The Waste Lands (21 page)

What’s that?
one asks.

Dunno,
the other replies.
Sounds like a parade.

They rush to the window and it is a parade—a uniformed band marching in lock-step with the sun blazing off their horns, pretty majorettes twirling batons and strutting their long, tanned legs, convertibles decked with flowers and filled with waving celebrities.

The two men stare out the window, their quarrel forgotten. They will undoubtedly return to it, but for the time being they stand together like the best of friends, shoulder to shoulder, watching as the parade goes by—

A HORN BLARED, STARTLING Jake out of this story, which was as vivid as a powerful dream. He realized he was still standing in the middle of Lexington, and the light had changed. He looked around wildly, expecting to see the blue Cadillac bearing down on him, but the guy who had tooted his horn was sitting behind the wheel of a yellow Mustang convertible and grinning at him. It was as if everyone in New York had gotten a whiff of happy-gas today.

Jake waved at the guy and sprinted to the other side of the street. The guy in the Mustang twirled a finger around his ear to indicate that Jake was crazy, then waved back and drove on.

For a moment Jake simply stood on the far corner, face turned up to the May sunshine, smiling, digging the day. He supposed prisoners condemned to die in the electric chair must feel this way when they learn they have been granted a temporary reprieve.

The question was, what was the parade which had temporarily diverted their attention? Was it just the uncommon beauty of this spring morning?

Jake didn’t think that was all. He didn’t think so because that sensation of
knowing
was creeping over him and through him again, the one which had taken possession of him three weeks ago, as he approached the corner of Fifth and Forty-sixth. But on May 9th, it had been a feeling of impending doom. Today it was a feeling of radiance, a sense of goodness and anticipation. It was as if . . . as if . . .

White
. This was the word that came to him, and it clanged in his mind with clear and unquestionable rightness.

“It’s the White!” he exclaimed aloud. “The coming of the White!”

He walked on down Fifty-fourth Street, and as he reached the corner of Second and Fifty-fourth, he once more passed under the umbrella of
ka-tet.

HE TURNED RIGHT, THEN stopped, turned, and retraced his steps to the corner. He needed to walk down Second Avenue now, yes, that was unquestionably correct, but this was the wrong side again. When the light changed, he hurried across the street and turned right again. That feeling, that sense of

rightness, grew steadily stronger. He felt half-mad with joy and relief. He was going to be okay. This time there was no mistake. He felt sure that he would soon begin to see people he recognized, as he had recognized the fat lady and the pretzel vendor, and they would be doing things he remembered in advance.

Instead, he came to the bookstore.

THE MANHATTAN RESTAURANT OF THE MIND, the sign painted in the window read. Jake went to the door. There was a chalkboard hung there; it looked like the kind you saw on the wall in diners and lunchrooms.

 

 

TODAY’S SPECIALS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jake went in, aware that he had, for the first time in three weeks, opened a door without hoping madly to find another world on the other side. A bell jingled overhead. The mild, spicy smell of old books hit him, and the smell was somehow like coming home.

The restaurant motif continued inside. Although the walls were lined with shelves of books, a fountain-style counter bisected the room. On Jake’s side of the counter were a number of small tables with wire-backed Malt Shoppe chairs. Each table had been arranged to display the day’s specials: Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald, Philip Marlowe novels by Raymond Chandler, Snopes novels by William Faulkner. A small sign on the Faulkner table said:
Some rare 1st eds available—pls ask
. Another sign, this one on the counter, read simply: BROWSE! A couple of customers were doing just that. They sat at the counter, drinking coffee and reading. Jake thought this was without a doubt the best bookstore he’d ever been in.

The question was, why was he here? Was it luck, or was it part of that soft, insistent feeling that he was following a trail—a kind of force-beam—that had been left for him to find?

He glanced at the display on a small table to his left and knew the answer.

IT WAS A DISPLAY of children’s books. There wasn’t much room on the table, so there were only about a dozen of them
—
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Hobbit, Tom Sawyer
, things like that. Jake had been attracted by a story-book obviously meant for very young children. On the bright green cover was an anthropomorphic locomotive puffing its way up a hill. Its cowcatcher (which was bright pink) wore a happy grin and its headlight was a cheerful eye which seemed to invite Jake Chambers to come inside and read all about it.
Charlie the Choo-Choo,
the title proclaimed, Story and Pictures by Beryl Evans. Jake’s mind flashed back to his Final Essay, with the picture of the Amtrak train on the title-page and the words
choo-choo
written over and over again inside.

He grabbed the book and clutched it tightly, as if it might fly away if he relaxed his grip. And as he looked down at the cover, Jake found that he did not trust the smile on Charlie the Choo-Choo’s face.
You look happy, but I think that’s just the mask you wear, he thought. I don’t think you’re happy at all. And I don’t think Charlie’s your real name, either
.

These were crazy thoughts to be having, undoubtedly crazy, but they did not feel crazy. They felt sane. They felt
true
.

Standing next to the place where
Charlie the Choo-Choo
had been was a tattered paperback. The cover was quite badly torn and had been mended with Scotch tape now yellow with age. The picture showed a puzzled-looking boy and girl with a forest of question-marks over their heads. The title of this book was
Riddle-De-Dum! Brain-Twisters and Puzzles for Everyone!
No author was credited.

Jake tucked
Charlie the Choo-Choo
under his arm and picked up the riddle book. He opened it at random and saw this:

“When it’s a jar,” Jake muttered. He could feel sweat popping out on his forehead . . . his arms . . . all over his body.

“When it’s a
jar!
”

“Find something, son?” a mild voice inquired.

Jake turned around and saw a fat guy in an open-throated white shirt standing at the end of the counter. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his old gabardine slacks. A pair of half-glasses were pushed up on the bright dome of his bald head.

“Yes,” Jake said feverishly. “These two. Are they for sale?”

“Everything you see is for sale,” the fat guy said. “The building itself would be for sale, if I owned it. Alas, I only lease.” He held out his hand for the books and for a moment Jake balked. Then, reluctantly, he handed them over. Part of him expected the fat guy to flee with them, and if he did—if he gave the slightest indication of trying it—Jake meant to tackle him, rip the books out of his hands, and boogie. He
needed
those books.

“Okay, let’s see what you got,” the fat man said. “By the way, I’m Tower. Calvin Tower.” He stuck out his hand.

Jake’s eyes widened, and he took an involuntary step backward. “
What?
”

The fat guy looked at him with some interest. “Calvin Tower. Which word is profanity in your language, O Hyperborean Wanderer?”

“Huh?”

“I just mean you look like someone goosed you, kid.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He clasped Mr. Tower’s large, soft hand, hoping the man wouldn’t pursue it. The name
had
given him a jump, but he didn’t know why. “I’m Jake Chambers.”

Calvin Tower shook his hand. “Good handle, pard. Sounds like the footloose hero in a Western novel—the guy who blows into Black Fork, Arizona, cleans up the town, and then travels on. Something by Wayne D. Overholser, maybe. Except you don’t look footloose, Jake. You look like you decided the day was a little too nice to spend in school.”

“Oh . . . no. We finished up last Friday.”

Tower grinned. “Uh-huh. I bet. And you’ve gotta have these two items, huh? It’s sort of funny, what people have to have. Now you—I would have pegged you as a Robert Howard kind of kid from the jump, looking for a good deal on one of those nice old Donald M. Grant editions—the ones with the Roy Krenkel paintings. Dripping swords, mighty thews, and Conan the Barbarian hacking his way through the Stygian hordes. ”

“That sounds pretty good, actually. These are for . . . uh, for my little brother. It’s his birthday next week.”

Calvin Tower used his thumb to flip his glasses down onto his nose and had a closer look at Jake. “Really? You look like an only child to me. An only child if I ever saw one, enjoying a day of French leave as Mistress May trembles in her green gown just outside the bosky dell of June.”

“Come again?”

“Never mind. Spring always puts me in a William Cowper-ish mood. People are weird but interesting, Tex—am I right?”

“I guess so,” Jake said cautiously. He couldn’t decide if he liked this odd man or not.

One of the counter-browsers spun on his stool. He was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a battered paperback copy of
The Plague
in the other. “Quit pulling the kid’s chain and sell him the books, Cal,” he said. “We’ve still got time to finish this game of chess before the end of the world, if you hurry up.”

“Hurry is antithetical to my nature,” Cal said, but he opened
Charlie the Choo-Choo
and peered at the price pencilled on the flyleaf. “A fairly common book, but this copy’s in unusually fine condition. Little kids usually rack the hell out of the ones they like. I should get twelve dollars for it—”

“Goddam thief,” the man who was reading
The Plague
said, and the other browser laughed. Calvin Tower paid no notice.

“—but I can’t bear to dock you that much on a day like this. Seven bucks and it’s yours. Plus tax, of course. The riddle book you can have for free. Consider it my gift to a boy wise enough to saddle up and light out for the territories on the last real day of spring.”

Jake dug out his wallet and opened it anxiously, afraid he had left the house with only three or four dollars. He was in luck, however. He had a five and three ones. He held the money out to Tower, who folded the bills casually into one pocket and made change out of the other.

“Don’t hurry off, Jake. Now that you’re here, come on over to the counter and have a cup of coffee. Your eyes will widen with amazement as I cut Aaron Deepneau’s spavined old Kiev Defense to ribbons.”

“Don’t you wish,” said the man who was reading
The Plague
—Aaron Deepneau, presumably.

“I’d like to, but I can’t. I . . . there’s someplace I have to be. ”

“Okay. As long as it’s not back to school.”

Jake grinned. “No—not school. That way lies madness.”

Tower laughed out loud and flipped his glasses up to the top of his head again. “Not bad! Not bad at all! Maybe the younger generation isn’t going to hell after all, Aaron—what do you think?”

“Oh, they’re going to hell, all right,” Aaron said. “This boy’s just an exception to the rule. Maybe.”

“Don’t mind that cynical old fart,” Calvin Tower said. “Motor on, O Hyperborean Wanderer. I wish I were ten or eleven again, with a beautiful day like this ahead of me.”

“Thanks for the books,” Jake said.

“No problem. That’s what we’re here for. Come on back sometime.”

“I’d like to.”

“Well, you know where we are.”

Yes
, Jake thought.
Now if I only knew where I am.

HE STOPPED JUST OUTSIDE the bookstore and flipped open the riddle book again, this time to page one, where there was a short uncredited introduction.

“Riddles are perhaps the oldest of all the games people still play today,” it began. “The gods and goddesses of Greek myth teased each other with riddles, and they were employed as teaching tools in ancient Rome. The Bible contains several good riddles. One of the most famous of these was told by Samson on the day he was married to Delilah:

“He asked this riddle of several young men who attended his wedding, confident that they wouldn’t be able to guess the answer. The young men, however, got Delilah aside and she whispered the answer to them. Samson was furious, and had the young men put to death for cheating—in the old days, you see, riddles were taken much more seriously than they are today!

“By the way, the answer to Samson’s riddle—and all the other riddles in this book—can be found in the section at the back. We only ask that you give each puzzler a fair chance before you peek!”

Jake turned to the back of the book, somehow knowing what he would find even before he got there. Beyond the page marked ANSWERS there was nothing but a few torn fragments and the back cover. The section had been ripped out.