The Mephistophelean House Read online

  I don’t remember how I got to bed.

  I woke up in the grim little room. Beads of water trickled from the awning, rain intermixed with snow. The ice was in full retreat.

  The pigeons were gone.

  Matthew’s door was ajar.

  I went to the bathroom and splashed some water on my face.

  My eyes were burning.

  “My eyes…”

  I looked in the mirror.

  There was someone there.

  A robe hung on a hook.

  “Jeez.”

  I went downstairs. The kitchen seemed different. Streaks mottled the linoleum floor, imperfections in the corbels and rope molding, pilasters and trim out of place, as if the entire House had been taken apart and put back together again.

  I got a bag of coffee from the fridge. The coffeemaker percolated. I poured a cup. The milk mixed with the coffee.

  “What the…”

  A face appeared.

  I blinked.

  It was gone.

  The kitchen elongated, the metal bowl on the counter, the scuffed refrigerator, the chipped enamel cooker, the gleaming white door, my elongated face in the reflection, something behind me, as tall as Death, reaching out.

  “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  There was a new sapling in the yard, one that had not been there the night before. I shuddered at the coincidence of Matthew’s disappearance, noticing a section of newly turned earth, large enough where another might lie.

  Bus #14 roared up Hawthorne. Trustifarians in freeform locks unloaded Vanagons of second hand brands. GenX go-getters in heathered fleece sweaters avoided the hollas of signature gatherers. A stout bearded lady and brown basset hound brayed for ten dollar bills with a hat on the ground. A halcyon mural and bright coffee shop stood next to the Psychics and Trimet bus stop. A circle of writers sat down to a meeting so I queued in line while they interchanged greetings. I ordered a Depthcharge with white pumpkin crème and sat down by the steaming espresso machine.

  A game of chess was played. A player broke his castle and the rook went unopposed. The other took the bait and left his knight and pawns exposed. I sat next to the root ball table Depthcharge in my hand, thinking of the Weeping Tree inside the forest of sand. The Depthcharge had been flavored with a cappuccino glaze, caffeinated chocolate candy corroding the haze.

  “What happened to Matthew doesn't have to happen to me.”

  I took out my phone and tapped the mic icon.

  “Property history Multnomah County.”

  I queried the address 1331 SE 45th, Portland Oregon in the search bar. The tax records registered two results, a property deed and pdf.

  The deed was a type written document, notarized at the turn of the twentieth century, bearing an earlier date. It was signed by a Doctor Maximilian Kilgore.

  “Doctor Kilgore?”

  The pawn advanced, forking the bishop and rook.

  The second link was a lien on the property at 1331 SE. 45th, dated 1917. 'Maximilian Kilgore, the grantee listed in the first section of the lien, having been secured by a private trust, stated as valuable consideration the property of 1331, SE 45th, to Roland Andrews.'

  I stared at the touchscreen.

  “The lien is a hundred years old.”

  Maximilian Kilgore and Roland Andrews returned two million results. I sifted like an inept cleric in a decrepit repository, drinking my Depthcharge, stumbling across an abstract from an academic database of electronic articles with a reference to Doctor Maximilian Kilgore.

  ‘Of a considerably more questionable nature remain the endeavors of Doctor Maximilian Kilgore, 1856-1917, cofounder of the Oregon State Board of Eugenics. Little is recorded, despite having been the Superintendent of the House on Asylum Road for nine years, from 1908-1917, and a Representative of the Oregon State Legislature, from 1912-1917. Records point to Doctor Kilgore as the primary medical advisor guiding the creation of the Board of Eugenics in 1917. The Board, confirming a common practice of the era, empowered superintendents of mental institutions to sterilize inmates so that their inferior traits would not be passed onto resulting generations. Doctor Kilgore, it appears, sterilized with impunity such that he was reviled even by his own contemporaries. Of the 174 patients entrusted in his care only one escaped, and he, on appeal to the Oregon State Supreme Court. Doctor Kilgore disappeared in 1917. The House on Asylum Road was closed in 1920. All state mental institutions were consolidated into one central facility, the Oregon State Insane Asylum, in 1921.’

  The property lien on the Mephistophelean House was dated 1917, the year the Doctor disappeared.

  “The House on Asylum Road?”

  The shop receded, people talking without speaking, echoes distant and unreal, potted plants with moving roots were cracking through the brushstone tile, spoons and forks, stalks and leaves, the wind blowing through the trees, a figure digging on their knees under the chilblained Hawthorns trees.

  “A private trust…”

  The delicious aroma of cinnamon pastry, coffee, and perfume, the clinking of glasses, music, voices, steam spouting from the espresso machine.

  The pawn took the bishop.

  I took a shot from the Depthcharge.

  “Board Eugenics Maximilian Kilgore.”

  The search produced a result from the Portland Public Library, an entry entitled ‘The Narcissus Effect.’ Under the subject line it listed ‘eugenics’ and 'The House on Asylum Road.’ The author was Doctor Maximilian Kilgore.

  “The Narcissus Effect.”

  I clicked the call number.

  The book was in.

  I looked at the clock.

  The king was cornered in his castle.

  Matthew’s keys were on the bureau. Wasting no time I fired the bio diesel and took Hawthorne downtown, the Willamette River leaking like brown paint under the steel truss of the Hawthorne Bridge. Neon signs lit up Main Street. I rolled uptown and found a spot on 10th, printed a ticket, and stickered the window.

  A surreal hush permeated the Downtown Public Library. The wrought iron clock read 6:59. I climbed the Tennessee marble staircase to the second floor and looked up ‘The Narcissus Effect’ on a terminal. There was just enough time to deposit the call number at the desk before the library closed.

  A warning flashed on the screen.

  “Just a moment,” the librarian disappeared into the rook.

  Columns with scrolls and acanthus leaves vaulted a field of arches. I looked at the portraits on the wall. A bell rang. Two security guards climbed the stairs. I looked at the clock.

  It still read 6:59.

  The librarian returned.

  “Although this title is checked in, I can’t seem to lay my hands on it.”

  “Lost?”

  "Not lost. It’s here, somewhere, but just where, I couldn’t say.”

  “Oh.”

  “Let’s cross index the subjects and see what we can come up with.”

  One by one the lights shut off. The portraits in the colonnade frothed blue and white, jagged mountain peaks, raging waterfalls, tiny figures braving the vast unforgiving panorama.

  “What are you guys looking for?”

  “Guys?”

  The guards were heading downstairs.

  “My mistake. What specifically were you looking for?”

  “Eugenics, Doctor Maximilian Kilgore.”

  “Just a moment. I’m noticing a common thread throughout the subject indices. The House on Asylum Road.”

  “Yes. The House on Asylum Road. That’s it.”

  “Just a moment. Carlin has that title in a collection. I’d go there if I were you.”

  “All right.”

  “But you can't.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s a private college.”

  “I see.”

  “Hey, are you alright?”

  “Why?”

  “There's something wrong with your eyes.”

  I heard somebody on the stairs and sto
pped to let them pass, but there was nobody there, the lights were off and it was black, yet every time I turned I heard footsteps behind my back, a presence treading in my wake no longer holding back, and though I tried ignoring the clock hanging on the wall, it seemed to me it looked a lot like Matthew's metal ball, the time that wrought the iron hands that broke the center line, a time I knew I need not see in order to divine.

  6:59.

  Chapter 6

  The Gargoyles

  A gust rocked the cantilever truss of the Ross Island Bridge. The aerial tram swung over the Terwilliger Curves like a drogue in a wall cloud. The cable-stayed pylons of South Waterfront were a menagerie of steel and glass. I pumped the accelerator, looking into the rear view mirror.

  My eyes were bloodshot.

  The argent yards on Milwaukie Ave were rendered in melting snow. A cab carted hopper wagons and road railers under the Bybee overpass. The bio diesel circled Crystal Springs Lake, the rhododendron gardens and Eastmoreland. The dorms of Carlin College overlooked the parking lot. I parked and followed the path through the trees. Across an embankment was a light. A lamp post illuminated a bridge.

  I heard the sound of wings.

  I looked up.

  Had I been mistaken?

  Snow dusted the ferns.

  I strained my ears. The lamp post hummed. My eyes grew accustomed to the dark. The flush cuts and root collars of shore pines and vine maple secreted ghastly silhouettes.

  A branch overturned.

  I could see something moving in the trees.

  A pule cut the ruddy pail.

  I hurried across the bridge. The path opened onto a dorm block. The dorm block had a Sallyport with iron lanterns. A snouted figure perched atop the cornice with wings like a bat.

  “What is that?”

  I stood under the Sallyport looking up, razor sharp talons, slits and horns, a trickle of snow melting from its misshapen maw.

  “Gargoyles.”

  A second gargoyle with pincer-like talons girted a scaly tail. Out of place on the weathered façade the gargoyles were cratered in glass. The quad was empty so I crossed the Sallyport, eager to be on my way. I was about to turn the corner when I heard the same sycophantic pule I had heard in the wood.

  The light was playing tricks on my eyes. The gargoyles seemed to be moving, a third facing my way (hadn’t they been facing the other way?) staring down, directly overhead, a fourth and a fifth, runoff blotting the cornice, a sixth and seventh (where had they all come from?), lantern-lit scales and thorny brows bristling, snouts contracting, jaws machinating.

  “Oh God.”

  One by one the gargoyles turned, pillared in flecks of snow.

  The Administration Building was locked. Across from Llyr Circle I spotted the Library.

  The library door would not budge.

  “Damn.”

  An undergrad crossed the commons and slipped a phone over the reader. The library door opened. I followed, the door locking behind me.

  No one looked up.

  The atrium was sedate. I approached the circulation desk and asked where I might find help locating my title. The student at the desk pointed me to the reference section.

  “Excuse me, I’m looking for information on the House on Asylum Road. Two doctors in particular. Here are their names.” I wrote ‘The Narcissus Effect’ and the doctors on an index card and gave it to the librarian.

  The library was crowded. Every seat was taken, undergrads hunched over secret treatises, typing on tablets, scrawling line after line just to cross it out and start all over again.

  “Special Collections,” the librarian said. “You’ll need a consultant.” The librarian wrote a series of numbers on the back of the card. “It will be about 5 minutes. You have time to find your other titles. Go to the first lower level.”

  “Thanks.”

  I checked the map before heading downstairs. The first number, a dissertation, and the second, a journal, were in adjacent aisles. I sat down at an empty table. The dissertation was entitled the “Oregon Board of Eugenics.” I turned to the introduction and read.

  “‘From 1917-1963, the Oregon Board of Eugenics regularly sterilized epileptics, criminals and degenerates who were deemed to be a menace to society. Native Americans were also sterilized. The Oregon Board, like others across the nation, believed they were protecting the human gene pool by weeding out sub-humans. Bolstered by the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck vs. Bell which legitimized forced sterilization of the institutionalized, nearly 3000 Oregonians were operated upon, many dying from complications, well into 1967. The last forcible sterilization occurred in Oregon in 1981. It is not known how many Native Americans were sterilized in Oregon, but it is estimated to be in the tens of thousands.’”

  I flipped to the index. There was an entry for Kilgore. I turned to the seventh chapter and located the reference.

  “‘Although common practice in private institutions across the eastern seaboard, the practice of eugenic sterilization in Oregon was pioneered by two doctors, Maximilian Kilgore and Roland Andrews at The House on Asylum Road, a private sanitarium in East Portland. The House on Asylum Road was shut down in 1920. In private institutions like the House on Asylum Road questionable medical practices such as deep sleep theory, insulin shock, and electroconvulsive therapy predicated the rise of state sponsored disease manufacturing in 20th century schools for the handicapped and the clandestine inoculations on U.S. armed forces continuing to this day.’”

  “Deep Sleep Theory?”

  I set the dissertation aside and opened the journal, flipping to “Eugenics Records Mysteriously Disappear.”

  “‘The records of institutionalized patients housed in private and public asylums were destroyed in 2002. All paper documents were shredded. No electronic copies were made. The entire history of 2650 interred Oregonians in mental institutions during the era of the Oregon Board of Eugenics were expunged, along with all State documentation, including the whereabouts of the remains.’”

  “What have I gotten myself into?”

  The silence was broken by two undergrads in the next aisle.

  “Everything in the universe, the planets, stars, and galaxies account for less than 5% of what is really out there. 95% of the universe is a mystery. We say it’s a quarter dark matter, three quarters dark energy, but what does that even mean? What does it mean when we can only describe what is, by what it is not?”

  “Are there other universes?”

  “Quantum mechanics predicts the many-worlds interpretation. There are an infinite number of increasing, divergent realities for everything that has, is, and will happen. Roll a die and create six alternate realities, the one that came up, and the five that didn’t. Imagine how quickly the possibilities stack up.”

  “But if that is true, and there are alternate universes, then there must be an infinite number of alternate universes.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Do they all share the same laws of physics?”

  “In a way. The structure and the constants are the same.”

  “What I really mean is, is it possible to travel from one universe to another? For example, could I travel to an alternate reality?"

  “All universes are connected through quantum interference.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Quantum interference is a force, like entropy, emitted by each universe upon the next. It is like throwing a stone in a pond. The pond is the multiverse, where all universes, all realities, come together. Cast a stone. The ripples are quantum interference, the borders of different universes, one inside the other.”

  “All universes are connected through quantum interference?”

  “Yes.”

  “Our idea of time, and history, is corrupt, then, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like a stone in a pond. That which happened meets that which didn’t?”

  “Well…”

  “Instead of physics think of history. N
ow, as we know it, isn’t really a result of the past, is it? Now is the quotient of quantum interference.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean...”

  “What if that which never happened exerted a heavier force, a greater quantum interference, upon now, than what occurred? What if now was the product of all the things which never happened? Your 95%. The force of quantum interference is the result of all the sides not rolled on the die, the things which never occurred, the eventualities which never took place. Look at the ripples in the pond. See the circles expand, over and over, like history repeating itself? Our idea of now, the present moment, our place in history, is just a ripple on the pond, a disturbance where alternate realities coincide the moment they diverge.”

  “Well, I...”

  “If all the things which never happened directly influence that which is happening now, how could there ever be such a thing as free will?”

  “You cast the stone.”

  “What happened to your eyes?”

  Something clawed my shoulder.

  I jumped.

  A nefarious librarian harkened down the aisle.

  “The viewing area is this way.”

  The librarian proceeded down an unlit hallway and swiped a key card. A heavy metal door opened. A reading room was framed in manuscripts, historical leaflets, woodcuts, and daguerreotypes. The librarian unlocked a drawer and set a small, hardbound edition on a table.

  “This,” the librarian lowered, “is not a book that sees the light of day. They consolidated before the purge. This is all that remains of a private trust.”

  “A private trust?”

  My throat tightened.

  "But you know all about that…"

  The netherworldly volume sat on the table, deckle edges tinged in gold. On the cover, emblazoned in ink, was the Weeping Tree.

  The metal door slammed shut.

  “Argh.”

  The volume clattered like a block of lead flipping open to the title page.

  The Narcissus Effect

  A Study in Human Nature

  1908

  Doctor Maximilian Kilgore

  Will Science bring us closer to God, or God closer to us? God created us in His own image. How may we recognize him, reflected in ourselves? As good and evil rage their war inside the human soul, alliances of Sin and Science rush to fill the hole. Medicating symptoms proffers broken guarantees; that which plagues us as a race is far worse than disease.