That took my breath away—the idea that you might be one in eight million would take anybody’s breath away, right?
“That’s about a hundred and twenty for every billion ordinary folks,” he said. “We think there may be no more than three thousand so-called trannies in the whole world. We’re finding them, one by one.
It’s slow work. The sensing ability is fairly low-level, but we still only have a dozen or so finders, and each one takes a lot of training. This is a hard calling . . . but it’s also fabulously rewarding. We’re finding trannies and we’re putting them to work. That’s what we want to do with you, Dink: put you to work. We want to help you focus your talent, sharpen it, and use it for the betterment of all mankind. You won’t be able to see any of your old friends again—there’s no security risk on earth like an old friend, we’ve found—and there’s not a whole lot of cash in it, at least to begin with, but there’s a lot of sat-isfaction, and what I’m going to offer you is only the bottom rung of what may turn out to be a very high ladder.”
237
STEPHEN KING
“Don’t forget those fringe benefits,” I said, kind of raising my voice on the last word, turning it into a question, if he wanted to take it that way.
He grinned and clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s right,” he said. “Those famous fringe benefits.”
By then I was starting to get excited. My doubts weren’t gone, but they were melting away. “So tell me about it,” I said. My heart was beating hard, but it wasn’t fear. Not anymore. “Make me an offer I can’t refuse.”
And that’s just what he did.
XI
Three weeks later I’m on an airplane for the first time in my life—
and what a way to lose your cherry! The only passenger in a Lear 35, listening to Counting Crows pouring out of quad speakers with a Coke in one hand, watching as the altimeter climbs all the way to forty-two thousand feet. That’s over a mile higher than most com-mercial jetliners fly, the pilot told me. And a ride as smooth as the seat of a girl’s underpants.
I spent a week in Peoria, and I was homesick. Really homesick. Surprised the shit out of me. There were a couple of nights when I even cried myself to sleep. I’m ashamed to say that, but I’ve been truthful so far, and don’t want to start lying or leaving things out now.
Ma was the least of what I missed. You’d think we would have been close, as it was “us against the world,” in a manner of speaking, but my mother was never much for loving and comforting. She didn’t whip on my head or put out her cigarettes in my armpits or anything like that, but so what? I mean, big whoop. I’ve never had any kids, so I guess I can’t say for sure, but I somehow don’t think being a great parent is about the stuff you didn’t do to your rug monkeys. Ma was always more into her friends than me, and her weekly trip to the beauty shop, and Friday nights out at the Reservation. Her big ambition in life was to win a twenty-number Bingo and drive home 238
EVERYTHING’S EVENTUAL
in a brand-new Monte Carlo. I’m not sitting on the pity-pot, either.
I’m just telling you how it was.
Mr. Sharpton called Ma and told her that I’d been chosen to intern in the Trans Corporation’s advanced computer training and placement project, a special deal for non-diploma kids with potential.
The story was actually pretty believable. I was a shitty math student and froze up almost completely in classes like English, where you were supposed to talk, but I was always on good terms with the school computers. In fact, although I don’t like to brag (and I never let any of the faculty in on this little secret), I could program rings around Mr.
Jacubois and Mrs. Wilcoxen. I never cared much about computer games—they’re strictly for dickbrains, in my humble opinion—but I could keyjack like a mad motherfucker. Pug used to drop by and watch me, sometimes.