Puttering About in a Small Land

by Philip K. Dick

  “They wouldn’t loan anything on something like that.”

  Virginia agreed. “But they told me a lot. How much it would cost, how much net profit we’d have to make, the sort of location we should look for. One of the men even drove me around in his car.”

  “They like to have something they can foreclose on,” Mrs. Watson said.

  “They can’t foreclose if they don’t make any loan.”

  Beside Mrs. Watson her daughter sat bolt-upright behind the wheel, steering with great vigor. “I didn’t know you drove,” she said. “When did you learn to drive?”

  “Roger taught me.”

  “You have a license, don’t you?” She felt a pang of nervousness. “I mean, it’s all legal, isn’t it?”

  The car had entered a shopping district. Virginia slowed and then pointed to a row of stores. “Look. See that second one?” The store passed before Mrs. Watson got any kind of look at it. “I’ll drive around the block,” Virginia said. “I want you to see it. Mr. Browminor showed it to me. He’s the bank man. He says the lease will expire in another couple of months; the woman is retiring. He says it’s an excellent location.”

  Again they drove by the stores. Virginia turned into an empty parking slot and shut off the engine. From where they had parked they could see the front of the store, the window displays and sign. It was a hat shop.

  “The bank owns the building,” Virginia said. “The Bank of America. They’re the largest bank in California. They’re up to their neck in real estate. They used to be the Banco d’Italia in the old days; they held the mortgages on all the farms in the Imperial Valley after World War One, and in the Depression they got all the land.”

  “Did Mr. Browminor tell you that?”

  “I read up on it,” Virginia said. “I have nothing to do all day; I’m not working. I don’t feel like sitting around a war-time housing unit listening to other people’s radios and kids.” She spoke so fiercely that her mother felt uncomfortable.

  “It’s a nice-looking store,” Mrs. Watson said.

  “The building was put up in 1940. So the wiring and plumbing are modern. And the front is modern. It won’t have to be remodeled for at least ten years.”

  “Is this the one you want?”

  “He showed me a couple more. And he gave me the name of a Realtor who specializes in small businesses. Do you realize how many people are moving out here to Los Angeles? In ten years there’ll be more people here than in New York.”

  “I doubt that,” Mrs. Watson said.

  Virginia blushed.

  “You always go at it so,” Mrs. Watson said, “once you start. Try taking it a little more slowly.”

  Virginia eyed her. “I want to get it arranged.”

  “There’s no rush. How much do the bank people say you ought to have?”

  “They suggest at least ten thousand dollars. Preferably fifteen or twenty. No less than ten, anyhow.”

  “How much do you have?”

  Smiling just a little, Virginia said, “About seven hundred dollars, including the market value of this car.”

  “So,” Mrs. Watson said, “I’d have to put it all up, when you get down to it.”

  “It’s a good investment. You can’t make a mistake putting money into real estate in California.”

  “But you’re not buying real estate. You’d just be leasing. You’d own nothing but the stock and fixtures.”

  “And the location.”

  “Why don’t you buy lots? Land for subdivision.”

  “Because,” Virginia said, in her old inflexible way, “that’s not what we’re interested in. We want a store we can run.”

  Voices, his wife’s and another woman’s, drifted down to him as he started onto the hall stairs. At once he realized that Mrs. Watson, his mother-in-law, had arrived from the East. The two of them, he thought. Sitting together in the living room, waiting for him.

  However, he continued on up and opened the door.

  His mother-in-law lifted her head, and both she and Virginia stopped talking. The room smelled of cigarettes and women’s clothing. Over a chair their two coats hung, with their purses, and beside the chair was Mrs. Watson’s suitcase. All the windows had been shut; the room was stuffy, overly-warm. On the bookcase the radio—fixed by the One Day Radio Repair—played light music. He did not find the sight, or the smells and sound, unpleasant; in a sense he was glad to see Mrs. Watson.

  Back in 1943, when he had met her, she had treated him with courtesy. The meal at her home in Maryland reminded him of the best restaurant meals, pot roast and baked potatoes and rolls, linen napkins. He wore his good suit and a tie borrowed from Irv Rattenfanger. The conversation revolved around his plans, and that was all right; he expected that. He explained to her about his trip to California. At least she listened to him. Later on, when Virginia told him that her mother had not cared much for him, he accepted it as natural. His first wife’s mother had not liked him either.

  “Hello,” he said, laying down his package. “I’m glad you got here okay.”

  Mrs. Watson put out her hand, so he shook hands with her. Her hand was small, rough, muscular. Her skin, he noticed, had darkened and become spotted, especially around her throat. On the back of her hand were liver spots, and her veins stood out. She was even thinner than Virginia, and somewhat shorter. For a middle-aged woman she looked good. At least she lacked the soft, flowery clumsiness of Teddy’s mother.

  Mrs. Watson said, “It’s nice seeing you again.”

  “What did you get?” Virginia said, picking up the package.

  “Just some stuff.” At a hardware store he had bought one of the new soldering guns just now appearing on the market; it had two elements, one extremely hot, both of which heated instantly. At a radio wholesale supply house he had got schematics on a new type of phonograph cartridge invented by General Electric; it operated on a radical principle called variable reluctance. He spent much of his time visiting such supply houses, and the new cartridge had them all interested.

  “Virginia says you had trouble with your teeth,” Mrs. Watson said.

  “Yes,” he said. He wished the two women would sit down, and he started uncertainly towards the couch.

  “When they bring out that needle,” Mrs. Watson said, “I always wish I could die quietly of a heart attack and save them the trouble.” Her tone was the flat, calm, measured declaration that he remembered.

  “Sit down,” he said, seating himself.

  Both Virginia and her mother sat down, then. For a moment nobody spoke. He began to feel oppressed.

  “They laid us off,” he said. “From the plant. They’re laying everybody off.”

  Here, in the living room of the apartment, his apartment, he became suddenly conscious of size. He and the room were both small, unimpressive; even, he thought, flimsy. What did he have? What did he show? As always he wore his work trousers, his coat and canvas shirt, his flappy, bent, dirty shoes. Then he thought how he had sent out his suit to be pressed for tomorrow; she was not supposed to arrive until tomorrow. The sense of pressure, the mashing down of him…he struggled to breathe.

  In his mind, inside him, he longed to leave. The tugging at him, the need; outside the building his car was parked, pointed towards the highway, Route 66. Barstow, first, then the Mojave Desert, then Needles, and the Arizona border. Seated in the cramped living room, with the window shut, facing his wife and mother-in-law, he heard the car about him, the nearness of the road.

  God, he thought. Could he stand it?

  On his lap his fingers plucked at his coat; he smoothed the fabric, examined it. He could not sit still. Getting up he went to the window.

  “Can I open a window?” he said. “It’s sure stuffy.”

  Neither of the women answered.

  “I guess I will,” he said, perspiring. The window opened and he remained by it, savoring the air.

  Offering her package of cigarettes to her mother, Virginia said, “What do you think about yo
ur room?”

  “Oh I think it’ll do for a while,” Mrs. Watson said. “I may look around if I’m going to stay very long.”

  “I picked that place out,” Roger said. “I found it.”

  Mrs. Watson said, “That’s a good car you have. Virginia says you just bought it recently.”

  “I’m tuning it up,” he said. For several days he had had it down the street at a Shell Station, cleaning the plugs and tinkering with the carburetor settings. He had got to know two of the boys at the station; one of them was married and earlier in the month he had brought his wife over for dinner.

  “If you can’t work on your own car,” Mrs. Watson said, “you really are at their mercy.”

  “That’s a fact,” Roger said.

  Again no one spoke.

  On the table was the FM unit which he had started wiring from the diagram. Virginia lifted it up and said, “Marion asked me about this.”

  Mrs. Watson said, “Yes, I was wondering what it was.”

  “I didn’t know what to call it,” Virginia said. “It’s a radio, isn’t it?” She set it down. “All I could tell her was that you were making it.”

  “I’m wiring it,” he said, wanting for a reason too vague to pin down to clarify that it was not a kit, a model. “This is going to be the band,” he said. “This is the new band.” He could not explain it. The whole new world, the opening up of regions and levels…the hell with it, he thought, feeling futile. Yes, he thought, I call it a telescope. Something to make the time go by. After that, I’m inventing the microscope and then the printing press. If I have time I’ll invent the steam engine. Toys to hang from the ceiling of my room…

  “Look,” he said, “this is what Colonel Armstrong developed. It’s as important as the superheterodyne circuit. He developed that, too.”

  They listened attentively.

  “The problem with these is drift,” he said. “The plates expand when it heats, and it drifts off the station. So you have to retune it.” He picked up the incompleted FM tuner. “Somebody’ll figure that out, though.”

  He felt like a boy.

  Mrs. Watson said, “Virginia says you bought the car to go back to Arkansas.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Have you asked her if she’d like that?”

  He could think of no answer.

  “I think you ought to ask her,” Mrs. Watson said. “Maybe she doesn’t want to go to Arkansas.”

  “It’s a nice state,” he said, not looking at either of them.

  “What are you going to do back there?”

  “Look around,” he said.

  “Why can’t you do that out here?”

  “This isn’t like I thought it was,” he said. “It didn’t turn out to be what I want. My luck isn’t any good out here.”

  “You think your luck will change back in Arkansas?”

  He said, “That’s where I grew up.”

  “Do you want your children to grow up there?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Is that any kind of place for children? What are the schools like?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “You know what I think?” Mrs. Watson said. “I think you’re blaming everyone else for something that’s your fault.”

  He nodded, staring down.

  “Yes, it’s your fault,” Mrs. Watson said. “Why don’t you look at me when I’m talking to you?”

  He looked.

  “That’s just an excuse, that luck. It has nothing to do with luck. You know that, don’t you? I know you know that. You know that as well as I. Now let’s stop talking about that and face up to the situation. You wanted to come out here and now you’re going to have to stick with it. You have a wife to support and pretty soon you’ll have a child, and by then I want to see you with a job. Anybody can get a job out here. All you have to do is look. You’ve just decided it’s time to move on, haven’t you?”

  He tried to think of something to say. Across from him Virginia showed no expression.

  “I have a lot of things to do,” he said. “I have to finish getting the car tuned up.” Arising, he said, “I think I better go down to the station for a while.”

  Mrs. Watson said, “You sit down and listen to me.”

  “I have to get going,” he said.

  “That car isn’t yours,” Mrs. Watson said. “According to law it doesn’t belong to you; it belongs to both of you, you and Virginia. If you run off with that car it’s stealing.”

  “It’s my car,” he said, feeling panic.

  “Don’t you listen? I told you that you don’t own it and you just stand there repeating that it’s yours. It’s half yours, but you can’t run off with it. Anyhow you can’t leave the State without your wife. You know that. You can be arrested and brought back. You can’t run out on your family.”

  He said, “We’re both going to Arkansas.”

  “Virginia’s not going to Arkansas. She’s staying here. So you can’t go. That’s desertion, and taking the car out of the state is grand theft.”

  “I have to go get the points cleaned,” he said. “There’s no law that I can’t drive my own car down to the gas station and have it worked on.” Moving toward the door he waited for Mrs. Watson to say something or to stop him; he expected her to leap up and fly at him and catch hold of him. But she remained seated, smoking her cigarette, and beside her, Virginia still showed no emotion of any kind; her face remained blank, as if she were deep in thought.

  “I’ll be back in around an hour,” he said, speaking to his wife, hoping for some word, some remark that would release him.

  The two women glanced at each other.

  “If you’re going to take the car,” Virginia said, “you could drive Marion over to her room.”

  “I have to take some things from here,” Mrs. Watson said.

  “Sheets,” Virginia said. “What else can you think of? Pots and pans, dishes.”

  “If you’re sure you can spare them,” Mrs. Watson said.

  “I have two wool blankets. That should be enough. Where’s the list we made?” Virginia searched among the papers on the table. “Let’s see, you’ll need some face towels and bath towels.”

  The two women collected everything, wandering here and there in the apartment checking for items they had missed. He did not stir; he stood by the door, not leaving, not helping or speaking, not knowing what to do.

  “I think that’s enough to get me started,” Mrs. Watson said practically. “I can shop at the store for food; don’t pack any food.” Virginia had filled a cardboard box with silverware and dishes, a skillet and double boiler, a salt and pepper set.

  “You want to carry this down?” Virginia said to her husband.

  Picking up the box he carried it downstairs and set it in the car. Virginia followed him with the bedding.

  “Hurry back,” she said. After the bedding she put a wastepaper basket full of china packed in newspaper into the back of the car.

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “No,” she said, “I still have to go to the launderette and pick up your shirts.”

  Mrs. Watson appeared, carrying her suitcase. “There’s probably a waiting list for phones,” she said to Virginia.

  “We can try anyhow,” Virginia said. “I’ll call them and talk to them.”

  Opening the front door of the car, Mrs. Watson said to her daughter, “I’ll drop by in the morning.”

  “Fine,” Virginia said. She stayed on the sidewalk, her arms folded, as he drove his mother-in-law off in his car.

  After they had gone a few blocks he said, “I wasn’t going to leave Virginia.”

  Mrs. Watson said, “You just better forget about this Arkansas business.”

  “I’m telling you the truth!” he said.

  “You were married once before,” Mrs. Watson said. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don�
�t know. Back East.”

  “Did you have any children?”

  “One.”

  “Do you ever hear from them?”

  “No.”

  “Do you contribute any money toward their support?”

  “No. She remarried.”

  “I knew it would work out like this,” Mrs. Watson said. “As soon as I laid eyes on you. But Virginia wants to stay with you. It’s up to her. I told her originally how I felt about you.”

  He said bitterly, “I don’t think much of you either.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Mrs. Watson said, “and that’s this: you’re not going to walk off and leave my daughter, especially now that she’s going to have a baby. You better make up your mind to that. You’re staying right here and support them. What is this business you want? Some sort of radio fixit shop? Are you competent to do that?”

  He concentrated on driving.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” Mrs. Watson said, “you’d be better off at some kind of laboring job. But Virginia thinks you could manage a little store.”

  Horrified, he said, “It’s none of your business. You mind your own business. That’s my affair, between me and my wife; you have nothing to do with it.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that.”

  His voice stuck in his throat. “Don’t you meddle in my family,” he told her, at last.

  Mrs. Watson said, “She’s my daughter and I’ve known her a lot longer than you have. I’m much more concerned about her welfare than you’ll ever be. All you care about is loafing at some easy job where you won’t have to do any work. You’re what the people back home call trash. Isn’t that the truth? Now you know that down inside you; you know you’re just a no-good man with a lot of trash talk. I told my daughter not to have anything to do with you, but she was working there in the Washington hospitals and she had a noble thing about the war and helping crippled people. If she wants to waste her own life, give up her life and devote herself to trying to patch you together into something worthwhile and useful, I know she can’t be stopped by me from doing it. Of course I think some day she’ll wake up and realize. Anyhow, I came out here with the determination to aid my daughter as much as I can, because I’ve always been behind her, even after she married you; I’m not like some who’d turn against their child because they disapproved of what their child did to them. There’s no mean or wicked streak in Virginia, just ignorance like everybody else when a war’s going on and people have lost their good sense.” Her speech took on the sharp, sing-song Southern whine, the accusation and sense of suffering of the Southern lady. But all at once she ceased; opening her large leather purse she began searching for her cigarette lighter.