Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

“Do you genuinely think you could make a profit? Right away?”

“I think so,” he said, firmly enough to affect her; he made it clear to her that he had no doubts.

“Suppose you’re wrong.”

“We won’t die. We won’t starve. The worst that could happen is that you’d lose your equity. But as soon as I get a job we’d be self-supporting. We’d be like any married couple; we can easily support ourselves and Taffy on what I’d be making. And we have the house. Most people don’t have that. Even if it isn’t paid off. Don’t be so timid. Nobody starves in this country.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” she said.

“Give her the money,” he said again.

“I’ll—think about it.”

“No,” he said. “Don’t think about it. Just hand it to her. We can drive over there now and give it to her now. Wake her up and stick it in her face. Where does she live?”

“I’ll give it to her tomorrow,” she said, falling into obedience to his certitude.

That night, in bed, she scrambled about until she was beneath him, clutching him with her knees and arms, with every part of her thin, smooth body. She wanted to go to sleep that way, but he found himself unable to sleep with her beneath him; she was too hard, top uneven a surface. Then she decided to see if she could spread herself out on top of him. She lay with her head on his chest, her arms around his neck, her legs within his. For a long time her pelvic bones pressed against him, but then at last she relaxed and fell into a doze. Around his neck her arms loosened. She had turned her head on one side, and her breath whistled down into his armpit; it tickled him and he still could not sleep.

Anyhow, he thought, she’s asleep.

The next he knew the alarm clock was ringing, and Susan was sliding from him to get up out of bed. She had managed to stay on him all night. As he pushed the covers back and arose from the bed he found himself stiff and aching all over. On his leg a dark bruise had formed. From the bony edge of her knee.

That morning, at the office, he sat down with Susan and kept at her until she telephoned Jack Fancourt and told him to come over. Then he made Zoe de Lima come down from her apartment. When he had the three of them together he prevailed on each of them in turn until at last Fancourt gave Susan the go-ahead. Her face stark with fear, she wrote out a check for three thousand dollars, blotted it, and passed it across to Zoe. The mood of the room was funereal.

As soon as she had the check, Zoe nodded frigidly to them and departed.

Fancourt said a few things, briefly glanced over various legal forms, and then he, too, left.

At the desk, Susan said, “I feel as if some horrible calamity is just about to happen. I don’t even want to get up. I just want to sit.”

He unlocked the front door, so that they would be in business.

“A ceremony,” he said.

“God,” she said. “Well, it’s done.”

An hour or so later the phone rang. When he answered it he found himself talking to Peg Googer.

“I hear you’re married,” she said.

“That’s right,” he said.

In the background, muffled voices simpered; no doubt she was phoning from her law office, and the other voices were her secretary pals.

“I just can’t believe it,” she exclaimed. “It’s true, then? Well, congratulations. I’ll have to send you two a wedding present.”

Her tone of voice did not appeal to him. “You can let it go,” he said.

“It’s so incredible—you just met her. That night. This must be what you read about in stories.” She paused to stifle a giggle; at the other end of the phone a commotion interrupted her. He endured it, having no choice. “Listen now,” Peg said, “you two will have to drop by together, and we’ll have a party for you, a celebration.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you.”

Again the stifled giggles. He said good-bye and cut her off in the middle of a sentence by hanging up the receiver.

Goddamn stupid individual, he said to himself. It put him in a black mood, but he managed to work himself out of it. That’s one thing I don’t have to put up with, he decided. The innuendos of ignorant secretaries with their foul minds and their vicious, empty heads. Their dinky claques and foolishness to while away the workday.

What a difference between them and Susan…the contrast that he had been so conscious of that first night. The babbling infantile clerks, and then Susan, self-contained and grave, even a little dire-looking in her black sweater. But completely a woman. Completely remote from them all. Off on her own, brooding, but someone he could respect. Someone worthy of attention. And the deepest possible love.

Now, at this moment, Susan labored away on a manuscript at the best of the several electric typewriters; she was putting something into stencil form.

The time has come to get down to work, he said to himself.

“Can you manage for awhile?” he said to her. “I want to go out.”

“Yes,” she said, with a forced smile.

He crossed the sidewalk to the Merc and drove off to visit a couple of contacts.

Not much later he was back, with the car loaded full of Underwood and Royal portables and a vast mass of display material, including electric motor operated whirling platforms.

“What I want to do,” he said to Susan, “is make this look like a place where a person can buy a typewriter. A new typewriter.” He began lugging the stuff into the store.

After that he cleared the second-hand machines from the display window, scrubbed the window clean with Dutch cleanser and hot water, dried it with rags, and then produced cans of quick-drying enamel and began to paint the wood a bright, pastel color.

“Tomorrow morning I’ll set up a display,” he told Susan.

On the phone he got in touch with a painting outfit and rented a paint sprayer, power-operated paint-removing equipment, ladder, and in addition he contracted to buy paint. He drove over and picked it all up himself. Wearing old clothes he began to scour off the old paint from the ceiling and walls. Flakes of old paint poured down on the floor and desks and second-hand machines. It did not matter, since he intended to modernize with the new plastic surfacing materials.

“Can I help?” Susan asked.

“No,” he said. “You keep on mimeographing.”

“If I can,” she said, retiring to a corner out of sight.

“I want to get hold of a sign,” he said.

With nervousness she said, “Did you buy all these portables?”

“No,” he said. “They’re on consignment. I don’t expect to sell very many; I just want to show people that we’re in the business of selling typewriters.”

While resting up from the paint-removing, he phoned around and got estimates on neon signs. In the end he decided to wait until he had gotten hold of a franchise or two; possibly he could split the cost with a manufacturer. And in that fashion he would get a bigger sign.

After they closed up at six, both he and Susan painted. He drove out to the house and picked up Taffy, and she hung around while the two of them worked. They knocked off at eight o’clock for dinner, and then they resumed. Susan began gradually to gain vigor.

“This is fun,” she told him, wearing an old torn smock that had belonged to Zoe. Paint streaked her face; she had tied her hair up in a dishtowel, but paint had gotten onto her arms and neck. “It’s very creative.”

“It’ll make the place newer,” he said.

With a small camel’s hair brush Taffy did the fine edging. In school she had picked up experience along that line. The idea of staying up late appealed to her; they let her help them until ten o’clock and then Bruce drove her and Susan home and returned, alone, to resume work. He kept at it until two-thirty.