Confessions Of A Crap Artist by Philip K. Dick

Author:Philip K. Dick [Dick, Philip K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philip K Dick, Dystopias, Realist, non-science fiction
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 1975-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

“It won't be long now,” I said. “Before you're back home.”

He nodded slightly.

“Don't read me that thing,” he said.

I said, “These are the dramatized facts...”

“Get out of here,” he said.

That upset and confused me. I sat fooling with the rubber band, feeling like a fool. I had done all this work, and for what? Finally I said, “The difference between us and the animals is that we can use words. Isn't that right?”

With obvious reluctance he nodded.

“We expand our environment,” I said. “We learn through the written word. We'd never even know about far-distant places such as Siam if we couldn't read.” I went on, amplifying this idea; he listened but said nothing. After I had finished, he still said nothing. I waited, and then I unrolled the rubber band from the tube, flattened the sheets of paper, and very carefully began to read.

After I had come to the end I sat waiting for his reaction.

“How'd you even put together a thing like that?” he said, in a tone of voice suggesting that he was virtually ready to burst out laughing. His whole face seemed twisted out of shape and his eyes shone as if at the same time he was mad as hell. I saw that his hands were shaking. “It sounds like something out of an old pulp magazine,” he said. “Whene'd you get those phrases like ‘breasts like mounds of whipped cream' and ‘red-tipped cones of pure ecstasy'?”

I couldn't have been more embarrassed. Putting away the sheets of paper I mumbled, “I was simply trying to vivify it.”

He stared at me with that same mixture of expressions on his face. Now he had begun to flush, and his breathing became more rapid. For a moment I thought he was going to sneeze. But then he laughed. I felt my own face flush with humiliation. Charley laughed harder and harder.

“Read me that one pant again,” he said finally in a choked voice. “That about ‘I saw her gown open to the waist and fastened by only a single jewel at her navel.' ” And he again went into paroxysms of laughter.

His reaction horrified me. I had no inkling that he would respond in this manner, and it totally unnerved me; I found myself twitching and muttering, unable to speak.

“Also that part that goes —” He tried to remember; I saw his lips moving. “About ‘as I kissed her hot, sweet lips I pushed her backward toward the couch. Her body yielded —'.

I interrupted, “It's not fair to harp on individual phrases. It's the over-all work that's important. I tried to be absolutely accurate in this account. This is vital information that you ought to have at your disposal so you'll be able to act. Isn't that so? You need information to act...”

“Act,” he said. “What do you mean?”

“Listen,” Charley said. “This is all in your mind. You're out of your head. You're a psycho. Anybody who'd write a thing like that about his sister is a psycho; let's face it.

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