The Dark Tower

Roland was nodding and smiling a little.

“Although I must tell you,” the voice fromthe tape recorder said dryly, “I’d be happy to have at least one room with aslightly more reserved décor. Something in blue, perhaps. Earth-toneswould be even better.

“Speaking of earth tones, the stairs arealso chocolate. The banister’s a candy-cane. One ca

“Gingerbread House—which is what wecall it because that’s what you always smell in here, warm gingerbread, justout of the oven—is as much Dinky’s creation as it is Sheemie’s. Dinkwound up in the Corbett House dorm with Sheemie, and heard Sheemie cryinghimself to sleep one night. A lot of people would have passed by on the otherside in a case like that, and I realize that no one in the world looks lesslike the Good Samaritan than Dinky Earnshaw, but instead of passing by heknocked on the door of Sheemie’s suite and asked if he could come in.

“Ask him about it now and Dinky will tellyou it was no big deal. ‘I was new in the place, I was lonely, I wanted to makesome friends,’ he’ll say. ‘Hearing a guy bawling like that, it hit me that hemight want a friend, too.’ As though it were the most natural thing in theworld. In a lot of places that might be true, but not in Algul Siento. And youneed to understand that above all else, I think, if you’re going to understand us.So forgive me if I seem to dwell on the point.

“Some of the hume guards call us morks,after a space alien in some television comedy. And morks are the most selfishpeople on Earth. Antisocial? Not exactly. Some are extremely social, butonly insofar as it will get them what they currently want or need. Very fewmorks are sociopaths, but most sociopaths are morks, if you understand what I’msaying. The most famous, and thank God the low men never brought him over here,was a mass murderer named Ted Bundy.

“If you have an extra cigarette or two, noone can be more sympathetic—or admiring—than a mork in need of asmoke. Once he’s got it, though, he’s gone.

“Most morks—I’m talking ninety-eightor -nine out of a hundred—would have heard crying behind that closed doorand never so much as slowed down on their way to wherever. Dinky knocked andasked if he could come in, even though he was new in the place and justifiablyconfused (he also thought he was going to be punished for murdering hisprevious boss, but that’s a story for another day).

“And we should look at Sheemie’s side ofit. Once again, I’d say ninety-eight or even ninety-nine morks out of a hundredwould have responded to a question like that by shouting ‘Get lost!’ or even‘Fuck off!’ Why? Because we are exquisitely aware that we’re different frommost people, and that it’s a difference most people don’t like. Any more thanthe Neanderthals liked the first Cro-Magnons in the neighborhood, I wouldimagine. Morks don’t like to be caught off-guard.”

A pause. The reels spun. All four of themcould sense Brautigan thinking hard.

“No, that’s not quite right,” he said atlast. “What morks don’t like is to be caught in an emotionally vulnerablestate. Angry, happy, in tears or fits of hysterical laughter, anything likethat. It would be like you fellows going into a dangerous situation withoutyour guns.

“For a long time, I was alone here. I was amork who cared, whether I liked it or not. Then there was Sheemie, brave enoughto accept comfort if comfort was offered. And Dink, who was willing to reachout. Most morks are selfish introverts masquerading as rugged individualists—theywant the world to see them as Dan’l Boone types—and the Algul staff lovesit, believe me. No community is easier to govern than one that rejects the veryconcept of community. Do you see why I was attracted to Sheemie and Dinky, andhow lucky I was to find them?”

Susa

“Sheemie was afraid of the dark,” Tedcontinued. “The low men—I call em all low men, although there are humesand taheen at work here as well as can-toi—have a dozen sophisticatedtests for psychic potential, but they couldn’t seem to realize that they hadcaught a halfwit who was simply afraid of the dark. Their bad luck.

“Dinky understood the problem right away,and solved it by telling Sheemie stories. The first ones were fairy-tales, andone of them was ‘Hansel and Gretel.’ Sheemie was fascinated by the idea of acandy house, and kept asking Dinky for more details. So, you see, it was Dinkywho actually thought of the chocolate chairs with the marshmallow seats, thegumdrop arch, and the candy-cane banister. For a little while there wasa second floor; it had the beds of the Three Bears in it. But Sheemie nevercared much for that story, and when it slipped his mind, the upstairs of CasaGingerbread…” Ted Brautigan chuckled. “Well, I suppose you could say itbiodegraded.

“In any case, I believe that this place I’min is actually a fistula in time, or…” Another pause. A sigh. Then: “Look,there are a billion universes comprising a billion realities. That’s somethingI’ve come to realize since being hauled back from what the ki’-dam insists oncalling ‘my little vacation in Co

Real hate in Brautigan’s voice, Rolandthought, and that was good. Hate was good. It was useful.

“Those realities are like a hall ofmirrors, only no two reflections are exactly the same. I may come back to thatimage eventually, but not yet. What I want you to understand for now—orsimply accept—is that reality is organic, reality is alive.It’s something like a muscle. What Sheemie does is poke a hole in that musclewith a mental hypo. He only has a needle like this because he’s special—”

“Because he’s a mork,” Eddie murmured.

“Hush!” Susa

“—using it,” Brautigan went on.

(Roland considered rewinding in order topick up the missing words and decided they didn’t matter.)

“It’s a place outside of time, outside ofreality. I know you understand a little bit about the function of the DarkTower; you understand its unifying purpose. Well, think of Gingerbread House asa balcony on the Tower: when we come here, we’re outside the Tower but stillattached to the Tower. It’s a real place—real enough so I’ve comeback from it with candy-stains on my hands and clothes—but it’s a placeonly Sheemie Ruiz can access. And once we’re there, it’s whatever he wants itto be. One wonders, Roland, if you or your friends had any inkling of whatSheemie truly was and what he could do when you met him in Mejis.”

At this, Roland reached out and pushed theSTOP button on the tape recorder. “We knew he was… odd,” he told the others.“We knew he was special. Sometimes Cuthbert would say, ‘What is it aboutthat boy? He makes my skin itch!’ And then he showed up in Gilead, he and hismule, Cappi. Claimed to have followed us. And we knew that wasimpossible, but so much was happening by then that a saloon-boy fromMejis—not bright but cheerful and helpful—was the least of ourworries.”

“He teleported, didn’t he?” Jake asked.

Roland, who had never even heard the wordbefore today, nodded immediately. “At least part of the distance; he had tohave. For one thing, how else could he have crossed the Xay River? There wasonly the one bridge, a thing made out of ropes, and once we were across, Alaincut it. We watched it fall into the water a thousand feet below.”

“Maybe he went around,” Jake said.

Roland nodded. “Maybe he did… but it wouldhave taken him at least six hundred wheels out of his way.”