“Dick,” I said. I leaned across the table and whispered to the lady in the dodgerblue uniform, “Philip Dick.”

Imagine having Dick as a surname. People call each other by last name in other countries. “Hear, hear,” you’d call everybody’s attention. A new employee has arrived and you’re to introduce him to everybody. “Everybody this is Dick, Philip Dick. Now Dick, this is Tits, Bullocks, Scrotum, Fishy-Vagine, Numbnuts, and Cunnilingus. And I am your supervisior. Call me Anal.”

“Any specific book you’re looking for?” The woman in the uniform brought me back to earth.

“I want anything and everything written by Dick,” I replied. She giggled idiotically and grabbed a pen and paper.

“That’s D-I-C-K, right?” She scribbled the name and snaffled the microphone as if she was about to give it a blowjob.

“Right,” I said. “I’m just actually looking for Ubik, but I’m interested in his other books as well.”

She jotted down “Obik” and I corrected her. She cleared her throat and motioned to suck the microphone when she spoke, “So-and-so, please approach customer service counter please.” She turned to me and said, “Our system is down.” She pointed at the monitor screen in front of her. “I’m afraid we’ll have to find this, uh—Dick, manually.”

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