Philip Dick: Humpty Dumpty in Oakland

The phone rang.

As she went past him to answer it, he said, “Let it go.”

“It’s probably one of the agencies,” she said. “For me.” She picked up the receiver, said hello. Then she put her hand over the receiver and said to him, “Do you know somebody named Denkmal?”

“God no,” he said.

“Anyway its for you,” she said. She held it out to him.

He shook his head no.

Julie, her hand over the phone, said to him in a soft voice, “I’m not telling your lies for you. You’ll have to do it yourself from now on.” Again she held the phone out.

So he took the phone from her and said hello.

A mans voice said, “Al Miller?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Say, Miller, my names Denkmal. I own the barbershop. You know, across from you. Listen, I can see your lot from here. You better get down here.”

He hung up, ran past Julie and out of the apartment, downstairs and across the sidewalk, to the Chevrolet.

When he pulled up at the curb before the lot, the barber in his white uniform came across the street, through traffic, and up beside him. They stood together, facing the lot. Nothing stirred.

Denkmal said, “I don’t know what they did. I thought they were customers, looking at cars.”

“Did they go in the back?” Al said. He walked onto the lot, and the barber followed. The cars in the first line seemed okay.

“They were doing something,” the barber said.

It was the Marmon, in the back. They had broken all the glass, slashed the tires, ripped the seats, smashed the gauges of the dashboard. When he lifted the hood he saw that they had cut wires, torn parts loose. And the paint was ruined. They had gouged and scratched it, and with a hammer, dented the hood and doors. The headlights had been wrenched loose and broken. Looking down he saw that water was leaking out in a pool. They had smashed the radiator.

“You better call the Oakland Police Department,” Denkmal said. “You had it almost completely rebuilt, didn’t you? I’ve been watching you; good Lord, you’ve been working on it for a couple of years.”

“The motherfuckers,” Al said.

Denkmal said, “It didn’t look like juveniles. Usually it’s juveniles that do vandalism.”

“No,” he said. “It wasn’t kids.”

“The police will say it was kids,” Denkmal said.

Al thanked the barber for calling him. The barber went back across the street to his barbershop. Al remained on the lot, standing with his back to the ruined car, watching the traffic pass. Then he went into the little basalt blockhouse and shut the door and sat down, by himself.

What else can they do? he asked himself. They got my wife’s job; mine was already gone. They got my Marmon. Maybe Tootie was right; maybe they’ll stick a shiv into me, or beat me up. Or rape Julie. Who knows? He did not know. He had cost Harman forty thousand dollars at least; perhaps more.

He remembered how, as a kid, he had used a gun. The only time. He had had the job of feeding the chickens and ducks in their pens. He had gone down there and found field rats galloping around; so his dad had given him the.22 rifle and he had clambered up on the roof of the chicken house and sat cross-legged, above the pen, watching for the field rats to come out of their burrows. He had shot one. He had hit it in the hindquarters and it had spun around like a gear in a clock, its feet flailing. Around and around it had gone, and then, just when he thought it was going to die, it bolted for its hole, made it, and disappeared.

In his mind he tried to picture how a man would look, hit somewhere, spinning around and around. I can’t make it, he thought. Fuck it. I won’t buy a gun.

For an indefinite long time he remained there, at his desk, in thought. And then he noticed that several cars were parked at the curb a little way down. The garage doors had been opened, and Lydia Fergesson was coming out of the garage. With her were several men in business suits, all looking grave.

Seeing him in the little house, Lydia came across the lot toward him. “Mr. Miller,” she said, opening the door of the house. “We were able to stop the check. The money I have taken out and put for safekeeping in a safety-deposit box.” Her eyes flashed as she spoke. Her face had heavy makeup on it, and she wore a fur neckpiece, black coat, dark stockings, and carried a big leather purse. Her whole body vibrated with tension, almost a kind of excitement. Near even to frenzy.

“Good,” he said.

“The body lies in state at this mortuary. Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis . Eh, Mr. Miller?” She put down a white embossed card on his desk. “The service will be tomorrow in the morning, at eleven. Then he will be cremated.”

He nodded, picking up the card.

“Do you wish to go to view the deceased?” Lydia said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t decide.”

“There is always the problem of what clothes,” she said. “They contacted me in that matter. He had new ties he had bought, but it was my conclusion not to use anything but what we are all familiar with. The minister is Unitarian. Do you know songs he enjoyed?”

“What?” Al said.

“They play on the organ songs he enjoyed.”

“No,” he said.

“Then they will play hymns,” Lydia said. “Worse luck.”

Al said, “I hastened his death, by arguing with him at Harman’s house. Did you know that?”

“You were doing your duty.”

“How do you know?”

“He gave me a complete account of the proceedings. He recognized that you were attempting to save him from himself.”

Al stared down at his desk.

“He did not hold it against you.”

Al nodded.

“Please go and view the remains,” Lydia said.

“Okay,” he said.

“Today,” she said. “Because if you do not do it today there will be no remains to view.”

“Okay,” he said.

“You’re not going to,” Lydia said. “Why not?”

“I don’t see any point in it,” he said.

Lydia said, “No one can make you do anything, Mr. Miller; I recognize that about you. You do exactly as you want. I have been thinking about you today; you are very much in my thoughts. I want to bestow on you enough money to get you started again.”

He glanced at her, taken utterly off guard.

“Your economic existence is in ruins,” Lydia said. “Is it not? Because of your obedience to duty. Someone must restore you by stepping in and aiding you, someone who can. I have the money.”

He did not know what to say.

“You are thinking,” she said, “that you would be sharing in the loot.”

At that, he laughed.

“Wash your conscience clear,” Lydia said. “You have nothing to feel guilty for.”

“I want to feel guilty,” he said.

“Why, Mr. Miller?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You want possibly to share in his death.”

Al said nothing.

“Instead of viewing him,” she said, “This is what you do. It is your system.”

He shrugged, still gazing down at the desk.

Opening her big leather purse, Lydia searched and then put out her hand with something; he saw that it was a five-dollar bill. She pushed the bill into his shirt pocket. As he stared at it, she said, “I want you to buy flowers to send to the mortuary for display.”

“I can buy flowers,” he said.

“No you can’t,” she said calmly. “Can you? Have you ever done that? Not in your life, my good young friend. Nor have you ever gone to a funeral. You do not know how. There are so many things in this world which you personally do not understand how to go about doing. You are, I would say, if it does not hurt, a barbarian.”

“A barbarian,” he repeated.