d within him. He had the face every transie
had, the face of a man who was either burning with fever or who had seen
a vision.

Jack looked away to stare miserably at the dust boiling up behind the
wheels, as if he could see projected against its yellow-brown screen his
retreating past.

He spoke out of the side of his mouth. "What's happened to us? We should
be happy and working at good jobs and sure about the future. We
shouldn't be just bums, hobos, walkers of the streets, rod-hoppers,
beggars, and thieves."

His friend shrugged and looked uneasily from the corners of his eyes. He
was probably expecting the question they all asked sooner or later: _Why
are_ you _on the road?_ They asked, but none replied with words that
meant anything. They lied, and they didn't seem to take any pleasure in
their lying. When they asked questions themselves, they knew they
wouldn't get the truth. But something forced them to keep on trying
anyway.

Jack's buddy evaded also. He said, "I read a magazine article by a Dr.
Vespa, the head of the Bureau of Health and Sanity. He'd written the
article just after the President created the Bureau. He viewed, quote,
with alarm and apprehension, unquote, the fact that six percent of those
between the ages of twelve and twenty-five were schizophrenics who
needed institutionalizing. And he was, quote, appalled and horrified,
unquote, that five percent of the nation were homeless unemployed and
that three point seven percent of those were between the ages of
fourteen and thirty. He said that if this schizophrenia kept on
progressing, half the world would be in rehabilitation camps. But if
that occurred, the sane half would go to pot. Back to the stone age. And
the schizos would die."

* * * * *

He licked his lips as if he were tasting the figures and found them
bitter.

"I was very interested by Vespa's reply to a mother who had written
him," he went on. "Her daughter ended up in a Bohas camp for schizos,
and her son had left his wonderful home and brilliant future to become a
bum. She wanted to know why. Vespa took six long paragraphs to give six
explanations, all equally valid and all advanced by equally
distinguished sociologists. He himself favored the mass hysteria theory.
But if you looked at his gobbledegook closely, you could reduce it to
one phrase, _We don't know_.

"He did say this--though you won't like it--that the schizos and the
transies wer