Tanner thought about it awhile, then nodded. "Okay," he said, "if that's the way it's got to be."
"That's what I recommend."
They drank their coffee.
Hell Tanner and Jerry Potter walked through the chill morning. Wisps of mist drifted along the ground, and the grass shone as if chrome-plated. There was a light haze in the air, and Jerry's breath crystallized as he blew it out before him, and he said, "Look, Hell! I'm smoking!"
"Yeah," said Tanner. "Wonder if my car's free yet."
"Probably," said Jerry. "That's a pretty good team." Then, "What do you do, Hell? I mean in real life, when you're not driving?"
"I'm always driving," said Tanner, "something or other. I'm a driver, that's all."
"You going to do more driving after you get to Boston?"
Tanner cleared his throat and spat against a tree.
"I don't know. Probably. Or else work someplace where they take care of cars and bikes."
"You know what I want to be?"
"No. Tell me."
"A pilot. I want to fly."
Tanner shook his head. "You can't. Do you ever watch the birds? They don't go very high. They're scared to. You get up there in a plane, and those winds'll kill you."
"I could fly real low..."
"The terrain is too irregular, and the winds vary in altitude. Hell, there are hills I won't drive on, because I might be swept away. You can tell them by the turbulence, the waves are visible, because of all the crud they carry, and also the fact that there's nothing but bare rock above a certain point."
"I could look out for stuff like that..."
"Yeah, but the winds change. They dip and they rise. There's no predicting when or where, either."
"But I _want_ to fly."
Tanner looked at the boy and smiled. "There's an awful lot of things most people want to do, and it turns out for some reason or other they never can. Flying's one of them. You'll have to find something else."
Jerry's lower lip suddenly protruded, and he kicked at stones as he walked.
"Everybody has something special they want to do when they're young," said Tanner. "It never seems to work out that way, though. Either it turns out impossible, or you never get a chance to try it."
"What did you want to do, if it wasn't driving?"
Tanner stopped and turned his back to the wind, shielding the light he struck until he could get a cigarette going. Then he drew on it twice, staring into the smoke, and said, "I want to be the keeper of the machine."
"What machine?"
"_The_ machine, the Big Machine. It's hard to explain..."
He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them, and, "I had a teacher," he said, "hack when I was in school, who told us that the world was a big machine, that everything acted on everything else, that everything that happened was a function of all this action and interaction. So I started thinking about it, and I got me a picture of this goddamn big machine, all kinds of gears and pistons and chain belts; all sorts of levers and cams and shafts and pulleys and axles; and I figured it really existed someplace, this machine, I mean, and that according to whether it operated smoothly or not, things would go good or bad in the world. Well, I decided then that it wasn't running any too well and that it needed someone to give it a good going over and to keep an eye on it after that, once it was fixed. And I used to sit in class and have daydreams about it, and think about it every night before I fell asleep. I used to think 'I'm going to go looking for it someday, and I'm going to find it. Then I'm going to be the keeper of the machine, the guy who oils it and tightens a nut here and there, replaces a worn part, polishes it, adjusts its controls. Then everything will work out all right. The weather will be nice, everybody will have enough to eat, there won't be any fighting, any sick people, any drunks, anybody who's got to steal because there's something he wants but can't have.' I used to think about that. I used to want that job. I could see me there, in a factory building or a big old cave, working my ass off to keep the thing in tiptop shape, and everybody happy. And I could see me having fun with it, too. Like, I'd want a vacation, say, so I'd turn it off and shut down the shop. Then everything'd stop, see? Except me. It'd be like you see in a photograph. Everybody'd be frozen, like statues, in whatever they were doing: driving along, eating, working, making love. Everything'd just stop, and I could walk through the city and nobody'd know I was there. I could see everybody at what they were up to. I could take food off their plates, swipe clothes and things from their stores, kiss their girls, read their books, for as long as I wanted. Then, when I got tired of that, I'd go back and turn the machine on, and everything'd start up again like natural, and no one'd be the wiser, and nobody'd care, even if they did know, because I'd keep the maching going real well and everybody'd be happy. That's what I wanted to be: the keeper of the Big Machine. Only I never found it."
"Did you ever go looking for it?" Jerry asked.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I wouldn't have found it."
"How do you know?"
"Because it isn't there. There is no machine. It was all a comparison. The teacher was just trying to say that life is _like_ a big machine, not that that's what it is. I didn't understand him right, though, and I spent years thinking about the goddamn thing."
"How do you know there's no machine?"
"He explained what he'd meant to me later, when I went to ask him where the thing was. Boy, did I feel stupid!"
"He could have been wrong."
"Not a chance. They're too hip on stuff like that, those old teachers."
"Maybe he was lying."
"No. Now that I'm older, I know what he meant. He was wrong one way, though. It's too screwed up to be like a machine. But I know what he meant."
"Then they're not too hip, the teachers, if they can be wrong even one way."
They resumed walking again. Jerry looked at his ring. Tanner said, "They're hip in different ways. Like a biologist I met a while back. They're smart with words, mainly. My teacher knew what he was saying, and now I know. But it takes some getting older to figure what they're talking about."
"But what if he was wrong? What if it is there? And if you found it someday? Would you still do it? Would you still want to be the keeper of the machine?"
Tanner drew on his cigarette.
"There ain't no machine."
"But if there was?"
"Yeah, I guess so," he said. "I guess I'd still like the job."
"That's good, because I still want to fly, even though you told me I can't. Maybe the winds'll change someday."
Tanner put his hand on the boy's shoulder and squeezed it. "That'd be nice," he said.
"I hope you find it someday and fix everything, so I can fly, too."
Tanner flipped the butt into the ditch beside the road.
"If I ever do, that'll be the first thing I fix."
"Thank you, Hell."
Tanner jammed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the wind. The sun rose a little higher, and the fog-snakes died beneath his heels.
Tanner regarded his freed vehicle, said, "I guess I'll be going, then," and nodded to the Potters. "Thanks," he said, and he unlocked the cab, climbed into it, and started the engine. He put it into gear, blew the horn twice and started to move.
In the screen, he saw the three men waving. He stamped the accelerator, and they were gone from sight.
He sped ahead, and the way was easy. The sky was salmon pink. The earth was brown, and there was much green grass. The bright sun caught the day in a silver net.
This part of the country seemed virtually untouched by the chaos that had produced the rest of the Alley. Tanner played music, drove along. He passed two trucks on the road and honked his horn each time. Once he received a reply.