Set This House in Order

by Matt Ruff

  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?”

  23

  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 persisted, “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—”

  “Adam did some shoplifting, back then,” I told her. “And Seferis broke a man’s finger in a bar fight once, although that was self-defense. And there were some other incidents—petty crimes, and some misunderstandings—involving various other souls. But no felonies, and definitely no unprovoked attacks on strangers.”

  “That you know of…but you’ve told me that there are still gaps in your information about those years, so—”

  “No bank robbery–sized gaps.”

  “But how can you be sure?”

  “Because if anything like that had happened, my father would know about
it. He’d have found out. That’s his job, Julie.”

  “But—”

  “Can we change the subject now, please?”

  My father would know about it…That’s his job, Julie. And it was. But it was also my father’s job to know all the souls, to maintain order in the geography…and to be honest with me.

  What if Xavier—or Gideon—had done something bad to the stepfather, something that my father either didn’t know about or had chosen not to tell me?

  In one sense, it was an easy question. What I’d told Julie was true: as the soul in charge of Andy Gage’s body, I stood accountable for all the body’s actions, past and present, even those I wasn’t technically guilty of. It had to be that way, for reasons of both house discipline and simple good citizenship. You can’t have crimes being committed and no one owning up to them.

  Easy. But also hard, because this was no longer just a hypothetical case. As I considered the consequences I might have to accept if the worst proved true, I realized that at least one thing I’d told Julie was wrong: I wasn’t just a little hesitant to take responsibility.

  Suppose the worst was true: suppose Andy Gage had killed his stepfather, murdered him, and not in self-defense or in the heat of the moment, but in cold blood. How bad was that? Ordinarily, of course, I’d say that murder is one of the few acts that is worse than rape. But what about murdering a rapist? What about murdering your rapist? Is that worse? Revenge is not supposed to justify violence—but couldn’t it, if the thing being revenged was horrible enough?

  It’s not, I thought, like what Billy Milligan did. He became a predator in his own right, and hurt strangers, people who had never done anything to him. He made a habit of it. Andy Gage killing his stepfather would have been a one-time thing, a provoked, singular act, not part of a pattern.

  Unless you counted what happened to Warren Lodge.

  No. No. Don’t think about him now. Focus on one killing—one death—at a time.

  Come to that, I wasn’t even sure the stepfather was dead. I thought he was—it felt true—but I couldn’t recall ever specifically having been told it was so. I should really check on that, before I got too worked up about this. I should also find out how he died—if he’d had a heart attack, or cancer, I’d obviously be off the hook.