Donald E. Westlake

Philip

To Sean and Steven,

before they outgrow it.

Philip lived in a huge apartment house. It was taller than a spaceship and wider than a movie theater and it had more windows than you could count if you counted all day.

Out in front of this apartment house there was one skinny tree and a long canopy and a large doorman named Mister Neep. Mister Neep wore a bright blue uniform with shiny buttons on it. He also wore a bright blue hat with gold trim of which he was very proud.

All along the block there were other apartment houses just like the one Philip lived in. Way down at the corner there was a board fence around a deep hole in the ground. Big machines and husky men were building a brand new apartment house there.

Standing in front of the apartment houses were doormen just like Mister Neep, except that none of them were quite as big or quite as shiny as Mister Neep.

Philip liked Mister Neep because he was the biggest and shiniest doorman on the whole block.

The apartment where Philip and his mother and father lived was on the seventh floor. There was a big living room. There was a kitchen with a little corner where the family ate breakfast. There was a bathroom with white tiles. There was a large bedroom where Philip’s mother and father slept. And there was a not-quite-so-large bedroom where Philip slept.

And besides all this there was a terrace, which was like a front porch way up on the side of the building. From the terrace Philip could see lots of other buildings in the city, all of them full of apartments very much like his.

On the kitchen wall, there was a round thing called a speaker, which Mister Neep used when he wanted to tell Philip’s mother something. One day, as Philip sat at the kitchen table licking out a bowl, there was a buzzing noise from the speaker. That was Mister Neep’s signal.

Philip’s mother went over to the speaker and said, “Yes, Mister Neep?”

Mister Neep’s voice said, “There’s a package down here, just delivered.”

Philip’s mother said, “What sort of package, Mister Neep?”

Mister Neep said, “It’s a package for Philip. Has his name on it. I daresay it’s a present.”

Philip said, “I heard that.”

“Trust you,” said his mother. To Mister Neep she said, “We’ll be right down.”

Philip and his mother rode down in the elevator. There by the front door stood Mister Neep, with the package in his hands.

“Do you suppose,” Mister Neep said to Philip, “do you suppose you could carry this package upstairs yourself?”

“Sure I could,” said Philip.

So Mister Neep handed him the package. It was much heavier than Philip expected. He and his mother went back upstairs.

“You’d better open it on the kitchen table,” Philip’s mother said, “so we won’t have a mess anywhere.”

Philip opened the package completely by himself. It took longer than he had thought it would. When he had it open at last he discovered that inside the package there was... a truck. A very large, a very beautiful, a very complicated truck. It had batteries in it, and it had lots of space for carrying things, and it had a big scoop on the top that could reach down and pick up a whole gob of dirt and dump it into the back of the truck, and it had a button you could push to make the back of the truck lift up and dump the dirt out again.

It was the most beautiful and useful truck Philip had ever seen.

There was a card in the package with the truck. Philip’s mother picked it up and read it. She said, “Oh! It’s from your Uncle Fred.”

Philip said, “Who’s he?”

“He’s a man who used to be in college with your father. He visited here one time when you were still a baby. I guess you wouldn’t remember him.”

“I guess not,” said Philip.

He didn’t worry about it. He knew the world was full of people named Uncle This and Aunt That, grown-ups who seemed to know him even though he didn’t know them and who weren’t really his uncles and aunts at all. And, every once in a while, one of these make-believe uncles or aunts would give Philip a present.

Like this dump truck, which happened to be the first dump truck Philip had ever owned. He’d seen dump trucks, of course, on television and down at the corner where men were digging for the new apartment house, but up until now he’d never actually owned a dump truck for himself.

Philip took his dump truck into the living room and put it down on the floor. He pushed the button that started it and it ran across the rug and stopped at the sofa. He pushed the other button and the scoop made pick-up motions. Then he got some blocks and put them in the truck. He pushed the last button and the back of the truck lifted up and the blocks slid out onto the rug.

The truck worked all right, but somehow Philip wasn’t pleased.

He did it all again. He made the truck move, and stop, and dump blocks out. He made the scoop move.

But something was wrong. And Philip knew what it was.

Dirt.

The main point about a dump truck, it’s supposed to carry dirt. You put it down on the ground, and the scoop picks up big mouthfuls of dirt and fills up the truck, and then you push the button and the truck drives across the yard to where you want to move the dirt, and then you push the other button and the back of the truck lifts up and all the dirt slides out. That’s what a dump truck does.

What Philip needed was some dirt.

But there just isn’t very much dirt around an apartment house. There’s dust, especially under the beds and in the backs of the closets, but that never gets deep enough to dig in. And what else is there? Outside, the ground is all covered with cement and asphalt and cobblestones. Inside, the ground is all covered with wooden floors and tile and rugs.

Still, Philip now had himself a dump truck, and he did want to operate that dump truck, right away. The problem was to find some dirt.

Philip went back to the kitchen. He said to his mother, “Mom, where can I find some dirt?”

“Some what?” his mother asked.

“Some dirt. To dig in, with this dump truck here.”

“Oh, dirt! Well, I’ll tell you what. This Sunday, we’ll all go over to the park, you and your father and I, and you can play with your new truck there, how’s that?”

“Yes, but what about right now?” Philip said.

“Philip, I have a million things to do right now.”

Philip walked around the kitchen with the dump truck in his arms. “I sure wish I could find some dirt,” he said.

His mother said, “The next time we visit Grandma you can take the truck along with you. She’s got plenty of dirt around her house.”

“I sure wish I could find some dirt right now,” said Philip.

“You go on out of the kitchen,” his mother told him. “I’m busy.”

So Philip walked around and around the apartment, carrying the dump truck in his arms. He walked from the kitchen to the living room, and from the living room to his bedroom, and from his bedroom to his parents’ bedroom, and...

...he saw the window box. In the window. In his parents’ bedroom.

In the winter, the window box was always full of snow. In the spring, it was always full of seeds. In the summer, it was always full of flowers. But now it was autumn, and there was nothing in the window box but dirt.

DIRT!

The window box was just wide enough for the truck. Philip put it down at one end and pushed the buttons. When the truck was full of dirt, he drove it down to the other end of the window box and dumped the dirt out again.

It worked fine. Everything was A-OK.

Philip made the dump truck work again. And again. And again.

Some of the dirt fell over the side of the window box, but there was still plenty left. More than enough.

Philip kept working.

Then all at once, Philip’s mother came in and said, “So it’s true.”

Philip said, “What’s true?”

“Mister Neep just called me,” Philip’s mother said, “and told me you spilled dirt all over the top of his hat.”

Philip said, “Me?”

“Just look out the window,” said his mother.

So Philip looked out the window, being very careful to hold on. He leaned over the top of the window box and looked down toward the ground.

It was true all right. Way down there, his brass buttons shining in the sunlight, was Mister Neep. He was holding his hat in his hand and looking up. When he saw Philip, he shook his fist. That was to let Philip know he was not at all pleased.

“You can’t play in the window box,” said Philip’s mother. “The next thing you know, you’ll drop your new truck on Mister Neep’s head, and that wouldn’t be so good.”

“I’ll play somewhere else,” said Philip.

“Good,” said his mother.

So Philip walked around and around the apartment again, looking for someplace else with dirt. But there wasn’t anyplace else with dirt, nowhere in the apartment.

After a while, Philip went to the kitchen and said to his mother, “I’m going out and play.”

“All right,” said his mother. “And you be sure and tell Mister Neep you’re sorry you spilled dirt on his hat.”

“I will,” said Philip.

Down in the elevator went Philip, carrying his dump truck. He went outside in the sunlight. Mister Neep was standing there with his arms folded. He was still angry, and he looked as big as a mountain.

Philip said, “I’m sorry about spilling dirt on top of your hat, Mister Neep. I didn’t mean to do it. I won’t do it again.”

Mister Neep thought it over, and decided not to be mad any more. “Apology accepted,” he said.

“I was just playing with my new dump truck,” Philip explained. “Would you know where I could find some dirt?”

“Well,” said Mister Neep, “in my experience, dirt seems to fall from the sky sometimes. The only other place I can think of is the park.”

“My mother will take me there on Sunday,” said Philip. “But I was thinking about right now.”

“Then I don’t know,” said Mister Neep.

“Oh, well,” said Philip. “I’ll just keep on looking.”

Philip went back inside, feeling very glum. He didn’t know where to look next for dirt.

Then, all at once, he saw a great big pot of sand next to the elevator. It had been there all along, but Philip had just never noticed it before.

This pot of sand was for grown-ups. They put cigarettes in it before getting into the elevator. But Mister Neep had just put fresh sand in the pot this morning and it was still clean.

The pot was just big enough for the dump truck to circle in. Philip knelt down on the floor beside the pot of sand, and he and his dump truck went back to work.

Philip found that sand was very good stuff to work with. The scoop bit into it smoothly every time, and it spread out to fill every corner of the truck, and when he dumped it out, it made a very interesting mountain shape. Philip worked and worked.

All of a sudden, a shadow spread over the pot of sand. Philip looked up. Mister Neep was standing there with his hands on his hips. Mister Neep’s face looked like the sky just before a thunderstorm, but with some red in it around the nose.

Mister Neep was angry again.

Philip said, “Am I doing something wrong, Mister Neep?”

“Take one look at that floor,” said Mister Neep.

Philip took one look at the floor. Then he knew what Mister Neep was angry about. The dump truck hadn’t just been moving sand around inside the pot. It had also been spilling sand onto the floor. There was quite a bit of sand on the floor now, almost as much as there was in the pot.

“I’m going to have to clean that up,” said Mister Neep.

“I’m sorry,” said Philip. “I didn’t notice it.”

“Well, I noticed it,” said Mister Neep. “And if I notice any more from you today, you just might notice a stinging sensation in the seat of your pants. Do you follow me?”

“Yes,” said Philip. “You mean you might swat me.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” said Mister Neep. “Now, I’m going to go get the broom and dustpan. Where will you be when I come back?”

“Somewhere else,” said Philip.

“Very good,” said Mister Neep.

Mister Neep went away to his closet for the dustpan and broom. Philip picked up his truck and went somewhere else.

Where Philip went was outside on the sidewalk. He stood there with his new truck and looked around. He tried and tried to think where he could find some dirt to dig in, but there just didn’t seem to be any dirt anywhere.

Out beyond the sidewalk was the street. Buses rumbled by on the street. Trucks thundered by. Tractor trailers growled by. Automobiles and taxicabs whizzed by. Little foreign cars zipped by.

Philip’s mother had told him never to cross the street by himself. With all those buses and trucks and tractor trailers and automobiles and taxicabs and little foreign cars rushing by, Philip could understand why his mother wanted him to cross only with grown-ups.

That was why he had to wait till Sunday to go to the park. In the park, there was dirt and there was grass and there were trees and...

TREES!

Trees grow in dirt. Always. Every time.

And that means, where you find trees, you are absolutely certain to find dirt.

And where was there a tree?

Right in front of the apartment house!

True, it was an awfully little tree. It was such a small and skinny tree that it had to be held up with two poles. But there was dirt around it. Genuine, honest-to-Pete, real-life dirt.

There was dirt in a square the size of a piece of sidewalk. The tree was growing out of the dirt, and the poles holding the tree were stuck in the dirt, but there was still room for Philip’s truck.

Plenty of room.

Now, this was best of all. This was better than the window box, because Philip could make the truck turn around here. And it was better than the pot of sand because he could make the truck go straight ahead.

Philip began to move big truckloads of dirt.

And bigger truckloads of dirt.

And even bigger truckloads of dirt.

Oh, oh!

Philip looked up and tried to smile. “Hello, Mister Neep,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

“Not if what we want is a dead tree,” said Mister Neep. “If we want a dead tree, we’ll just ask you to dig it up for us. But if we want a live tree, then I’d say something’s wrong, yes.”

Philip looked at the tree. He had done a lot of digging on one side. There were roots showing now, and the tree seemed to be leaning just a little.

Philip said, “I guess I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I guess not,” said Mister Neep.

“I’ll put all the dirt back,” Philip promised.

“Oh, I’m sure of that,” said Mister Neep.

Philip started putting the dirt back where it belonged. He used his hands this time, not the new dump truck.

Mister Neep squatted down beside Philip. When he bent his knees, they made large cracking sounds, like a cap pistol when you pull the trigger and the cap doesn’t fire. Mister Neep said, “Philip, you keep getting into trouble today.”

“I know it,” said Philip.

“That isn’t like you,” said Mister Neep. “What’s wrong, Philip?”

“It’s my new truck,” said Philip. “This truck here. This is the present that came for me today.”

“I see,” said Mister Neep. “Well, it’s certainly a first-rate dump truck.”

“But there’s no dirt anywhere,” said Philip. “At least, none I can use.”

“I see,” said Mister Neep. “Well, let me think about it.” He stood up again, and his knees cracked some more, like popcorn popping. When he stood up, Mister Neep was taller than the tree. “You keep putting that dirt back,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” said Philip.

Philip watched Mister Neep go into the apartment house and start talking into the telephone just inside the door. He knew Mister Neep must be talking to his mother, telling her everything he’d been doing wrong.

When Mister Neep finished talking on the phone, he came back outside. He walked majestically along the sidewalk to the right until he came to the doorman standing under the canopy in front of the next apartment house. Mister Neep talked to this doorman. He pointed at Philip as though to warn the next-door doorman that Philip might come over any minute and start digging in his sandpot or killing his tree.

Then that doorman walked majestically along the sidewalk to the right until he came to the doorman after him, and they talked together. They both looked at Philip. Philip worked even faster at putting the dirt back at the bottom of the tree.

Then that next doorman walked majestically along the sidewalk to the right until he came to the doorman after him, and they talked, and then that doorman walked majestically along the sidewalk until he came to yet another doorman, and so on,

and so on,

and so on.

Philip didn’t think that was right. He knew he’d caused Mister Neep trouble today, but he didn’t think it was fair for Mister Neep to tell on him to all the other doormen.

Still, Philip didn’t say anything. He knew it was his own fault to begin with.

When he had all the dirt back where it belonged, he brushed his hands clean and picked up his truck. He started into the apartment house. Mister Neep said, “Where are you going, Philip?”

“Home,” said Philip.

“Wait a minute or two,” said Mister Neep.

Philip looked up at Mister Neep. Mister Neep’s face didn’t look like the sky just before a storm any more. In fact, Mister Neep’s face now looked very jolly. Philip said, “What’s going on, Mister Neep?”

Mister Neep said, “Take a look down the street.”

So Philip took a look down the street.

The first thing he saw was the doorman next door, smiling at him. And beyond him, the next doorman, also smiling at him. And the doorman after him, smiling, and the doorman after him, smiling, and so on, and so on, and so on, all the way down to the corner, where the new apartment house was being built.

The second thing Philip saw was a man with a wheelbarrow, coming this way, and he was smiling.

And the third thing he saw was a man carrying some boards, also coming this way, and he was smiling. At Philip.

The wheelbarrow man and the board man came up the block. They stopped under the canopy and said, “Well, here we are.” The wheelbarrow man said to Philip, “I understand you need some dirt.”

Philip gulped. He nodded. He said, “Yes, sir.”

“Well, here it is,” said the wheelbarrow man, nodding at his wheelbarrow.

It was perfectly true. The wheelbarrow was full to the brim with dirt.

Philip looked at Mister Neep, and Mister Neep said, “These gentlemen are from the construction crew down at the corner. I passed a message to them by the Doorman Message Service.”

Philip said, “But where am I going to put all that dirt?”

“I talked to your mother,” said Mister Neep, “and everything is all arranged. You just show these men the way to your apartment.”

Philip could hardly believe it was true. He showed the men the way to his apartment, up the elevator and along the hall. His mother opened the door and said, “Right this way.” She led the wheelbarrow man and the board man through the apartment and out onto the terrace. The wheelbarrow man put down his wheelbarrow and the board man put down his boards.

The two men took hammers and nails out of their pockets. In nothing flat, they hammered the boards together into a wide shallow box. Then they dumped the dirt from the wheelbarrow into the box.

“There you go,” said the wheelbarrow man. “All the dirt you could ask for.”

“Boy,” said Philip. “I sure thank you.”

“Not a bit,” said the wheelbarrow man. “Down at the corner, we’ve got more dirt than we know what to do with.”

The wheelbarrow man and the board man left.

Philip looked over the railing of the terrace, being careful to hold on, and shouted, “Hey, Mister Neep!”

Mister Neep came out from under the canopy and looked up.

Philip waved. “Thank you, Mister Neep!” he shouted.

Mister Neep smiled and waved back.

All the other doormen came out from under their canopies and smiled and waved, too. Philip waved at them and shouted, “Thank you! Thank you!”

Then he put his new dump truck down on the new pile of dirt, and he went to work.

Content

Donald E. Westlake
Philip