Basic Training by Kurt Vonnegut

“God save us,” he repeated, “look at the General’s car, would you.”
     
    Haley steered a wobbling course for the rear of the team, where he freed a line that still bound Caesar to the wagon. With a dreamy sort of horror, he saw that the wagon-tongue had plunged through the trunk door, burst the cushions of the back and front seats, and buried its iron head at last in the instrument panel, splintering the windshield above it.
     
    He looked up dumbly from the unholy wreck to see Hope running down the walk toward him. She examined the damage with profound respect. “Wow,” she said at last, under her breath. “It would have been kinder of you two to saw the General’s legs off.”
     
    “It wasn’t our fault,” Haley protested.
     
    Hope looked at the car again and shook her head. “You poor kid; you’ve really managed to pack a lot into a few days, haven’t you?” she said, her eyes full of sympathy. “Boy, with this to top off Kitty’s elopement—”
     
    “What’ll I do?” asked Haley helplessly.
     
    Mr. Banghart had arisen from the ground and walked over to the car to study it in silence. He turned away from it after a few moments, and headed across the barnyard.
     
    “Where are you going?” called Hope.
     
    Mr. Banghart stopped. “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Dallas, Scranton, Los Angeles — somewhere.”
     
    An upstairs window rattled open, and Annie appeared, clutching her flamboyant bathrobe together at her waist and neck. “Land of mercy!” she cried, her voice full of anguish. “What have you done to the General’s car, Haley?” Mr. Banghart resumed his flight with new vigor.
     
    “I hear the General!” said Hope.
     
    Haley looked up at Annie and then at Mr. Banghart, who was scaling a fence. “Perhaps we’ll meet again,” he heard himself saying. He broke into a run. As he loped after Mr. Banghart he told himself that he was no good to anyone; but by the time he had put the fence and barnyard between himself and the house, new strength flowed into his long legs — the quick, mad joy of liberation.
     
    He overtook Mr. Banghart in a small grove of elms, a few hundred feet from the highway. They trotted together to the road’s shoulder, and waved their thumbs at an approaching car. The General’s voice, shouting their names, reached them as clearly as though he were riding them pick-a-back. Haley laughed aloud; the sound was no more awesome than the chatter of two red squirrels in the elms to his back.
     
    The automobile, a new maroon sedan, came to a stop beside them. Mr. Banghart climbed in front, and Haley sat by himself on the broad rear seat. The driver was a husky, blond man of, Haley guessed, about forty. His chin was covered with stubble, and his eyes were red. “Been driving all night,” he said. “Need somebody to keep me awake. Where are you headed?”
     
    “Where are you headed?” asked Mr. Banghart.
     
    “Chicago.”
     
    “Yep, that’s where we’re going, too.”
     
    Haley watched through the back window as the car pulled away, and the silos and red roofs of Ardennes Farm slowly lost their identities in the buff horizon of grainland. The sway and hum of the automobile soon lulled him to sleep.
     

VI.
     
    In his dreams Haley felt again the quake of the toppling bales and the sensation of falling. The image ended with a solid thump, and he awakened to find himself on the automobile floor, whence a sudden stop had rolled him.
     
    “All right back there?” called the driver. “Sorry, the light turned red just as we got to it.”
     
    “Yep, I’m O.K.,” yawned Haley, lifting himself back to the seat. “Where are we, and what time is it?” He looked out of the window, and was surprised to see crowds and blinking neon, and the window-checked walls of a city rising on either side. The fragrance of a nearby bakery filled his soul, and his stomach growled hungrily.
     
    “It’s late afternoon, and you’re in Chicago,”