Philip Dick: Time Out of Joint

"I see," Margo said. "Well, how nice."

Junie Black, not embarrassed, laughed.

After the two women had cleared the table, Bill suggested a few hands of poker. They haggled for a while, and then the chips were brought out, and the deck of cards, and presently they were playing for a penny a chip, all colors worth the same. It was a twice-weekly matter between them. Nobody could remember how it had gotten started. The women, most likely, had originated it; both Junie and Margo loved to play.

While they were playing, Sammy appeared. "Dad," he said, "can I show you something?"

"I wondered where you were," Vic said. "You've been pretty quiet this evening." Having folded for the round, he could take a moment off. "What is it?" he asked. His son wanted advice most likely.

"Now keep your voice down," Margo warned Sammy. "You can see we're playing cards." The intense look on her face and the tremor in her voice indicated that she held a reasonably good hand.

Sammy said, "Dad, I can't figure out how to wire up the antenna." Beside Vic's stack of chips he set down a metal frame with wires and electronic-looking parts visible on it.

"What's this?" Vic said, puzzled.

"My crystal set," Sammy said.

"What's a crystal set?" he said.

Ragle spoke up. "It's something I got him doing," he explained. "One afternoon I was telling him about World War Two and I got to talking about the radio rig we operated."

"Radio," Margo said. "Doesn't that take you back?"

Junie Black said, "Is that what he's got there, a radio?"

"A primitive form of radio," Ragle said. "The earliest."

"There's no danger he'll get a shock, is there?" Margo said.

"None whatever," Ragle said. "It doesn't use any power."

"Let's have a look at it," Vic said. Hoisting the metal frame he examined it, wishing he knew enough to assist his son. But the plain truth was that he knew nothing at all about electronics, and it certainly was obvious. "Well," he said haltingly, "maybe you have a short-circuit somewhere."

Junie said, "Remember those radio programs we used to listen to before World War Two? 'The Road of Life.' Those soap operas. 'Mary Martin.'"

"'Mary Marlin,'" Margo corrected. "That was -- good lord. Twenty years ago! I blush."

Humming _Clair de Lune_, the theme for "Mary Marlin," Junie met the last round of raises. "Sometimes I miss radio," she said.

"You've got radio plus vision," Bill Black said. "Radio was just the sound part of TV."

"What would you get on your crystal set?" Vic asked his son. "Are there any stations still transmitting?" It had been his impression that radio stations had folded up several years ago.

Ragle said, "He can probably monitor ship-to-shore signals. Aircraft landing instructions."

"Police calls," Sammy declared.

"That's right," Ragle said. "The police still use radio for their cars." Holding out his hand he accepted the crystal set from Vic. "I can trace the circuit later, Sammy," he said. "But I've got too good a hand right now. How about tomorrow?"

Junie said, "Maybe he can pick up flying saucers."

"Yes," Marge agreed. "That's what you ought to aim for."

"I never thought of that," Sammy said.

"There's no such thing as flying saucers," Bill Black said testily. He fiddled with his cards.

"Oh no?" Junie said. "Don't kid yourself. Too many people have seen them for you to dismiss it. Or don't you accept their documented testimony?"

"Weather balloons," Bill Blake said. Vic was inclined to agree with him, and he saw Ragle nodding. "Meteors. Meteorological phenomena."

"Absolutely," Ragle said.

"But I read that people had actually ridden in them," Margo said.

They all laughed, except Junie.

"It's true," Margo said. "I heard it over TV."

Vic said, "I'll go as far as admitting that there seems to be some sort of odd-ball stuff going on up there." He remembered one experience of his own. The summer before, during a camping trip, he had watched a bright object flash across the sky at such velocity that no plane, even a jet-propelled plane, could have matched it. The thing had more the manner of a projectile. In an instant it had whisked off over the horizon. And occasionally, at night, he had heard rumblings, as if heavy vehicles were passing at reduced velocity across the sky. Windows had vibrated, so it had not been head-noises, as Margo had decided. In an article in a digest medical magazine she had read that head-noises indicate high blood pressure, and after that she had wanted him to visit their health-plan doctor for a checkup.

He gave the half-finished radio back to his son and resumed playing cards; the next hand had already been dealt and it was time for him to ante up.

"We're going to install this crystal set as our official club equipment," Sammy informed him. "It'll be locked up in the clubhouse, and nobody can use it but authorized personnel." In the back yard the neighborhood kids, banding together in response to the herd instinct, had built a sturdy but ugly building out of boards and chickenwire and tarpaper. Mighty doings were conducted several times a week.

"Fine," Vic said, studying his hand.

"When he says 'fine,'" Ragle said, "it means he's got nothing.

"I've noticed that," Junie said. "And when he throws down his cards and walks away from the table, it means he's got four of a kind."

At the moment he felt a little like leaving the table; the lasagne and café espresso had been too much for him, and inside him the compound -- that and his dinner -- had begun to act up. "Maybe I have four of a kind now," he said.

"You look pale," Margo said. To Ragle she said, "Maybe he does have something."

"More like the Asian flu," Vic said. Pushing his chair back he got to his feet. "I'll be right back. I'm not out. Just getting something to calm my stomach."

"Oh dear," Junie said. "He did eat too much; you were right, Margo. If he dies it's my fault."

"I won't die," Vic said. "What'll I take?" he asked his wife. As mother of the household she was in charge of the medicines.

"There's some Dramamine in the medicine cabinet," she answered, preoccupied, discarding two cards. "In the bathroom."

"You don't take tranquilizers for _indigestion_, do you?" Bill Black demanded, as he left the room and started down the hall. "Boy, that is carrying it too far."

"Dramamine isn't a tranquilizer," Vic answered, half to himself. "It's an anti-motion pill."

"Same thing," Black's voice came to him, along the hall, following after him as he entered the bathroom.

"Same thing hell," Vic said, his indigestion making him surly. He groped above him for the light cord.

Margo called, "Hurry on back, dear. How many cards for you? We want to play; you're holding us up."

"All right," he muttered, still groping for the light cord. "I want three cards," he called. "It's the top three on my hand."

"No," Ragle called. "You come back and pick them. Otherwise you'll claim we got the wrong ones."

He still had not found the light cord that dangled in the darkness of the bathroom. His nausea and irritation grew, and he began thrashing around in the dark, holding up both arms, hands together with thumbs extended and touching; he rotated his hands in a wide circle. His head smacked against the corner of the medicine cabinet and he cursed.

"Are you okay?" Margo called. "What happened?"

"I can't find the light cord," he said, furious now, wanting to get his pill and get back to play his hand. The innate propensity of objects to be evasive... and then suddenly it came to him that there was no light cord. There was a switch on the wall, at shoulder level, by the door. At once he found it, snapped it on, and got his bottle of pills from the cabinet. A second later he had filled a tumbler with water, taken the pill, and come hurrying out of the bathroom.