Huxley Greene

**Huxley Greene** is a minor character in The Smoke Room. He is a banker in Echo, as well as a frequent customer at The Hip who has a reputation for being a town nuisance alongside his friend Reed Morris. He is married to Marcy Greene.

## Appearance

Huxley is a middle-aged rat. His fur is dark brown, with lighter patches on his muzzle and chest, and he has noticeable bags under his red eyes. He wears an unbuttoned white dress shirt and an unfastened red tie, along with slacks and a belt with a large silver buckle.

## Personality

Huxley is cruel and domineering, especially towards his wife Marcy, whom he demeans and treats like his property. He is also extremely homophobic, and seems to disdain any behavior he views as 'deviant.' Huxley depends heavily on his vices, and in addition to his patronage of the Hip's prostitutes he is known to often drink and gamble to excess.

## Story

### Prior to The Smoke Room

Huxley is significantly older than Marcy; he is indicated to have coerced her into a marriage while she was still a child and presumably took her away from her family. More than twenty years prior to the start of the story, the two came to live in a log cottage on a fifty-acre property on the outskirts of Echo.

Huxley got a job as a banker in town and worked alongside a member of the Bronson family, leading to Todd Bronson becoming close with the Greenes while growing up. Huxley also became a good friend of Reed Morris and a reliable client for Ethel, whom he routinely made appointments with at the Hip.

Huxley has abused Marcy for years, a pattern of behavior that seemingly started with the deeply unequal age gap between them. Much of the details of his mistreatment are left unspecified, but Huxley tightly controls Marcy by cutting her off from reminders of her old life and forbids her from interacting with other people, leaving her essentially a captive in their home. Marcy is miserable with him, and goes to extreme measures to spare any potential children from growing up with Huxley as their father.

In the days leading up to the start of the story, Reed noticed Huxley working longer hours and becoming more and more paranoid, for reasons that are not yet clear. Huxley sold his gun to a pawn shop because of unspecified money troubles possibly related to his alcoholism, but then, in an apparent attempt to protect himself, bought it back a few days later.

### Prologue

Huxley first appears at the Hip playing poker with Reed, and Sam remarks that the two are a familiar sight in the saloon. Huxley complains about his wife Marcy's attachment to her mother's old and worn-out rug, and calls her 'not clever' for failing to clean it properly.

When Cliff arrives and behaves indiscreetly about his desire to have sex with men, Huxley joins Reed in antagonizing him. They follow him outside, where Huxley calls Cliff a pervert for potentially exposing the children in the saloon to his sexuality. Huxley also insinuates that Cliff has been lusting after Marcy, seemingly to further justify the violence he and Reed plan to inflict. After Reed punches Cliff to the ground, Huxley kicks him repeatedly, but flees with Reed once they are interrupted by the appearance of Sheriff Adler.

Off-screen, Huxley leaves Reed and goes home. That evening, according to testimony that Marcy later gives during William's route, Huxley takes his gun and leaves home in a carriage along with a red fox. He is killed at some point afterward.

### William's Route

A substantial part of the plot of Will's route follows the sheriff's investigation into Huxley's disappearance on the night of the miners' riot and his subsequent mysterious death. Additionally, a gun owned by Huxley becomes involved in an assassination attempt on Cliff, and so unraveling the events of Huxley's final days becomes a key focus of Will's attention.

Sam first learns that Huxley is missing from Todd, who mentions that Marcy is in distress because of his absence. Sam assumes that Huxley is drunk and hiding from a gambling debt. A few days later, however, Huxley's body is found by Todd in a ditch alongside the road not far from the police station, partially frozen and decapitated with 'ripping force.' The whereabouts of Huxley's head are still unknown, as is the identity of his killer or killers, aside from a gum wrapper found on his property that leads Will back to James Hendricks and a clue from Marcy about last seeing her husband with a red fox on the evening he disappeared.

Marcy also mentions that she is helping the police so her late husband cannot "hurt people no more," possibly indicating Huxley was complicit in some scheme that has continued even after his death, and may even have run afoul of his co-conspirators.

### Cliff's Route

The day before Sam departs on Cliff's expedition, Ethel comes into his room at the Hip and mentions that Huxley has missed an appointment with her, which is very unusual.

Later, Sam overhears William questioning Reed about Huxley's disappearance. According to the sheriff, Huxley was reported missing "in the dead of night," right after the miners' riot. Reed suspects Cliff, but Will does not put much faith in the accusation.

## Relationships

### Marcy

Huxley and Marcy are never shown interacting, but much can be inferred about their relationship from Marcy's behavior and the state of their shared home. Huxley is deeply possessive of his wife, and seems to have taken her away from her family to marry her when she was still a child. He restricts her behavior, and abuses her while also fostering her continuing dependence on him. He also brags to others about keeping her under his thumb, and disparages her supposedly simpleminded nature.

Although she remains outwardly placid, Marcy's misery in their marriage is reflected in her desperation to spare any potential children from the same suffering Huxley inflicts on her. To this end, over the course of multiple pregnancies she has continuously taken abortive drugs in order to miscarry. It is unknown if Huxley was aware of this.

### Reed

Huxley and Reed are good friends and regularly play poker together at the Hip. They seem to encourage one another's worst tendencies, as Reed is shown both disparaging Marcy and then attacking Cliff alongside Huxley.

### Ethel

Huxley is a frequent client of Ethel's, and she mentions that it is unusual for him to miss an appointment with her.

## Trivia

* Because most of his presence in the story is posthumous, Huxley is the only character in The Smoke Room whose sprite appears only in the prologue and nowhere else in the game.
* Huxley is currently the only character with a sprite whose dialogue boxes use the 'default' beige, instead of a color unique to him.
* Along with Reed and Alfred, Huxley is one of the characters in The Smoke Room with the smallest number of sprites, at four.

## Gallery

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