The Dark Tower

23. You come to a stop near anover-turned car on a little-traveled road. Trapped in the car is a Young Mancrying for rescue. You ask, “Are you hurt, Young Man?” to which he responds, “Idon’t think so!” In the field nearby is a Satchel filled with Money. You:

a.   Rescue the Young Manand give him back his Money

b.   Rescue the Young Manbut insist that the Money be taken to the local Police

c.   Take the Money and goon your way, knowing that although the road may be little traveled, someonewill be along eventually to free the Young Man

d.   None of the above

Had this been a test for the SacramentoPD, Ted would have circled “b” in a heartbeat. He may be little more than ahobo on the road, but his mama didn’t raise no fools, thank you oh so verymuch. That choice would be the correct one in most circumstances, too—theplay-it-safe choice, the can’t-go-wrong choice. And, as a fall-back position,the one that says “I don’t have a frigging clue what this is about but at leastI’m honest enough to say so,” there’s “d.”

Ted circles “c,” but not because that isnecessarily what he’d do in that situation. On the whole he tends to think thathe’d go for “a,” presuming he could at least ask the “Young Man” a fewquestions about where the loot came from. And if outright torture wasn’tinvolved (and he would know, wouldn’t he, no matter what the “Young Man” mighthave to say on the subject), sure, here’s your money, Vaya con Dios. Andwhy? Because Ted Brautigan happens to believe that the owner of the defunctcandystore had a point: THEIR KILLING THE LITTLE MAN.

But he circles “c,” and five days laterhe finds himself in the ante-room of an out-of-business dance studio in SanFrancisco (his train-fare from Sacramento prepaid), along with three other menand a sullen-looking teenage girl (the girl’s the former Tanya Leeds of Bryce,Colorado, as it turns out). Better than four hundred people showed up for thetest in the gym, lured by the honeypot ad. Goats, for the most part. Here,however, are four sheep. One per cent. And even this, as Brautigan willdiscover in the full course of time, is an amazing catch.

Eventually he is shown into an officemarked PRIVATE. It is mostly filled with dusty ballet stuff. Abroad-shouldered, hard-faced man in a brown suit sits in a folding chair,incongruously surrounded by filmy pink tutus. Ted thinks, A real toad in animaginary garden.

The man sits forward, arms on hiselephantine thighs. “Mr. Brautigan,” he says, “I may or may not be a toad, butI can offer you the job of a lifetime. I can also send you out of here with ahandshake and a much-obliged. It depends on the answer to one question. Aquestion about a question, in fact.”

The man, whose name turns out to beFrank Armitage, hands Ted a sheet of paper. On it, blown up, is Question 23,the one about the Young Man and the Satchel of Money.

“You circled ‘c,’” Frank Armitagesays. “So now, with absolutely no hesitation whatever, please tell mewhy.”

“Because ‘c’ was what youwanted,” Ted replies with absolutely no hesitation whatever.

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I’m a telepath,” Ted says. “Andthat’s what you’re really looking for.” He tries to keep his poker faceand thinks he succeeds pretty well, but inside he’s filled with a great andsinging relief. Because he’s found a job? No. Because they’ll shortly make himan offer that would make the prizes on the new TV quiz shows look tame? No.

Because someone finally wants what hecan do.

Because someone finally wants him.

Seven

The job offer turned out to be anotherhoneypot, but Brautigan was honest enough in his taped memoir to say he mighthave gone along even if he’d known the truth.

“Because talent won’t be quiet, doesn’tknow how to be quiet,” he said. “Whether it’s a talent forsafe-cracking, thought-reading, or dividing ten-digit numbers in your head, itscreams to be used. It never shuts up. It’ll wake you in the middle of yourtiredest night, screaming, ‘Use me, use me, use me! I’m tired of just sittinghere! Use me, fuckhead, use me!’”

Jake broke into a roar of pre-adolescentlaughter. He covered his mouth but kept laughing through his hands. Oy lookedup at him, those black eyes with the gold wedding rings floating in them,gri

There in the room filled with the frillypink tutus, his fedora hat cocked back on his crewcut head, Armitage asked if Tedhad ever heard of “the South American Seabees.” When Ted replied that hehadn’t, Armitage told him that a consortium of wealthy South Americanbusinessmen, mostly Brazilian, had hired a bunch of American engineers,construction workers, and roughnecks in 1946. Over a hundred in all. These werethe South American Seabees. The consortium hired them all for a four-yearperiod, and at different pay-grades, but the pay was extremelygenerous—almost embarrassingly so—at all grades. A ‘dozer operatormight sign a contract for $20,000 a year, for instance, which was tall ticketsin those days. But there was more: a bonus equal to one year’s pay. A total of$100,000. If, that was, the fellow would agree to one unusual condition: yougo, you work, and you don’t come back until the four years are up or the workis done. You got two days off every week, just like in America, and you got avacation every year, just like in America, but in the pampas. You couldn’t goback to North America (or even Rio) until your four-year hitch was over. If youdied in South America, you got planted there—no one was going to pay tohave your body shipped back to Wilkes-Barre. But you got fifty grand up front,and a sixty-day grace period during which you could spend it, save it, investit, or ride it like a pony. If you chose investment, that fifty grand might beseventy-five when you came waltzing out of the jungle with a bone-deep tan, awhole new set of muscles, and a lifetime of stories to tell. And, of course,once you were out you had what the limeys liked to call “the other half” to puton top of it.

This was like that, Armitage told Tedearnestly. Only the front half would be a cool quarter of a million and theback end half a million.

“Which sounded incredible,” Ted said fromthe Wollensak. “Of course it did, by jiminy. I didn’t find out until later howincredibly cheap they were buying us, even at those prices. Dinky isparticularly eloquent on the subject of their stinginess…’they’ in this casebeing all the King’s bureaucrats. He says the Crimson King is trying to bringabout the end of all creation on the budget plan, and of course he’s right, butI think even Dinky realizes—although he won’t admit it, ofcourse—that if you offer a man too much, he simply refuses to believe it.Or, depending on his imagination (many telepaths and precogs have almost noimagination at all), be unable to believe it. In our case the period ofindenture was to be six years, with an option to renew, and Armitage needed mydecision immediately. Few techniques are so successful, lady and gentlemen, asthe one where you boggle your target’s mind, freeze him with greed, then blitzhim.

“I was duly blitzed, and agreed at once.Armitage told me that my quarter-mil would be in the Seaman’s San Francisco Bankas of that afternoon, and I could draw on it as soon as I got down there. Iasked him if I had to sign a contract. He reached out one of hishands—big as a ham, it was—and told me that was ourcontract. I asked him where I’d be going and what I’d be doing—allquestions I should have asked first, I’m sure you’d agree, but I was so stu

“Besides, I was pretty sure I knew. Ithought I’d be working for the government. Some kind of Cold War deal. Thetelepathic branch of the CIA or FBI, set up on an island in the Pacific. Iremember thinking it would make one hell of a radio play.