The Waste Lands (Page 54)

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 York . . . Mr. Martin . . . the world has moved on … Susannah . . . He put his pen down. Why did these words and phrases call to him? The one about New York seemed obvious enough, but what about the others? For that matter, why this book? That he had been meant to buy it was beyond question. If he hadn’t had the money in his pocket, he felt sure he would have simply grabbed it and bolted from the store. But why? He felt like a compass needle. The needle knows nothing about magnetic north; it only knows it must point in a certain direction, like it or not.

The only thing Jake knew for sure was that he was very, very tired, and if he didn’t crawl into bed soon, he was going to fall asleep at his desk. He took off his shirt, then gazed down at the front of Charlie the Choo-Choo again. That smile. He just didn’t trust that smile. Not a bit.