Philip Read online

  Tito Perdue

  Philip

  Arktos

  London 2017

  Copyright © 2017 by Arktos Media Ltd.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means (whether electronic or mechanical), including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN

  978-1-912079-88-9 (Softcover)

  978-1-912079-87-2 (Ebook)

  Cover

  Andreas Nilsson

  Layout

  Tor Westman

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  One

  “Was in the Land of Nod when first I saw the world inscribed on fabric walls.”

  He actually did say this, a precocious utterance for a youth of just some twenty-four years who had found himself employed more or less by happenstance at one of the larger import-export consortiums in New York City. Good at languages (and several other things as well!), he had simply meant to say that the apparent universe in its current deployment was but an analog of something else, the real reality available only to certain sorts of people, and only intermittently even to them. He said he could actually see his surroundings billowing, as it were, as if these surfaces and street scenes had been appliquéd to the interior surface of the “tent” in which he had been consigned to pass his life, a more serious neurosis than that of looking out upon life as through a pane of perfectly invisible glass, the usual claim of those who dwell primarily inside their own minds.

  Two

  Years passed, and then it turned out that he was thirty-two.

  A good-looking individual, esteemed by women, he was at last made to admit to his colleagues (business associates with whom he must perforce deal on a daily basis), admit to his colleagues that for a period of about seven years in his youth he had in truth been in residence at a certain notorious extra-legal “academy” located at first in Alabama and then later in Tamaulipas, a province in north-northeastern Mexico. Further, that he had been a member of the reviled class of 1956, an unpopular group that had included a world-famous pianist, two federal prisoners (one of them now dead), an unsuccessful novelist, and Philip himself.

  “But how did you become involved with a group like that?” he was asked two or three times a week.

  “Talent,” he would reply, putting on a charming smile that tended even further to beautify his already handsome face. As to the person questioning him, it was nearly always one of the middle-rank businessmen who came and went, sometimes obtruding into his office without invitation and attempting conversations that Philip was usually able to avert, or turn aside, or cause to circle back upon themselves, picking up about where they had started.

  “Talent, eh?”

  “And brains.”

  They laughed.

  “Well if you’re so smart, how come you ain’t rich?” the man usually would ask, echoing one of the more odious assumptions of the century. He understood of course, did Philip, that he could have been rich, had only he accepted any of the two promotions that had been offered him over the past several years.

  He despised promotion, fearing as he did that it might enroll him all at once into the same class of people that filled the twenty-two-storey building in which he enjoyed an office with a superior view and a desk of his own with a secret compartment. What, he wanted to be hurrying off to meetings at all times? He did not. What, expected to socialize with nitwits and their daughters? Play golf? Perform public services?

  The desk in fact held two secret compartments, although one of them contained innocuous materials only. Still other drawers held a change of clothes, shoes, account books, a calculator motored by flashlight batteries, and a classified directory of the merchants, shippers, and foreign officials with whom he must be in contact from one day to the next.

  Another reason for rejecting advancement: because his actual job was extraordinarily simple, drawing upon less than half his above-cited brains and talent. Together with his view of the harbor, his sketch pad and record player, the sympathetic secretary on the twelfth floor who warned him by phone each time someone in authority might be coming his way, all that together with his variegated collection of books and music, his medicine, and so forth and so on, etc., etc., he was about as happy as a person of his type — he was not a “type” — as ever he could expect to be.

  Came then June 21st and a nine o’clock meeting that was absolutely incumbent on him in spite of everything. Moving with hurry, he washed down his pills and capsules with two cups of well-sweetened coffee and then drew off into the men’s room to furbish himself with warm water and the comb he carried always. Goddamn him, he did take pleasure in his own good looks, his pre-eminent vice. Suddenly he snapped his head to one side, causing two or three blond curls to tumble down over his intellectual forehead. His nose, too, was a particularly good one and formed a perfect line with the forehead also previously mentioned just above.

  Thus passed a full minute, a long time when compared to the period normally given to such operations. Another ten seconds then went by as he judged himself with a cigarette dangling from one of the two corners of his classic mouth.

  He was a formal-looking person and his suit was grey. His shirt, meanwhile, was new and his tie inset with a plethora of tiny white shiny stars that contrasted to his benefit with the stripes worn by his less-imaginative building mates. The last thing he wanted was for one of those mates just then to enter the room and see him at his work, and when that actually did take place, he had to smile and speak (briefly) to the imbecile who quickly, indeed urgently, retreated into one of the cells and secured the bolt.

  It was not as if he detested everything. He admired the meeting room, an elongated chamber with a dense carpet and heavy, antique-looking chairs upholstered in cerulean blue. He liked to pass his hand over the moist surface of the leather, as also the burnished wood that offered only the slightest friction indeed. Next, gathering one of the ashtrays, he extinguished his cigarette and then immediately retrieved another in order that he might be seen with a better-looking artifact hanging out of his head.

  He was nearly always the first arrival, a ploy that let him select his place at the table and gave him time to organize his papers. He could not imagine any question that he couldn’t answer, nor any statistic he didn’t have immediately to hand. Calm and at peace, but at the same time dreading the time when these pleasant surroundings would be invaded by some twenty or more vociferating businesspersons full of plans and dreams of money, he smoked. Instead, that moment, the girl named “Sheila” bounced into the room and then came to a full stop when she discerned Philip in his accustomed place. Of all the people, she was the one woman in the whole organization who adored him most of all.

  “Oh!” she said. “You’re already here!”

  He smiled pleasantly. “Yes, I wanted to get a nap before the meeting began.”

  She was moving in his direction. He asked little of life; he did ask that she not elect to sit next to him. Just then two further persons entered the room, one of them fat and the other thin. Philip smiled. The latter was in personnel and the other in charge of accounts. Philip stood and shook hands with the accounts man, a burly person whose facial features had concentrated themselves into about fifteen per-cent of the space available to them. He had a dimple on his chin, a deep one in which a person could have inserted the whole first joint, and a little more, of his index finger. By contrast the personnel person was outfitted in a skin that had been stretched and kneaded in an effort to cause it to cover the underlying joists. He (Philip) hated to be made to shake hands with people.

  “Phil.”

  “G’morning.”


  “What’s on the agenda today? Machine parts?”

  “Right. And that outfit in Denmark.”

  They all now settled into their places, the five senior people, two record keepers (stately-looking girls wearing serene expressions), and Philip, who had begun to envy the raspberry croissant selected by the President. Himself, Philip had chosen all too hastily a plain simple doughnut with nothing on it. They had assembled here, these people, because they wanted large houses instead of small, and were anxious to trade away their lives for half a dozen extra rooms. His glance then settled on the exposed knee of the admittedly good-looking secretary just across from him. Working with haste, he was however able to withdraw his gaze before the bitch grew cognizant of it. A human utility in service to the president, she had transferred a sizeable part of that man’s prestige onto herself. Did he dare, Philip, to thrust his hand up her short, short skirt?

  In the event, he did nothing of the kind. The committee was engaged in matters of the most extreme importance, whether Philip agreed with that or not. He knew how to keep from laughing. Looking about at them, he found not one-tenth the raw materials needed for an authentic society. But meantime the coffee was good and a tiny yellow bird had come to the window and was peering in at them with a condemnatory eye. He was aware of the pressure on his right-side profile where the Third Vice-President, a woman of about 40 years, continued staring at him.

  Except for his handsome looks and woman-slaughtering politeness, he had few tools for managing people. How many people in New York could so casually lift a woman’s hand and kiss it as lingeringly as he? Damn few. That was when Gerald Oglesby, a shriveled individual with an obscene moustache, stood and began to read from his report. Behind him, Philip could pick up bits and pieces of a whispered conversation about last night’s soccer match. Inspired by these surroundings, Philip abandoned the meeting a few minutes too early and then trekked on down to the regional library where, to pervert a line from Yeats, he hid his face amid a crowd of books.

  He arrived back at his apartment approximately at 5:44 and after gathering up his mail (advertisements for the most part), made a quick inventory of his furniture and belongings. No one had intruded into his two-room domain, belaying the disappointment such intruders would necessarily have faced. His sofa was in place, the television, and a battered coffee table that had been consigned to the alley by someone more improvident than he. Brought to his apartment, the table was able to sustain an ashtray, lamp, and not a great deal else. It is true that he had a few books, an irregular collection of perhaps fifteen volumes that the library lacked, or had lost, or had loaned out to New York people.

  He possessed a not very satisfactory biography of Giordano Bruno, a better one of Tyndale, and quite a good one of Hus, heroes of his who had all been burned to death in accord with the demands of the day. But his main consideration was for that genius who had seen his eyes scooped out with a spoon and replaced with his testicles, the noblest of deaths apart from that Wisconsin woman reported to have drowned herself in a pail of water.

  He owned a survey of recent theories in cosmology, a history of Alabama with maps and colored plates, a monograph on Hinduism, an advanced German grammar, and a well-preserved copy of Randall’s theories concerning the end of the world and all possible aftermaths. At first he had organized these on the window sill, but then had piled them beneath the coffee table in order to free his view of the outside city.

  The bedroom had no bed in it, nor did he require one, the sofa proving long enough and more for his five feet ten inches. He did own a refrigerator, a second-hand appliance needed to cool his milk, his vegetables, and the usual margarine and salad dressing, etc. And in short he was a bleak sort of person, to judge solely from the ambiance he had chosen for himself. He did have two well-framed prints of Bruegel’s, one for each of his two rooms.

  Mail: Today he had received a promotional brochure for a rest home in Arizona, an enticement to invest in platinum mining, and a warning about the coming exhaustion of social security funds. Disposing of all this material, he crossed to the window and gazed down into the gray city, no longer surprised to see how the buildings were leaning up against each other, as it were, for mutual support. Someone had let fall a multitude of beer cans to a place among dead pigeons on the adjoining roof. Down below lights were beginning to come on in the stores and among a long line of tethered automobiles all traveling at the same speed. Westward he saw an immensely tall radio tower relaying information to the seats of global power. Or ships at sea. It was an important city, certainly, and one had to suppose that the activities that took place there were essential for the continuance of a civilization of that kind.

  He did feel a bit faded after eight hours on the job, and almost feared to check the mirror. His shirt was blue to match his eyes, while as for his tie, unconscionably expensive, it might be a few years too “young” for his 32 actual years. However, with just a few years left to him of handsomeness, a valuable resource he was unwilling wholly to ignore… What, he should apologize? Suddenly he snapped his head to one side, causing four or five blond curls to fall, or cascade rather, over his luminous forehead.

  By contrast, his physique was purely generic, an indifferent appendage that did what he required of it while distracting in no way from the rest of him.

  Face, furniture, books, he also possessed a good fund of money that had accrued to him by virtue of his austerities. Paid less than he deserved (relative to other people), but more than he deserved for what he actually accomplished, he had managed to save roughly 86,000 dollars all told, most of it held by two banks that sat fore and aft southernmost Manhattan where the island tended to converge. Sometimes he might deposit his whole monthly check, an action that caused his usual teller to glance up and smile at him with approbation.

  “Well!” she might say. “You’re making progress!”

  There was a grill between them, preventing him from gathering up her hand.

  “I do try,” he might say, delaying there just long enough to give her a view of the bashful face he adopted for her delectation. Truth was, he could have copulated with her just then on the cool marble floor, witnesses notwithstanding.

  Or, he might abandon his apartment and amble the two blocks to his favorite restaurant, a middle-grade sort of place with a pianist and clients who tended to keep to themselves. But mostly it was the darkness that drew him, and the opportunity of thinking thoughts without being bothered by the all too amiable waitress. (He wanted his waitresses silent, efficient, and quick.) Here, taking possession (if he were lucky) of his personal booth, he would surrender to the music (if he were very lucky) of Debussy and Ravel as interpreted by an aged pianist, one of the city’s most valuable assets by far.

  He might order a chicken breast with biscuits and tea, and having finished with it, might draw off into the dark part of the booth to study one by one the human types, New York people, who had entered the place either for a meal or to escape the rain that caused the outside world to appear even darker than it was. Coffee and cigarettes, a Loeb Classical Library book in his overcoat pocket, it was the best moment in the day. He saw a short, dark man with jowls, and across from him an analogous sort of woman sipping at a tiny vessel of a liqueur of some kind. These two might have been fond of each other at one time. Saw a Chinese in a baseball cap, a homosexual queer with rings on both hands, a Negress in purple and gold, a working man staring sadly at the paramecia somersaulting in his beer. Void of supernal values, these were the best, these organisms, the very best the city had on offer.

  Or, a woman might enter the place — he knew her well — and shake the rain from her umbrella and coat. She might spot him in the dim, for example, and smile, and might walk toward him. Having exhausted the dark part of his booth, Philip had nothing for it but to rise and smile, hang her coat on the hook, set her down and organize her things on the upholstered bench.

  “So this is what you do!” she said. “Places like this.”


  Philip smiled. He was able at need to put on a certain shy manner that destabilized certain kinds of women.

  “Yes, well I felt sure you’d have to show up here sooner or later.”

  “So gallant! Aren’t you ashamed?”

  He could have copulated with her on the table. Instead, the waitress came, a heavy woman in a fraying apron and orthopedic shoes. Having made herself available for the past fifty years, still no one loved her nor ever had. He then looked for and found a somewhat older man sitting at the counter with a newspaper, although Philip could not be certain at that distance whether the two of them could make a couple. Surely the man was close to retirement, whereas the waitress must have some savings at least.

  There were other waitresses and other old men, also a pretty young girl working assiduously on her lipstick. He felt bad for her as for her entire gender, a numerous group enslaved to perfume and lipstick, creams, lotions, and other products essential to the economy. And how would he like it, required to spend three hours a day on such efforts? Amused by that, he said:

  “There’s an old story about the world’s first woman.”

  “Oh?”

  “She came across a raspberry bush, they say, and right away began painting herself with the juice.”

  “Oh good. What about the lasagna?” (The menu was four pages thick and the woman had reviewed only the first page and a half.)

  “Excellent. I recommend it.”

  “You’ve tried it?”

  “What, me?”

  She ordered it anyway. She was not an unbearable person, not until he began to calculate the time that would be needed by the restaurant for cooking the stuff and by the woman for eating it, and that he might be expected to stay throughout that whole long procedure. Except for that, he might already be back in his apartment listening to the rain. Just then her shoe touched his beneath the table. He had no wish, none, to carry her, this most ordinary of all human beings, back to his rooms.