Roadwork - Stephen King [48]
She sat up. "I was a sociology major for a while. Well, sort of. But I never heard of the Trained Dog Ethic."
"That's because I made it up. "
"Oh. April Fool." Disgust. She slid back down in the seat and tilted the watchcap over her eyes again.
"The Trained Dog Ethic, first advanced by Barton George Dawes in late 1973, fully explains such mysteries as the monetary crisis, inflation, the Viet Nam war, and the current energy crisis. Let us take the energy crisis as an example. The American people are the trained dogs, trained in this case to love oil-guzzling toys. Cars, snowmobiles, large boats, dune buggies, motorcycles, minicycles, campers, and many, many more. In the years 1973 to 1980 we will be trained to hate energy toys. The American people love to be trained. Training makes them wag their tails. Use energy. Don't use energy. Go pee on the newspaper. I don't object to saving energy, I object to training. "
He found himself thinking of Mr. Piazzi's dog, who had first stopped wagging his tail, had then starred rolling his eyes, and had then ripped out Luigi Bronticelli's throat.
"Like Pavlov's dogs," he said. "They were trained to salivate at the sound of a bell. We've been trained to salivate when somebody shows us a Bombardier Skidoo with overdrive or a Zenith color TV with a motorized antenna. I have one of those at my house. The TV has a Space Command gadget. You can sit in your chair and change the channels, hike the volume or lower it, turn it on or off. I stuck the gadget in my mouth once and pushed the on button and the TV came right on. The signal went right through my brain and still did the job. Technology is wonderful. "
"You're crazy," she said.
"I guess so." They passed exit 11.
"I think I'll go to sleep. Tell me when we get to the end."
"Okay."
She folded her arms and closed her eyes again.
They passed exit 10.
"It isn't the Trained Dog Ethic I object to anyway," he said. "It's the fact that the masters are mental, moral, and spiritual idiots."
"You're trying to soothe your conscience with a lot of rhetoric," she said with her eyes still closed. "Why don't you just slow down to fifty? You'll feel better."
"I will not feel better. " And he spat it out so vehemently that she sat up and looked at him.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," he said. "I lost my wife and my job because either the world has gone crazy or I have. Then I pick up a hitchhiker-a nineteen-year-old kid for Chrissake, the kind that's supposed to take it for granted that the world's gone crazy-and she tells me it's me, the world is doing just fine. Not much oil, but other than that, just fine."
"I'm twenty-one."
"Good for you," he said bitterly. "If the world's so sane, what's a kid like you doing hitchhiking to Las Vegas in the middle of winter? Planning to spend the whole night hitchhiking along Route 7 and probably getting frostbite in your legs because you're not wearing anything under those pants?"
"I am so wearing something underneath! What do you think I am?"
"I think you're stupid!" he roared at her. "You're going to freeze your ass off! "
"And then you won't be able to get a piece of it, right?" she inquired sweetly.
"Oh boy," he muttered. "Oh boy."
They roared past a sedan moving at fifty. The sedan beeped at him. "Eat it!" He yelled. "Raw!"
"I think you better let me off right now," she said quietly.
"Never mind," he said. "I'm not going to crash us up. Go to sleep."
She looked at him distrustfully for a long second, then folded her arms and closed her eyes. They went past exit 9.
They passed exit 2 at five after four. The shadows stretching across the road had taken on the peculiar blue cast that is the sole property of winter shadows. Venus was already in the east. The traffic had thickened as they approached the city.
He glanced over toward her and saw she was sitting up, looking out at the hurrying, indifferent automobiles. The car directly in front of them had a Christmas tree lashed to its roof