Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

The police paid no attention to him. Eventually the last car of the funeral procession passed before them; the police blew their whistles, and traffic once more began to move.

“Fuck,” Milt said, starting the car up and gunning the motor in low.

“Actually we didn’t lose much time,” he said, but Milt did not respond.

When they reached the house they parked the Mercedes in the doorless garage and started transferring their luggage from the back seat and trunk to the Merc.

While they were doing that a car drove up to the curb. Its door opened and Cathy Hermes hopped out, slammed the door; and waved good-bye. The car, a 1949 Chrysler, started off and made a left-turn at the corner.

“Her husband,” Milt said, lifting an armload of samples from the back of the Mercedes. “He drives her home from work and leaves her off. This is home.”

Her brown cloth coat flapping behind her, Cathy hurried toward them. “Are you back so soon?” she called, clutching her purse and beginning to run. “What are you doing? Are you going to go somewhere in his car?”

Milt said, “We’re taking off again.”

“Where?” She reached him and placed herself in front of him, keeping him from carrying any more to the Merc.

“Seattle,” he said.

“Now? Right away?” She breathed rapidly, frowning at him in the late-afternoon glare. “What’s me rush? I thought you weren’t starting back for three more days. You were going to rest around here until Tuesday at least.”

“I’ll be back,” he said.

At that, she fluffed up and said in her tiny insistent voice, “You’re not supposed to take such a long trip at one time. You know it’s too hard on you. Why do you have to go with him anyhow? Are you leaving the Mercedes here?”

“You can use it,” Milt said, setting her to one side so that he could load the samples into the Merc. “Here’s the key.”

“I have a key,” she said. “Will you explain to me what this is all about? I think I have some right to know, since it’ll be me who’ll have to take care of you.”

Milt said, “He and a friend of mine got married and I want to get this business settled for them as a wedding present.”

Both of them retired off to one side to argue. Bruce did not want to mix into their argument, so he continued loading up his car with whatever he could find in the Mercedes.

Beckoning him over, Milt said, “I have to get some junk that’s upstairs, I’ll be back down in a couple of minutes.” He entered me building, dragging his feet, sullen and taciturn.

In the driveway Cathy remained behind, holding her purse, shut off by his going into the house.

“I guess it’s my fault,” Bruce said, as he loaded.

“He knows he shouldn’t go,” Cathy said.

“I’ll do most of the driving.”

Her cheeks flushed, she said, “He isn’t supposed to sit for so long, and when he’s on the road between towns he doesn’t stop to go to the bathroom often enough. That and the bouncing around. Couldn’t he just call on the telephone about his business for you?”

“He would know that,” he said uncomfortably. “Not me.”

When Milt returned, Cathy said to him, “Why don’t you just phone?”

“No,” Milt said. He put the things he had brought down into the Merc. “I’ll be okay,” he told her. “I’ll lie down and stretch out in back and let Bruce drive.”

“This woman must be an awfully good friend of yours,” Cathy said. “Maybe she can take care of you. If you get sick because of this, I’m not going to take care of you.” She started into the house.

“Suit yourself,” Milt said, getting into the Merc. “Let’s go,” he said to Bruce.

Standing on the porch Cathy called down, “Don’t come back here.”

“Okay,” Milt said.

She threw down the key to the Mercedes; it landed in the dirt of the driveway. “Let your Boise friends take care of you,” she said. She opened the front door of the house, entered, and slammed it after her.

“Let’s go,” Milt repeated.

Behind the wheel, Bruce started up the Merc. They drove away, both of them silent.

“Well see what she says when I get back,” Milt said, sometime later. By now he had taken the wheel himself.

“She really takes an interest in your welfare,” he said, with a deep sense of having been responsible, that if they wanted to get the typewriters this was probably the only way.

Milt said merely. “Susan probably feels the same about you. She probably minks I’m a bad influence on you.”

“She doesn’t know where I am,” he said.

“If she knew she’d warn you away from me. Women always feel like that about their husbands’ friends. It’s instinctive. Fear that their husband is really a queer.”

“I don’t mink that’s why she’s sore,” Bruce said. “Do you?”

“No,” Milt admitted.

“I don’t see that there’s any inference in this that either or both of us is queer.” That did not set well with him, even the idea of it.

Milt, smiling a trifle, said, “It’s just a manner of speech.”

After a time Bruce said, “How does it feel to drive an American car, after your Mercedes?”

“Like driving a tub of blubber.”

“Why do you say that?” he said with resentment.

“It slides around like a loose goose,” Milt said, waggling the power-assisted wheel so that the car steered from side to side, across the white line and then onto the shoulder. “Are you sure this wheel is attached to anything down underneath? It has no road-sense. Like driving a bag of chicken feathers. Lots of nice window, though.” He poked Bruce in the ribs. “Like that vista-dome train.”

“You try opening it up,” he said. “Then you’ll see the difference. This car’ll cruise at ninety all day long.”

They continued up highway 30, into northern Oregon, not stopping in Boise. Sometime early in the morning, before dawn, Milt suggested that they pull off and eat. They found a roadside cafe, ate, and once again returned to the road. But now Milt seemed sluggish and uncomfortable. He let Bruce take the wheel; settling against the door on his side he wrapped his arms around his body but did not sleep. At the wheel, Bruce listened to the man’s breathing.

“You okay?” he inquired.

“Sure,” Milt said. “Taking a nap.”

“Your kidneys bothering you?”

“I don’t have any kidneys,” Milt said.

“Maybe we ought to find a place to stay,” he said, but his own urge was to keep driving. They might possibly reach Seattle without stopping, make the entire trip in a single dash. The excitement of the drive itself began to take precedence, in his mind, over their purpose in going to Seattle in the first place. Most of his long trips on the road had been lonely ordeals, with no one to share the job or talk to. He could understand why Milt had wanted company. It made a difference. Here they were together, the way he and his former boss Ed von Scharf had been originally, before he had learned enough to go out and buy on his own. How much this reminded him of those days…except that in a sense the situation had been turned around. Now he did most of the driving and made the choices as they showed up. Beside him, his companion became more and more inert. Eventually it would all be up to him.

But in a certain respect he enjoyed this, having the wheel to himself with Milt taking it easy in the seat next to him. It made him aware that without him they could not possibly get to Seattle; at least, not in this fashion, driving on and on without stopping. Partly it had to do with age. And with general all-around physical health. But also, this was his dish. Growing up in Montario he had been born to the road; in his high school days he had made the drive down to Reno, seventeen years old and already yearning to—