Voices From the Street

by Philip K. Dick

  “I’d worry,” Laura said, “if I lived up there. I’d want to go out every morning with a long pole and see how far the water level had risen during the night.”

  They walked down the street toward the wall of ponderous wooden piers. Ships were tied up here and there, Latin American steamers unloading bananas and hardwood. To the right, beyond the piers, the span of the Bay Bridge arched off to Yerba Buena Island, a thin wand of gray-blue metal that pierced the woolly-green wad of trees and earth, appeared on the far side, and then sloped away to the east side of the Bay. Berkeley and Oakland lay like an uneven white paste, smeared on the long ridge of hills spread out as far as the eye could see. The ridge was gone at last into blue haze and distance.

  “You know exactly where she’ll be?” Dave asked Hadley. Pipe between his teeth, he stepped rapidly along, coat fluttering behind him, baggy tweed trousers flapping in the ocean wind.

  “She’ll be on the pier,” Hadley answered obliquely. “I’ll see her.”

  They strode along a railroad track, scuffing up dust with their shoes. Boxcars were parked in ragged clumps. The air was clean and dry; gusts of hot wind rustled around them as they stepped from rail to rail like three children going for a hike, Dave in his impressed tweeds, Laura in a sloppy wool skirt, wool jacket, and bobby socks. Stuart Hadley wore dark brown slacks, a T-shirt, and crepe-soled shoes. In the sky above them, tubby gray gulls screamed and wheeled; they were getting near the Wharf.

  To their left lay a wide flat plain, black with metallic dust and grit. Abruptly the sweep of the city rose, a mountain where the industrial plain ended, where squat factories became the perpendicular sprawl of the Italian stores and houses and the bars of North Beach. The flapping white laundry creeping up the side of the mountain might have been the washing of a Mediterranean city. Between the tangle of houses and the dark blue water of the Bay the ugly flat black strip of factories glowered like a legion of trolls: the tanks of oil refineries, the rusty steel scaffolds of soap and ink and dye plants.

  Presently the hot summer air reeked with the odor of dead fish.

  To their right was the Wharf, a row of gaudy neon signs mounted on square wooden buildings: restaurants and fish stalls. Past that was a railing, below which a fleet of inferior boats was pulled up helter-skelter, like driftwood washed onto a beach. Couples in gay summer clothing strolled here and there, enjoying the expanse of the Bay, the distant baked-brown hills of Marin, and the swath of ocean itself, beyond.

  “There she is,” Hadley said. Under his T-shirt his heart thudded heavily, painfully. It had been two years since he had seen Sally.

  His sister stood with her husband at the edge of the railing, not looking out across the water, but simply standing. She had changed since he’d last seen her; but he recognized her at once. Instantly, he started toward her. Dave and Laura trailed warily after him; he got there well ahead of them.

  She wore, of course, an expensively tailored suit, an imported light gray English weave, with plain, severe lines, cut in sharply at the waist. High heels, long expensive legs, an intricate little hat in her swept-back blond hair, gloves, a square leather purse strapped over her arm…and from her ears, hooped copper earrings. Perhaps she wore a little too much makeup for a languid July day; even on the sagging pier she was dressed for an exclusive nightclub. As he came close to her the scent of her perfume drifted around him, recalling in a rush all the tastes and textures that made up her world, her body and possessions, all the fabrics and powders and garments and colors of her room.

  “Hello,” Sally said, in her throaty, husky whisper, smiling directly at Hadley. For an instant she hugged him, kissed him brushingly on the cheek. Her lips left a trace of redness and moisture; he could feel it lingering there, slowly dwindling, evaporating in the hot summer air. The net lace from her hat danced between him and the familiar features that had lured, awed, hypnotized him all his life. Again, he saw his own self in her pale blue eyes. Her sweep of heavy hair, yellow and thick as corn syrup, was an ultimate extension, a breathless realization, of his own botched mop. It was all there: her mouth and chin, her cheekbones, her rising neck with its taut cords, her flaring nostrils that had thickened only a trifle since he had last seen her. She was mature now. Fully ripe. Twenty-nine, firm and at the peak of her physical powers… He tore himself away and shook hands with her husband.

  “Hi,” Bob said briefly, crushing Hadley’s hand in a vicious man-grip. “How’ve you been, Stu?”

  “Fine,” Hadley said. He introduced everybody around; Dave and Sally distantly remembered each other from high school. They greeted each other formally, dispassionately. Bob, dour and menacing in his western-style hat, jeans, canvas shirt, riding boots, hair shaved to a stain of coffee-black over the hard convex slope of his skull, mean little eyes flitting from one to the next of his herd as he moved them toward his vast shiny Nash parked at the edge of the sidewalk.

  “Where to?” he demanded brusquely, climbing in behind the wheel. Bob eyed Dave and Laura coldly, cynically. “Let’s shoot over to the highway and down the peninsula; we have to get back early.”

  Sally spoke up as she slid in beside her husband. “I’m hungry… Before we go down the coast let’s grab something to eat.”

  Bob’s harsh, bony face twisted into a scowl. “When we get down there Ellen’ll throw something together for you. Can’t you last that long—or is that asking too much?”

  “Let’s go over to Chinatown,” Sally begged insistently. “Please—I want a Chinese meal. After all, we don’t get over here every day in the week.” She squirmed lithely around and motioned Hadley into the front seat beside her. “Baby, do you know a good Chinese restaurant? Bob’s never had a Chinese dinner.”

  Hadley trembled at the old name; it had been years, but the magic word leaped back full and alive. Again he became Baby, his sister’s younger brother, gazing up at her, awed and idolizing.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, getting in clumsily and slamming the door. “I know a place on Washington we can try.”

  “No Chink dinners for me,” Bob stated emphatically as he eased the car forward. “I’ll take ham and eggs any day.” The car gained velocity and hurtled ahead; in the backseat Dave and Laura barely managed to get their door shut in time. Soundlessly, the Nash slid around the corner of a narrow side street, edged a Ford coupe against the curb, and headed directly up the mountainside toward the cliff of buildings above.

  “Tell me where to turn,” Bob said to Hadley. “I don’t know this town; never come over here if I can help it.”

  In the back, Dave and Laura sat huddled up and mute, intimidated by the hulking man behind the wheel. Both Bob and Sally were tall, fully developed people beside whom the Golds dwindled to the stature of dwarfs. In the rearview mirror their dark, lumpy, ill-formed faces hung slack and limp, hands in their laps, reduced to dumb obedience. Hadley wondered at their transformation; in the presence of his sister and her husband, these two Jews had become bewitched, turned back into primordial clay.

  For the first time in his life Hadley believed he was witness to different races. Dave and Laura accepted without struggle their servant status; mute and stupid, they gazed dully ahead, jogging with the pitch and roll of the car as Bob spun it expertly through narrow intersections, among other cars, pedestrians, delivery trucks, buses. There was no sound, only the whirr of air and the oily purr of the motor. Beside him, his sister smiled happily, dark red lips parted enough to show the hard white teeth he had envied all his life.

  “It’s nice seeing you again,” she said softly. She reached out and closed her gloved fingers over his. Hadley trembled as the pressure of her strong, slim fingers clutched at him and then remained lightly. He did not look at her; he stared at the passing stores and buildings, the painted signs, the first ornate Chinese establishments of Chinatown.

  “How’s the television business?” Bob demanded sourly, in his usual heavy, clipped voice. “Still raking it in?”

  “Sure,” Hadley an
swered. He tried to ask about the real estate business, but his vocal cords refused to form the social formality. What did he care about the real estate business? He didn’t like Bob Sorrell; he was impressed, respectful, properly frightened, but he did not enjoy the man’s presence.

  “We’ve been doing all right,” Bob said, without having been asked. “I guess you know the Woodhaven tract is ours.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Hadley murmured. “That new tract down the highway.”

  “It’ll be a while before we get our investment back. We’re settling a lot of GI’s in there at five bills down. That doesn’t begin to amortize us; five hundred covers our immediate commission and that’s all. Those are forty-year loans—” He forced a delivery truck to the side of the street so he could pass. “The interest adds up…and a lot of those GI’s eventually default and lose their equities. We get the shacks back in six, eight years. Of course, by that time they practically have to be built over again.”

  Fascinated, Hadley listened to the words roll from the man’s tongue. Easy, confident, relaxed, utterly without emotion, Bob Sorrell showed neither shame nor pride. He was merely stating facts.

  “Bob’s taken over a whole lot of rural real estate,” Sally said, a flush of enthusiasm reddening her cheeks. Her blue eyes sparkled excitedly. “Farms, little stores, and a country newspaper. Up in St. Helena—we’re going up there next month for a week or so; we’re going to stay and get to know the town. Our vacation!”

  “Yeah, well,” Bob said, in his hard, impassive voice, “most of that stuff was held by Napa County Land and Investments. We took them over last May.” He raised his voice. “Where the hell is this joint? I see plenty of chop-houses; or you got a particular one in mind?”

  The Nash was flowing rapidly down Grant Avenue; there was clearance for parked cars on one side, nothing more. The Chinese shops with their displays of ivory chess sets, silk scrolls, mandarin pajamas, incense burners, letter openers, bamboo stamp trays, artificial birds, jade and silver jewelry, jars of dried herbs, twisted roots, sea kelp, almond cookies, preserved ginger, cages of ducks and rabbits, bins of yams and knobby potatoes, were of no interest to Bob Sorrell. At intersections sudden glimpses of hills and bridge momentarily broke the procession of stores and bars and restaurants, descents so steep that if a pedestrian slipped and fell he could easily roll all the way to the Bay.

  “Oh, lookie!” Sally cried. “There goes a cable car!”

  Up the steep slope the tiny archaic box of passengers scuttled, tightly gripping its strand of wire. Banging and clattering, it hurried through the intersection and continued on up, a wood and iron package bouncing at the end of an underground string.

  “Which way?” Bob demanded curtly, angry at the time wasters on all sides of them.

  “Another couple of blocks,” Hadley answered. “To the left.”

  At Washington they turned up the steep hill. Vendors hawked Chinese-language newspapers. Wizened old men with long beards sold melon cakes: wads of sugar and fat with a core of dripping wet fruit. Above the street the grilled balconies of the many-floored buildings almost touched. Up and down the narrow sidewalks Chinese children raced and scampered, screaming shrilly. Cellar entrances, sudden black squares in the sidewalk, opened onto dark flights of steps leading down. Oriental music—wails and sudden crashes—filtered up to the street noise. Narrow rubbish-strewn alleys, the width of a single car, led between the restaurants, filthy paths of garbage cans, dried feathers in pools of blood.

  “There it is,” Hadley said.

  A small old-fashioned neon sign, lost among the tangle of multicolored tubing, jutted out over a cellar entrance. A long flight of steps led down, turned by a below-surface glass window behind which dead, stripped birds hung, feet tied together with cord. Beyond that were black tables, a glimpse of curtained booths, stubby white-coated waiters, an archaic cash register, Chinese merchants reading newspapers while they ate.

  “Where the hell am I going to park?” Bob complained. “I can’t park along this alley!” The restaurant disappeared behind them as the Nash swiftly climbed the hill, scattering pedestrians from every crosswalk. “Let’s shove it and head down the coast. It’s already two thirty!”

  “You can park on Stockton,” Hadley said. “There’re always places up there.”

  Bob said nothing as the Nash turned off Washington onto Stockton. They were out of Chinatown; rows of dingy apartment buildings stretched out for blocks, shabby shoe and clothing stores without displays or signs. “There,” Sally said to him, “in front of that drugstore; that woman’s pulling out.”

  The Nash slid up, briefly halted, and then pulled into the parking spot. Its bumpers tapped the car behind, then the car ahead. Bob pulled his key from the ignition and with a single motion threw open the door and stepped out. “Come on,” he commanded. “Let’s get moving; we don’t have all day.”

  Bob and Sally strode along the sidewalk. Hadley managed to keep up with them; Sally’s high heels clicked sharply just ahead of him and involuntarily he found himself watching their thin points strike the cement. Around her trim, nylon-smooth ankle looped a tiny gold identification bracelet. In the sunlight it sparkled and danced as her legs moved. Hadley kept behind his sister, following her smart, expensive figure at a respectful distance, with a veneration that permeated him, that was automatic and total, that represented every part of him. It had never been otherwise.

  Behind Hadley straggled Dave and Laura Gold, even more dwarflike than in the car. Two squat dark puddings of quasi-human flesh, in dirty, food-stained garments, shapeless and unwholesome, faces dour, bodies slumped. A certain pride touched Hadley. He was a cut above them; he lagged behind his sister, but he was one of her kind. The physical heritage was there; they were of the same race, the same blood and stock. Somehow, circumstances had kept him from measuring up to the standards of this stock, but the capability was there. Someday, when he was older…

  Strange, that in the presence of his sister he should shrink back into his old pattern, think of himself as too young. But it was so; ambling along behind the high-stepping woman with her chin up and out-jutting, firm-lined face uptilted, he was a stripling, a colt, a boy. Hands in his pockets, he kicked at a tin beer can, ran a few paces, leaped, became a towheaded boy in looks and actions. He caught up with Sally and her husband, breathlessly pointing down Washington.

  “That way!” he shouted, and suddenly fell back in confusion. With a brief glance at him the two of them turned silently at the corner and plunged down the steep hill. Abashed, Hadley raced after them, and behind him the two Golds plodded gloomily along, taking up the rear.

  In the dim, boxlike booth, they sat around a stone-topped table, examining soup-stained menus. Beyond the curtain, Chinese businessmen hunched over bowls of boiled rice and steamed guppies, carrying the fish and rice to their mouths with chopsticks. In the middle of the table was a decanter of soy sauce, salt and pepper shakers, more menus.

  “You order,” Sally said to her brother, raising her head and closing her menu. “You know more about Chinese food. Remember when we used to come over here?”

  Hadley nodded. He scanned the menu excitedly; a rush of childish expansiveness overcame him, and in a flurry of wild recklessness he ordered everything in sight.

  One by one the tiny doll-faced waiter, his lacquered black hair shining under the overhead light, set the steaming bowls in front of them. Egg flower soup. Sticky-hot fried wonton. Chicken with almonds. Beef cooked with asparagus. Chow yoke, slimy green vegetables served in thick sweet syrup. The fat, soft cakes, yellow and stuffed with meat and vegetables, that were egg foo yong. In front of each of them stood a white round handleless cup, into which Hadley poured hot, steaming tea from an old-fashioned baked-enamel teapot.

  Bob Sorrell ignored the bowls of smoking food and signaled the waiter as he bustled out through the curtain. “You have any Seven-Up? Bring me a bottle of Seven-Up.”

  “No Seven-Up,” the waiter muttered.

&
nbsp; Bob’s hard face darkened. Enunciating each word elaborately he demanded: “You savvy Coca-Cola? You bling Coca-Cola chop-chop?”

  The waiter disappeared. A moment later he returned with a Coke bottle, a straw stuck into it. He clinked it down on the table and was gone without a word.

  “Don’t give me any of that Chink food,” Bob said to Sally. “I’ll grab a sandwich on the highway.” He examined his watch. “I can hold out; it won’t be long.”

  Dave and Laura gulped their food anxiously, afraid of not being allowed to finish. The bowls were emptied rapidly; both Hadley and his sister were hungry. They ate eagerly, as always before, when they were teenagers and had come up to the City to visit the beach, the amusement park, the miles of green grass and flowers that were Golden Gate Park…

  Across the limitless white strip of beach the two of them had trudged, in jeans and T-shirts, barefoot, paper bag of lunch bouncing at their belts. The sun poured down, hot and small and high above them. Wind stung sheets of flying sand in their faces, embedded points of fire in their bare arms and legs. Jeans rolled up, the two of them waded wearily through the surf, oozing milky froth lapping at his sister’s bare calves as she plodded along ahead of him.

  The sight of Sally, the slender figure against the long miles of ocean and sand, buttocks pumping under her washed-pale jeans, body tanned and healthy, blond hair streaming out after her, face laughing soundlessly as she turned to wait for him, gasping for breath…that was one picture he kept of her, among the many others. And in the evening, the endless rides on the grinding, tortuous old streetcars, all the miles across San Francisco to the Third and Townsend station. Facing each other, exhausted, crowded in with the shoppers and commuters, the old women with their lumpy shopping bags, the tired-faced businessmen, the shrill roar of the wheels, traffic and clanging signs. Hour after hour they rode, both of them sagging and expressionless, swaying with the motion of the streetcar. And then suddenly he would find her smiling at him, a personal, covert quiver of her lips, a flicker of an eyelid. Across the aisle choked with people gripping straps, a brief glimpse of her unique, intimate face, the beautiful reflection of his own. A quick, meaningful twitch of her features intended for him only, and then the overcoated body of a middle-aged workman cut them off, and the passive exhaustion resumed.