Time Out of Joint - By Philip K. Dick Page 0,40

finish. The transaction did not end. Behind her a thin middle-aged man in a double-breasted suit gnawed on a toothpick and looked bored. After him a young couple murmured together, intent on their own conversation. And after that the line merged into itself, and he could make out nothing but the back of the man ahead of him.

After forty-five minutes he still stood in the same spot. Can a lunatic go out of his mind? he wondered. What does it take to get a ticket on the Nonpareil Lines? Will I be here forever?

A growing fright began to settle over him. Maybe he would stand in this line until he died. Unchanging reality ... the same man ahead of him, the same young soldier behind him, the same unhappy, empty-eyed woman seated on the bench across from him.

Behind him, the young soldier stirred fitfully, bumped against him and muttered, "Sorry, buddy."

He grunted back.

The soldier locked his hands together and cracked his knuckles. He licked his lips and then he said to Ragle, "Hey, buddy, can I ask you a favor? Will you hold my place in line?" Before Ragle could answer, the soldier turned to the woman standing behind him. "Lady, I got to go make sure my buddy’s okay; can I get back in line here without losing my place?"

The woman nodded.

"Thanks," the soldier said, and pushed a passage through the people, over to the corner of the waiting room.

In the corner another soldier sat with his legs apart, his face resting on his knee, his arms hanging down. His compatriot dropped down next to him, shook him, and began talking urgently to him. The bent-over soldier raised his head, and Ragle saw the bleary eyes and twisted, slack mouth of the drunk.

Poor guy, he thought to himself. Out on a toot. During his own days in the service he had several times-wound up in a dismal bus station with a hangover, trying to get back to the base.

The soldier sprinted back to his place in line. Agitated, he plucked at his lip, glanced up at Ragle and said, "This here line; it isn’t moving one bit. I think I must have been standing here since five this afternoon." He had a smooth young face, tormented now by anxiety. "I have to get back to my base," he said. "Phil and I have to be in by eight o’clock or we’re AWOL."

To Ragle, he appeared to be eighteen or nineteen. Blond, somewhat thin. Clearly, he of the two of them did the problem-solving.

"Too bad," Ragle said. "How far’s your base?"

"It’s the airfield up the highway," the soldier said. "The missile base, actually. Used to be an airfield."

Ragle thought, By god. Where those things take off and land. "You’ve been hitting the bars down here?" he said, in as conversational a voice as he could manage.

The soldier said, "Hell no, not in this jerkwater dump." His disgust was enormous. "No, we come all the way in from the Coast; we had a week furlough. Driving."

"Driving," Ragle repeated. "Well, why are you in here?"

The young soldier said, "Phil’s the driver; I can’t drive. And he hasn’t sobered up. It’s just a crummy old jalopy. We dumped it. We can’t wait around for him to sober up. Anyhow, it needs a new tire. It’s back along the road with a flat. It’s only worth about fifty bucks; it’s a ’ 36 Dodge."

"If you had somebody who could drive," Ragle said, "Would you go on by car?" I can drive, he was thinking.

The soldier, staring at him, said, "What about the tire?"

"I’ll chip in on it," he said. Taking hold of the soldier by the arm he led him out of the line and across the waiting room to his hunched-over buddy. "Maybe he better stay here until we get the car going," he said. The soldier, Phil, didn’t look as if he could walk very far or very well. He appeared to understand only vaguely where he was.

To him, the soldier said, "Hey, Phil, this guy’s going to drive. Give me the keys."

"Is that you, Wade?" Phil groaned from his coma.

Wade crouched down and rooted in his buddy’s pockets. "Here," he said, finding the keys and handing them to Ragle. "Listen," he said to Phil. "You stay here. We’re going to walk back to the car and get it running; we’ll drive by and pick you up. Okay? You got that?"

Phil nodded.

"Let’s go," Wade said to Ragle. As they pushed open the