The Dark Tower

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

a. Rescue the Young Man and give him back his Money

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

c. Take the Money and go on your way, knowing that although the road may be little traveled, someone will be along eventually to free the Young Man

d. None of the above

Had this been a test for the Sacramento PD, Ted would have circled “b” in a heartbeat. He may be little more than a hobo on the road, but his mama didn’t raise no fools, thank you oh so very much. That choice would be the correct one in most circumstances, too—the play-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 least I’m honest enough to say so,” there’s “d.”

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

But he circles “c,” and five days later he finds himself in the anteroom of an out-of-business dance studio in San Francisco (his train-fare from Sacramento prepaid), along with three other men and 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 the test 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 will discover in the full course of time, is an amazing catch.

Eventually he is shown into an office marked PRIVATE. It is mostly filled with dusty ballet stuff. A broad-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 an imaginary garden.

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