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The
The
Autobiography
- of -
F.B.I.
Special
Agent
Dale
Cooper
My Life, My Tapes
As heard by Scott Frost
Based upon characters created by
David Lynch and Mark Frost
for the Television series, 'Twin Peaks'
fear a wind is about to begin blowing, Diane, and no one knows what
will be left in its path.
February 20, 3 A.M.
Unable to sleep, have sat up all night looking out at San Francisco
Bay. Diane, if a person, as one theory goes, is chosen to live in a
particular time for one specific reason, then why am I here now? What
moment in history is my life destined to intersect with? Or has it already
happened, and I just didn't understand that that was my moment?
My mother, Marie, and Caroline. Those are the names on the
signposts past which I've traveled. But where is the next one, and
whose name will be on it? My own? Windom Earle's? Or another?
Diane, as Groucho Marx once said, "Harpo, you talk too much."
Good night, Diane.
February 24, 6 A.M.
There's been a body found in Washington state, Diane. A young
woman, wrapped in plastic. I'm headed for a little town called Twin
Peaks.
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171
November 11, 10 P.M.
Diane, heard from my father today. He is out of the hospital. The
printing shop is on the market. He sent a picture of a retired tugboat
that is for sale in Florida. Cannot seem to shake the image of my father
being swallowed by a whale.
__ Part __
1
__ Chapter __
1
November 20, 11 P.M.
A slow week, one bank robbery, a case of extortion, and one failed
kidnapping. Gave a talk at the Rotary tonight on white collar crime in
the workplace. In a nutshell, Diane, I am bored, and have not found a
way to combat this malaise. Holmes used cocaine, an alternative I find
unacceptable. What I need, what any detective needs, is a good case.
Something to test oneself to the absolute limit. To walk to the edge of
the fire and risk it all. The razor's edge. Are there any great cases
anymore, Diane? Is there a Lindbergh kidnapping, a Brinks robbery, a
John Dillinger, a Professor Moriarty? If I was to say that in my heart I
hoped there was, then I should hang up my badge and gun and retire.
As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for, you may just get it.
"I think it was Christmas 1967 when Dale got his first tape
recorder. We were both thirteen. My dad had given me one of
those model gas engine planes that fly around on control lines. I
was standing out in the middle of the street, turning around in
circles, attempting my first loop, when Dale came marching out
of his house wearing his Cub Scout backpack with this big tape
recorder stuffed inside and holding a microphone. It was one of
those reel-to-reel jobs, and he was dragging along this bright
yellow extension cord plugged into the house. He walked right
over to me and asked, given my experience in aviation, if I
thought we were going to put men on the moon within the next
year. Right then the plane's engine failed and it smacked into a
snow emergency sign. Dale got it all on tape."
February 18, 1989, 9 P.M.
Diane, I received the following letter in the mail today.
Lewis Nordine
Childhood friend
USAF, Ret.
Dear Coop,
Seems I've not quite been myself for the last several years. I
would like very much to make up for all the lost time between
us, and I think I know just the thing. A test of skill, one last
game. Me the brilliant teacher revered by all inside these dreary
powder-blue walls, and you his promising if not predictable
student. Is it a deal? . . . Good.
December 25, 1967
Testing, testing.
I will make the first move very soon.
This is me, Dale Cooper, age thirteen, currently residing at 1127
Hillcrest Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is a green house with
yellow aluminum awnings that Dad bought from Sears to keep the
fabric on the couch from fading. I am at present five feet three inches
tall, have dark hair, can high jump four feet six inches. Expect at any
Windom Earle
The ramblings of an insane man, or something much more sinister. I
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moment I will begin a growth spurt that will take me to my ideal height
of six feet. I have no sisters and one older brother named Emmet who
is in college. My room is ten by twelve feet with two windows. I have a
desk, bed, clothes chest, and a hook rug my mom made with a picture
of a deer. Only people who know the password can come in my room.
The word changes every week. This week it is Dark Passage. Above
my bed on the wall is my most important personal item, a poster of
Jimmy Stewart in the movie The FBI Story which only I can touch. I am
talking into a Norelco B2000 reel-to-reel tape-playing recorder that I
received as a Christmas present. I gave Dad a bottle of Old Spice and
a pair of Totes, and Mom a nonstick spatula set.
eternal silent place. The headmaster told me that Mr. Brumley, the
janitor who caught me taping the sex education class, won fifty
thousand dollars in Atlantic City and retired.
All that existed that made this place mine is gone. The people, the
buildings, the sounds and smells. What's left no longer belongs to me.
I'm a time traveler, slipping in and out like an archaeologist, hoping I
will find clues to forgotten secrets, or guideposts to future destinations.
I find neither. You can no more hold the past in your hand than you can
see tomorrow.
Only the graveyard remains unchanged. There may be a few more
stones. The grass less green. The visitors older. It matters not to the
residents. Theirs is the only truth. What we do up here, our problems,
the victories, the loves, hates, lies, truths, and promises, are fleeting. It
must be quite a show. The little glass pyramid on Marie's grave is
gone. I hope that whoever has it now had better luck with it than the
two of us did.
I am in the eighth grade at Germantown Friends School which is run
by the Quakers. Dad says that we are not Quakers, but that if we were
to be a religion, he would consider them right up there with the
Unitarians because of what they do with their minds. Dad is what he
calls a free thinker. Last night he had us walk around the spruce tree in
the front yard while holding candles because he thinks the churches
have stolen Christmas. Mom calls him lazy with God because he had a
bad experience in church when he was a boy. He is the owner of
Cooper's Offset Printing on Germantown Road. There is a picture of
Benjamin Franklin, who is one of Dad's heroes, above the door of the
printing shop. When they gave me the tape recorder last night, Dad put
the microphone in my hand and looked at me very seriously and said
that this was the future and that he and everything he represents was a
dinosaur. I asked Mom what he meant and she said it was the eggnog.
Dad then read a page from The Grapes of Wrath and Christmas was
over.
My father has recovered, though he was frighteningly close to death.
He has a faulty valve in his heart. He told me this afternoon that when
he is discharged from the hospital, he and Shamrock will sell the
printing shop and leave Philadelphia. He said something about looking
for a boat. I hope he finds one that doesn't leak.
Tomorrow I'll visit the place where we placed my mother's ashes in
the stream. After that I don't think I'll return to this part of the country.
There's nothing here for me anymore.
The machine is getting hot now. I think I will stop.
I don't think I've ever told you this, Diane, but in 1970 my father
discovered a new crater on the moon. It's called Cooper's Crater, and
you can just see it on the edge of the dark side's shadow.
December 25, 2 P.M.
Dad has just plugged me into the wall socket next to the aquarium
with the extension cord from the basement and I am now making my
first trip out of the house with the recorder strapped into my scout pack.
Mom is now opening the door, I'm stepping through, and am now on
the porch. . . . You may now close the door! . . . The door is closed, I
am on my own. just me, the recorder, and the extension cord, which I
will call the tether of life. One step too far and I will lose all power.
September 27, 3 P.M.
Diane, the Civil Corps of Engineers is a menace to the spiritual life of
this country. I am now standing on the shore of a large algae-infested
slew that was once the quiet little stream my mother drifted out to sea
in. The bastards built a dam.
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July 24, 4 P.M.
Looking around from this position, I can see almost the entire street.
The Nordines' house, the Schlurmans'. I'm moving off the porch now. In
the street Lewis Nordine is flying a model airplane on a set of control
lines. Unknown to him, his big brother Jim appears to be shooting at
the plane with a BB gun from their attic window. I'm going to try and
reach Lewis and warn him of his brother, though I must try not to attract
too much attention. I've tangled with Lewis's brother before and . . . uh-
oh, I believe he's seen the tether of life. I'm going to try to make it back
to the porch. I believe the sound I just heard was Lewis's plane hitting
the street sign. A BB just hit our mailbox, I'm almost to the porch . . .
Dad!
Had hoped to find my brother while north of the border but was too
late. He is now in South America. I have not seen Emmet in over
twenty years, Diane. I fear we are now strangers. I wish it were
otherwise, but we have each chosen a different path.
August 5, 9 P.M.
Diane there is nothing quite as rewarding as returning home from an
adventure. I don't know if this is a cultural difference or whether our
Canadian neighbors just like sugar, but I ate some damn good pies. If
you ever happen to be in Flin Flon, stop at the Florida Café for a piece
of strawberry mousse pie.
December 25, 9 P.M.
Believe the extension cord has some severe limitations. One, I
cannot travel more than seventy-five feet from the house, which will
limit my investigations. Two, it draws attention to itself in a way that can
be dangerous. I think a battery pack of some kind is the solution, and
tomorrow will visit Simms' Hardware to find the answer. Dad said that
words are tools, and that tools should be taken care of or else you
won't drive a straight nail. Dad says a lot of things I don't understand.
September 24, 4 P.M.
Diane, I'm heading to Philadelphia. My father is ill. I will check back
in when I am better able to assess his condition.
September 26, 1 A.M.
This is the end of Christmas Day. My presents this year were the
following: underwear, socks, corduroy pants, insect field guide, five
dollars from my grandmother, and a Norelco B2000 tape recorder,
which is not a toy. Signing off, this is Dale Cooper.
Diane, I've spent the last several hours wandering the streets where
I grew up. So much has changed. Duva's is closed, the Band Box
Theater was lost to a fire. I saw Bonnie and Clyde there. I think I was
the only person in the audience who was cheering for the G-men.
December 26, 3 P.M.
Old man Simms and the hardware store are both gone. He died a
number of years ago and his son sold the business shortly thereafter.
Even the 24th Street gang isn't the same. They now carry guns.
Have just returned from Simms' Hardware with set of batteries.
According to Mr. Simms, who is a ham radio operator and talks to
Germany at night because he was there during the war and lost a foot,
each battery will last three hours. I bought three with the money my
grandmother sent, which she thinks I am putting aside for college.
Our old house has been torn down to build a parking lot for a fried
chicken restaurant. All that is left are the concrete steps that used to
lead to the front door, and a couple pieces of the awnings.
On my return from Simms', I made the following discoveries: Lewis's
father discovered BB holes in the wings of the wrecked plane and
grounded Lewis's brother. Bradley Schlurman received a new bike, a
gold Stingray with a ribbed banana seat and a knobby rear tire. And his
sister got new shoes that were supposed to make her a better dancer.
The Schlurmans moved away several years after Marie died. I don't
know what happened to her bean bag chair. The school is still the
same. I sat in the meeting hall for several hours this afternoon. An
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