Stephen King – The Waste Lands

pass.

His father poked his head into Jake’s room around quarter of ten, about twenty minutes

after Jake’s mother had concluded her own short, vague visit. Elmer Chambers was holding

a cigarette in one hand and a glass of Scotch in the other. He seemed not only calmer but

almost zonked. Jake wondered briefly and indifferently if he had been hitting his mother’s

Valium supply.

“Are you okay, kid?”

“Yes.” He was once again the small, neat boy who was always com- pletely in control of himself. The eyes he turned to his father were not blazing but opaque.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry about before.” His father was not a man who made many

apologies, and he did it badly. Jake found himself feeling a little sorry for him.

“It’s all right.”

“Hard day,” his father said. He gestured with the empty glass. “Why don’t we just forget it happened?” He spoke as if this great and logical idea had just come to him.

“I already have.”

“Good.” His father sounded relieved. “Time for you to get some sleep, isn’t it? You’ll have

some explaining to do and some tests to take tomorrow.”

“I guess so,” Jake said. “Is Mom okay?”

“Fine. Fine. I’m going in the study. Got a lot of paperwork tonight.”

“Dad?”

His father looked back at him warily.

“What’s your middle name?”

Something in his father’s face told Jake that he had looked at the Final Essay grade but

hadn’t bothered to read either the paper itself or Ms. Avery’s critique.

“I don’t have one,” he said. “Just an initial, like Harry S Truman. Except mine’s an R. What brought that on?”

“Just curious,” Jake said.

He managed to hold onto his composure until his father was gone . . . but as soon as the

door was closed, he ran to his bed and stuffed his face into his pillow to muffle another bout

of wild laughter.

22

WHEN HE WAS SURE he was over the current fit (although an occasional snicker still

rumbled up his throat like an aftershock) and his father would be safely locked away in his

study with his cigarettes, his Scotch, his papers, and his little bottle of white powder, Jake

went back to his desk, turned on the study lamp, and opened Charlie the Choo-Choo. He

glanced briefly at the copyright page and saw it had originally been published in 1942; his

copy was from the fourth printing. He looked at the back, but there was no information at

all about Beryl Evans, the book’s author.

Jake turned back to the beginning, looked at the picture of a grin- ning, blonde-haired man

sitting in the cab of a steam locomotive, consid- ered the proud grin on the man’s face, and

then began to read.

Bob Brooks was an engineer for the Mid-World Railway Company, on the St. Louis to

Topeka run. Engineer Bob was the best trainman The Mid-World Railway Company ever

had, and Charlie was the best train!

Charlie was a 402 Big Boy Steam Locomotive, and Engineer Bob was the only man who had ever been allowed to sit in his peak-seat and pull the whistle. Everyone knew the

WHOOO-OOOO of Charlie’s whistle, and whenever they heard it echoing across the flat

Kan- sas countryside, they said, “There goes Charlie and Engi- neer Bob, the fastest team

between St. Louis and Topeka!”

Boys and girls ran into their yards to watch Charlie and Engineer Bob go by. Engineer Bob

would smile and wave. The children would smile and wave back.

Engineer Bob had a special secret. He was the only one who knew. Charlie the Choo-Choo

was really, really alive. One day while they were making the run between Topeka and St.

Louis, Engineer Bob heard singing, very soft and low.

“Who is in the cab with me?” Engineer Bob said sternly.

“You need to see a shrink, Engineer Bob,” Jake murmured, and turned the page. Here was a picture of Bob bending over to look beneath, Charlie the Choo-Choo’s automatic firebox.

Jake wondered who was driv- ing the train and watching out for cows (not to mention boys

and girls) on the tracks while Bob was checking for stowaways, and guessed that Beryl

Evans hadn’t known a lot about trains.

“Don’t worry,” said a small, gruff voice. “It is only I.”

“Who’s I?” Engineer Bob asked. He spoke in his big- gest, sternest voice, because he still thought someone was playing a joke on him.

“Charlie,” said the small, gruff voice.

“Hardy har-har!” said Engineer Bob. “Trains can’t talk! I may not know much, but I know that! If you’re Charlie, I suppose you can blow your own whistle!”

“Of course,” said the small, gruff voice, and just then the whistle made its big noise, rolling out across the Mis- souri plains: WHOOO-OOOO!

“Goodness!” said Engineer Bob. “It really is you!”

“I told you,” said Charlie the Choo-Choo.

“How come I never knew you were alive before?” asked Engineer Bob. “Why didn’t you ever talk to me before?”

Then Charlie sang this song to Engineer Bob in his small, gruff voice.

Don’t ask me silly questions,

I won’t play silly games.

I’m just a simple choo-choo train

And I’ll always be the same.

I only want to race along

Beneath the bright blue sky,

And be a happy choo-choo train

Until the day I die.

“Will you talk to me some more when we’re making our run?” asked Engineer Bob. “I’d like that.”

“I would, too,” said Charlie. “I love you, Engineer Bob.”

“I love you too, Charlie,” said Engineer Bob, and then he blew the whistle himself, just to show how happy he was.

WHOOO-OOO! It was the biggest and best Charlie had ever whistled, and everyone who

heard it came out to see.

The picture which illustrated this last was similar to the one on the cover of the book. In

the previous pictures (they were rough drawings which reminded Jake of the pictures in his

favorite kindergarten book, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel), the locomotive had

been just a locomotive—cheery, undoubtedly interesting to the ’40s-era boys who had been

this book’s intended audience, but still only a piece of machin- ery. In this picture, however,

it had clearly human features, and this gave Jake a deep chill despite Charlie’s smile and the

rather heavy-handed cuteness of the story.

He didn’t trust that smile.

He turned to his Final Essay and scanned down the lines. I’m pretty sure Blame is

dangerous, he read, and that is the truth.

He closed the folder, tapped his fingers on it thoughtfully for a few moments, then

returned to Charlie the Choo-Choo.

Engineer Bob and Charlie spent many happy days together and talked of many things.

Engineer Bob lived alone, and Charlie was the first real friend he’d had since his wife died,

long ago, in New York.

Then one day, when Charlie and Engineer Bob returned to the roundhouse in St. Louis,

they found a new diesel locomotive in Charlie’s berth. And what a diesel locomotive it was!

5,000 horsepower! Stainless steel cou- plers! Traction motors from the Utica Engine Works

in Utica, New York! And sitting on top, behind the genera- tor, were three bright yellow

radiator cooling fans.

“What is this?” Engineer Bob asked in a worried voice, but Charlie only sang his song in his smallest, gruffest voice:

Don’t ask me silly questions,

I won’t play silly games.

I’m just a simple choo-choo train

And I’ll always be the same.

I only want to race along

Beneath the bright blue sky,

And be a happy choo-choo train

Until the day I die.

Mr. Briggs, the Roundhouse Manager, came over.

“That is a beautiful diesel locomotive,” said Engineer Bob, “but you will have to move it out of Charlie’s berth, Mr. Briggs. Charlie needs a lube job this very afternoon.”

“Charlie won’t be needing any more lube jobs, Engi- neer Bob,” said Mr. Briggs sadly.

“This is his replace- ment—a brand-new Burlington Zephyr diesel loco. Once, Charlie was

the best locomotive in the world, but now he is old and his boiler leaks. I am afraid the time has come for Charlie to retire.”

“Nonsense!” Engineer Bob was mad! “Charlie is still full of zip and zowie! I will telegraph the head office of The Mid-World Railway Company! I will telegraph the President, Mr.

Raymond Martin, myself! I know him, because he once gave me a Good Service Award,

and afterwards Charlie and I took his little daughter for a ride. I let her pull the lanyard, and Charlie whistled his loudest for her!”

“I am sorry, Bob,” said Mr. Briggs, ‘Taut it was Mr. Martin himself who ordered the new diesel loco.”

It was true. And so Charlie the Choo-Choo was shunted off to a siding in the furthest

corner of Mid-World’s St. Louis yard to rust in the weeds. Now the HONNNK! HONNNK!

of the Burlington Zephyr was heard on the St. Louis to Topeka run, and Charlie’s blew no