The Search for Philip K. Dick (22 page)

Anne R. Dick, sitting on fench, back yard, Point Reyes Station, 1959
.

Hatte, Jayne, and Tandy Rubenstein reading pop-up book, 1960
.

Tandy and Hatte Rubenstein, patio, Point Reyes Station, 1961
.

Phil and Jayne, 1959
.

Laura, 1963
.

Phil with sheep, 1960
.

Phil with cat, 1961
.

A
S
I
LEARNED
about this period of Phil’s life, I seriously contemplated abandoning my whole project. But then Phil had already written about it in his novel about the drug world from within,
A Scanner Darkly
, supposedly fiction. The names of the real participants in Phil’s
Scanner
world have been changed in this chapter. After writing this book, I would see Cindy occasionally at her husband’s convenience food store in Petaluma; then they divorced and I lost track of her. Sheila came down to Point Reyes Station to visit me once with her new baby and her pleasant husband. I was happy to see she had made a good life for herself.

In
A Scanner Darkly
, policeman Bob Arctor poses as a hard-core drug junkie. In the course of his undercover police investigations, he lives in a house with a bunch of junkies. At times he is back at the police station, observing the house through a police scanner, which is attached to the house. He observes his own gradual absorption into the drug world and his total deterioration from the large amounts of heavy drugs he is taking. Finally, his brain totally burned out, he becomes a vegetable, and is committed to New-Path, a rehabilitation center for ex-cons and junkies.

When Phil lived in Santa Venetia after Nancy left him, there was no longer any order in his household. He didn’t take care of his mental or physical health and had only a panicky last-minute concern for financial matters. He couldn’t stand to be alone and invited anyone who would to move in with him. Some pretty rough people, heavily involved with drugs, came. Phil phoned his stepsister Lynne to come over and shop and cook for him. He told her, “I can’t go out, the CIA is after me.”

For a while Lynne brought food and cooked for Phil, “But, as much as I wanted to help him, the scene there was just too much for me. I just couldn’t go anymore, no matter how much he needed me. Phil was not himself. He was bizarre. He hit rock bottom at this time. I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. He wrote some nasty letters to Mom. The letters were so bad that Dorothy and Joe changed their wills and cut Phil out.”

Kirsten and Ray Nelson didn’t see much of Phil at this time either. Kirsten felt uncomfortable around the “motorcycle types” who were hanging around: “In the disturbed period of 1964—65, the people were science fiction people, they were groupies and did ridiculous things, but these people projected, ‘I’d just as soon not know you.’ One group of Phil’s friends who lived nearby dealt in stolen goods: motorcycles, TV sets, and radios. If the hangers-around were there when Ray and I came to visit, we would leave.”

Kirsten remembered that Phil called the police “three times a day.” Phil told Kirsten melodramatic things about the people hanging around his place. Kirsten had no idea if what he said was true or not. Phil would call the Nelsons and Ray would drive over to Santa Venetia, pick Phil up, and bring him over to the Nelsons’ house in Albany and then later take him back to Santa Venetia. Ray believed that the drugs Phil took didn’t affect him much, that Phil was always on top of his drug situation.

Phil was still phoning me in Point Reyes, but he painted a picture of his life nothing like what the Nelsons were observing. I remember one phone call especially. While I was having a party at Christmas time, Phil called, and neglecting my guests, I talked with him for almost an hour. The conversation was warm and friendly. It never occurred to me to invite him over. I thought that if he wanted to see me he would let me know. Phil describes a conversation at Christmas time with a disagreeable ex-wife, Kathy, in
Galactic Pot-Healer
. His protagonist was very resentful that Kathy didn’t invite him over on Christmas Day.

Grania Davis, formerly Grania Davidson, was in touch with Phil after Nancy left him. Grania had married a doctor, Steve Davis, and lived nearby in Sausalito. Grania remembered, “Phil liked Steve; Steve’s a doctor, Phil’s a hypochondriac.”

Phil often called or came by at odd hours with an emergency, an anxiety attack, or a horrible personal or medical problem. But he told about them in a hilariously funny way—funny, but not cheerful. “He looked terrible, puffy, bleary-eyed.”

Grania and Steve remained supportive when Phil started hanging around “with all those leather-jacketed hoodlum types in their late teens.” But the Davises didn’t want to go over to Phil’s house in Santa Venetia. What disturbed Grania most was that all those “creepy-looking people were sitting around doing nothing. They weren’t even having a party. They were just there in separate rooms.” Phil told Grania that his hi-fi had been stolen, all his belongings rifled through. His Omega watch was taken. He told her that he thought the CIA was ripping him off.

After searching for a year I finally located Cindy D. (not her real name). She was warm and cordial over the telephone and took great interest in my project. We made an appointment to meet. On a peaceful, sunny afternoon, in a pleasant new subdivision in Petaluma, I walked by a Trans Am parked in the driveway and azaleas blooming along the walkway, and as I rang the bell, I noticed that the mailbox had been hand-painted in a floral design
.

A robust, tall woman with long black curly hair answered the door. Cindy, now thirty-one years old, wore tight jeans, had a rich, bold voice, and was an animated talker. She wasn’t afraid of saying anything. She introduced me to her Latino husband, George, and her seven-year-old boy. Cindy and George owned the 7-Eleven store a mile away from their house and Cindy also worked nights at Safeway to supplement the family income. Cindy told me her story and helped me get in touch with some of the other “kids” (now young adults) who were part of Phil’
s Scanner Darkly
world
.

Cindy and George, Sheila, Craig, Don, and I met one night at Cindy’s house and sat drinking vodka and orange juice until 2 a.m. Each of them told me his or her story. Phil’s novel
, A Scanner Darkly
gave a picture of their world back then, they all agreed, except things were much worse than the novel described. The story that follows is not an exact account of what they told me. I made it less complicated and less disturbing
.

C
INDY’S
S
TORY

In 1970, Cindy, a seventeen-year-old high school girl, rode to Phil’s house on the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle. John, a member of the Hell’s Angels, was Phil’s methedrine supplier. Cindy showed me a picture of her boyfriend on his Harley. He had on a black leather vest that showed his huge naked shoulders; there was a biceps cuff around his muscled upper arm. He had a large bushy beard and wore jeans and motorcycle boots. Cindy became friendly with Phil and came over to visit him more and more frequently. When she felt misunderstood by her parents, Phil listened with paternal sympathy. When she had an abortion in her junior year of high school, Phil drove her to the abortionist. She said that she, herself, never took money from Phil but she noticed that the other people who were hanging around his house were “ripping him off” all the time. Cindy worked at a local fish-and-chips restaurant. Someone living at Phil’s house stole her key, entered the restaurant late at night, and stole all the money in the cash register. When Cindy met Phil, he was just finishing
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
.