Set This House In Order Part 39

The machine isn't dispensing menthol cigarettes either. Maledicta looks for a k.n.o.b or b.u.t.ton 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.

"f.u.c.ker. " 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 f.u.c.k off me!" Maledicta says. "I'm not going to let this f.u.c.ker 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 f.u.c.king convenience store. But when we get back, I am going to kick somebody's a.s.s."

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.

"Motherf.u.c.king Duncan," Maledicta complains. "Hey Sam, as long as we're going for smokes, what do you say we hit a f.u.c.king liquor store, too?"

"I don't think that would be very wise," Sam says. "Considering."

"f.u.c.k wisdom. We could get ripped, and make a run for New Mexico."

"Where are we now?"

"Brontosaur c.o.c.k, South Dakota. It's a long f.u.c.king drive from Santa Fe, but. . ."

Sam laughs. "We'd never make it," she says, her eyes shining with the possibility.

"No, but we could f.u.c.king 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 f.u.c.king 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 s.h.i.tfaced -- 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 f.u.c.king 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 f.u.c.king 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, f.u.c.king 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 p.i.s.sed, 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 f.u.c.king 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 b.a.l.l.s grouped tightly.

"Can I ask you a f.u.c.king personal question, Sam?"

"All right."

"Do you have a c.o.c.k, or a c.u.n.t?"

Sam rears her head back, like she's really put out, but she recovers quickly. "A c.u.n.t," she says primly, "if you must know."

"I f.u.c.king 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 f.u.c.king driver's seat, but with you in the body, it's just f.u.c.king 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 f.u.c.king judge of character.

. . OK if I break?"

Sam nods her a.s.sent. 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 f.u.c.king 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 b.a.l.l.s bounce around the edge of the pockets, but nothing goes in. "f.u.c.k."

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

"Me?" Maledicta laughs. "Nah. f.u.c.king'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 f.u.c.king 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 a.s.s. 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 f.u.c.king 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 s.h.i.ts himself with glee.

Then Wilder looks into the back of Igor's hay wagon and discovers Terri Garr, playing Inge, the lab a.s.sistant with big t.i.ts. "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 f.u.c.king English. And get Sam back out here -- we've still got a f.u.c.king tiebreaker to play."

He blinks, and switches -- to Andrew. "Penny?" Andrew says, confused.

"f.u.c.k." 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 bas.e.m.e.nt, 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 pa.s.sed 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 k.n.o.b.

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 k.n.o.b 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."