Vintage PKD by Philip K. Dick Read Free Book Online Page A

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 sullenly. “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 blond hair—theirs was blond, 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.
    “Eleven,” he said. “That gets my Leonard out of the sports car repair garage and on his way to the racetrack.” He moved the Leonard doll ahead.
    Thoughtfully, Tod Morrison said, “You know, I was out the other day hauling in perishables which the careboys had dropped . . . Bill Ferner was there, and he told me something interesting. He met a fluker from a fluke-pit down where Oakland used to be. And at that fluke-pit you know what they play? Not Perky Pat. They never have heard of Perky Pat.”
    “Well, what do they play, then?” Helen asked.
    “They have another doll entirely.” Frowning, Tod continued, “Bill says the Oakland fluker called it a Connie Companion doll. Ever hear of that?”
    “A ‘Connie Companion’ doll,” Fran said thoughtfully. “How strange. I wonder what she’s like. Does she have a boyfriend?”
    “Oh sure,” Tod said. “His name is Paul. Connie and Paul. You know, we ought to hike down there to that Oakland Fluke-pit one of these days and see what Connie and Paul look like and how they live. Maybe we could learn a few things to add to our own layouts.”
    Norm said, “Maybe we could play them.”
    Puzzled, Fran said, “Could a Perky Pat play a Connie Companion? Is that possible? I wonder what would happen?”
    There was no answer from any of the others. Because none of them knew.
    As they skinned the rabbit, Fred said to Timothy, “Where did the name ‘fluker’ come from? It’s sure an ugly word; why do they use it?”
    “A fluker is a person who lived through the hydrogen war,” Timothy explained. “You know, by a fluke. A fluke of fate? See? Because almost everyone was killed; there used to be thousands of people.”
    “But what’s a ‘fluke’ then? When you say a ‘fluke of fate—’ ”
    “A fluke is when fate has decided to spare you,” Timothy said, and that was all he had to say on the subject. That was all he knew.
    Fred said thoughtfully, “But you and I, we’re not flukers because we weren’t alive when the war broke out. We were born after.”
    “Right,” Timothy said.
    “So anybody who calls me a fluker,” Fred said, “is going to get hit in the eye with my bull-roarer.”
    “And ‘careboy,’ ” Timothy said, “that’s a made-up word, too. It’s from when stuff was dumped from jet planes and ships to people in a