Michael Bishop by Philip K. Dick is Dead Alas

Author:Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas [Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-06-01T20:29:12+00:00

On the drive back up Highway 27 to Pine Mountain, Grace assured Lia that she had seen the Fort Benning LAC on a very unusual day. In the nearly twelve years that it had been operating, you could count recidivist lapses like Vo Quang Lat’s on the fingers of two — possibly three — hands. Of course, this estimate didn’t include hard-core terrorists or guerrillas, who were virtually a different breed from an ally as grateful as the South Vietnamese or even from foes as beaten and woebegone as the Red army of the North and their National Liberation Front — that is, Vietcong — comrades.

“What’s going to happen to Lat, anyway?”

“Why?” Grace asked.

“I was just wondering. I mean, will he be punished? Put in a cell somewhere or … ?”

“Executed?”

“Surely not. I mean, for suffering a kind of breakdown while undergoing the Americulturation process?”

“Of course not. Absolutely not. We’ll counsel with him and then start over again.”

The Cadillac cruised smoothly through the dapples of light and shade overlapping Highway 27 from the pine trees standing sentinel to the east. On Lia’s left, that early evening sun was raying red spokes through the ragged trees, plunging earthward near Lannett or Opelika, and Lia felt that she had been away from Pine Mountain for years, not merely a single afternoon.

“How would you like to go to work for us at the Fort Benning LAC?”

Lia fought to keep from barking her astonishment. Right. Me, a product of the precrackdown antiwar effort, shrinking Oriental egos for King Richard. Just my agreeing to session with you has probably put my marriage in jeopardy. Going to work at one of your centers would spell D-I-V-O-R-C-E for sure. I can imagine what Cal is going to say about my afternoon already. But hire on with you? Ye gods, it doesn’t bear thinking about…

“I take it that’s a no?”

“I’ve got my own practice, Grace.”

“And I’ve seen how staggeringly well you’re doing with it, too, haven’t I?”

About as staggeringly well as you seem to be doing nowadays at your LAC, Lia thought. But she said nothing.

“You could counsel with difficult cases. Lat, for instance.”

“I’m not trained to Americulturate, Grace. It’s wholly beyond my expertise.”

“That’s not so. Our first session convinces me that you can do just about any kind of psychotherapy you put your mind to.”

“Not this.”

“Why not give us one day a week?”

“I’ve already committed myself to giving you one day a week. I can’t give up another.”

“What if it were the same day?”

A terrific uneasiness stole over Lia. “Please don’t make that a condition of taking therapy with me, Grace. You’d be backing me into a corner.” Of course, Lia reflected, it may be that you enjoy backing people into corners.

The Fleetwood’s tires hummed on the asphalt. The sun’s rays slanted into the car like blood-slathered knives.

“Let me tell you something,” Grace said. “A confidence. Not one having to do with my feelings of aimlessness and ennui, but a confidence involving Hiram and my relationship with him.

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