Set This House in Order

by Matt Ruff

“No,” my father admitted. “He thought I was making a mistake.”

  Which would technically make my whole existence a mistake—but I didn’t care to dwell on the implications of that. Instead I asked: “How come you never told me this before?”

  “I didn’t think you needed to know it.”

  “Was there anything else I didn’t need to know?”

  No answer. I took that as a yes.

  “Gideon asked me a funny question right before we left,” I said, a few moments later.

  “What question?”

  “He wanted to know how many doors there are on the ground floor of the house.”

  “Three,” my father said. “Front door and back door.”

  “Yes, that’s what I told him. Only…that doesn’t really add up, does it?”

  My father looked at me curiously. I had to count it out, holding up fingers: “Front door is one…back door is two…”

  “Right.”

  “Right, but then what’s three?”

  “Three is the front—…no. No, three is…it’s…”

  “I don’t know either,” I said. “I know there are three, but—”

  “Wait,” my father said. “Wait. Three is…the door under the stairs! Right, that’s it!”

  “The door under the stairs.” I struggled to picture it, and finally it came to me: a small wooden door, in the shadows beneath the staircase that ran up from the common room to the second-floor gallery. “Right, OK…and where does that door lead to, again?”

  “Where…? It leads…it leads to…” He blinked, and fell silent.

  “By any chance,” I asked next, “does the house have a basement?”

  EIGHTH BOOK: LAKE VIEW

  22

  Andrew said that while he was inside, it would look like he was sleeping, but to Mouse it seems more like he’s comatose: his breathing is so slow it’s almost undetectable, and he doesn’t move at all. When Mouse tiptoes up to the side of the bed to take a closer look at him, she notices that beneath their closed lids, even his eyeballs are still, with none of the rapid motion that signals a dream in progress.

  As she waits for Andrew to come back from where he’s gone, she becomes increasingly fidgety. She tries sitting in the chair but can’t get comfortable. She stands up, goes to the window, and looks out at the parking lot for a while; gets bored with that, wanders over to the door, and does a Xavier impersonation, using the handle of the letter opener to whap out a rhythm against the side of the doorframe; gets bored with that, and goes back to the window. Except for the one check to make sure Andrew is really still breathing, she stays clear of the bed.

  Time passes. Mouse thinks it’s been at least half an hour, but when she checks the clock on the nightstand, only ten minutes have gone by. Mouse decides she needs to pee.

  She goes into the bathroom. She leaves the door open a crack, enough to hear through but not enough to see in or out. She sits.

  While she goes about her business, she reflects on what will happen after Andrew wakes up. He has said nothing about his intentions—whether he means to return to Washington, or continue on to Michigan, or do some other thing. Probably he doesn’t know himself yet what he wants to do.

  Mouse tells herself that she would like to go home, but as she continues to think about it, she finds that she isn’t so sure. For one thing, Maledicta’s behavior in the bar on Tuesday night has left her with a mess to take care of, if and when she returns. Mouse supposes that Julie may understand and not fire her for Maledicta’s rudeness, but if Mouse intends to keep working in Autumn Creek, she is also going to have to make restitution for the stolen vodka bottle, and she doubts that the vampire bartender will be as forgiving.

  Even if she didn’t have that hanging over her head, it’s no secret that Mouse doesn’t particularly like her life in Seattle. So maybe she shouldn’t go back to it: maybe, after Andrew has been safely delivered to wherever it is he decides to go, she should just keep driving, to…well, she can just keep driving, and see where she ends up.

  No.

  No, that’s a ridiculous idea; of course she has to go back. She doesn’t have the money to just uproot herself and run away. And besides, Dr. Eddington—Mouse’s flagging spirits rally at the thought of him—has promised to help her. She can’t disappoint him. She—

  From the other room, she hears the sound of the television being turned on.

  “Andrew?” Mouse starts to call out, but then she remembers that she is sitting on a toilet with her pants down. She pulls a wad of paper from the roll and quickly wipes herself. She gets up. She doesn’t flush, but steps quietly to the door, and opens it just wide enough to look out.

  Andrew is sitting up on the bed, punching buttons on the TV remote control. He has a frustrated look on his face.

  “Andrew?” Mouse calls softly.

  Either he doesn’t hear her or he ignores her. He goes on punching buttons until suddenly his frustration turns to satisfaction. “Ah!” he exclaims, and the television switches to a new channel.

  Mouse opens the door a little wider. “Andrew?”

  “Sorry,” he says. He looks at her, a smirk playing on his lips, and Mouse thinks: him! But then he says: “Don’t worry, I’m not Gideon. He’s with Aaron and Andrew right now, playing King of the Mountain…but since they’re all busy, I thought it’d be a waste to leave a perfectly good body just lying around. By the way”—he glances around the room—“is there a minibar in here by any chance?”

  “Minibar?…No!” says Mouse. “You can’t get drunk again!”

  He arches an eyebrow, as if to say Oh yeah?, but fortunately the point is moot; there is no minibar in the room. “Well, that sucks,” he says. Then he shrugs and turns his attention back to the TV.

  Mouse looks at the TV too—and is appalled. The scene on the screen is a motel room, not all that different from this one…except that there are naked women on the bed.

  “The Indian whacking off in the background is Hyapatia Lee,” he informs her helpfully. “And the two actually getting it on, that one is Summer Knight, and the little one is Flame.” He leans forward, as if noticing something. “You know,” he says, “she kind of looks like you…if you had red hair, I mean.” He grins. “And were really flexible.”

  “I can be flexible,” says Loins, stepping forward past Mouse’s horror. “I don’t look that good in cowboy boots, though.” The scene on the screen shifts, showing a fourth woman, who for some reason is not taking part in the action on the bed. “Wow,” says Loins. “I wish I looked like her.”

  “Mmm, Christy Canyon,” he says. “I bet a lot of people wish they looked like—” He stops. “Wait a minute,” he says, turning to look her in the eye.

  He’s not smirking anymore; all at once he’s wary. Loins kind of likes that. She goes and sits beside him on the bed, giggling as he shies away. “What’s the matter?” Loins purrs. “Don’t tell me you only like to watch.” She puts her hand on his thigh; he gasps, tenses up…and just as quickly relaxes.

  He pats the back of her hand, affectionately but with no passion. “The thing is, dear,” he says, his voice gone feminine, “you’re just not my type.” He plucks Loins’s hand off his leg, and deposits it in her own lap. “Now that we’ve got that straight, would you happen to have a cigarette?”

  “No,” says Maledicta. “That cocksucker Duncan wouldn’t stop to get any last night. You sure you still don’t have some? You were smoking Winstons yesterday.”

  “Winstons.” He—she—makes a face. “Not my favorite brand.” She frisks herself anyway, but comes up empty. “Well, if I did have them, I don’t know what I did with them.”

  “Could be you dropped them in that fucking ditch. You want to go get some more?”

  “Yes, that would be lovely.” Offering a hand: “I’m Samantha, by the way. Sam to my friends.”

  “Maledicta,” Maledicta says. “I don’t have friends.” But then she grins and shakes hands. “All right, Sam, let’s go get some fucki
ng smokes before the grown-ups come back.”

  They go outside. As they cross the parking lot, Sam spins around, taking in the view. “What a beautiful landscape,” she says.

  “You’re fucking joking, right?” Maledicta says. “Desolate fucking dinosaur country…”

  “I don’t mind desolate,” Sam tells her. “I’ve always wanted to live in a desert. If I had a choice, I’d go to New Mexico, and open an art gallery in Taos or Santa Fe.”

  “Yeah? So what, the others voted you down on that?”

  Sam laughs. “No vote. We’re not a democracy. Aaron and Andrew make all the important decisions; the rest of us just try to fit in.” A sigh. “I do understand why it has to be that way, but still, sometimes I wish…well…”

  “Hmmph,” says Maledicta, troubled. “Mouse had better not start expecting me to just fucking fit in.” She shakes her head for emphasis. “Fuck that.”

  They find a cigarette machine outside the motel office. Maledicta goes first, feeding in dollar bills and pulling the selection knob for Winstons. There’s a click, but no cigarettes come out. “What the fuck…?” Maledicta says. She pulls the Winstons knob a second time, then tries the one for Camels. Nothing happens. She kicks the machine; still nothing.

  “Wait,” says Sam. “Try Kools.”

  The machine isn’t dispensing menthol cigarettes either. Maledicta looks for a knob or button that will give her her money back, but instead finds a handwritten note taped above the bill slot: THIS MACHINE DOES NOT GIVE CHANGE; ABSOLUTELY NO REFUNDS.—MGMT.

  “Fucker.” Maledicta starts towards the office door with blood in her eye, but Sam catches her by the arm. “Wait,” Sam says. “Don’t make trouble.”

  “Get the fuck off me!” Maledicta says. “I’m not going to let this fucker rip me off!”

  “Please,” says Sam, hanging on. “If there’s trouble I might not be able to stay outside. And if Andrew comes back, he’s not going to want to smoke with you.”

  Maledicta hesitates, still fuming.

  “Please, dear,” Sam says. “Can’t we just drive to a convenience store? I’ll pay for your cigarettes, I promise.”

  “Yeah?” says Maledicta. “With whose money?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll just…borrow the money from Andrew, and settle with him later.”

  “If he even notices, you mean…All right,” Maledicta relents, “we’ll go to a fucking convenience store. But when we get back, I am going to kick somebody’s ass.”

  They get into the car, where the smell of vodka, faded but still potent, brings Malefica forward for a moment. She checks the glove compartment to see if a new flask has by any chance materialized there, but none has.

  “Motherfucking Duncan,” Maledicta complains. “Hey Sam, as long as we’re going for smokes, what do you say we hit a fucking liquor store, too?”

  “I don’t think that would be very wise,” Sam says. “Considering.”

  “Fuck wisdom. We could get ripped, and make a run for New Mexico.”

  “Where are we now?”

  “Brontosaur Cock, South Dakota. It’s a long fucking drive from Santa Fe, but…”

  Sam laughs. “We’d never make it,” she says, her eyes shining with the possibility.

  “No, but we could fucking try.”

  But Sam shakes her head. “It’s tempting, dear, but I think I’d better content myself with simpler pleasures. Just a cigarette, maybe two if there’s time.” She pauses, concentrating. “We’re going to have to hurry, though—they’ll be back soon.”

  “No fucking problem,” Maledicta says, and gets the car moving.

  Now of course she wasn’t being serious, offering to light out for New Mexico; Maledicta knows they can’t really do that, although it would be fun to see Mouse’s reaction when she woke up in Georgia O’Keeffe country. But the part about getting shitfaced—that was for real. Maledicta could use a drink; Malefica could definitely use a drink; and as for Sam, Maledicta kind of likes her—underneath the “please”s and the “dear”s, she senses a kindred spirit—but thinks she could stand to loosen up a little.

  There’s a mom-and-pop convenience store just up the road, but right next to it is a bar called The Pink Mammoth. Stupid fucking name, Maledicta thinks; on the other hand, it does appear to be open for business. She drives into the Mammoth’s parking lot. Sam frowns but doesn’t otherwise object.

  “Come on,” Maledicta coaxes her. “One fucking drink. What do you say?”

  “Do you think they serve tea?”

  “The Long Island kind, maybe.”

  They go inside. The Mammoth turns out to be a complete dive: Wild West decor, fucking sawdust on the floor, and an underscent of petrified vomit, like a pack of saber-toothed tigers threw up in here back before the last ice age and it was allowed to just fossilize. On the plus side, the bar’s cigarette machine works, and despite the early hour, booze is being served. Sam and Maledicta have the place almost entirely to themselves: the only other customer is an old drunk watching cartoons on the TV above the bar.

  They buy cigarettes. While Sam lights up, Maledicta orders a couple of beers. “Not for me, dear,” Sam says, but Maledicta says, “Ah, come on,” and repeats the order. The bartender draws them two Budweisers. Maledicta gives one to Sam, who accepts it but won’t drink, even when Maledicta proposes a toast. Maledicta starts to get pissed, but cools down again when Sam, without being asked, takes out Andrew’s wallet and pays for both beers.

  Maledicta jerks her thumb towards a pool table at the other end of the barroom. “Feel like a game?”

  Sam smiles. “That would be lovely.”

  They go over to the table and Maledicta grabs a rack off the wall. “You any fucking good at this?” she asks.

  “I used to be. My old sweetheart taught me to play, years ago. He said I had a knack for it.” Her smile falters. “Of course he said a lot of things, but I think that one was true.”

  “Sweetheart, huh? This was before Andrew got put in charge?”

  “Long before. We were still in Seven Lakes then, in the house where we grew up.”

  The rack’s full. Maledicta slides it back and forth a couple times to get the balls grouped tightly. “Can I ask you a fucking personal question, Sam?”

  “All right.”

  “Do you have a cock, or a cunt?”

  Sam rears her head back, like she’s really put out, but she recovers quickly. “A cunt,” she says primly, “if you must know.”

  “I fucking thought so.” Maledicta hangs the rack back on the wall and grabs a cue stick for herself. “You can’t really tell, you know, when Andrew or Aaron are in the fucking driver’s seat, but with you in the body, it’s just fucking obvious. You sure you shouldn’t be running the show instead of them?”

  Sam shakes her head. “I might dream about it, but I’m not strong enough to cope with reality full-time. I proved that.”

  “Yeah? You seem strong enough to me. Not that I’m the world’s best fucking judge of character…OK if I break?”

  Sam nods her assent. Then, as Maledicta is chalking her cue, Sam says: “I tried to kill myself. Twice.”

  “Yeah? What for?”

  “Jimmy Cahill—my sweetheart—joined the army. We were supposed to run away together, but he decided to run away on his own. He sent me a Dear John letter from basic training camp…so I tried to kill myself. Pills, the first time. I swallowed a bottle of prescription sleeping pills, and a pint of scotch—”

  “—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.