Resignedly, in misery, Jesse Slade reached as slowly as possible into his twentieth century coat pocket for his wallet.
The Days of Perky Pat
At ten in the morning a terrific horn, familiar to him, hooted Sam Regan out of his sleep, and he cursed the careboy upstairs; he knew the racket was deliberate. The careboy, circling, wanted to be certain that flukers – and not merely wild animals – got the care parcels that were to be dropped.
We'll get them, we'll get them, Sam Regan said to himself as he zipped his dust-proof overalls, put his feet into boots and then grumpily sauntered as slowly as possible toward the ramp. Several other flukers joined him, all showing similar irritation.
"He's early today," Tod Morrison complained. "And I'll bet it's all staples, sugar and flour and lard – nothing interesting like say candy."
"We ought to be grateful," Norman Schein said.
"Grateful!" Tod halted to stare at him. "GRATEFUL?"
"Yes," Schein said. "What do you think we'd be eating without them: If they hadn't seen the clouds ten years ago."
"Well," Tod said sullenly, "I just don't like them to come early; I actually don't exactly mind their coming, as such."
As he put his shoulders against the lid at the top of the ramp, Schein said genially, "That's mighty tolerant of you, Tod boy. I'm sure the careboys would be pleased to hear your sentiments."
Of the three of them, Sam Regan was the last to reach the surface; he did not like the upstairs at all, and he did not care who knew it. And anyhow, no one could compel him to leave the safety of the Pinole Fluke-pit; it was entirely his business, and he noted now that a number of his fellow flukers had elected to remain below in their quarters, confident that those who did answer the horn would bring them back something.
"It's bright," Tod murmured, blinking in the sun.
The care ship sparkled close overhead, set against the gray sky as if hanging from an uneasy thread. Good pilot, this drop, Tod decided. He, or rather it, just lazily handles it, in no hurry. Tod waved at the care ship, and once more the huge horn burst out its din, making him clap his hands to his ears. Hey, a joke's a joke, he said to himself. And then the horn ceased; the careboy had relented.
"Wave to him to drop," Norm Schein said to Tod. "You've got the wigwag."
"Sure," Tod said, and began laboriously flapping the red flag, which the Martian creatures had long ago provided, back and forth, back and forth.
A projectile slid from the underpart of the ship, tossed out stabilizers, spiraled toward the ground.
"Sheoot," Sam Regan said with disgust. "It is staples; they don't have the parachute." He turned away, not interested.
How miserable the upstairs looked today, he thought as he surveyed the scene surrounding him. There, to the right, the uncompleted house which someone – not far from their pit – had begun to build out of lumber salvaged from Vallejo, ten miles to the north. Animals or radiation dust had gotten the builder, and so his work remained where it was; it would never be put to use. And, Sam Regan saw, an unusually heavy precipitate had formed since last he had been up here, Thursday morning or perhaps Friday; he had lost exact track. The darn dust, he thought. Just rocks, pieces of rubble, and the dust. World's becoming a dusty object with no one to whisk it off regularly. How about you? he asked silently of the Martian careboy flying in slow circles overhead. Isn't your technology limitless? Can't you appear some morning with a dust rag a million miles in surface area and restore our planet to pristine newness?
Or rather, he thought, to pristine oldness, the way it was in the "ol-days," as the children call it. We'd like that. While you're looking for something to give to us in the way of further aid, try that.
The careboy circled once more, searching for signs of writing in the dust: a message from the flukers below. I'll write that, Sam thought. BRING DUST RAG, RESTORE OUR CIVILIZATION. Okay, careboy?
All at once the care ship shot off, no doubt on its way back home to its base on Luna or perhaps all the way to Mars.
From the open fluke-pit hole, up which the three of them had come, a further head poked, a woman. Jean Regan, Sam's wife, appeared, shielded by a bonnet against the gray, blinding sun, frowning and saying, "Anything important? Anything new?"
" 'Fraid not," Sam said. The care parcel projectile had landed and he walked toward it, scuffing his boots in the dust. The hull of the projectile had cracked open from the impact and he could see the canisters already. It looked to be five thousand pounds of salt – might as well leave it up here so the animals wouldn't starve, he decided. He felt despondent.
How peculiarly anxious the careboys were. Concerned all the time that the mainstays of existence be ferried from their own planet to Earth. They must think we eat all day long, Sam thought. My God… the pit was filled to capacity with stored foods. But of course it had been one of the smallest public shelters in Northern California.
"Hey," Schein said, stooping down by the projectile and peering into the crack opened along its side. "I believe I see something we can use." He found a rusted metal pole – once it had helped reinforce the concrete side of an ol-days public building – and poked at the projectile, stirring its release mechanism into action. The mechanism, triggered off, popped the rear half of the projectile open… and there lay the contents.
"Looks like radios in that box," Tod said. "Transistor radios." Thoughtfully stroking his short black beard he said, "Maybe we can use them for something new in our layouts."
"Mine's already got a radio," Schein pointed out.
"Well, build an electronic self-directing lawn mower with the parts," Tod said. "You don't have that, do you?" He knew the Scheins' Perky Pat layout fairly well; the two couples, he and his wife with Schein and his, had played together a good deal, being almost evenly matched.
Sam Regan said, "Dibs on the radios, because I can use them." His layout lacked the automatic garage-door opener that both Schein and Tod had; he was considerably behind them.
"Let's get to work," Schein agreed. "We'll leave the staples here and just cart back the radios. If anybody wants the staples, let them come here and get them. Before the do-cats do."
Nodding, the other two men fell to the job of carting the useful contents of the projectile to the entrance of their fluke-pit ramp. For use in their precious, elaborate Perky Pat layouts.
Seated cross-legged with his whetstone, Timothy Schein, ten years old and aware of his many responsibilities, sharpened his knife, slowly and expertly. Meanwhile, disturbing him, his mother and father noisily quarreled with Mr. and Mrs. Morrison, on the far side of the partition. They were playing Perky Pat again. As usual.
How many times today they have to play that dumb game? Timothy asked himself. Forever, I guess. He could see nothing in it, but his parents played on anyhow. And they weren't the only ones; he knew from what other kids said, even from other fluke-pits, that their parents, too, played Perky Pat most of the day, and sometimes even on into the night.
His mother said loudly, "Perky Pat's going to the grocery store and it's got one of those electric eyes that opens the door. Look." A pause. "See, it opened for her, and now she's inside."
"She pushes a cart," Timothy's dad added, in support.
"No, she doesn't," Mrs. Morrison contradicted. "That's wrong. She gives her list to the grocer and he fills it."
"That's only in little neighborhood stores," his mother explained. "And this is a supermarket, you can tell because of the electric eye door."
"I'm sure all grocery stores had electric eye doors," Mrs. Morrison said stubbornly, and her husband chimed in with his agreement. Now the voices rose in anger; another squabble had broken out. As usual.
Aw, cung to them, Timothy said to himself, using the strongest word which he and his friends knew. What's a supermarket anyhow? He tested the blade of his knife – he had made it himself, originally, out of a heavy metal pan – and then hopped to his feet. A moment later he had sprinted silently down the hall and was rapping h
is special rap on the door of the Chamberlains' quarters.
Fred, also ten years old, answered. "Hi. Ready to go? I see you got that old knife of yours sharpened; what do you think we'll catch?"
"Not a do-cat," Timothy said. "A lot better than that; I'm tired of eating do-cat. Too peppery."
"Your parents playing Perky Pat?"
"Yeah."
Fred said, "My mom and dad have been gone for a long time, off playing with the Benteleys." He glanced sideways at Timothy, and in an instant they had shared their mute disappointment regarding their parents. Gosh, and maybe the darn game was all over the world, by now; that would not have surprised either of them.
"How come your parents play it?" Timothy asked.
"Same reason yours do," Fred said.
Hesitating, Timothy said, "Well, why? I don't know why they do; I'm asking you, can't you say?"
"It's because -" Fred broke off. "Ask them. Come on; let's get upstairs and start hunting." His eyes shone. "Let's see what we can catch and kill today."
Shortly, they had ascended the ramp, popped open the lid, and were crouching amidst the dust and rocks, searching the horizon. Timothy's heart pounded; this moment always overwhelmed him, the first instant of reaching the upstairs. The thrilling initial sight of the expanse. Because it was never the same. The dust, heavier today, had a darker gray color to it than before; it seemed denser, more mysterious.
Here and there, covered by many layers of dust, lay parcels dropped from past relief ships – dropped and left to deteriorate. Never to be claimed. And, Timothy saw, an additional new projectile which had arrived that morning.
Most of its cargo could be seen within; the grownups had not had any use for the majority of the contents, today.
"Look," Fred said softly.
Two do-cats – mutant dogs or cats; no one knew for sure – could be seen, lightly sniffing at the projectile. Attracted by the unclaimed contents.
"We don't want them," Timothy said.
"That one's sure nice and fat," Fred said longingly. But it was Timothy that had the knife; all he himself had was a string with a metal bolt on the end, a bull-roarer that could kill a bird or a small animal at a distance – but useless against a do-cat, which generally weighed fifteen to twenty pounds and sometimes more.
High up in the sky a dot moved at immense speed, and Timothy knew that it was a care ship heading for another fluke-pit, bringing supplies to it. Sure are busy, he thought to himself. Those careboys always coming and going; they never stop, because if they did, the grownups would die. Wouldn't that be too bad? he thought ironically. Sure be sad.
Fred said, "Wave to it and maybe it'll drop something." He grinned at Timothy, and then they both broke out laughing.
"Sure," Timothy said. "Let's see; what do I want?" Again the two of them laughed at the idea of them wanting something. The two boys had the entire upstairs, as far as the eye could see… they had even more than the careboys had, and that was plenty, more than plenty.
"Do you think they know?" Fred said, "that our parents play Perky Pat with furniture made out of what they drop? I bet they don't know about Perky Pat; they never have seen a Perky Pat doll, and if they did they'd be really mad."
"You're right," Timothy said. "They'd be so sore they'd probably stop dropping stuff." He glanced at Fred, catching his eye.
"Aw no," Fred said. "We shouldn't tell them; your dad would beat you again if you did that, and probably me, too."
Even so, it was an interesting idea. He could imagine first the surprise and then the anger of the careboys; it would be fun to see that, see the reaction of the eight-legged Martian creatures who had so much charity inside their warty bodies, the cephalopodic univalve mollusk-like organisms who had voluntarily taken it upon themselves to supply succor to the waning remnants of the human race… this was how they got paid back for their charity, this utterly wasteful, stupid purpose to which their goods were being put. This stupid Perky Pat game that all the adults played.
And anyhow it would be very hard to tell them; there was almost no communication between humans and careboys. They were too different. Acts, deeds, could be done, conveying something… but not mere words, not mere signs. And anyhow -
A great brown rabbit bounded by to the right, past the half-completed house. Timothy whipped out his knife. "Oh boy!" he said aloud in excitement. "Let's go!" He set off across the rubbly ground, Fred a little behind him. Gradually they gained on the rabbit; swift running came easy to the two boys: they had done much practicing.
"Throw the knife!" Fred panted, and Timothy, skidding to a halt, raised his right arm, paused to take aim, and then hurled the sharpened, weighted knife. His most valuable, self-made possession.
It cleaved the rabbit straight through its vitals. The rabbit tumbled, slid, raising a cloud of dust.
"I bet we can get a dollar for that!" Fred exclaimed, leaping up and down. "The hide alone – I bet we can get fifty cents just for the darn hide!"
Together, they hurried toward the dead rabbit, wanting to get there before a red-tailed hawk or a day-owl swooped on it from the gray sky above.
Bending, Norman Schein picked up his Perky Pat doll and said sullenly, "I'm quitting; I don't want to play any more."
Distressed, his wife protested, "But we've got Perky Pat all the way downtown in her new Ford hardtop convertible and parked and a dime in the meter and she's shopped and now she's in the analyst's office reading Fortune – we're way ahead of the Morrisons! Why do you want to quit, Norm?"
"We just don't agree," Norman grumbled. "You say analysts charged twenty dollars an hour and I distinctly remember them charging only ten; nobody could charge twenty. So you're penalizing our side, and for what? The Morrisons agree it was only ten. Don't you?" he said to Mr. and Mrs. Morrison, who squatted on the far side of the layout which combined both couples' Perky Pat sets.
Helen Morrison said to her husband, "You went to the analyst more than I did; are you sure he charged only ten?"
"Well, I went mostly to group therapy," Tod said. "At the Berkeley State Mental Hygiene Clinic, and they charged according to your ability to pay. And Perky Pat is at a private psychoanalyst."
"We'll have to ask someone else," Helen said to Norman Schein. "I guess all we can do now this minute is suspend the game." He found himself being glared at by her, too, now, because by his insistence on the one point he had put an end to their game for the whole afternoon.
"Shall we leave it all set up?" Fran Schein asked. "We might as well; maybe we can finish tonight after dinner."
Norman Schein gazed down at their combined layout, the swanky shops, the well-lit streets with the parked new-model cars, all of them shiny, the split-level house itself, where Perky Pat lived and where she entertained Leonard, her boy friend. It was the house that he perpetually yearned for; the house was the real focus of the layout – of all the Perky Pat layouts, however much they might otherwise differ.
Perky Pat's wardrobe, for instance, there in the closet of the house, the big bedroom closet. Her capri pants, her white cotton short-shorts, her two-piece polka dot swimsuit, her fuzzy sweaters… and there, in her bedroom, her hi-fi set, her collection of long playing records…
It had been this way, once, really been like this in the ol-days. Norm Schein could remember his own lp record collection, and he had once had clothes almost as swanky as Perky Pat's boy friend Leonard, cashmere jackets and tweed suits and Italian sportshirts and shoes made in England. He hadn't owned a Jaguar XKE sports car, like Leonard did, but he had owned a fine-looking old 1963 Mercedes-Benz, which he had used to drive to work.
We lived then, Norm Schein said to himself, like Perky Pat and Leonard do now. This is how it actually was.
To his wife he said, pointing to the clock radio which Perky Pat kept beside her bed, "Remember our G.E. clock radio? How it used to wake us up in the morning with classical music from that FM station, KSFR? The 'Wolf-gangers,' the program was called. From six A.M. to nine every
morning."
"Yes," Fran said, nodding soberly. "And you used to get up before me; I knew I should have gotten up and fixed bacon and hot coffee for you, but it was so much fun just indulging myself, not stirring for half an hour longer, until the kids woke up."
"Woke up, hell; they were awake before we were," Norm said. "Don't you remember? They were in the back watching 'The Three Stooges' on TV until eight. Then I got up and fixed hot cereal for them, and then I went on to my job at Ampex down at Redwood City."
"Oh yes," Fran said. "The TV." Their Perky Pat did not have a TV set; they had lost it to the Regans in a game a week ago, and Norm had not yet been able to fashion another one realistic-looking enough to substitute. So, in a game, they pretended now that "the TV repairman had come for it." That was how they explained their Perky Pat not having something she really would have had.
Norm thought, Playing this game… it's like being back there, back in the world before the war. That's why we play it, I suppose. He felt shame, but only fleetingly; the shame, almost at once, was replaced by the desire to play a little longer.
"Let's not quit," he said suddenly. "I'll agree the psychoanalyst would have charged Perky Pat twenty dollars. Okay?"
"Okay," both the Morrisons said together, and they settled back down once more to resume the game.
Tod Morrison had picked up their Perky Pat; he held it, stroking its blonde hair – theirs was blonde, whereas the Scheins' was a brunette – and fiddling with the snaps of its skirt.
"Whatever are you doing?" his wife inquired.
"Nice skirt she has," Tod said. "You did a good job sewing it."
Norm said, "Ever know a girl, back in the ol-days, that looked like Perky Pat?"
"No," Tod Morrison said somberly. "Wish I had, though. I saw girls like Perky Pat, especially when I was living in Los Angeles during the Korean War. But I just could never manage to know them personally. And of course there were really terrific girl singers, like Peggy Lee and Julie London… they looked a lot like Perky Pat."
"Play," Fran said vigorously. And Norm, whose turn it was, picked up the spinner and spun.