Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 (48 page)

Willy Roberts surveyed his model railroad without pleasure. He could
remember the time when it had given him a real hoot, but after all he was
thirteen years old now. He felt slightly ashamed that he should want to
mess with it at all, but it was better than getting kicked around in
football by all the big guys in the neighborhood. And Sally had said she
was going to the show with Dave Toney, damn her.

Willy clicked on the transformer rheostat and watched the lights come on.

He knocked with his knuckles on the blue tin roof of the switchman's
house. "Let's get with it, Humphery boy," he said. He always called the
switchman Humphery—always had, ever since he was a kid and had
carried on long, friendly conversations with the switchman. Boy, what a
creep he had used to be. "Come on Humph, or I'll tear your arm off.
Whaddya want, boy—time and a half for overtime? Union shop? On the
ball—here comes the Black Express, full of FBI agents after the atom
spies …"

He pressed the "start" button, and the passenger train slipped its wheels
on the tracks and picked up speed. It zipped by the switchman's shack, and
out came Humphery with his red lantern, right on schedule. "What a brain
you got, Humph," Willy said. "Boy, you're a genius." He speeded up the
passenger train and sent it careening through the tunnel into ELM POINT.
He blew the whistle. He made artificial black smoke pour out of the
locomotive's smokestack.

Willy waited until the Black Express had got by the siding and wavered
into the end mountain tunnel, and then he sent his freight chugging out of
the cattle pen onto the main line. He sent
that
rattling through
ELM POINT, tweaking old Humphery's cap when he jerked out with his
lantern, and then stopped it on the bridge over the Ohio River. He clapped
his hands together.

The Black Express charged full speed across Texas, knocking a cow off the
track, and ploughed full-tilt into the stalled freight on the bridge. Both
engines jumped the track and landed in the cellophane of the Ohio River.
One little man fell out of the caboose and got caught under a wheel.

Willy grinned.

"Pretty good, hey, Humphery?" he said.

He cut the power for a second, righted the trains, and set them in reverse
to see how fast they would go. Then he ran the freight back onto a siding
and began to send the Black Express backward and forward over the switch,
so he could watch old Humphery dart in and out of his tin shack waving his
lantern like a demon.

"Get with it, Humphery," cried Willy. "You only live once!"

Humphery didn't say anything, Willy noticed.

Too busy, probably.

Well, now you've met our lord and master, Clyde. A real All American
Junior; I tell you, ELM POINT is a madhouse when that kid is in the attic.
It's bad enough on the rest of us, but it's killing Humphery.

Things have settled down a little at the moment. The freight is sitting in
the siding by the cow pen, and Willy's got the passenger job on automatic.
Once every forty-seven seconds it comes yelling and smoking through my
side-yard, and five seconds later poor Humphery has to stagger out and
wave his red lantern at the snobs in the club car.

The spotlights are on, too, but Willy hasn't turned off the light in the
ceiling yet, so it isn't too bad. Willy's sitting in the well reading a
sex magazine, so I guess he won't be wrecking any more trains for a while.

Maybe you wonder what will happen to the man who fell out of the caboose
in the wreck. More likely, you don't care. But I'll tell you his name:
Carl. None of us have any last names. Carl's too busted up to fix, so
Willy will throw him in the wastebasket. Tender, isn't it? It chokes you
all up with sentiment. We'll sort of have a funeral for Carl after the
town gets turned off again, if we can stay awake, and you know what we'll
be thinking? We'll be thinking that's the end of the road for all of us
here in ELM POINT—the wastebasket.

It's a great life. You'd love our town, Clyde.

Let me tell you about our town, Clyde. It's different when the current's
turned on. You'd hardly know the old dump, believe me.

Everybody has to go through the proper motions, you see? Like poor old
Humphery with his lantern. There's Patrick, the cop, out in front of the
police station. He just stands there blowing his tin whistle like he was
Benny Goodman or somebody. Inside, they've got this one prisoner, name of
Lefty. He's never been outside a cell; I don't know what he's supposed to
have done. Then there's a joker over at the firehouse. All he's done for
the last seven years is slide up and down this silly pole. Maybe you think
he
isn't sore at night.

Everyone that can, rushes around like mad when the current's on. It's the
only time we're really active and feeling good, do you see? We can't add
anything to what's already here in ELM POINT, but we can use what we've
get as long as Willy can't see us. Some of us, like poor Humphery or the
policeman, have to work when the current's on, because that's their job.
But some others, the background characters, can sneak off and visit once
in a while. The favorite place is inside the hollow mountain. You'd be
surprised at what goes on in there, Clyde.

The only restroom in town is in the gas station, and that's all the place
is used for. It's ridiculous. They only know how to serve one dish at the
diner, because that's all that was on the counter. Bacon and fried eggs
and coffee. You think about it, Clyde. Two meals a day, every day for
seven years. That's a lot of bacon and eggs. You lose your taste for them
after a while.

The train runs right by the side of the hotel, only two inches away. It
rattles the whole thing until it's ready to fall apart, and every time it
goes by it pours black smoke in through the upstairs window. There's a
tenant up there, name of Martin. He looks like he's made out of soot.

The whole town is knee-deep in dust. Did you ever see a kid clean anything
that belongs to him? And there's no water, either. That cellophane in the
Ohio River may look good from where you stand, but it's about as wet as
the gold in Fort Knox. Not only that, but it crinkles all the time where
it flows under the bridges. It's enough to drive you bats.

You're beginning to see how it is, Clyde. This town is ripe for one of
those lantern-jawed, fearless crusading reporters; you know, the kind that
wears the snap-brim hat and the pipe and is always telling the city editor
to stop the presses—but Willy forgot to give us a newspaper.

It isn't much of a life, to my way of thinking. You do the best you can,
and get up whenever some dumb kid hits a button, and then you get tossed
in the wastebasket. It seems sort of pointless.

You can't really blame us for deciding to kill him, can you, Clyde? What
else can we do? After we get rid of him, there's no telling what will
happen to us. But it's like living in the panther cage, you see—a
move in any direction is bound to be an improvement.

Know what we're going to do, Clyde?

We're going to
electrocute
Willy.

With his own electric train.

We think that's pretty sharp.

I don't want you to get the idea that I'm just a sour old woman, Clyde, a
kind of juvenile delinquent with arthritis. I'm not, really. You know, a
long time ago, when Willy was younger, even ELM POINT wasn't so bad.

Humphery wasn't working so hard then, and at night, when our town was all
gray and lazy, I used to try and write poetry. I guess you find that
pretty hard to swallow, and I admit that it wasn't very good poetry. Maybe
you wonder what I found to write about in this dump. Well, one night they
left the attic window open and I heard a
real
train, away off in
the distance. I wrote a poem about that. You probably don't care about
poetry, Clyde. Anyhow, if you're like the creeps around here, you wouldn't
admit it if you did.

I'll tell you, though—it's funny. Sometimes, a long time ago, I'd go
and sit down by that silly cellophane river and I'd almost get to where I
liked it here.

If it just hadn't been for that damned train every forty-seven seconds
whenever the current was on …

It's too bad Willy had to change, huh, Clyde? He wasn't so bad before—just
kinda dumb and goggle-eyed. He and Humphery used to get along pretty good,
but like I say, it was a long time ago.

I can see I'm boring you, talking about the past and all. You think it's
morbid. I guess you're right; I really shouldn't have mentioned it.

Here comes poor old Humphery, dragging in from the switchman's house. Look
at him—man, he's really beat to the socks. He can hardly put one
foot in front of the other. He's old before his time, Humphery is.

You'll excuse me for a while, won't you? Humphery and I have to go down to
the diner for a cup of coffee. Maybe we'll have some bacon and eggs, too,
if we can stand it again. I hadn't noticed how late it was getting.

We'll have to go to work on that transformer tonight, if some of us can
stay awake. This stuff has got to go, don't you agree?

I'll see you later, Clyde.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since I last had a bull session
with you, Clyde—or at least it
would
have if there'd been any
water in that lousy Ohio River. All it does is crinkle. You have no idea
how that can get on your nerves.

Our town is turned off again, all gray and lazy. I know I use that phrase
too much, but I'm afraid I've got kind of a literal mind, if you know what
I mean. ELM POINT
is
gray and lazy when the current's turned off,
so that's what I say it is.

I guess I'm a realist, Clyde.

I'm not the only one awake tonight, though, I'll tell you that. I swear
I've never seen so many people up and around at night in this burg. Even
Smoky—he's the guy who has to slide up and down that pole over at
the firehouse—is sort of waddling around. He's kind of bowlegged,
you know.

To tell you the truth, we're all pretty nervous.

A bunch of the guys have been doing their best on the transformer over in
the kid's well. It wasn't easy to get to it, but they managed it by using
one of the crane cars from the freight train.

It's awfully quiet here in town tonight, even with all the people up and
around. I don't know when I've heard it so quiet. You probably think we've
turned chicken or something. You probably think we're scared.

You're right.

I wonder how you would feel. Have you ever been
disconnected,
Clyde?

We've got a chance, the way we figure it. If we can just get rid of Willy,
maybe they'll let us alone for a while. We'd have strength enough to send
a crew down to plug in the town once in a while, when nobody was around.
It would be so wonderful—you have no idea. It isn't asking very
much, is it?

Of course, it can't last long. Maybe we'll all get stuffed back in a box
after a while. Maybe they'll melt us down. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll be
given away and go to some other town.

But if we can only live a week like human beings, it'll be worth the
effort. I guess I'm getting maudlin. Sorry, Clyde. You know how it is when
you get old.

Sure, we're scared. Win or lose, though, what are the odds? I ask you.
Anything's better than the wastebasket, that's the way we figure it.

The attic door is opening, Clyde. Light is streaming in from the stairs.

I feel terrible.

Here comes Willy.

Willy Roberts wiggled under the table and came up in the control well. The
train wasn't a kick like the pinball machine, no argument there, but at
least it was cheaper. He hadn't won a free game in a month.

He knocked with his knuckles on the blue tin roof of the switchman's
house. "Let's get with it, Humphery boy," he said. "Oil up the old leg and
light the red lamp."

Willy surveyed the tabletop with a jaundiced eye. Let's see now, what were
the possibilities? If he played his cards right, it just might be
possible
to set the switch engine on the siding down by the cow pen, and then start
the Black Express from the gas station and the freight from Texas. That
way, he could have a three-way wreck.

It wouldn't be easy, though. It would take some doing.

He swatted the tin roof of the switchman's shack again and drummed on it
with his fingernails. "Dig this, Humphery," he said.

The situation, he reflected, had definite possibilities.

Willy took the transformer rheostat between his thumb and index finger and
clicked it on.

Then he pressed the red "start" button with the middle finger of his right
hand.

There was a small yellow spark and a faint smell of burning insulation.
Willy jerked his tingling finger away and stood up straight, staring at
his model railroad accusingly.

"Damn it," he said, "that
hurt.
"

He reached out quite deliberately and ripped the transformer from its
track connection. He pulled out the wall plug with a jerk on the wire.
Then he took careful aim and threw the transformer as hard as he could at
the spot where the walls converged in the corner of the attic.

The transformer hit with a thud, chipping the wall plaster. It bounced off
the wall, crashed into the top of the mountain, and rebounded off again to
land with a squashing smash on the police station. The plastic policeman
with his tin whistle was under it when it fell.

Willy socked the tin switchman's house with his fingernail, almost
knocking it over. "Think you're pretty cool, don't you, Humphery boy?" he
asked, rubbing his smarting finger. "After all I've done for you, too."

He studied his model railroad thoughtfully for a long time. Finally, Willy
made his decision. He was getting too old for this junk anyhow, he
reasoned. What he needed was something else.