I signed this document and then sat back to consider the situation I was in. It wasn’t good. I recognized this red-white-and-blue plastic kit; it was the notorious “voluntary information” kit, the first step in drawing a citizen into the active intelligence system of the government. Like an income tax audit, sooner or later every citizen got one. This was our lifestyle under F.F.F.
If I failed to turn over my autobiographical sketch and statement about Nicholas, the FAPers would be back, and next time they would be less polite. If I turned in an inadequate report on Nicholas and myself, they would politely request more materiah It was a technique first employed by the North Koreans on captured American prisoners: you were given a piece of paper and a pencil and told to write down anything about yourself you felt like, with no suggestions from the jailers. It was amazing what revelations prisoners made about themselves, far surpassing what they would have confessed under suggestion. When it came time to inform, a man was his own worst adversary, his own ultimate rat. All I had to do was sit before my typewriter long enough and I would have told them everything there was about myself and Nicholas, and probably after I had told them the facts I would go on with fantastic inventions, all designed to nail the attention – and admiration – of my audience.
The human being has an unfortunate tendency to wish to please.
I was in effect exactly like those captured Americans: a prisoner of war. I had become that in November 1968 when F.F.F. got elected. So had we all; we now dwelt in a very large prison, without walls, bounded by Canada, Mexico, and two oceans. There were the jailers, the turnkeys, the informers, and somewhere in the Midwest the solitary confinement of the special internment camps. Most people did not appear to notice. Since there were no literal bars or barbed wire, since they had committed no crimes, had not been arrested or taken to court, they did not grasp the change, the dread transformation, of their situation. It was the classic case of a man kidnapped while standing still. Since they had been taken nowhere, and since they themselves had voted the new tyranny into power, they could see nothing wrong. Anyhow, a good third of them, had they known, would have thought it was a good idea. As F.F.F. told them, now the war in Vietnam could be brought to an honorable conclusion, and, at home, the mysterious organization Aramchek could be annihilated. The Loyal Americans could breathe freely again. Their freedom to do as they were told had been preserved.
I returned to the typewriter and drafted another statement. It was important to do a good job.
TO THE AUTHORITIES:
I, Philip K. Dick, have never liked you, and I know from the burglary on my house and the fact that you are busily at work hiding dope in trie light sockets and telephone as I sit here that you don’t care for me either. However, as much as I dislike you, and you me, there is someone whom I dislike even more, to wit: Mr Nicholas Brady. I suggest that you dislike him too. Let me outline why.
First of all, Mr Nicholas Brady is not a human being in the usual sense of the word. He has been taken over by (or more accurately will one of these days to the surprise of us all be taken over by) an alien life form emanating from another star. Far-ranging speculations can begin from this premise.
Perhaps, because my profession is that of a science fiction writer, you imagine that I am spinning a trial fantasy to see how you react. Not so, authorities. I only wish it were so. I have myself with my own eyes seen Mr Nicholas Brady demonstrate fantastic supernatural powers, bestowed on him by the alien suprahuman entity known as Valisystem A. I have seen Mr Nicholas Brady walk through walls. I have seen him melt glass. One afternoon, to demonstrate the staggering magnitude of his powers, Mr Nicholas Brady caused Cleveland to materialize in the open pasture along the side of the 91 freeway and then disappear again with no one save ourselves the wiser. Mr Nicholas Brady abolishes the bounds of space and time when the mood seizes him; he can return to the ancient past or leap ahead centuries into the future. He can, if he wishes, transport himself directly to Alpha Centauri or any other . . .
Fuck it, I thought, and ceased writing. It had been my intention to so thoroughly overstate the case in lurid hyperbole that the FAPers wouldn’t give it an instant’s credence.
I began then, to think about the boy and girl who had brought me this plastic kit, this lethal thing. At the time I had hardly noticed them on a conscious basis, but the impression of their two faces had remained anyhow. The girl, I thought, hadn’t been bad-looking: dark-haired, with green eyes, rather bright-looking, many years younger than me, but that hadn’t bothered me before.
Picking up the red-white-and-blue kit I found a white card glued to it. On the card were their names and telephone numbers. Well, I thought to myself, maybe there is another way out of this. Other than complying. Maybe I should ask for further help in preparing these statements.
While I was getting my act together in regard to the black-haired FAP girl, the phone rang. It was Nicholas.
I told him what had happened that evening.
“Are you going to do it?” he asked. “Write a statement .about me?”
“Well,” I began.
Nicholas said, “It’s not so easy when it’s you, is it?”
“Shit, man,” I said, “they’ve been hiding dope in my house; a cop tipped me off last night. I spent the whole night looking for it.”
“They’ve got something on me too,” Nicholas said. “They either have it or they arrange to have it, as in your case. Well, Phil, we’re in the same boat. You better decide what to do. But if you inform on me – “
“All I’m being asked to do is write a statement of support,” I said, but I knew he was right. They had us both, really, in the same grip. The pressures were the same.
Nicholas was right when he said, It’s not so easy when it’s you. “Fuck “em,” I had advised him. Well, so much for advice. The shoe was now on the other foot. And it hurt; it hurt deep into my soul, piercing and twisting and burning. And no solution lay at hand – none.
None except to call the FAP girl up and sweet-talk her. My freedom, my life, depended on it. And so did Nicholas’s.
The girl’s name was Vivian Kaplan. I waited an hour, to be sure she had arrived back home, and then dialed.
“Hello?”
I said hello, told her who I was, and then explained that I had tied myself up in knots trying to write my statement about Nicholas. “Maybe,” I said, “it’s because I know so much about him. More than anyone else does. It’s hard to know what to put down and what not .to. After all, I want a good grade.” I figured that would get her.
“I’m certain you can do it,” Vivian Kaplan said. “You are a professional writer; why, housewives and mechanics are getting the knack of it.1
“Maybe it is precisely because I am a professional writer,” I said.
“Meaning what?”
“Well, I am a fiction writer. I’m used to making things up.”
Vivian said, “You’re not to make anything up on these documents, Phil.”
I said, “Some of the truth about Nicholas reads like the wildest fiction, so help me God.”
That did gaff her. “Oh?”
The disgrace,” I said, “that forced him – the three of us – to leave Berkeley and migrate down here. Most of the secret he’s still kept locked up in his heart.”
““Disgrace,““ Vivian echoed. ““Secret.““
“He couldn’t remain in Berkeley. Do you suppose you could come back here and we could talk about it?”
“For a little while,” Vivian said. “But not for long.”
“Just to help me get started,” I said, pleased.
Half an hour later a small red Chevy II pulled up in my driveway. Vivian Kaplan got out, purse in hand, wearing a short imitation leather coat. I guided her into the house.
“I really appreciate this,” I told her as I seated her in the living room. I took her coat and hung it in the closet.
Producing a small writing pad and pen from her purse, Vivian prepared to write. “What caused Mr Brady’s disgrace back in Berkeley? You dictate and I’ll transcribe it.”
From the kitchen I brought a bottle of wine, a five-year-old Louis Martini.
“None of that for me, please,” Vivian said.