Stephen King – The Waste Lands

more. A family of mice nested in the seat where Engi- neer Bob once sat so proudly,

watching the countryside speed past; a family of swallows nested in his smoke- stack.

Charlie was lonely and very sad. He missed the steel tracks and bright blue skies and wide

open spaces. Sometimes, late at night, he thought of these things and cried dark, oily tears.

This rusted his fine Stratham head- light, but he didn’t care, because now the Stratham

head- light was old, and it was always dark.

Mr. Martin, the President of The Mid-World Railway Company, wrote and offered to put

Engineer Bob in the peak-seat of the new Burlington Zephyr. “It is a fine loco, Engineer

Bob,” said Mr. Martin, “chock-full of zip and zowie, and you should be the one to pilot it!

Of all the Engineers who work for Mid-World, you are the best. And my daughter

Susannah has never forgotten that you let her pull old Charlie’s whistle.”

But Engineer Bob said that if he couldn’t pilot Char- lie, his days as a trainman were done.

“I wouldn’t under- stand such a fine new diesel loco,” said Engineer Bob, “and it wouldn’t understand me.”

He was given a job cleaning the engines in the St. Louis yards, and Engineer Bob became

Wiper Bob. Some- times the other engineers who drove the fine new diesels would laugh at

him. “Look at that old fool!” they said. “He cannot understand that the world has moved on!”

Sometimes, late at night, Engineer Bob would go to the far side of the rail yard, where

Charlie the Choo-Choo stood on the rusty rails of the lonely siding which had become his

home. Weeds had twined in his wheels; his headlight was rusty and dark. Engineer Bob

always talked to Charlie, but Charlie replied less and less. Many nights he would not talk at

all.

One night, a terrible idea came into Engineer Bob’s head. “Charlie, are you dying?” he asked, and in his smallest, gruffest voice, Charlie replied:

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.

Now that I can’t race along

Beneath the bright blue sky

I guess that I’ll just sit right here

Until I finally die.

Jake looked at the picture accompanying this not-exactly-unexpected turn of events for a

long time. Rough drawing it might be, but it was still definitely a three-handkerchief job.

Charlie looked old, beaten, and forgotten. Engineer Bob looked like he had lost his last

friend . . . which, according to the story, he had. Jake could imagine children all over

America blatting their heads off at this point, and it occurred to him that there were a lot of

stories for lads with stuff like this in them, stuff that threw acid all over your emotions.

Hansel and Gretel being turned out into the forest, Bambi’s mother getting scragged by a

hunter, the death of Old Yeller. It was easy to hurt little kids, easy to make them cry, and

this seemed to bring out a strangely sadistic streak in many story-tellers . . . including, it

seemed, Beryl Evans.

But, Jake found, he was not saddened by Charlie’s relegation to the weedy wastelands at

the outer edge of the Mid-World trainyards in St. Louis. Quite the opposite. Good, he

thought. That’s the place for him. That’s the place, because he’s dangerous. Let him rot

there, and don’t trust that tear in his eye—they say crocodiles cry, too.

He read the rest rapidly. It had a happy ending, of course, although it was undoubtedly that

moment of despair on the edge of the trainyards which children remembered long after the

happy ending had slipped their minds.

Mr. Martin, the President of The Mid-World Railway Company, came to St. Louis to

check on the operation. His plan was to ride the Burlington Zephyr to Topeka, where his

daughter was giving her first piano recital, that very afternoon. Only the Zephyr wouldn’t

start. There was water in the diesel fuel, it seemed.

(Were you the one who watered the diesel, Engineer Bob? Jake wondered. I bet it was, you sly dog, you!)

All the other trains were out on their runs! What to do?

Someone tugged Mr. Martin’s arm. It was Wiper Bob, only he no longer looked like an

engine-wiper. He had taken off his oil-stained dungarees and put on a clean pair of overalls.

On his head was his old pillowtick engi- neer’s cap.

“Charlie’s is right over there, on that siding,” he said. “Charlie will make the run to Topeka, Mr. Martin. Charlie will get you there in time for your daughter’s piano recital.”

“That old steamer?” scoffed Mr. Briggs. “Charlie would still be fifty miles out of Topeka at sundown!”

“Charlie can do it,” Engineer Bob insisted. “Without a train to pull, I know he can! I have been cleaning his engine and his boiler in my spare time, you see.”

“We’ll give it a try,” said Mr. Martin. “I would be sorry to miss Susannah’s first recital!”

Charlie was all ready to go; Engineer Bob had filled his tender with fresh coal, and the

firebox was so hot its sides were red. He helped Mr. Martin up into the cab and backed

Charlie off the rusty, forgotten siding and onto the main track for the first time in years.

Then, as he engaged Forward First, he pulled on the lanyard and Charlie gave his old brave

cry: WHOOO-OOOOO!

All over St. Louis the children heard that cry, and ran out into their yards to watch the rusty

old steam loco pass. “Look!” they cried. “It’s Charlie! Charlie the Choo-Choo is back!

Hurrah!” They all waved, and as Charlie steamed out of town, gathering speed, he blew his

own whistle, just as he had in the old days: WHOOOO-OOOOOOO!

Clickety-clack went Charlie’s wheels!

Chuffa-chuffa went the smoke from Charlie’s stack!

Brump-brump went the conveyor as it fed coal into the firebox!

Talk about zip! Talk about zowie! Golly gee, gosh, and wowie! Charlie had never gone so

fast before! The countryside went whizzing by in a blur! They passed the cars on Route 41

as if they were standing still!

“Hoptedoodle!” cried Mr. Martin, waving his hat in the air. “This is some locomotive, Bob!

I don’t know why we ever retired it! How do you keep the coal-conveyor loaded at this

speed?”

Engineer Bob only smiled, because he knew Charlie was feeding himself. And, beneath the clickety-clack and the chuffa-chuffa and the brump-hrump, he could hear Charlie

singing his old song in his low, 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.

Charlie got Mr. Martin to his daughter’s piano recital on time (of course), and Susannah

was just tickled pink to see her old friend Charlie again (of course), and they all went back

to St. Louis together with Susannah yanking hell out of the train-whistle the whole way. Mr.

Martin got Charlie and Engineer Bob a gig pulling kids around the brand-new Mid-World

Amusement Park and Fun Fair in California, and

you will find them there to this day, pulling laughing children hither and thither in that

world of lights and music and good, wholesome fun. Engineer Bob’s hair is white, and

Charlie doesn’t talk as much as he once did, but both of them still have plenty of zip and

zowie, and every now and then the children hear Charlie singing his old song in his soft,

gruff voice.

THE END

“Don’t ask me silly questions, I won’t play silly games,” Jake mut- tered, looking at the final picture. It showed Charlie the Choo-Choo pulling two bunting-decked passenger cars

filled with happy children from the roller coaster to the Ferns wheel. Engineer Bob sat in

the cab, pulling the whistle-cord and looking as happy as a pig in shit. Jake sup- posed

Engineer Bob’s smile was supposed to convey supreme happiness, but to him it looked like

the grin of a lunatic. Charlie and Engineer Bob both looked like lunatics . . . and the more

Jake looked at the kids, the more he thought that their expressions looked like grimaces of

terror. Let us off this train, those faces seemed to say. Please, just let us off this train alive.

And be a happy choo-choo train until the day I die.

Jake closed the book and looked at it thoughtfully. Then he opened it again and began to

leaf through the pages, circling certain words and phrases that seemed to call out to him.

The Mid-World Railway Company . . . Engineer Bob . . . a small, gruff voice . . .

WHOO-OOOO . . . the first real friend he’d had since his wife died, long ago, in New