Dark Tower VII, The (v. 7)

by Stephen King

  “Dave Ittaway said, ‘Why are we going out there?’ and one of the others said, ‘You’ll see,’ and we certainly did.

  “‘Ladies first,’ Armitage said, and he opened the door.

  “It was dark on the other side, but not the same kind of dark. It was darker dark. If you’ve seen Thunderclap at night, you’ll know. And it sounded different. Old buddy Dick there had some second thoughts and turned around. One of the men pulled a gun. And I’ll never forget what Armitage said. Because he sounded … kindly. ‘Too late to back out now,’ he said. ‘Now you can only go forward.’

  “And I think right then I knew that business about the six-year plan, and re-upping if we wanted to, was what my friend Bobby Garfield and his friend Sully-John would have called just a shuck and jive. Not that we could read it in their thoughts. They were all wearing hats, you see. You never see a low man— or a low lady, for that matter—without a hat on. The men’s looked like plain old fedoras, the sort most guys wore back then, but these were no ordinary lids. They were thinking-caps. Although anti -thinking-caps would be more accurate; they muffle the thoughts of the people wearing them. If you try to prog someone who’s wearing one—prog is Dinky’s word for thoughtreading—you just get a hum with a lot of whispering underneath. Very unpleasant, like the todash chimes. If you’ve heard them, you know. Discourages too much effort, and effort’s the last thing most of the telepaths in the Algul are interested in. What the Breakers are mostly interested in, lady and gentlemen, is going along to get along. Which only shows up for what it is— monstrous—if you pull back and take the long view. One more thing most Breakers are not into. Quite often you hear a saying —a little poem—around campus, or see it chalked on the walls: ‘Enjoy the cruise, turn on the fan, there’s nothing to lose, so work on your tan.’ It means a lot more than ‘Take it easy.’ The implications of that little piece of doggerel are extremely unpleasant. I wonder if you can see that.”

  Eddie thought he could, at least, and it occurred to him that his brother Henry would have made an absolutely wonderful Breaker. Always assuming he’d been allowed to take along his heroin and his Creedence Clearwater Revival albums, that was.

  A longer pause from Ted, then a rueful sort of laugh.

  “I believe it’s time to make a long story a little shorter. We went through the door, leave it at that. If you’ve done it, you know it can be very unpleasant, if the door’s not in tip-top working order. And the door between Santa Mira, California, and Thunderclap was in better shape than some I’ve been through since.

  “For a moment there was only darkness on the other side, and the howl of what the taheen call desert-dogs. Then a cluster of lights went on and we saw these … these things with the heads of birds and weasels and one with the head of a bull, horns and all. Jace screamed, and so did I. Dave Ittaway turned and tried to run, but Armitage grabbed him. Even if he hadn’t, where was there to go? Back through the door? It was closed, and for all I know, that’s a one-way. The only one of us who never made a sound was Tanya, and when she looked at me, what I saw in her eyes and read in her thoughts was relief. Because we knew, you see. Not all the questions were answered, but the two that mattered were. Where were we? In another world. When were we coming back? Never in life. Our money would sit in the Seaman’s of San Francisco until it turned into millions, and no one would ever spend it. We were in for the long haul.

  “There was a bus there, with a robot driver named Phil. ‘My name’s Phil, I’m over the hill, but the best news is that I never spill,’ he said. He smelled like lightning and there were all sorts of discordant clicking sounds coming from deep in his guts. Old Phil’s dead now, dumped in the train and robot graveyard with God alone knows how many others, but they’ve got enough mechanized help to finish what they’ve started, I’m sure.

  “Dick fainted when we came out on Thunderclap-side, but by the time we could see the lights of the compound, he’d come around again. Tanya had his head in her lap, and I remember how gratefully he was looking up at her. It’s funny what you remember, isn’t it? They checked us in at the gate. Assigned us our dorms, assigned us our suites, saw that we were fed … and a damned fine meal it was. The first of many.

  “The next day, we went to work. And, barring my little ‘vacation in Connecticut,’ we’ve been working ever since.”

  Another pause. Then:

  “God help us, we’ve been working ever since. And, God forgive us, most of us have been happy. Because the only thing talent wants is to be used.”

  NINE

  He tells them of his first few shifts in The Study, and his realization— not gradual but almost immediate— that they are not here to search out spies or read the thoughts of Russian scientists, “or any of that space-shot nonsense,” as Dinky would say (not that Dinky was there at first, although Sheemie was). No, what they are doing is breaking something. He can feel it, not just in the sky above Algul Siento but everywhere around them, even under their feet.

  Yet he is content enough. The food is good, and although his sexual appetites have subsided quite a bit over the years, he’s not a bit averse to the odd bonk, just reminding himself every time that sim sex is really nothing but accessorized masturbation. But then, he’s had the odd bonk with the odd whore over the years, as many men living on the road have, and he could testify that that sort of sex is also not much different than masturbation; you’re putting it to her just as hard as you can, the sweat pouring off you, and she’s going “Baby-baby-baby,” and all the time wondering if she ought to gas the car and trying to remember which day is double stamps at the Red & White. As with most things in life, you have to use your imagination, and Ted can do that, he’s good at the old visualization thing, thank you oh so very much. He likes the roof over his head, he likes the company— the guards are guards, yeah, but he believes them when they say it’s as much their job to keep bad stuff from getting in as it is to make sure the Breakers don’t get out. He likes most of the inmates, too, and realizes after a year or two that the inmates need him in some strange way. He’s able to comfort them when they get the mean reds; he’s able to assuage their crampy waves of homesickness with an hour or so of murmured conversation. And surely this is a good thing. Maybe it’s all a good thing— certainly it feels like a good thing. To be homesick is human, but to Break is divine. He tries to explain to Roland and his tet, but the best he can do, the closest he can come, is to say it’s like finally being able to scratch that out-of-reach place on your back that always drives you crazy with its mild but persistent itch. He likes to go to The Study, and so do all the others. He likes the feeling of sitting there, of smelling the good wood and good leather, of searching … searching … and then, suddenly, aahhh. There you are. You’re hooked in, swinging like a monkey on a limb. You’re breaking, baby, and to break is divine.

  Dinky once said that The Study was the only place in the world where he really felt in touch with himself, and that was why he wanted to see it shut down. Burned down, if possible. “Because I know the kind of shit I get up to when I’m in touch with myself,” he told Ted. “When I, you know, really get in the groove.” And Ted knew exactly what he was talking about. Because The Study was always too good to be true. You sat down, maybe picked up a magazine, looked at pictures of models and margarine, movie stars and motor cars, and you felt your mind rise. The Beam was all around, it was like being in some vast corridor full of force, but your mind always rose to the roof and when it got there it found that big old sliding groove.

  Maybe once, just after the Prim withdrew and Gan’s voice still echoed in the rooms of the macroverse, the Beams were smooth and polished, but those days are gone. Now the Way of the Bear and the Turtle is lumpy and eroded, full of coves and cols and bays and cracks, plenty of places to get your fingers in and take hold, and sometimes you drag at it and sometimes you can feel yourself worming your way into it like a drop of acid that can think. All these sensations are intensely pleasurable. Sexy.

  And
for Ted there’s something else, as well, although he doesn’t know he’s the only one who’s got it until Trampas tells him. Trampas never means to tell him anything, but he’s got this lousy case of eczema, you see, and it changes everything. Hard to believe a flaky scalp might be responsible for saving the Dark Tower, but the idea’s not entirely farfetched.

  Not entirely farfetched at all.

  TEN

  “There are about a hundred and eighty full-time personnel at work in the Algul,” Ted said. “I’m not the guy to tell anyone how to do his job, but that’s something you may want to write down, or at least remember. Roughly speaking, it’s sixty per eight-hour shift and split twenty-twenty-twenty. Taheen have the sharpest eyes and generally man the watchtowers. Humes patrol the outer run of fence. With guns, mind you—hard calibers. Topside there’s Prentiss, the Master, and Finli o’ Tego, the Security Chief — hume and taheen, respectively — but most of the floaters are can-toi … the low men, you understand.

  “Most low men don’t get along with the Breakers; a little stiff camaraderie is the best they can do. Dinky told me once that they’re jealous of us because we’re what he calls ‘finished humes.’ Like the hume guards, the can-toi wear thinking-caps when they’re on duty so we can’t prog them. The fact is most Breakers haven’t tried to prog anyone or anything but the Beam in years, and maybe can’t, anymore; the mind is also a muscle, and like any other, it atrophies if you don’t use it.”

  A pause. A click on the tape. Then:

  “I’m not going to be able to finish. I’m disappointed but not entirely surprised. This will have to be my last story, folks. I’m sorry.”

  A low sound. A sipping sound, Susannah was quite sure; Ted having another drink of water.

  “Have I told you that the taheen don’t need the thinking-caps? They speak perfectly good English, and I’ve sensed from time to time that some have limited progging abilities of their own, can send and receive—at least a little—but if you dip into them, you get these mind-numbing blasts of what sounds like mental static—white noise. I assumed it was some sort of protective device; Dinky believes it’s the way they actually think. Either way, it makes it easier for them. They don’t have to remember to put on hats in the morning when they go out!

  “Trampas was one of the can-toi rovers. You might see him one day strolling along Main Street in Pleasantville, or sitting on a bench in the middle of the Mall, usually with some self-help book like Seven Steps to Positive Thinking. Then, the next day, there he is leaning against the side of Heartbreak House, taking in the sun. Same with the other can-toi floaters. If there’s a pattern, I’ve never been able to anticipate it, or Dinky either. We don’t think there is one.

  “What’s always made Trampas different is a complete lack of that sense of jealousy. He’s actually friendly—or was; in some ways he hardly seemed to be a low man at all. Not many of his can-toi colleagues seem to like him a whole hell of a lot. Which is ironic, you know, because if there really is such a thing as becoming, then Trampas is one of the few who actually seem to be getting somewhere with it. Simple laughter, for instance. When most low men laugh, it sounds like a basket of rocks rolling down a tin coal-chute: makes you fair shiver, as Tanya says. When Trampas laughs, he sounds a little highpitched but otherwise normal. Because he is laughing, I think. Genuinely laughing. The others are just forcing it.

  “Anyway, I struck up a conversation with him one day. On Main Street, this was, outside the Gem. Star Wars was back for its umpty-umpth revival. If there’s any movie the Breakers never get enough of, it’s Star Wars.

  “I asked him if he knew where his name came from. He said yes, of course, from his clan-fam. Each can-toi is given a hume name by his clan-fam at some point in his development; it’s a kind of maturity-marker. Dinky says they get that name the first time they successfully whack off, but that’s just Dinky being Dinky. The fact is we don’t know and it doesn’t matter, but some of the names are pretty hilarious. There’s one fellow who looks like Rondo Hatton, a film actor from the thirties who suffered from acromegaly and got work playing monsters and psychopaths, but his name is Thomas Carlyle. There’s another one named Beowulf and a fellow named Van Gogh Baez.”

  Susannah, a Bleecker Street folkie from way back, put her face in her hands to stifle a gust of giggles.

  “Anyway, I told him that Trampas was a character from a famous Western novel called The Virginian. Only second banana to the actual hero, true, but Trampas has got the one line from the book everyone remembers: ‘Smile when you say that!’ It tickled our Trampas, and I ended up telling him the whole plot of the book over cups of drugstore coffee.

  “We became friends. I’d tell him what was going on in our little community of Breakers, and he’d tell me all sorts of interesting but innocent things about what was going on over on his side of the fence. He also complained about his eczema, which made his head itch terribly. He kept lifting his hat—this little beanie-type of thing, almost like a yarmulke, only made of denim—to scratch underneath. He claimed that was the worst place of all, even worse than down there on your makie-man. And little by little, I realized that every time he lifted his beanie to scratch, I could read his thoughts. Not just the ones on top but all of them. If I was fast—and I learned to be—I could pick and choose, exactly the way you’d pick and choose articles in an encyclopedia by turning the pages. Only it wasn’t really like that; it was more like someone turning a radio on and off during a news broadcast.”

  “Holy shit,” Eddie said, and took another graham cracker. He wished mightily for milk to dip them in; graham crackers without milk were almost like Oreos without the white stuff in the middle.

  “Imagine turning a radio or a TV on full-blast,” Ted said in his rusty, failing voice, “and then turning it off again … justasquick.” He purposely ran this together, and they all smiled—even Roland. “That’ll give you the idea. Now I’ll tell you what I learned. I suspect you know it already, but I just can’t take the risk that you don’t. It’s too important.

  “There is a Tower, lady and gentlemen, as you must know. At one time six beams crisscrossed there, both taking power from it—it’s some kind of unimaginable power-source—and lending support, the way guy-wires support a radio tower. Four of these Beams are now gone, the fourth very recently. The only two remaining are the Beam of the Bear, Way of the Turtle— Shardik’s Beam—and the Beam of the Elephant, Way of the Wolf—some call that one Gan’s Beam.

  “I wonder if you can imagine my horror at discovering what I’d actually been doing in The Study. When I’d been scratching that innocent itch. Although I knew all along that it was something important, knew it.

  “And there was something worse, something I hadn’t suspected, something that applied only to me. I’d known that I was different in some ways; for one thing, I seemed to be the only Breaker with an ounce of compassion in my makeup. When they’ve got the mean reds, I am, as I told you, the one they come to. Pimli Prentiss, the Master, married Tanya and Joey Rastosovich—insisted on it, wouldn’t hear a word against the idea, kept saying that it was his privilege and his responsibility, he was just like the captain on an old cruise-ship—and of course they let him do it. But afterward, they came to my rooms and Tanya said, ‘You marry us, Ted. Then we’ll really be married.’

  “And sometimes I ask myself, ‘Did you think that was all it was? Before you started visiting with Trampas, and listening every time he lifted up his cap to scratch, did you truly think that having a little pity and a little love in your soul were the only things that set you apart from the others? Or were you fooling yourself about that, too?’

  “I don’t know for sure, but maybe I can find myself innocent on that particular charge. I really did not understand that my talent goes far beyond progging and Breaking. I’m like a microphone for a singer or a steroid for a muscle. I … hype them. Say there’s a unit of force—call it darks, all right? In The Study, twenty or thirty people might be able to put out fifty d
arks an hour without me. With me? Maybe it jumps to five hundred darks an hour. And it jumps all at once.

  “Listening to Trampas’s head, I came to see that they considered me the catch of the century, maybe of all time, the one truly indispensable Breaker. I’d already helped them to snap one Beam and I was cutting centuries off their work on Shardik’s Beam. And when Shardik’s Beam snaps, lady and gentlemen, Gan’s can only last a little while. And when Gan’s Beam also snaps, the Dark Tower will fall, creation will end, and the very Eye of Existence will turn blind.

  “How I ever kept Trampas from seeing my distress I don’t know. And I’ve reason to believe that I didn’t keep as complete a poker face as I thought at the time.

  “I knew I had to get out. And that was when Sheemie came to me the first time. I think he’d been reading me all along, but even now I don’t know for sure, and neither does Dinky. All I know is that one night he came to my room and thought to me, ‘I’ll make a hole for you, sai, if you want, and you can go boogiebye-bye.’ I asked him what he meant, and he just looked at me. It’s funny how much a single look can say, isn’t it? Don’t insult my intelligence. Don’t waste my time. Don’t waste your own. I didn’t read those thoughts in his mind, not at all. I saw them on his face.”

  Roland grunted agreement. His brilliant eyes were fixed on the turning reels of the tape recorder.

  “I did ask him where the hole would come out. He said he didn’t know—I’d be taking luck of the draw. All the same, I didn’t think it over for long. I was afraid that if I did, I’d find reasons to stay. I said, ‘Go ahead, Sheemie—send me boogiebye-bye.’

  “He closed his eyes and concentrated, and all at once the corner of my room was gone. I could see cars going by. They were distorted, but they were actual American cars. I didn’t argue or question any more, I just went for it. I wasn’t completely sure I could go through into that other world, but I’d reached a point where I hardly even cared. I thought dying might be the best thing I could do. It would slow them down, at least.