The Dark Tower

There was a longer pause. The reel that had been empty was now half-full. “Listen, then,” Brautigan said, “and I’ll tell you the story of an unfortunate and unlucky man. It may be a longer story than you have time to listen to; if that be the case, I’m sure at least three of you will understand the use of the button labeled FF. As for me, I’m in a place where clocks are obsolete and broccoli is no doubt prohibited by law. I have all the time in the world.”

Eddie was again struck by how weary the man sounded.

“I’d just suggest that you not fast-forward unless you really have to. As I’ve said, there may be something here that can help you, although I don’t know what. I’m simply too close to it. And I’m tired of keeping my guard up, not just when I’m awake but when I’m sleeping, too. If I wasn’t able to slip away to Gingerbread House every now and again and sleep with no defenses, Finli’s can-toi boys would surely have bagged the three of us a long time ago. There’s a sofa in the corner, also made out of those wonderful non-stick marshmallows. I can go there and lie down and have the nightmares I need to have in order to keep my sanity. Then I can go back to the Devar-Toi, where my job isn’t just protecting myself but protecting Sheemie and Dink, too. Making sure that when we go about our covert business, it appears to the guards and their fucking telemetry that we were right where we belonged the whole time: in our suites, in The Study, maybe taking in a movie at the Gem or grabbing ice cream sodas at Henry Graham’s Drug Store and Fountain afterward. It also means continuing to Break, and every day I can feel the Beam we’re currently working on—Bear and Turtle—bending more and more.

“Get here quick, boys. That’s my wish for you. Get here just as quick as ever you can. Because it isn’t just a question of me slipping up, you know. Dinky’s got a terrible temper and a habit of going off on foul-mouthed tirades if someone pushes his hot-buttons. He could say the wrong thing in a state like that. And Sheemie does his best, but if someone were to ask him the wrong question or catch him doing the wrong thing when I’m not around to fix it . . .”

Brautigan didn’t finish that particular thought. As far as his listeners were concerned, he didn’t need to.

THREE

When he begins again, it’s to tell them he was born in Milford, Connecticut, in the year 1898. We have all heard similar introductory lines, enough to know that they signal—for better or worse—the onset of autobiography. Yet as they listen to that voice, the gunslingers are visited by another familiarity; this is true even of Oy. At first they’re not able to put their finger on it, but in time it comes to them. The story of Ted Brautigan, a Wandering Accountant instead of a Wandering Priest, is in many ways similar to that of Pere Donald Callahan. They could almost be twins. And the sixth listener—the one beyond the blanket-blocked cave entrance in the windy dark—hears with growing sympathy and understanding. Why not? Booze isn’t a major player in Brautigan’s story, as it was in the Pere’s, but it’s still a story of addiction and isolation, the story of an outsider.

FOUR

At the age of eighteen, Theodore Brautigan is accepted into Harvard, where his Uncle Tim went, and Uncle Tim—childless himself—is more than willing to pay for Ted’s higher education. And so far as Timothy Atwood knows, what happens is perfectly straightforward: offer made, offer accepted, nephew shines in all the right areas, nephew graduates and prepares to enter uncle’s furniture business after six months spent touring post–World War I Europe.