani sandals. Carrying her laptop bag and clutch, she shut the door of their Wicker Park condo behind her.

* * *

     You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day  

     They are inside her house, oscillating their heads and swaying on their big, block feet. The one farther away has brown hair, a long, sharp nose, and eyes that shift from the easy chair, to her counter piled with mail, canned goods, and plastic bags, to her bedroom door. The one closer to her is blond and bearded, his hands clenching and unclenching, his eyes intent. She backs away towards her kitchen, retreating from energy that is, in turns, scalding, freezing, salty, or sulfurous. Out in the darkness, the crickets scream. She busies herself at the sink praying for her children Dariel and Danila, for her father, and God rest her, for her mother. For her sisters Rachel and Nini, and her cousins Paul, Tiger, and Chris. Then she sends her petitions farther, down the length of Fremont Street to Arlington Avenue where Kush and Lareta stay. She is lifting up Trewyn Middle School, the Boys and Girls Club, the whole South Side, and all of McHale.

      A voice booms at her, ordering her to remove that pot from the stove.

* * *

 “For Opening Bell, this morning’s guest is Gwynnie Tate-Schaefer, Vice-President of Outreach for Cyklops Industries.”

      Gwynnie carefully composed herself in a swivel chair. She was gazing into a camera on a monitor in St. Stanislaus University’s tv studio. The monitor livestreamed Jud Crowder, the chiseled-chinned, ginger-haired host of Ca$h Bo$$, beaming back at her from a suite in his Manhattan production house. He moved fluidly from jovial welcome to somber intimacy.

     “We have terrible news this morning, the type of news we get all too often. Last night, a woman died in a police-related altercation in McHale, Illinois. Georgia Featherstone, who had a history of mental health issues, reportedly hurled a pot of boiling water at officers of the McHale, Illinois, Police Department, and an officer responded with a Buzzz, a less-lethal, energy weapon to restrain Ms. Featherstone. She passed away, a tragic incident that was recorded on a CyEye. Both the Buzzz and the CyEye are produced by Cyklops Industries.”

      Jud’s voice dropped to a whisper: “Gwynnie, Ms. Featherstone is—was African American, and you are also African American, an executive working for Cyklops. How does that feel?”

     “It feels…” Gwynnie focused more intently on the camera and took a deep breath. “… Devastating.” Hands clasped on desk, she slowed her speech and inserted thoughtful pauses like she had been trained in an acting seminar. “Buzzz is a less-lethal tool that has been carefully tested and retested…” She raised her manicured hands as if reaching for the most precise word. “…Meticulously calibrated to offer the greatest stopping power while inflicting the least possible pain—” She paused to remember the pain. “—But there are members of our population who simply have pre-existing conditions and physical disabilities that predispose them to—” With a slow shake of the head, she sighed helplessly. “—Unfortunate outcomes.” 

     “But after each of these incidents, law enforcement demand for Cyklops’ products skyrockets…” Jud echoed her head shake and then offered a glimmer of his famous grin. “It is now 9:29 a.m. eastern standard time, and in sixty second, it will be the ‘Opening Bell!’” The crossfade flashed to bulls, bears, a blizzard of dollars, and Khyron of the Dow Industrials, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite. Jud reappeared, eyebrows raised. “Last night Cyklops, ticker symbol CYKL, closed at $219.63 per share. This morning…” The screen glowed: CYKL $232.17 per share.

      Gwynnie’s eyes glowed as well, hinting at tears. “Yes, we are a business. Yes, we seek to create profit for our employees, our communities, and our shareholders. Yes, we always stand with our first-responders. And 24/7/365, above all—” Back at the office, T.J. would raise his fist, and Chase and Blake would high five as Gwynnie, sorrowful yet photogenic, delivered the money line: “We defend life.”

* * *

     Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

     Whenever she cannot breathe and panic threatens to drown her, she tries to summon her mother in their kitchen: mint green walls, faux marble linoleum, curtains and appliances in ivory.  Kaylene, press-and-curl hair slicked behind her ears, in straight-legs and a t-shirt or maybe just a cotton house dress, always has Grand Mary’s apron wrapped around her waist.  At the counter, Kaylene works butter and sugar into peaks and waves, asking, “Georgie, where are those eggs?” She taps the side of the blue, porcelain mixing bowl four times and then blends the batter to a deeper gold as Georgie leans into her, breathing vanilla, Jergen’s, and Kools Menthols. Kaylene sets the mixer in its stand, lifts the bowl, and offers it, loving eyes fixed on her daughter. With the same reverence, Georgette accepts it, startled by its weight and heat. The steam is scalding her and those creatures are in her living room, shape-shifting, bellowing unholy commands.

     Out of the brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth.

*

LN Lewis’ fiction has appeared in Jet Fuel, Untenured, Sundial Magazine, Wrath-Bearing Tree, KIZA BlackLit, and the anthologies Streetlights: Illuminating Tales of the Urban Black Experience and Undeniable: Writers Respond to Climate Change. Her stories “One Summer Day” and “Her Boyfriend Felipe” were nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize.