The Stand

that we sent him away because—”

Sue: “Because we didn’t want him polluting our gene-pool? Say, that’s good.”

Nick: “—because he is retarded. He can even say he’s mad at the people who sent him away and would like to get back at them. The one imperative which would have to be drilled into him would be to never change his story, no matter what.”

Fran: “Oh, no, I can’t believe—”

Stu: “Come on, Nick has the floor. Let’s keep it orderly.”

Fran: “Yes—I’m sorry.”

Nick: “Some of you may feel that, because Tom is retarded, it would be easier to shake him from his story than it would be someone with a wider intelligence, but—”

Larry: “Yeah.”

Nick: “—but actually, the reverse is true. If I tell Tom he simply must stick to the story I give him, stick to it no matter what, he will. A so-called normal person could only stand up to so many hours of water torture or so many electric shocks or splinters under the fingernails—”

Fran: “It wouldn’t come to that, would it? Would it? I mean, nobody really thinks it would come to that, do they?”

Nick: “—before saying, ‘Okay, I give up. I’ll tell you what I know.’ Tom simply won’t do that. If he goes over his story enough times, he won’t just have it by heart; he’ll come to almost believe it is true. Nobody will be able to shake him on it. I just want to make it clear that I think, in a number of ways, Tom’s retardation is actually a plus in a mission like this. ‘Mission’ sounds like a pretentious word, but that’s just what it is.”

Stu: “Is that it, Ralph?”

Ralph: “There’s a little more.”

Sue: “If he actually starts to live his cover story, Nick, how in the hell will he know when it’s time to come back?”

Ralph: “Pardon me, ma’am, but it looks like that’s what some of this is about.”

Sue: “Oh.”

Nick (read by Ralph): “Tom can be given a post-hypnotic suggestion before we send him out. Again, this is not just blue-skying; when I had this idea, I asked Stan Nogotny if he would try to hypnotize Tom. Stan used to do it as a parlor trick at parties sometimes, I heard him say. Well, Stan didn’t think it would work… but Tom went under in about six seconds.”

Stu: “I’ll be. Ole Stan knows how to do that, huh?”

Nick: “The reason I thought Tom might be ultra-susceptible dates back to when I met him in Oklahoma. He’s apparently developed the knack, over a long period of years, of hypnotizing himself to a degree. It helps him make connections. He couldn’t understand what I was up to on the day I met him—why I didn’t talk to him or answer any of his questions. I kept putting my hand on my mouth and then my throat to show I was mute, but he didn’t get it at all. Then, all at once, he just turned off. I can’t explain it any better than that. He became perfectly still. His eyes went far away. Then he came out of it, exactly the way a subject comes out of it when the hypnotist tells him it’s time to wake up. And he knew. Just like that. He went into himself and came up with the answer.”

Glen: “That’s really amazing.”

Stu: “It sure is.”

Nick: “I had Stan give him a post-hypnotic suggestion when we tried this, about five days ago now. The suggestion was that when Stan said, ‘I sure would like to see an elephant,’ Tom would feel a great urge to go into the corner and stand on his head. Stan sprang it on him about half an hour after he woke Tom up, and Tom hustled right over into the corner and stood on his head. All the toys and marbles fell out of his pants pockets. Then he sat down and grinned at us and said, ‘Now I wonder why Tom Cullen went and did that?’”

Glen: “I can just hear him, too.”

Nick: “Anyway, all this elaborate hypnosis stuff is just an introduction to two very simple points. One, we can plant a post-hypnotic suggestion that Tom return at a certain time. The obvious way would be to do this by the moon. The full moon. Two, by putting him into deep hypnosis when he gets back, we’d get almost perfect recall of everything he saw.”

Ralph: “That’s the end of what Nick’s got written down. Wow.”

Larry: “It sounds like that old movie The Manchurian Candidate to me.”

Stu: “What?”

Larry: “Nothing.”

Sue: “I have a question, Nick. Would you also program Tom—I guess that’s the right word—not to give out any information about what we’re doing?”

Glen: “Nick, let me answer that, and if your reasoning is different, just shake your head. I would say that Tom doesn’t need to be programmed at all. Let him spill anything and everything he knows about us. We’re keeping our business as it relates to Flagg in camera anyway, and we’re not doing much else that he couldn’t guess on his own… even if his crystal ball is on the blink.”

Nick: “Exactly.”

Glen: “Okay—I’m going to second Nick’s motion right on the spot. I think we have everything to win and nothing to lose. It’s a tremendously daring and original idea.”

Stu: “It’s been moved and seconded. We can have a little further discussion if you want, but only a little. We’ll be here all night, if we don’t look lively. Is there any further discussion?”

Fran: “You bet there is. You said we have everything to win and nothing to lose, Glen. Well, what about Tom? What about our own goddam souls? Maybe it doesn’t bother you guys to think about people sticking… things… under Tom’s fingernails and giving him electric shocks, but it bothers me. How can you be so cold-blooded? And Nick, hypnotizing him so he’d behave like a… a chicken with its head stuck in a bag! You ought to be ashamed! I thought he was your friend!”

Stu: “Fran—”

Fran: “No, I’m going to have my say. I won’t wash my hands of the committee or even walk off in a huff if I’m voted down, but I’m going to have my say. Do you really want to take that sweet, foggy boy and turn him into a human U-2 plane? Don’t any of you understand that’s the same as starting all the old shit over again? Can’t you see that? What do we do if they kill him, Nick? What do we do if they kill all of them? Breed up some new bugs? An improved version of Captain Trips?”

There was a pause here while Nick wrote out a response.

Nick (read by Ralph): “The things Fran has, brought up have affected me pretty deeply, but I stand by my nomination. No, I don’t feel good about standing Tom on his head, and I don’t feel good about sending him into a situation where he might be tortured and then killed. I’ll only point out again that he would be doing it for Mother Abagail, and her ideas, and her God, not for us. I also truly believe that we have to use any means at our disposal to end the threat this being poses. He’s crucifying people over there. I’m sure of that from my dreams, and I know some of you others have had that dream, too. Mother Abagail has had it herself. And I know that Flagg is evil. If anyone works up a new strain of Captain Trips, Frannie, it will be him, to use on us. I’d like to stop him while we still can.”

Fran: “Those things are all true, Nick. I can’t argue them. I know he’s bad. For all I know, he may be Satan’s Imp, as Mother Abagail says. But we’re putting our hand to the same switch in order to stop him. Remember Animal Farm? ‘They looked from the pigs to the men, and could not tell the difference.’ I guess what I really want to hear you say—even if it’s Ralph who reads it—is that if we do have to pull that switch in order to stop him… if we do … that we’ll be able to let go once it’s over. Can you say that?”

Nick: “Not for sure, I guess. Not for sure.”

Fran: “Then I vote no. If we must send people into the West, let’s at least send people who know what they are in for.”

Stu: “Anyone else?”

Sue: “I’m against it, too, but for more practical reasons. If we go on the way we’re headed, we’re going to end up with an old man and a feeb. Pardon the expression, I like him too, but that’s what he is. I’m against it, and