Philip Dick - Mary And The Giant

"I know. It's cheaper." And, in her state of mind, she needed the comforting presence of Negroes.

"What's the matter with what you got?"

"None of your business. Come on-I don't have all day. I'm not going to tramp around looking; I don't have time."

Eaton considered. "No kitchen. And you know it's colored. Yeah, that's right; you like to hang around with colored. What for? What sort of kicks do you get out of it?"

Mary Anne sighed. "Do we have to go into that?"

"On account of you, Carleton's in trouble with the law."

"It's not my fault."

"You're his girl. Anyhow, you were, once. Now it's that big blonde. What'd he do, get the taste?"

Patiently, Mary Anne waited.

Eaton picked up his broom and began tugging bits of fluff from it. "There're a lot of rooming houses around here. I know one place; it's not so hot, though. One of the fry cooks lives there."

"Fine. Give me the address."

"Go ask him; he's inside. No," Eaton said, changing his mind as the girl started toward the door. "I'd be just as happy if you kept out of my place." He wrote a note, tore it from the imitation-leather pad, and presented it to her. "It's a dump; you won't stay there. Full of drunks and sewer rats. You ever seen those big sewer rats? They swim in from the bay." He indicated with his hands. "As big as dogs."

"Thanks," Mary Anne said, pocketing the note.

"What's the matter?" Eaton said as the girl started off. "Don't you have somebody to pay your bills? A nice girl like you?"

He shook his head and resumed sweeping.

The building, she discovered, was as Eaton had described. Narrow and tall, it was wedged between two stores: a surgical supply house and a television repair shop. A flight of unpainted steps led up to the front porch. There she found a chair and an overturned wine bottle.

She rang the bell and waited.

A tiny, dried-up old colored woman with sharp black eyes and a long, beaked nose opened the door and inspected her. "Yes," she shrilled, "what did you want?"

"A room," Mary Anne said. "Taft Eaton said maybe you had one."

The name meant nothing to the old woman. "A room? No, we don't have any room."

"Isn't this a rooming house?"

"Yes," the old woman said, nodding and barring the door with her skinny arm. She wore a gray, shapeless dress and bobby socks. Behind her was the dim interior of a hallway: a dank and gloomy cavity that contained a table and mirror, a potted plant, the origin of a staircase. "But they're all full."

"Great," Mary Anne said. "What do I do now?"

The old woman started to close the door, then stopped, reflected, and said: "How soon did you have to have it?"

"Right away. Today."

"Usually we rent only to colored."

"That makes no difference to me."

"You don't have many boyfriends, do you? This is a quiet house; I try to keep it decent."

"No boyfriends," Mary Anne said.

"Do you drink?"

"No."

"Are you positive?"

"I'm positive," Mary Anne said, tapping her heel against the porch and gazing over the woman's head. "And I read the Bible every night before I go to bed."

"What church do you belong to?"

"The First Presbyterian." She picked it at random.

The old woman pondered. "I try to keep this a quiet home, without a lot of noise and goings-on. There are eleven people living here and they're all decent, respectable people. All radios are expected to be off by ten o'clock in the evening. No baths are to be taken after nine."

"Swell," Mary Anne sighed.

"I have one vacant room. I'm not certain if I can rent it to you or not ... I'll show it to you, though. Do you care to step inside and see it?"

"Sure," Mary Anne said, stepping past the old woman and into the hall. "Let's have a look."

At nine-thirty she arrived at the redwood apartment that Joseph Schilling had acquired for her.

With her key she unlocked the door, but she did not go inside. The smell of new paint drifted around her, a bright, sickening smell. Cold morning sunlight filled the apartment; bands of pale illumination spread over the crumpled, paint-smeared newspapers scattered across the floor. The apartment was utterly lonely. Her possessions, still in pasteboard cartons, were stacked in the center of each room. Cartons, newspapers, sodden rollers still oozing from the night before ...

Going downstairs to the companion apartment, she rapped sharply on the door. When the owner-a middle-aged man, balding-appeared, she asked: "Can I use your phone? I'm from upstairs."

She called the Yellow Cab people and then went outdoors to wait.

While she was supervising the loading of the cab, the landlady showed up. The meter ticked merrily as she and the driver carried the pasteboard cartons downstairs and piled them in the luggage compartment; both of them were perspiring and gasping, glad to get the job finished.

"Good grief," the landlady said. "What does this mean?"

Mary Anne halted. "I'm moving."

"So I see. Well, what's the story? I think I have a right to be informed."

"I've changed my mind; I'm not renting it." It seemed obvious.

"I suppose you want your deposit back."

"No," Mary Anne said. "I'm realistic."

"What about all that trash upstairs? All those newspapers and paint; and it's half-painted. I can't rent it in that condition. Are you going to finish?" She followed after Mary Anne as the girl took an armload of clothes from the cab driver and stuffed it among the cartons. "Miss, you can't leave under these circumstances; it isn't done. You have a responsibility to leave a place in the same condition you rented it."

"What are you complaining about?" The woman annoyed her. "You're getting a free fifty bucks."

"I've got a good mind to call your father," the landlady said.

"My what?" Then she understood, and at first it seemed funny. After that it didn't seem so funny, but she had already begun to laugh. "Did he tell you that? Yes, my father. Father Joseph, the best father I could hope for. The best goddamn old father in the world." The landlady was astonished at her outburst. "Go jump in the creek," Mary Anne said. "Rent your apartment-get busy."

Sliding into the front of the cab, she slammed the door. The driver, having loaded the last carton in the back, got in behind the wheel and started up the motor.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," the landlady said.

Mary Anne didn't answer. As the cab pulled away from the curb she leaned back and lit a cigarette; she had too much on her mind to pay attention to the landlady's complaints.

When the cab driver saw the room she was moving into, he shook his head and said: "Girlie, you're nuts."

"I am, am I?" She put down her armload and started back out of the room into the dusty, water-stained hall.

"You sure are." He plodded alongside her, down the hall and down the stairs to the sidewalk. "That was a swell apartment you left-all those redwood panels. And in a classy neighborhood."

"You go rent it, then."

"Are you really going to live here?" He picked up two cartons and began lugging them up the steps. "This job is going to cost you plenty, girlie. What's on the meter is only the down payment."

"Fine," Mary Anne said, struggling after him. "Lay it on as heavy as you can."

"It's the custom. We're not in the moving business, you know. This comes under the heading of a favor."

"Nobody's in any business," Mary Anne said. From her doorway, the tiny dried-up old colored woman-her name was Mrs. Lessley-watched with suspicion. "I guess I'm lucky; you're so kind."

When the last carton had been carried upstairs she paid him. It wasn't as tough as she had expected; the meter read a dollar seventy and the tip-when he finally named it-was two dollars more. Three seventy wasn't so much to get herself moved. And, of course, the twenty dollars for the room: a month's rent in advance.