The Waste Lands dt-3 Read online

  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 land 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.

  13

  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 storybook 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. YOM 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 is a door not a door?

  “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 ajar!”

  “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 ol 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 yon 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 land 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 bartered 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, hut 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.

  14

  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:’Out of the eater came forth meat,

  and out of the strong came forth sweetness!’"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.

  He stood there for a moment, thinking. Then, on an impulse that didn’t really feel like an impulse at all, Jake walked back inside The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind.

  Calvin Tower looked up from the chessboard. “Change your mind about that cup of coffee, O Hyperborean Wanderer?”

  “No. I wanted to ask you if you know the answer to a riddle.”

  “Fire away,” Tower invited, and moved a pawn.

  “Samson told it. The strong guy in the Bible? It goes like this-”

  “Out of the eater came forth meat,” said Aaron Deepneau, swinging around again to look at Jake, “and out of the strong came forth sweetness. That the one?”

  “Yeah, it is,” Jake said. “How’d you know-”

  “Oh, I’ve been around the block a time or two. Listen to this.” He threw his head back and sang in a full, melodious voice:” ’samson and a lion got in attack, And Samson climbed up on the lion’s back. Well, you’ve read about lion killin men with their paws, But Samson put his hands round the lion’s jaws! He rode that lion ’til the beast fell dead, And the bees made honey in the lion’s head.’"Aaron winked and then laughed at Jake’s surprised expression. “That answer your question, friend?”

  Jake’s eyes were wide. “Wow! Good song! Where’d you hear it?”

  “Oh, Aaron knows them all,” Tower said. “He was hanging around Bleecker Street back before Bob Dylan knew how to blow more than open G on his Hohner. At least, if you believe him.”

  “It’s an old spiritual,” Aaron said to Jake, and then to Tower: “By the way, you’re in check, fatso.”

  “Not for long,” Tower said. He moved his bishop. Aaron promptly bagged it. Tower muttered something under his breath. To Jake it sounded suspiciously like fuckwad.

  “So the answer is a lion,” Jake said.

  Aaron shook his head. “Only half the answer. Samson’s Riddle is a double, my friend. The other half of the answer is honey. Get it?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Okay, now try this one.” Aaron closed his eyes for a moment and then recited,

  “What can run but never walks,

  Has a mouth but never talks,

  Has a bed but never sleeps,

  Has a head but never weeps?”

  “Smartass,” Tower growled at Aaron.

  Jake thought it over, then shook his head. He could have worried it longer-he found this business of riddles both fascinating and charming-but he had a strong feeling that he ought to be moving on from here, that he had other business on Second Avenue this morning.

  “I give up.”

  “No, you don’t,” Aaron said. “That’s what you do with modern riddles. But a real riddle isn’t just a joke, kiddo-it’s a puzzle. Turn it over in your head. If you still can’t get it, make it an excuse to come back another day. If you need another excuse, fatso here does make a pretty good cup of joe.”

  “Okay,” Jake said. “Thanks. I will.”

  But as he left, a certainty stole over him: he would never enter The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind again.

  15

  JAKE WALKED SLOWLY DOWN Second Avenue, holding his new purchases in his left hand. At first he tried to think about the riddle-what did have a bed but never slept?-but little by little the question was driven from his mind by an increasing sense of anticipation. His senses seemed more acute than ever before in his life; he saw billions of coruscating sparks in the pavement, smelled a thousand mixed aromas in every breath he took, and seemed to hear other sounds, secret sounds, within each of the sounds he heard. He wondered if this was the way dogs felt before thunderstorms or earthquakes, and felt almost sure that it was. Yet the sensation that the impending event was not bad but good, that it would balance out the terrible thing which had happened to him three weeks ago, continued to grow.

  And now, as he drew close to the place where the course would be set, that knowing-in-advance fell upon him once again.

  A bum is going to ask me for a handout, and I’ll give him the change Mr, Tower gave me. And there’s a record store. The door’s open to let in the fresh air and I’ll hear a Stones song playing when I pass. And I’m going to see my own reflection in a bunch of mirrors.

  Traffic on Second Avenue was still light. Taxis honked and wove their way amid the slower-moving cars and trucks. Spring sunshine twinkled off their windshields and bright yellow hides. While he was waiting for a light to change, Jake saw the bum on the far corner of Second and Fifty-second. He was sitting against the brick wall of a small restaurant, and as Jake approached him, he saw that the name of the restaurant was Chew Chew Mama’s.

  Choo-choo, Jake thought. And that’s the truth.

  “Godda-quarder?” the bum asked tiredly, and Jake dropped his change from the bookstore into the bum’s lap without even looking around. Now he could hear the Rolling Stones, right on schedule:

  “I see a red door and I want to paint it black, No colours anymore, I want them to turn black…”

  As he passed, he saw-also without surprise-that the name of the store was Tower of Power Records.

  Towers were selling cheap today, it seemed.

  Jake walked on, the street-signs floating past in a kind of dream-daze. Between Forty-ninth and Forty-eighth he passed a store called Reflections of You. He turned his head and caught sight of a dozen Jakes in the mirrors, as he had known he would-a dozen boys who were small for their age, a do/en boys dressed in neat school clothes: blue blazers, white shirts, dark red ties, gray dress pants. Piper School didn’t have an official uniform, but this was as close to the unofficial one as you could get.

  Piper seemed long ago and far away now.

  Suddenly Jake realized where he was going. This knowledge rose in his mind like sweet, refreshing water from an underground spring. It’s a delicatessen, he thought. That’s what it looks like, anyway. It’s really something else-a doorway to another world. The world. His world. The right world.

  He began to run, looking ahead eagerly. The light at Forty-seventh was against him but he ignored it, leaping from the curb and racing nimbly between the broad white lines of the crosswalk with just a perfunctory glance to the left. A plumbing van stopped short with a squeal of tires as Jake flashed in front of it.

  “Hey! Whaddaya-whaddaya?” the driver yelled, but Jake ignored him.

  Only one more block.

  He began to sprint all-out now. His tie fluttered behind his left shoulder; his hair had blown back from his forehead; his school loafers hammered the sidewalk. He ignored the stares-some amused, some merely curious-of the passersby as he had ignored the van driver’s outraged shout.

  Up here-up here on the corner. Next to the stationery store.

  Here came a UPS man in dark brown fatigues, pushing a dolly loaded with packages. Jake hurdled it like a long-jumper, arms up. The tail of his white shirt pulled free of his pants and flapped beneath his blazer like the hem of a slip. He came down and almost collided with a baby-carriage being pushed by a young Puerto Rican woman. Jake hooked around the pram like a halfback who has spotted a hole in the line and is bound for glory. “Where’s the fire, handsome?” the young woman aske
d, but Jake ignored her, too. He dashed past The Paper Patch, with its window-display of pens and notebooks and desk calculators.

  The door! he thought ecstatically. I’m going to see it! And am I going to stop? No, way, Jose! I’m going to go straight through it, and if it’s locked, I’ll flatten it right in front of m-

  Then he saw what was at the corner of Second and Forty-sixth and stopped after all-skidded to a halt, in fact, on the heels of his loafers. He stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, hands clenched, his breath rasping harshly in and out of his lungs, his hair falling back onto his forehead in sweaty clumps.

  “No,” he almost whimpered. “No!” But his near-frantic negation did not change what he saw, which was nothing at all. There was nothing to see but a short board fence and a littered, weedy lot beyond it.

  The building which had stood there had been demolished.

  16

  JAKE STOOD OUTSIDE THE fence without moving for almost two minutes, surveying the vacant lot with dull eyes. One comer of his mouth twitched randomly. He could feel his hope, his absolute certainty, draining out of him. The feeling which was replacing it was the deepest, bitterest despair he had ever known.

  Just another false alarm, he thought when the shock had abated enough so he could think anything at all. Another false alarm, blind alley, dry well. Now the voices will start up again, and when they do, I think I’m going to start screaming. And that’s okay. Because I’m tired of toughing this thing out. I’m tired of going crazy. If this is what going crazy is like, then I just want to hurry up and get there so somebody will take me to the hospital and give me something that’ll knock me out. I give up. This is the end of the line-I’m through.