Set This House in Order (41 page)

“—and woke up in the fucking hospital?”

“No, actually; I woke up at home, with a hangover. I've never figured out who, but I'm pretty sure one of the others sabotaged me, emptied out the
pill capsules and refilled them with flour. I was constipated for days afterwards, but I didn't die. So next I tried hanging myself, but the knots kept slipping—and then before I could come up with a third alternative, I went to sleep, for a very long time. I didn't get out again until we were in Seattle, in therapy with Dr. Grey.”

“Hmmph,” Maledicta grunts, not sure what to say. She leans down over the pool table, and breaks; a few balls bounce around the edge of the pockets, but nothing goes in. “Fuck.”

“So what about you?” Sam asks. “Did you ever have a sweetheart?”

“Me?” Maledicta laughs. “Nah. Fucking's not my department.” Sam starts to look put out again, so Maledicta adds: “Or romance, either…in case you haven't noticed, I'm a fucking antisocial.” She nods at the table. “Your shot.”

They play two games. Sam's not kidding about having a knack; in the first game, she kicks Maledicta's ass. For the second game, Maledicta lets Malefica handle all the hard shots, and ekes out a narrow victory.

While they are playing, Maledicta drinks her beer, and Sam's too; she also splits a double vodka with Malefica. By the time she sinks the eight ball in the second game, she needs to pee again. She tells Sam to hang out for a minute and heads back to the john.

When Maledicta returns to the barroom, Sam isn't at the pool table anymore. She's sitting at the bar, watching TV with the old drunk. She's laughing.

Or
somebody's
laughing—Maledicta has heard Sam's laugh, and this isn't it. Sam's laugh is low and raspy, almost a wheeze; this laugh—actually more of a cackle—is high-pitched, clear, and very loud. A little kid's laugh, in other words. The body language is a little kid's too: rocking dangerously on the bar stool, clutching her (or his) stomach, pointing, knee-slapping.

Maledicta looks up at the TV. Cartoon time's over; the show now playing is
Young Frankenstein,
that stupid fucking Mel Brooks monster-movie parody. Gene Wilder as Frankenstein has just been met at the Transylvania train station by Marty Feldman's Igor. “Walk this way,” Feldman says; when Wilder imitates his hunchbacked limp, Andrew's inner child nearly shits himself with glee.

Then Wilder looks into the back of Igor's hay wagon and discovers Terri Garr, playing Inge, the lab assistant with big tits. “Would you like to have a roll in the hay?” she asks. Andrew's laugh shifts to a more adolescent register; keeping his eyes fixed on Garr's cleavage, he picks up a mug from the counter in front of him and starts to drink out of it, only to gag when he realizes the mug contains milk, not beer. “Bartender!” he calls.

But before he can place a new order, another moronic pun, this one concerning werewolves—“Where wolf? Where wolf?”—brings out the little kid again. “
There
wolf!” he hoots. He slaps his knee, leans over a little too far on the stool, and goes crashing to the floor.

“Hey,” Maledicta says, as he's picking himself up. “Hey Sam, are you still in there?”

“Pou eimaste? Ti—”

“Speak fucking English. And get Sam back out here—we've still got a fucking tiebreaker to play.”

He blinks, and switches—to Andrew. “Penny?” Andrew says, confused.

“Fuck.” Party's over. Maledicta is so annoyed that she jumps back down in the cave, drags Mouse out of storage, and kicks her out front without bothering to bring her up to speed on what's happened. Mouse comes out gasping. Her last memory is of the TV in the motel room, and now, as she reawakens, her eyes naturally gravitate to the set above the bar; she wonders how it ended up hanging from the ceiling, and what new perversion is on display that can only be shown in black-and-white.

“Maledicta?” Andrew says, still a step behind.

“Andrew?” says Mouse.

“Penny,” says Andrew.

And then, in unison: “Where are we?”

“You're on the planet Mongo,” says the old drunk. “I'm Flash Gordon, and this ugly fellow”—he gestures towards the bartender—“is Ming the Merciless.”

The bartender, playing along, grabs an empty beer mug and holds it up in a mock salute.

“Welcome to our galaxy,” he says. “Would you like some more milk?”

We couldn't get the door open.

Upon landing at the boat dock, my father and I went straight back to the house (although we walked back rather than just
being
there). My recollection of the door beneath the stairs got clearer the closer we got; but at the same time I wondered whether this wasn't some trick of Gideon's, a false memory that he'd somehow infected us with, so that even up to the last second I wasn't sure the door would actually be there.

It was there, though. And it was in plain view: not hidden in shadow but set prominently into the side of the staircase, impossible to miss.

“The earthquake must have affected it,” I mused. “I mean, if it was always this obvious I can't see how we overlooked it…but we must have known it was here in order to count it…” I looked at my father, troubled that he wasn't saying anything. “You're
sure
you never put in a basement, or maybe just a big storage closet?”

“I think I'd know if I did, Andrew.”

“I'd think you'd know, too,” I replied. “But you didn't know about Xavier…”

Having confirmed the door's existence, we stood in front of it for a long time before trying to go through it. I surprised myself by being the first to actually touch it—I expected my father to take the initiative, but a paralysis seemed to have gripped him, and as the minutes passed I realized that we could be standing here all day if I waited for him to make the first move. So I steeled myself for a possible shock, reached out, and closed my hand around the knob.

It wouldn't move. I don't just mean that it wouldn't turn—I couldn't even rattle it. And the door itself was equally immovable, as though it were not a door at all but a marble statue of a door, cleverly painted to resemble the real thing. “I can't budge it,” I said, stepping back. “You try.”

At first I thought he wasn't going to, but then he roused himself. The knob wouldn't turn for him either, and the door remained solidly closed.

I fell back to musing. “Could it be that there's
nothing
behind it?” I said. “Could it just be some kind of a trick, that Gideon—”

The house's front door banged open, and Aunt Sam came in. She had an expression on her face that usually signifies she's been squabbling with Adam or Jake, but instead of complaining to my father and I, she avoided us, heading upstairs without a word. In her wake I caught the faintest suggestion of cigarette smoke—less a smell than a thought. That should have been a clue that something was up, but I was too preoccupied to pay attention.

“So what do you think?” I said, turning back to the mystery door. “
Is
it a trick?”

Before my father could answer I felt a gust of air from below, and heard a crackle of paper. I looked down and saw the corner of a page sticking out from under the door, fluttering in a draft.

This time my father acted first, stooping and grabbing up the paper—it was actually two sheets, folded in half and stapled along the seam to form a slim pamphlet—while I was still puzzling over what it could be. He held the pamphlet in a way that made it hard for me to see, but I could make out the image of a cross on the cover, and the words
IN MEMORIAM
.

“What is it?” I tried to reach for the pamphlet, to tilt it down so I could see what was written inside, but my father held it away from me. As he leafed through it, I got the impression that he wasn't reading the pamphlet so much as examining it, as though he'd seen it before and was just verifying that it was what he remembered it to be.

“Father,” I said. “What is it?”

“In the boat,” my father said, “you asked if there was anything else that I hadn't told you. And there is something—”

The front door banged open again. Adam stumbled in. Jake was right behind him, moving like the devil was at his heels; he sprang past Adam and charged up the stairs to his room.

“What—?” I started to say. Then from outside there came a warning cry.

“Seferis,” my father said. “Trouble with the body.”

I was already moving. I flew out the front door and up the column of light, emerging into a scene that was more mystifying than threatening. Somehow the body had been transported from the motel room to a saloon. Penny was in the saloon too, looking confused. There were also two strange men, who were no help at all getting us reoriented.

Penny and I got out of there as quickly as we could (one of the men, the one behind the saloon's bar counter, insisted I owed him a dollar for “moo juice,” and I paid, even though I had no idea what he was talking about). Fortunately it turned out we hadn't traveled far from the motel; as soon as we stepped outside I saw the Motor Lodge's neon sign just up the road.

“I'm sorry,” Penny said, after we'd located her car.

“Sorry for what? Do you know what just happened?”

She told me what she remembered: she'd been watching over my body, and had just stepped into the bathroom to wash her hands when somebody woke up and turned on the television. “To an X-rated channel,” she said, her cheeks coloring. “And then you, whoever it was, said that I looked like…like one of the people in the movie that was playing. And after that…I don't really know how we got here.”

Adam,
I thought, inwardly furious. “Well then,” I told Penny, “I'm the one who should apologize to you.”

“What happened inside?” Penny asked, eager to change the subject. “Did you find out what you needed to?”

“Not enough,” I said. “I'm going to have to go back in—don't worry, not right away. Later. And next time, I won't ask you to body-sit.”

“No, it's all right,” Penny said. “Just…maybe next time, we can unplug the TV.”

The smell of vodka in the Centurion reminded me of something; I cupped a hand over my mouth and sniffed my own breath to see whether I'd been drinking. My breath smelled like…milk.

“Moo juice,” I said.

“What?” said Penny.

“Nothing,” I said. Then: “Do you ever get used to it? Waking up in weird situations, not knowing what the heck is going on?”

“I don't know,” said Penny. “I mean, that's normal for me. I never had to get used to it.”

I looked over at her. “You know I really am sorry, Penny.”

“For what?”

“When Julie first suggested I help you…when you asked me for help…I almost said no. I
tried
to say no.”

“That's all right. I tried to say no too, remember? Anyway, you did say yes.”

“Yes, but…” But only because Julie wanted me to; I guessed I could be honest with myself about that now. “I'm sorry I didn't say yes sooner.”

We were back in the motel parking lot now. We didn't go into the room
right away, but stayed sitting in the car, too tired to move. Actually, I think Penny was more than just tired; her breath
didn't
smell like milk.

“So are we going back home now?” Penny said. She was asking out of curiosity, but I heard it as something more than that.

“You should go back, definitely,” I told her, trying to sound encouraging.

“No.” Penny shook her head. “It's not that I'm in a
hurry
to go back, I just wanted to know. If you still want to go on to Michigan, to see…to find out…”

To see what had happened to the stepfather. To find out whether Xavier Reyes had exterminated him.

“…or maybe somewhere else,” Penny continued. “If that's what you want to do, I don't mind taking you.”

“I think,” I said, rubbing my eyes, “I think I want to take a hot shower. And then maybe get some food, and try calling Mrs. Winslow again. And then, then I'll decide…is that OK?”

Penny nodded. “I think I'll wait out here while you take your shower, though,” she said.

“Sure.” I smiled. “I'll take care of the TV, too, while I'm in there.”

The door to the motel room was unlocked, and inside the television was still on, still tuned to the sex channel. “Adam,” I said, exasperated. I didn't actually unplug the TV, but I did turn it off, and I also hid the remote control. Then I got undressed and went into the shower. I stood under the hot spray a long time, barely moving.

I found myself thinking about Billy Milligan.

Probably you've at least heard his name; though not quite as famous as Sybil or Eve White, he's one of the better-known MPD cases. Billy Milligan was a small-time drug dealer and thief who was arrested in 1977 for the kidnapping, robbery, and rape of three women. He pled not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming that the crimes had been committed by other souls over whom he, Billy, had no control. After four different psychiatrists—including Cornelia Wilbur, Sybil's doctor—testified on his behalf, the court accepted the insanity defense.

He spent the next thirteen years in a succession of state mental hospitals. In 1991 he was pronounced “cured” and released. Then in 1996 he was arrested again, this time for allegedly threatening a judge. That story made the news in Seattle, and piqued Julie's curiosity. She wound up borrowing my father's copy of
The Minds of Billy Milligan.

“Wow,” Julie said, a few days later. “This is a really fascinating case.”

“I suppose,” I replied, without much enthusiasm.

“What?” said Julie. “You're not impressed?”

“Impressed? That's a funny word to use. He raped three people, Julie.”

“Well, yes and no.”

“Mostly yes—especially from the point of view of the women who got raped.”

“You think he faked being multiple?”

“No,” I said. “I mean it's hard to know for sure just from reading a book, but I believe he probably was—is—a multiple personality. The court thought so. But he was also a rapist.”

“Only part of him, though. Billy Milligan—the
soul
called Billy—was innocent.”

“Well just because he's innocent doesn't mean he's not responsible,” I said. I quoted my father: “When you're in charge of a household, you're accountable for the actions of every soul in that household, even if they do things you would never do yourself.”

“But at the time the rapes took place,” Julie argued, “Billy Milligan wasn't in charge. It sounds like nobody was—his household was in chaos.”

“Which is not very impressive.”

“Jesus, Andrew. I didn't mean—why are you being so weird about this?”

“I'm not being weird,” I said. “I just don't think Billy Milligan is a credit to multiples everywhere. He's like…the O.J. Simpson of the MPD community.”

Julie laughed at that. “Still,” she said, “it's not like he got off scot-free. And don't you think a hospital was really a better place for him than jail?”

“I think wherever they lock you up, thirteen years isn't enough time for raping somebody…or for allowing somebody to be raped.”

Julie looked thoughtful. “What would you have done?”

“If I was in charge of Billy Milligan's case?”

“No,” Julie said, “if you
were
Billy Milligan.”

“Excuse me?”

“Suppose you found out that one of your other souls had…well, let's not say raped somebody, something less vile, like bank robbery…”

“Bank robbery?”

“Yeah. Suppose—”

“I'm not going to rob a bank, Julie.”

“Not
you.
Another soul.”

“Nobody else in the house is going to rob a bank either. If anybody even tried something like that, my father would send them to the pumpkin field.”

“Well let's say it happened back before the house was built,” Julie per
sisted, “and you only just found out about it. Let's say you come across an, I don't know, a storage locker that belonged to some other soul before you were even born. You open it up, and inside you find a sack of money labeled ‘Property of the First National Bank.' And there's also a gun, and a Ronald Reagan mask…”

“A Ronald Reagan mask?”

“…or whatever kind of mask fashionable bank robbers were wearing ten years ago. You find all this, plus conclusive evidence that it was you—your body—that originally stashed the stuff in the locker. What would you do?”

“This is not something that would ever happen, Julie.”

“I'm not saying that it is—it's a hypothetical. But what would you do?”

I shrugged. “Call the police, I guess. Tell them what I'd found.”

“Just like that?”

“What else could I do?”

“You'd just turn yourself in…”

“Well, I wouldn't necessarily be turning myself in. I mean, there
might
be another explanation…but of course I'd have to tell the police about it, if I really thought the money was stolen.”

“So you'd just throw yourself on the mercy of the cops. No hesitation.”

“I'd accept responsibility for the body's actions. I might not want to—maybe I
would
hesitate, a little—but ultimately I'd have no choice. It's my job.”

Julie was skeptical. “I don't know,” she said. “That sounds very noble, but I think it's also pretty naive, expecting the police to treat you fairly just because you're straight with them. And if you were really facing prosecution for bank robbery—”

“But I'm not really facing it,” I said, annoyed. “It's a hypothetical. And if you can hypothesize guns and Ronald Reagan masks, I can hypothesize living up to my obligations.”

“Well that's another interesting question. How can you ever be certain it is just a hypothetical?”

“Julie—” I was starting to get mad now.

“I don't think you
did
rob a bank. I'd be very, very surprised if that were really true. But how can you be a hundred percent sure that, back before the house was built—”