The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper

by Mark Frost

  March 10, 7 P.M.

  Am moving south of the park through the heart of the city. Have not felt threatened in any way since leaving the park. Could it be that the park represents the primitive beast that is inside all of us? My experience in the Boy Scouts certainly echoes the fact that modern man loses control when set free in a primitive environment. Am beginning to think that the controlled chaos that I see around me now in the streets is much more orderly than nature unchained.

  March 10, 9 P.M.

  My wallet is gone. I do not know where I am. Believe I am being hunted by an undetermined number of outlaws seeking to do my body great harm. Was attacked several moments after buying a hot dog from a street vendor. Managed to save the tape recorder but am certain that they are still on my trail. Suffered a minor head wound resulting in a small loss of blood and a great deal of homesickness. Why is it you can never find a policeman when you need one? I must keep moving.

  March 10, 11 P.M.

  Have taken shelter in the loft of a woman who seems to be some kind of an artist. Everything is black. The walls, her paintings, her clothes, her refrigerator.

  March 11, 12 A.M.

  Was going to remain here until daylight but Lazer's (the artist) lover showed up and got quite angry that she had taken up with another painter. I attempted to explain that I was not a painter and he accused me of being a performance artist and attacked me with a canvas stretcher. I managed to elude him without any serious damage, but it became dear that it was time to move on. Am now searching for a policeman. Believe I am also lost and that civilization as we know it is quite doomed. Think I may reconsider my major in anthropology.

  March 11, 1:30 A.M.

  Seem to have found myself in the middle of a large street celebration. Several hundred people are milling about singing and waving banners in the air. I see a policeman. The ordeal is over.

  March 11, 2 A.M.

  It should be noted that the difference between a street celebration and a protest may appear small on the surface. However, when one is approaching a mounted policeman to ask for assistance, I would advise the questioner to be sure of the intentions of the group surrounding him.

  As the words "I've been robbed" left my mouth, a column of mounted policemen charged toward me without any intention of offering assistance at all.

  I now find myself sitting in a large cell surrounded by dozens of bearded and sandaled protesters who did not take kindly at all to the charge of the mounted policemen. Am getting the distinct impression from the way the group looks at my black suit that they do not consider me one of their own. I am, however, safe and expect when it is my turn to be booked that I will be able to explain myself to the judge.

  March 11, 7 A.M.

  The judge suggested that I go back to Philadelphia and stay the hell out of New York. Seems like solid advice. Have concluded that any attempt to understand the human condition through the streets of this city is a hopeless endeavor.

  A few thoughts on the hours spent behind bars. Never have I experienced such camaraderie as I did with my fellow prisoners during those hours we spent incarcerated. While it did take some time to convince my cellmates that I was not an informer, once the suspicions melted away, many fruitful hours were spent together singing traditional songs of protest, practicing yoga, and plotting the overthrow of our constitutionally led government, a move that I argued was extreme in design given that they had just failed in their attempt to take over a small coffee house in Chelsea.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  "Dale first came to me as a student in a class I teach called Visual Information Processing. It deals with the acquiring, storing, and processing of visual information in memory. Never have I had a student who possessed the raw visualization skills that Dale had.

  "From there he took Thinking 3005, My Mind, Your Mind 4001, and Why We Forget 4002. It is my firm belief that he could have gone on to become a brilliant psychologist if he hadn't taken that internship at the county hospital studying lunatic behavior in average people.

  "From there, the hospital, that is, it would have been a small step into a long and brilliant academic career. But something caught his attention there that forever changed his life."

  Margaret Hastings

  Professor

  March 15, 7 P.M.

  Have taken an internship at the county hospital to assist in a study of average people who have gone mad. Think this is a great opportunity to look deep into the minds of individuals living their own worst nightmares. Day one is tomorrow.

  March 16, 10 A.M.

  Find myself hesitant as I stand before this infirmary. Memories of my mother's death flood my mind. What will I find in there? What is it that I am looking for? Is it true that as a species we are drawn to that one thing that most terrifies and confounds us? I am most excited. But if what I have just said is true, then I am not looking at a hospital. I am standing on the edge of the abyss.

  March 16, 12 P.M.

  Have met Dr. Perkins, the professor leading the study. He appears to be a serious man of great intensity with a liking for gumdrops. The first patient we will be observing is a former mailman who, while delivering his mail, began to believe that his letter bag was full of disembodied voices asking for his help. He was found hiding under a bridge, where he had attempted to silence the voices by stuffing mud and rocks in his ears. I will call him Allen, though all names have been changed to protect the innocent.

  March 16, 2 P.M.

  Have just spent an hour with Allen. On the surface he seems as sane as anyone. He became very agitated when one of the other assistants asked him about zip codes and began banging the side of his head against the table to keep the voices quiet. He is forty-three, married, and has two children. Little in the rest of his life points to what snapped in his mind.

  March 16, 4 P.M.

  Met the second subject of the study. She is nineteen, a student, and in every way a very beautiful young woman. She believes she is possessed by the devil. If it is true the evil I believe exists is a real and palatable force in the world, then this poor creature I am looking at is a living, breathing victim of it.

  March 17, 10 A.M.

  Am going to try to gain the trust of the study subject who I will call Betty.

  March 17, 12 P.M.

  Have spent the last two hours with Betty. She showed me her scars and talked of how the world was going to burn. She seems to accept me, though she believes I am an avenging angel who has been sent to destroy her.

  March 17, 1 P.M.

  Had a quiet lunch of Jell-O with Betty. She seemed to enjoy the sugar a great deal.

  March 17, 3 P.M.

  Finished my day with Betty, all seemed quiet.

  March 18, 1 A.M.

  Received a call from Dr. Perkins to meet her at the hospital. Upon arrival I was informed that Betty had somehow gotten a knife and was holding it to the throat of an orderly. She then asked to see me, and the doctor seemed to think that I would be the best one to attempt to talk her out of it. I am now preparing to enter the room. My palms are sweating. I am not at all sure that I am prepared for this. Armed policemen are at the ready to act if necessary.

  March 18, 1:10 A.M.

  Shots have been fired, shots have been fired. I counted two . . . maybe three . . . two, I think.

  March 18, 1:20 A.M.

  It is not clear what happened yet. Betty suffered wounds. The orderly is unhurt. As she was being wheeled out I could hear Betty saying "I'm free." What does that mean? I wonder.

  March 18, 2 P.M.

  The mind is the most unknown frontier. It seems strange that we have explored so many physical wonders in and out of this world and yet we cannot penetrate our own minds.

  As I understand it, Betty has died from her wounds. What was it that she was feeling when she said "I'm free"? Was it the same presence that I sensed when I found the murdered woman? Is there a beast? I do not know, and how does one fight it?

  March 29, 4
P.M.

  Have been attempting to concentrate on studies. Test scores are good. Personal morale high. Still trying to sort out the nature of the illness that affected Betty. Have found no satisfactory answers to this question. This may be the greatest puzzle I have and will ever face.

  Howard has suggested that I get out and go to a rock concert with him. Having never been to one, I decided to take him up on the opportunity. Have the distinct impression that Howard has plans to chemically alter his mind. Should also note that I believe President Nixon is conspiring in a cover-up and that the path he has taken can lead only to impeachment.

  March 30, 2 A.M.

  I am looking into a mirror as I talk to make sure my mouth is moving because I apparently have lost the ability to hear. Believe Howard had an out-of-body experience, at least his driving on the way home gave that impression.

  April 4, 1 P.M.

  There are two things I believe my life is beginning to point toward and focus on. The existence of good. And that of evil. These appear to be the two most important fundamental questions affecting daily life. The question, then, is how does one engage these two opposing forces? Evil is something that I seem to have had no trouble at all engaging. Good, and the form it takes, is a more elusive quest.

  April 6, 2 P.M.

  Spring . . . Nothing can buoy the spirit as the fresh buds of trees. A skirt blowing in a gentle breeze. The pursuit of love. I find that I am enormously horny. The pursuit of good, when combined with raging hormones, is a powerful force indeed. I would very much like to walk hand in hand with a beautiful woman who I am deeply in love with. Lie in the grass and talk of everyday things as if they were happening only to us. Look across a candlelit table at eyes reflecting every emotion in the dictionary. I think of the moments spent with Andy and can't help but feel they were not at all what they could have been if we had been deeply in love. On the other hand, they were passionate in the extreme and provided a wonderful learning opportunity for someone with limited tactical experience. The test now is to find that one person. An age-old question that no one ever seems to have the answer to.

  April 15, 11 P.M.

  Howard seems to have found love. I let him use my rooms for most of the afternoon for a liaison with an accounting major from Bryn Mawr. Meanwhile I drink enormous amounts of coffee and read up on average people going insane.

  May 1, 12 A.M.

  The pagan rituals and rites of spring have a logic that no religion seems to have understood. A May Day celebration took place at Bryn Mawr today. Young women in robes crowned with garlands of flowers celebrating the coming of new growth merrily danced around tall poles decorated with brightly colored streamers.

  Couples seemed to pair up as naturally as forest creatures. The dancing seemed to build in intensity. Someone started to bang a drum and sing. Groups of people began to shed their clothes and proclaim that they were free. The campus police moved in and changed their minds. Though I found their arguments lacking any compelling reason other than misdemeanor law, I soon complied with the rest of the dancers.

  Have never before danced naked with a large group of strangers. I, in general, would endorse it as an icebreaker to the shy and reserved of the world. I met several very nice women who wrote their phone numbers on my thigh with a Magic Marker. Though it is strange that I don't seem to remember what any of them looked like naked. Where was it, I wonder, that I was looking? I seem to remember a breast here, a knee there, a foot, a shoulder, a neck. But none of them seem to add up to one entire body.

  May 18, 9 A.M.

  Have an opportunity to attend an autopsy at a local medical school. Jumped at the chance. Leaving in minutes.

  May 18, 11 A.M.

  Am seated in a gallery above an operating theater. Around me are a number of medical students. We look down on a male cadaver of approximately thirty years of age, no visible signs that would point to the cause of death.

  The doctor is now opening the victim with a long incision beginning at the top of the sternum and proceeding down to the groin area. He has taken out what appear to be garden clippers and is cutting the sternum; the sound of bone snapping is not unlike that of a lobster claw being opened up. A student just passed . . . put pressure on the cut . . . no, I am not a doctor . . . it is just my opinion, but there seems little hope that you will ever be one either if you tie that around the neck.

  May 18, 11:32 A.M.

  The autopsy is continuing. The doctor has opened and folded back the torso, exposing a magical, if slightly repulsive, sight. The jumble of multicolored soft tissue is the machine we call the human body.

  The doctor is moving to the subject's head. A small electrical saw is beginning to cut into the skull, moving around in a halo pattern just above the ear. The saw rounds the back of the head; the faint odor of bone can be detected. There it is. The doctor has Lifted the top of the skull off like the lid of a jar. The brain sits like an egg in the shell. The many folds of tissue swirl around the two hemispheres. What secrets they must hold. And what is it that gives one brain genius, another insanity, and one life and the other death? I have never witnessed anything like this before.

  May 20, 3 A.M.

  A strange man stands outside of my building, looking up at my window. He appears to be painted blue. Am not sure what it is that he wants.

  May 20, 3:30 A.M.

  A thorough search outside produced no blue man and no evidence that he was ever there. I wonder what he wanted. The end of the year is approaching, summer is ahead. Dad has decided to marry the potter in Las Vegas and has asked me to come to be his best man. Would not miss it.

  It was job day on campus. Picked up brochures from the Peace Corps, and FBI.

  June 12, 10 P.M.

  Las Vegas. The wedding will be tomorrow morning in the little red chapel. Dad and Charlotte are presently taking in a show called "Nudes on Ice." Am not sure what it is the nudes do on ice, but Dad has very fond memories of taking me to the Ice Capades when I was small, so he could not pass it up.

  Think I will take in one of the many opportunities to gamble. The training I received from Uncle Al when I was small should come in very handy.

  June 13, 1 A.M.

  For some reason, the management of the casinos has asked me not to come back to their tables ever again. They seem to be under the impression that the technique of card counting is a form of cheating and were in no mood to accept my argument that it was a simple form of mathematics.

  I will give the two thousand dollars I won to Dad and Charlotte as a wedding present.

  June 13, 1 P.M.

  The little red chapel. A small red building surrounded by stones and fake grass. Our party followed one of a young pregnant woman and a sailor with both hands in casts.

  The ceremony was presided over by the honorable L. B. Johnson. An aged man and his enormous wife who charged fifty cents for every Polaroid she took of the happy couple. Dad got three. I then paid for the ceremony and tipped L. B. a little extra for the record of the organ music. The happy couple took off for Reno, where they expect to spend several days digging for red clay and gambling.

  Believe I will spend the rest of the day at Hoover Dam.

  June 13, 3 P.M.

  J. Edgar would be proud to be associated with such a large, immovable structure as this dam, holding back the progress of this mighty river.

  June 15, 11 P.M.

  Back at Haverford. Am undertaking a number of independent projects the rest of the summer which would allow me to graduate early. Interesting note. Saw the blue man outside my window again last night.

  July 1, 3 A.M.

  Woke in the middle of the night with a terrible sense of loss. Am not sure, but I wonder if it could be connected to the fact that my old bedroom at my father's house has been turned into a pottery studio by Charlotte.

  July 5, 12 A.M.

  My sense of isolation became overwhelming earlier in the evening. I cannot help but remember that it was on this day that Marie and I w
atched fireworks. The boom of the rockets overhead only increases my sense that a soul alone will forever be restless. Not even a large piece of pie and a cup of coffee down at the Lunch Pal restaurant could lift this fog. Studies seem of little use. Need a change.