Phil talked to Kirsten for hours on the telephone. He had a special long telephone cord sent to her house so she wouldn’t have to sit on the cold stairs where her phone was located. He sent her a card saying “Happy Long Phone Cord Day.”
Kirsten observed that Phil was moody, upset, and emotional about the divorce. She said, “Phil was having all kinds of battles within himself over the breakup. It was like a battle of good and evil. He was feeling guilty and torn up, and if you feel guilty towards someone, you’re going to feel angry towards them. Phil felt inferior because of the beautiful, fancy house. Phil was writing all those novels and couldn’t make any money.
“Also he needed to feel in the midst of things and have a lot of people about him, a lot of activity. He needed and wanted excitement. The more exciting he could make things the better it was for him. He told me it was too quiet for him in Point Reyes. He had incredible ups and downs. Sometimes I wondered, who was Phil? Was he real? When was he playing a role? No one knew. But certainly his feeling for women, that tremendous ability to set up a closeness, was quite unusual. There was no one else like him.”
Two weeks after I had received the restraining order, Phil phoned and gave me his new unlisted number. I drove over to see him, still hoping to mend our relationship. On Sunday of that same week, the children and I went to a show at the Borzoi Club dog show in Oakland. On the way back, we stopped at Phil’s house at his invitation and had a rather formal tea party. Unbeknownst to me Grania was hiding in the closet!
On July 17, 1964, Grania wrote her friend, Cynthia Goldstone:
I do not believe that things between Phil and I can go on too awfully much longer … not because of a lack of desire or a lack of trying or a lack of love on either of our parts, but because he is so sick … and something will soon happen that will separate us. He will, in a self-destructive mood, go back to his wife whom he hates … or kill himself…. [H]e has begun to talk about it a lot … is showing all the signs; making symbolic suicidal attempts like slashing his hands with a knife … and has bought a gun, though I was able to dissuade him from getting ammunition (I think) … but who wants someone to stop him and show him another way out … which I have been able to do … SO FAR … been able to take away the knife and hide it … to comfort and love him … SO FAR … but I am not always there…. His wife is serving him with various writs and doing other nasty things like breaking into his little office and stealing his financial records…. He is separated from his children…. He is in constant pain from his shoulder … and helpless in many ways, can’t drive, can’t write, can’t wash, tie his shoes…. It is not all in his mind, you see…. [H]e has reasons … good mundane reasons for feeling as he does … except that there are the other things TOO … the things which ARE IN HIS MIND. which are added to his daily problems…. I can see symptoms growing … daily, growing and taking hold of him … until the dear, delightful, intelligent and interesting Phil turns into something utterly unrecognizable … MORE AND MORE EACH DAY…. This is what I fear … I don’t really think he’ll go back to his wife … I don’t really think he’ll commit suicide … these are just possibilities…. The real fear … the real PROBABILITY is that he is cracking up … possibly for good.
He looks to me for help … tries to deify me…. I really CAN’T help, the way he means…. I can only love and be sympathetic and try to understand and offer suggestions and smooth things … and as long as I can … but when I can’t … he flies into … rages…. Then I soothe him and assure him and tell him that he has not lost me, and we go to bed and all is well for a while, because we have diverted him from his real problems into an artificial one of losing me…. Or else he becomes frightened … chokes on his food and paints huge, horrible pictures of what will happen and how he can’t possibly go on and that the life is draining out of him…. And so it goes … and so it has gone for a couple of weeks now, lasting longer each day and getting worse…. [T]he only thing that can stop the cycle is sleep … [i]f he can be persuaded to go to sleep…. What I SHOULD do is leave for good … never come back…. But I love him … I really do, and I don’t know what he’d do if I deserted him … but when Ethan comes … I cannot expose Ethan to this sort of thing…. I CANNOT expose Ethan to this … and I CANNOT leave Phil…. What to do???
This letter was so melodramatic that Grania decided not to send it; instead, she crumpled it up and threw it in her wastebasket.
This letter, heavily creased but flattened out again, was found in Phil’s files after his death. He must have fished it out of Grania’s wastebasket. I obtained a copy from the Philip K. Dick papers in Paul Williams’s garage in Glen Ellen.
A few days later, Phil and I met in court to determine the amount he should pay for separate maintenance. My handsome blond older brother Arthur, then a vice president of Goodrich Rubber, had come west on business and appeared with me at the hearing in his three-piece navy pinstripe suit. Phil came into the courtroom in his rumpled jeans, an elderly shirt with one empty sleeve pinned up, and his arm in a sling. His body cast was rather dingy by then, too. I was amazed when he walked up to me and kissed me on the cheek. For a moment the image of Judas slid through my mind. I introduced Phil to my brother. They shook hands, smiled, and each told the other, “Nice to meet you.”
The judge turned out to be a science fiction fan and was fascinated with Phil. My attorney was quite worried. But all the questions put by Wolfson seemed ridiculous to me: “Whose laundry was done in the washing machine, Phil’s child or the three older children’s? Who should pay for it?” I fielded these questions easily, adding counter-testimony to my answers. My brother was tickled. The judge awarded me $75 a month temporary support. Phil paid it once. I never wanted to pursue him aggressively for this picayune monthly payment, fearing it would drive him further away.
Back at Phil’s rental house in Oakland, Grania, despite her doubts, did stay, and her boy came up from Mexico to join her. Phil was lovely to the child and built him a sandbox in the back yard, but Grania became even more disturbed when Phil bought a small derringer, “because he was afraid of Anne.” Then he began to say that Ray Nelson was plotting against Kirsten and was going to kill her. Grania felt she couldn’t deal with these problems. Phil was staying up all night; she didn’t dare try to sneak the gun away, heaven knows what he might do. Finally, though, she did steal it and gave it to Ray to hide.
I asked Kirsten about this alleged plot of Ray’s, and she laughed heartily as she told me, “Well, that was because Phil was trying to get me away from Ray.”
Ray Nelson told me, when I interviewed him, that he didn’t take any offense back in those days at Phil being in love with his wife. Phil was just having an “intellectual romance.” He said, “Phil was just so darn charming you couldn’t get mad at him.” Then he asked me anxiously, “Do you think they had a real affair; did Kirsten say anything to you?” At the end of the interview, he asked, “Would you like to have an ‘intellectual romance’ with me?” Although we didn’t have an “intellectual romance,” we kept in touch in a friendly way over the years.
Kirsten continued, “Then Phil told me, ‘I’m going to shoot myself,’” but she felt this kind of talk was mostly histrionics, Phil was amusing himself and his friends and fighting off depression and boredom. When Phil entered his house accompanied by Kirsten or other friends, he would search the house, saying, “The FBI and the CIA have bugged my cat box.” It was hilariously funny but nobody knew if he was kidding or if he was serious. They thought he was kidding but they weren’t sure.
In late summer, science fiction fans and writers came from all over the country to Oakland for the National Science Fiction Convention held on Labor Day weekend. Phil’s house was not far from the Leamington Hotel, where the convention was held. In late August, fans and writers from all over the United States were hanging around his house and he was having nightly parties. A lot of science fiction political intrigues were going on, in which Phil had become involved. Then, suddenly he w
ould chase everyone away, lock himself up, and go into a hermit state for a couple of weeks.
Once, when I phoned Phil while a number of people were in the room with him, he spoke to me in a cruel, mocking manner. Then they left while we were still talking and his manner immediately changed and became pleasant and civilized. I didn’t understand why he would behave this way but was happy that at least he ended up being friendly.
Phil phoned me just before the convention and invited me to come over to Oakland and go to it with him. Ray Nelson wanted Phil and me to get back together. He believed that Phil still loved me. He was the one who suggested to Phil that he invite me. I was delighted, thinking this was all Phil’s idea and hoping that a reconciliation was in the offing. The convention turned out to be a nightmare. There wasn’t anything for me to do but sit around at tables with people I didn’t know while Phil was off talking to other people. For years Phil had conditioned me to avoid the world of fandom, and here it was in all its glory. I drank too much. I wanted to leave and go off with Phil somewhere. He finally left with me at 2 a.m. As we walked out on the streets of downtown Oakland to go to the car, he suddenly got a terrible look on his face and walked away. He left me in the middle of the night in the middle of the street in one of the most dangerous spots in the Bay Area.
I was stunned. I couldn’t believe Phil would do something like this. In my haste to get away safely I backed into a telephone pole. Back home I had hardly gone to sleep before dawn appeared. I decided to go back to Oakland and find out what had gone wrong. I took our four-year-old daughter, Laura, with me. When we knocked at Phil’s door, he came out in his pajamas, his eyes wild, waving a small revolver in the air. I stood there paralyzed for a moment. Then I grabbed Laura’s hand, backed up quickly, and left. I was terribly upset that she had been there and had been frightened by Phil’s strange and hostile behavior.
I called up Dr. J and went to her office on the way home. She told me, “You mustn’t ever go over there again.” I had to agree with her. I had to give up.
My life had reached a turning point. That night I sat at home thinking, “Phil is destroying everything that I love most in the world—himself and our family.” I couldn’t believe my own thoughts: “I’m going to buy a deer rifle at the Palace Market tomorrow and shoot Phil.” Then I thought, “No, I’ll go buy a deer rifle and shoot myself.” After a short while I decided neither of these ideas were worth anything. I couldn’t do such a thing to my children. I’d end up in jail, or they’d have a mother who was a suicide on top of the present mess. This was the only time in my life that I ever found myself seriously thinking a murderous thought, but now, when I read about a killing associated with a marriage or a love affair in the newspaper, I can empathize with the feelings of the person who did such a terrible deed.
That night I had a dream that I was in a small rowboat with the four girls. I was trying to save Phil, who was in the water beside the boat, drowning. But each time I tried to pull him into the boat he would almost pull me into the water instead. Meanwhile, we were drifting toward an immense waterfall. In the dream I had to make a terrible choice. I had to row away and leave Phil in order to save the girls.
Not more than a few days passed before Phil called, and naturally I told him all about my thoughts and their resolution—I always told him everything.
Then, one day in mid-October, he called me to ask, “Can I come back home?”
“Yes,” I said. “You can come back. The study is still set up for you.”
I was making jewelry in my workroom with my first employee, Henryetta Russell (who worked for me for forty years). I decided that I wouldn’t stop working when he came. I needed to go on with my separate life. By then I must have learned at least a little bit that I couldn’t emotionally depend on Phil. When he arrived, I greeted him and told him we would get together at dinner time; I needed to work. I probably was somber and serious.
He carried his new typewriter and his suitcase into the study. An hour later, when I came out of my workroom to get a glass of water I saw Phil walking to his car carrying his suitcase and his typewriter. I felt very sad as I watched my husband walk away from my house—I knew it was for the last time.
Grania moved out of the Lyon Street cottage just before Halloween. She tried to keep a friendly relationship with Phil, but he was angry at her for leaving. When shortly later she went to the Lyon Street house to pick up her possessions, Nancy Hackett was there sitting on Phil’s lap.
Maren Hackett, the friend we had met at church, had invited Phil over to her place because she, herself, was interested in him. She was surprised when the relationship that he formed was with Nancy, her nineteen-year-old stepdaughter.
After Grania left Phil, Jack Newcomb left his wife and moved into the cottage. Ray told me that there were a lot of illicit amphetamines around and rumors of drug dealing. Phil started taking amphetamines “recreationally” at this time. Ray Nelson said that Phil was better versed on drugs than Al Halevy, a pharmacist acquaintance.
Phil was writing me strange letters about an amphetamine salesman who ended up in jail and an Israeli gunman who was hiding out in his basement. I was shocked by these letters except that I didn’t really believe them. Years later, Ray Nelson told me that everything Phil had written was true. Phil gave Jack the original manuscript of The Man in the High Castle. He told Jack, “I love you. Use this as an insurance policy.” Jack told Phil, “I’ll never sell this while you’re alive.”
In 1983, Jack Newcomb called me from Los Angeles to ask me to buy the manuscript of The Man in the High Castle for $5,000. He said that Ray had told him I was “okay”; that’s why he was speaking to me now. When I heard his name and that he was calling from a pay phone, I called him right back so that the charges would be on my phone and we could talk for a longer time. He remembered charging gas on my Texaco credit card and told me, “Phil spent most of his time putting you down.” He thought I was rich, that I had $5,000 to give him for Phil’s manuscript. (It would have been a good investment—but who knew at that time?) I referred Jack to the Eaton Collection at UC Irvine. (Kleo always thought I was rich, too. I have to laugh. I do own a very nice house, which I bought in 1955 for nothing down and $101 a month.)
“It was a strange period,” Grania recalled. “There was the diaper scandal. Someone stole diaper-service diapers from Marion Zimmer Bradley’s front porch. Somebody resembling Phil was seen there. Phil and Jack got hold of a Klaxon horn, which they used to harass people they didn’t like. They blew it over the phone at me. They drove by Marion Zimmer Bradley’s house and blew it late at night. They were full of manic mischief.”
Phil became furious with Jack and kicked him out. Kirsten went with Jack as a go-between to help him pick up his clothes. Phil was so angry at Jack that he even became furious at Kirsten.
Later that fall, Phil came out to Point Reyes to visit me and in the course of the conversation casually mentioned that Jack Newcomb had wanted to kill me. He had dissuaded Jack, he said. But I thought, “Where had Jack gotten the idea?” But still in my denial habit, I didn’t take this information seriously. My bulldog psyche was still hanging on to the hope that eventually Phil would return and we’d all be happy again.
Recreational drugs were beginning to appear on the Bay Area scene, including the psychedelic drug LSD. Ray Nelson brought some for Phil to take. The two of them sat together in Phil’s house for eight hours while Phil had a terrible hallucination, sweating, feeling completely alone, reexperiencing a spear thrust through his body, and speaking Latin, as he relived a life as a Roman gladiator. He had such a bad trip that he never tried LSD again.
On Christmas Day 1964, I was pleased when Phil called and asked if he could come out to see us. He brought an armload of Christmas gifts, several packages for each of us, all of them nicely gift wrapped. But then he stayed only a little while and suddenly left angrily. Not knowing that he was coming, I had invited some other guests. Perhaps it was this that offended him, or w
as it because I asked him to mash the potatoes? It was impossible to know.
Kirsten told me, “At this time Phil thought that everyone was out to get him. He was hyper, running around doing bizarre things. At other times, he was charming and funny. I remember him gulping down pill cocktails. I couldn’t believe the conglomerations of pills that he took. He wanted to commit everybody, Grania, Francine, a friend of Nancy’s sister. He thought Nancy should take Thorazine and many of his other acquaintances should go to Langley Porter.”
In early 1965, Phil was still phoning about once a month and coming to see me and the girls. He came one beautiful spring day and told me that he was “Nancy’s consort.” My heart sank. He even looked different, as if he had dissolved into a feckless nineteen-year-old. I knew my Phil was in that person somewhere, but where? I had been reading Martin Buber’s I and Thou and wanted to discuss it with him. He was dancing, showing the girls how he could do the frug. So I gave up on Martin Buber and said, “I’ll do the frug with you.” His face changed, he looked very strange, stopped dancing, and suddenly left. I felt like an old discarded shoe.
After this, I was so miserable that I could hardly function. I could only find comfort lying in the sun at the beach or going back to bed in the morning—something I had never done in my life before. I waited anxiously for the phone to ring.
When I saw Dr. J, she told me that Phil only liked the house, not me or the girls. She said his loving side wasn’t real. I insisted that I had seen a wonderful person in Phil. She told me this person was buried so deep that for all practical purposes my Phil was gone, and besides, now he had a commitment to Nancy. I couldn’t believe my Phil was irrevocably gone.
How could he have made a commitment to Nancy when he’d made a commitment to me? Brooding at home, I had a terrible sense of evil. Not about Phil, not about any actual person, but about something I couldn’t get into mental focus.
The Search for Philip K. Dick Page 14
