We Are All Completely Fine by Darryl Gregory Page B

convinced him of this. Understandably, he’d taken the position that the best defense was being offensive. He shouted at medical staff. He accused doctors of minimizing his problems before they could even hear his complaints. He stared at people on the street, daring them to look away.
    Being a psychologically savvy person, he knew that the others might perceive his house as an expression of his inner defense mechanisms. He’d grown up in this house, and had returned to it after his experience with the Weavers. It was his castle, his fortress, and defended by palisades of junk. Every room was filled, with narrow paths winding through the piles of broken appliances, books, clothing, children’s toys, lawn equipment. Only the Medicaid-paid staff dared enter, and they didn’t stay long; home health workers were on the lowest rung of the medical economy and they didn’t collect hazard pay.
    Dr. Sayer, had she known about his living conditions, would have been more likely to reach for the DSM-5 for a label; hoarding was a cousin to OCD and its victims sometimes responded to SSRIs. A steady dose of Paxil could do wonders in a small minority of patients.
    Stan, however, knew that the house was not his problem, people were.
    So it was that he’d surprised himself by inviting Martin to spend a night or two there, “just until he found a new place.” The invitation had been Barbara’s idea. She’d cornered him after the meeting in which Greta had told her story, just to “brainstorm.” She played upon his conscience, daring him to help someone in greater need than himself. “Mentor him,” she’d said. Of course, she’d never been to his house either.
    Martin regretted accepting the invitation almost as much as Stan regretted offering it. There was something about Barbara, however, that made him want to be a better person. Perhaps it was because she seemed to think he was, despite very little evidence, already a good person. Both Martin and Stan didn’t want to disappoint her.
    Stan’s driver, the bearded young man who seemed about the same age as Martin, said, “You’re staying with him?” He shook his head in disbelief, and when he unlocked the door to the house he chuckled in a low voice that reminded Martin of every cafeteria bully he’d known in middle school. “Enjoy your stay.”
    Martin shut the door behind them. “What an ass-hole.” Then he looked up to see the condition of the room.
    For a long moment he couldn’t think of anything to say.
    Stan suddenly seemed angry. He gestured at the goat path through the mess and said, “Kitchen’s through there.”
    “Got it,” Martin said, and began to push Stan’s chair—slowly, and with many small corrections. His cast made it difficult. And still he couldn’t think what to say about the house. He was appalled but also fascinated. The way through the maze of the front room was like a series of D&D traps, set with hair triggers and hidden pressure plates. Move a broken microwave off a stack of National Geographic s and a boulder might burst through the wall and flatten them.
    Martin thought about bugging out as soon as possible, but where else could he go? His checking account was down to gravel and his credit card had been scraped clean by the hospital and pharmacy. He needed to go back to work, to get looking for a new place to live, but the thought exhausted him. The beating had beaten something out of him. What had been lost, however, was a mystery; Stan would have called it gumption, or resilience. To Martin it felt like he’d sloughed off some other, tougher self, leaving behind a fragile pupa. All he wanted to do was sleep.
    But that was looking to be impossible in Stan’s house. There was hardly any space to lie down, and nowhere to even sit safely. They passed a door that was ajar, but behind it was a wall of floor-to-ceiling crap like a dead end in a closed-environment game level. The kitchen was a wreck, full of non-foodrelated junk. Why was