Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

Milt interrupted him. “What’s wrong with you?” He glared at him, and, drawing himself upright, croaked, “How do you get the way you are? Is it some kind of pose?”

Taken by surprise, he said, “Explain what you mean.”

Thrashing about, Milt indicated the road and the land beyond it. “You thrive on this. I’ve been watching you—you eat it up. The more the better. How does a person get like that? I’ve been asking myself that over and over again. Don’t you need anything outside yourself? Human beings mean nothing at all to you.”

The tirade, coming without warning, and being in such a jumbled fashion, made him wonder what could have gotten into Milt. “What’s this all about?” he asked.

Subsiding somewhat, Milt said, “You’re so damn self-sufficient. No, it’s worse than that. You don’t care anything about anybody else; maybe you don’t even care about yourself. What are you alive for?” Accusingly, he said. “You’re like one of these millionaire tycoons that rides rough-shod over mankind.” He spoke with such fervor and righteous sincerity that Bruce had to laugh. At that, Milt became even more incoherent. “Yes, it really is funny,” he managed to say. “Do you even care about your wife? Or did you just marry her to inherit the business? Hell, you’re a madman.” He stared at him.

“I’m not a madman,” Bruce said, and he had to fight down fits of laughter; there, beside him, dumpy, cross Milton Lumky had turned red-faced and his eyes prepared to pop from his head. And what about? Impossible to tell. “Listen,” he said, “if I made you sore by—”

“You didn’t make me sore,” Milt interrupted. “I pity you.”

“Why?” he said.

“Because you don’t love anybody in the world.”

“You have no way to know that.”

“You have no bonds of affection with anybody. I’ve got you figured out. You have no heart.” Abruptly, with passion, he smacked himself on the chest and shouted, “You have no fucking heart, do you? Admit it.”

Incredible, Bruce thought, that anybody could really talk like that. Believe in such empty phrases. Trash he had read emerging from him, using his mouth and voice. But beyond any doubt, to Milt it was a critical matter. That sobered him and he said, “I have a good deal of feeling toward Susan.”

“What about me?” Milt said.

“What do you mean, ‘what about me’?”

Milt said, “Forget it.”

In his life he had never heard anybody talk like that before. “I know what’s bothering you,” he said. “This scenery depresses you and it doesn’t depress me. That makes you mad and it worries you.”

“Do you ever feel depressed? About anything?”

“Not about scenery,” he said. But then he remembered how he had felt going through the Sierras. The littered, abandoned quality of the mountains. The sparse vegetation. The silence. “Sure,” he said. “Sometimes it gets me down. I don’t like it so much out between towns. I think anybody who’s on the road feels like that, especially out here where we have to get on the Great Western Desert.”

“I can’t drive that desert,” Milt said. “Down into Nevada.” Now he had grown ill-looking and weak once more; he settled against the door. The flush had faded from his face, allowing it to collapse. For a long time neither of them said anything. At last Milt stirred about and said, “Let’s pull off and get some sleep.” He shut his eyes.

“Okay,” Bruce said, with reluctance.

At dawn they reached a small motel set back from the road, with its vacancy sign still lit and blinking. The owner, a middle-aged woman in a bathrobe, led them to a cabin, and soon they had locked up the car, carried their suitcases indoors, and were crawling into the two single beds.

As he fell asleep he thought triumphantly, Only about two hundred more miles left to go. We’re almost there.

No, he thought. More like three hundred. But it made no real difference. We can make it with no trouble at all.

At eleven the next morning he awoke. Getting out of bed he padded into the bathroom, struggled out of his wrinkled, unpleasant-feeling clothes, and enjoyed a shower. Then he shaved, combed his hair, and put on clean clothes, a fresh starched white cotton shirt in particular. That made him feel better than ever. And yet something dangled in the back of his mind that depressed his spirits. Something dragged him down. What was it? An only partly-remembered unpleasantness. In the bathroom he stood at the mirror fussing with his talc, trying to detect the nature of the weight on him. Outside the motel, the warm sun sparkled off cars moving along the highway, and he became ready to leave; he at once wanted to get started. With impatience, he left the bathroom and returned to the front room.

In his bed Milt Lumky lay on his side, his legs drawn up, his face obscured by the covers. He did not stir but he was awake. Bruce could see his eyes. Without blinking, Lumky stared off into the corner.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce asked.

“Okay,” Lumky said. He continued to stare and then he said, “I hate to have to tell you this, but I’m sick.”

Picking up his suitcase, Bruce began the job of returning his things to it. “How sick?” he said.

“Darn sick,” Milt said.

Hearing that he felt fright. His legs shook under him. This was the awful thing in the back of his mind, and now it had come forward. He went on packing, however. In the bed Milt watched him. “That’s too bad,” Bruce said. “I’m sorry to hear that. Of course it isn’t exactly a surprise to either of us. We sort of expected it from yesterday.”

Milt said, “I’ll have to stay in bed for a while.” He spoke slowly, but without any sign of doubt. As if he knew his own situation so well that there could not be any argument.

“Then maybe she was right,” Bruce said. “Is that so?”

“She was right,” Milt said.

“God damn it,” he said. “This is a hell of a thing.” He ceased packing and stood aimlessly.

“This is a hell of a thing to wish onto you,” Milt said, “but there’s nothing we can do about it now.” Evidently he felt no need of apology; his voice was gruff.

“You want your medicine?” he said.

“Maybe later,” Milt said. “I’ll just take it easy for now.” He made no move to get up. He seemed calm about it, not in any pain or even alarmed. Only resigned, and somewhat subdued. Not trying to make any jokes about it.

Did he know this was going to happen? Bruce wondered. I’ll bet he did. Maybe this is his getting back at us. Getting even because we got married. Jealous of me, he thought. Thoughts of that sort entered his mind as he gazed down at Milt Lumky in the bed. After all Milt said himself that he was interested in her.

“I guess we don’t get into Seattle,” he said.

“Later on,” Milt said.

“I mean, maybe we don’t get in at all.”

Milt said nothing, Then he grimaced, either feeling pain or thinking of something. He stirred about in the bed; his short, stubby fingers appeared and he grabbed at the pillow to tug it under his head. The covers fell across his face. His back was to Bruce.

After some time had passed, Bruce opened the cabin door and walked outside, onto the parking area by the car. They had rolled up the car windows and he could see that the interior of the car was dank and oppressive. So he opened the car door and rolled down the windows. The upholstery burned his hand as he leaned against it. The car smelled of fabric and dust, as it always did in the mornings. He sat behind the wheel and lit a cigarette and smoked.

I can’t leave him, he realized. I can’t drive off leaving him here by himself. Undoubtedly he actually is sick. And anyhow, I can’t arrange for the typewriters without him.