Philip Dick - Humpty Dumpty in Oakland

“Who are you calling?” Julie said, from the kitchen. “That realtor woman?”

“No,” he said. Getting up, he shut the door so she could not hear. It occurred to him, too, that Harman would recognize his voice.

When he dialed Tootie’s number a woman answered.

“Let me speak to Tootie,” he said.

“He not home yet,” the woman said. “Who is this, please?”

He told her to have Tootie call him, giving his name.

“He just come home,” the woman said. “He just walk in the door. Just a moment, please.” The phone banged in his ear; there were shufflings and murmurings, and then Tootie came on. “Hello, Al.”

Al said, “Listen, I got something I can’t do that you can do for me. It’ll only take a second. It’s a phone call.” This was not the first time they had exchanged favors of this kind.

“Who to?” Tootie said.

“I’ll just give you the number,” Al said. “You ask for Chris. When he comes on, you tell him you know about the ‘Little Eva’ record.”

“Okay,” Tootie said. “I tell him I know about the ‘Little Eva’ record. What he say?”

Al said, “He should get upset.”

“He get upset.”

“Then you say, ‘But I could forget I know about the “Little Eva” record,’ or something like that. Something suggesting you want to do business with him.”

“I forget about the ‘Little Eva’ record,” Tootie repeated.

“Then get right off the phone. But say you’ll call again. Then get off. Don’t hang around.”

Tootie said, “I call from a booth. That the way I work those kind of thing.”

“Fine,” he said.

“From in front of the liquor store,” Tootie said.

“Fine.”

“Then I call you and say what he say.”

“Fine,” Al said.

“What he number? You give me that like you say.”

He gave Tootie Harman’s phone number. Ringing off, he sat back to wait.

Half an hour later the phone rang, and when he answered it he found himself again talking to Tootie.

“I call him,” Tootie said. “I say, ‘Look here, man, I know about them “Little Eva.” What you going to do?’ That right?”

“Fine,” Al said.

“He say, ‘What.’ I say what I said again.”

“Did he sound nervous?”

Tootie said, “No, he not.”

“How did he sound?”

“He not sound at all. He ask me how many I want.”

“What?” Al said, puzzled.

“He say, ‘How many “Little Eva” you want?’ He intend to sell me some ‘Little Eva’ record; he in the record business. I got the name written down.” A pause. “It called Teach Records.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Al said. “He thought you were a record dealer trying to order.”

Tootie said, “He say he sell only in boxes of twenty-five at forty percent off. An’ he say, ‘How many joke folder you want? They come free.’ ”

“What did you say?”

“I say I call back, an’ hung up. Okay?”

“Okay,” Al said. “Thanks a lot.”

“Listen,” Tootie said. “That ‘Little Eva’ have to do with colored people and their problems?”

“No,” he said. “It’s a song. A record.”

“My wife say,” Tootie said, “ ‘Little Eva’ a colored person.”

He thanked Tootie again and rang off.

Well, that had not worked out at all.

From the kitchen, Julie appeared. “I can’t hold dinner any longer,” she said.

“Okay,” Al said, preoccupied. As he walked into the kitchen and drew up a chair to the table, he thought, The guy certainly isn’t very nervous about his dirty records. And they aren’t a skeleton from his past; he’s still able to supply them in boxes of twenty-five.

As he sat eating dinner he mentioned to his wife how Lydia Fergesson had thrown him out of the house. Julie’s face became inflamed.

“God damn her,” she said, in a frenzy. “She did that? If I’d been there I’d have settled her hash. I would have.” She stared at him, so deeply gripped by her emotions that she could not speak.

“Maybe he’ll die and leave me something,” Al said. “Maybe he’ll leave it all to me. He’s got no children.”

“I don’t care about that!” Julie shouted. “I care about their treatment of you. First he conceals what he’s doing from you, even though your whole economic existence is bound up in that lot, and then they walk over you. God, I wish I’d been there. And she got you to drive her home. Like a chauffeur!”

“It was my idea,” he said. “To drive her back home, so I could see how he was.”

“It’s a closed part of your life,” she said. “Never think about that old man again; forget you ever saw him or knew him—think about the future. Don’t ever go to their house. I’m not ever going back, not after the way they patronized me.”

“Frankly,” Al said, “I was thinking of going back tonight.”

“Why?” She snapped out the word, quivering.

“I don’t like to get thrown out. I think I owe it to my sense of honor and pride to go back.”

“Go back and do what? She’ll just insult you; you can’t hold your own with either of them; you’re too weak to deal with either of them. Not weak. But—” She gestured; she had ceased eating entirely. “Unable to face the harsh realities.”

Al said, “Now I have to go back. After you saying that.” At least that was the way he saw it. There was no other honorable way. Even my wife, he thought, looks down on me.

“Then you better take one of those pills,” Julie said. “Those Dexymil pills you have. When you take one of those you show a little more fight.”

“That’s a good idea,” Al said. “I will.”

“You’re serious?” Julie said. “You want to keep batting your brains out against those people, for no gainful purpose?”

Al said, “I’ll go over and ask what the hell he was doing in Marin County in the middle of a weekday. It makes me curious.”

But it was really to retackle Lydia Fergesson; he felt that he had to vindicate himself. His wife had made him come to that conclusion, or at least she had speeded up the process. In a day or so, he decided, I would have gotten around to it anyhow.

Hearing a car parking at the curb outside the house, Lydia Fergesson went to the window and looked down. She said, “There is that disgusting, nauseating man again. That Al.”

“Good,” the old man said. Propped up on the couch in the living room, he had been thinking to himself that it would be nice to have company. He was still depressed. He did not feel strong, nor able to get dressed; he had on his bathrobe, and Lydia had served him his dinner there instead of at the table.

“I won’t let him in,” Lydia said.

“Let him in,” he said. He could hear Al coming up the front steps. “We can have a beer. Go get out some beer. He had to go right away before.”

The doorbell sounded.

Lydia said, “I will not open or unlock the door. Did you know I have it locked? I have the chain in place.”

It did not surprise him. Getting heavily to his feet he made his way step by step across the living room; she watched him as he got closer and closer to the front door. It took him a long time, but at last he made it; he unlatched the chain and turned the doorknob.

“Hi,” Al said. “Glad to see you up.”

“We heard you park,” the old man said, holding the door open. “Excuse me if I go sit down again.”

Al entered the house and followed him back across the living room. Now there was no sign of Lydia; she had disappeared. The old man heard a door close somewhere, probably her bedroom door. It was just as well, seeing how she felt about Al.

“It’s nice in here,” Al said. He seemed more tense than usual; he stood with his hands stuck in the pockets of his cloth jacket, grinning in the harsh, humorless manner that the old man knew so well. Behind his glasses his eyes gleamed.