Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick Read Free Book Online

Charley piped. “I can see you have something on your mind, mister. You good-looking bastard, you.”
    He let that pass. “This girl,” he began, but instantly Kathy grabbed Cheerful Charley away from him, stood holding it, her nostrils flaring, her eyes filled with indignation.
    “The hell you’re going to ask my Cheerful Charley about me,” she said, one eyebrow raised. Like a wild bird, he thought, going through elaborate motions to protect her nest. He laughed. “What’s funny?” Kathy demanded.
    “These talking toys,” he said, “are more nuisance than utilitarian. They ought to be abolished.” He walked away from her, then to a clutter of mail on a TV-stand table. Aimlessly, he sorted among the envelopes, noticing vaguely that none of the bills had been opened.
    “Those are mine,” Kathy said defensively, watching him.
    “You get a lot of bills,” he said, “for a girl living in a one-room schmalch. You buy your clothes—or what else?—at Metter’s? Interesting.”
    “I—take an odd size.”
    He said, “And Sax and Crombie shoes.”
    “In my work—” she began, but he cut her off with a convulsive swipe of his hand.
    “Don’t give me that,” he grated.
    “Look in my closet. You won’t see much there. Nothing out of the ordinary, except that what I do have is good. I’d rather have a little amount of something good…” Her words trailed off. “You know,” she said vaguely, “than a lot of junk.”
    Jason said, “You have another apartment.”
    It registered; her eyes flickered as she looked into herself for an answer. That, for him, constituted plenty.
    “Let’s go there,” he said. He had seen enough of this cramped little room.
    “I can’t take you there,” Kathy said, “because I share it with two other girls and the way we’ve divided up the use, this time is—”
    “Evidently you weren’t trying to impress me.” It amused him. But also it irritated him; he felt downgraded, nebulously.
    “I would have taken you there if today were my day,” Kathy said. “That’s why I have to keep this little place going; I’ve got to have
someplace
to go when it’s not my day. My day, my next one, is Friday. From noon on.” Her tone had become earnest. As if she wished very much to convince him. Probably, he mused, it was true. But the whole thing irked him. Her and her whole life. He felt, now, as if he had been snared by something dragging him down into depths he had never known about before, even in the early, bad days. And he did not like it.
    He yearned all at once to be out of here. The animal at bay was himself.
    “Don’t look at me like that,” Kathy said, sipping her screwdriver.
    To himself, but aloud, he said, “You have bumped the door of life open with your big, dense head. And now it can’t be closed.”
    “What’s that from?” Kathy asked.
    “From my life.”
    “But it’s like poetry.”
    “If you watched my show,” he said, “you’d know I come up with sparklers like that every so often.”
    Appraising him calmly, Kathy said, “I’m going to look in the TV log and see if you’re listed.” She set down her screwdriver, fished among discarded newspapers piled at the base of the wicker table.
    “I wasn’t even born,” he said. “I checked on that.”
    “And your show isn’t listed,” Kathy said, folding the newsprint page back and studying the log.
    “That’s right,” he said. “So now you have all the answers about me.” He tapped his vest pocket of forged ID cards. “Including these. With their microtransmitters, if that much is true.”
    “Give them back to me,” Kathy said, “and I’ll erad the microtransmitters. It’ll only take a second.” She held out her hand.
    He returned them to her.
    “Don’t you care if I take them off?” Kathy inquired.
    Candidly, he answered, “No, I really don’t. I’ve lost the ability to tell what’s good or bad, true or not true, anymore. If you want to take the dots off, do it. If it