AFTER WALKING FOR A while, he began to come out of this unhappy daze and take some notice of his surroundings. He was standing on the corner of Lexington Avenue and. Fifty-fourth Street with no memory at all of how he had come to be there. He noticed for the first time that it was an absolutely gorgeous morning. May 9th, the day this madness had started, had been pretty, but today was ten times better-that day, perhaps, when spring looks around herself and sees summer standing nearby, strong and handsome and with a cocky grin on his tanned face. The sun shone brightly off the glass walls of the midtown buildings; the shadow of each pedestrian was black and crisp. The sky overhead was a clear and blameless blue, dotted here and there with plump foul-weather clouds.
Down the street, two businessmen in expensive, well-cut suits were standing at a board wall which had been erected around a construction site. They were laughing and passing something back and forth. Jake walked in their direction, curious, and as he drew closer he saw that the two businessmen were playing tic-tac-toe on the wall, using an expensive Mark Cross pen to draw the grids and make the X’s and O’s. Jake thought this was a complete gas. As he approached, one of them made an O in the upper right-hand corner of the grid and then slashed a diagonal line through the middle.
“Skunked again!” his friend said. Then this man, who looked like a high-powered executive or lawyer or big-time stockbroker, took the Mark Cross pen and drew another grid.
The first businessman, the winner, glanced to his left and saw Jake. He smiled. “Some day, huh, kid?”
“It sure is,” Jake said, delighted to find he meant every word.
“Too nice for school, huh?”
This time Jake actually laughed. Piper School, where you had Outs instead of lunch and where you sometimes stepped out but never had to take a crap, suddenly seemed far away and not at all important. “You know it.”
“You want a game? Billy here couldn’t beat me at this when we were in the fifth grade, and he still can’t.”
“Leave the kid alone,” the second businessman said, holding out the Mark Cross pen. “This time you’re history.” He winked at Jake, and Jake amazed himself by winking back. He walked on, leaving the men to their game. The sense that something totally wonderful was going to happen- had perhaps already begun to happen-continued to grow, and his feet no longer seemed to be quite touching the pavement.
The WALK light on the corner came on, and he began to cross Lexington Avenue. He stopped in the middle of the street so suddenly that a messenger-boy on a ten-speed bike almost ran him down. It was a beautiful spring day-agreed. But that wasn’t why he felt so good, so suddenly aware of everything that was going on around him, so sure that some great thing was about to occur.
The voices had stopped.
They weren’t gone for good-he somehow knew this-but for the time being they had stopped. Why?
Jake suddenly thought of two men arguing in a room. They sit facing each other over a table, jawing at each other with increasing bitterness. After a while they begin to lean toward each other, thrusting their faces pugnaciously forward, bathing each other with a fine mist of outraged spittle. Soon they will come to blows. But before that can happen, they hear a steady thumping noise-the sound of a bass drum-and then a jaunty flourish of brass. The two men stop arguing and look at each other, puzzled.
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-
10
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 voices were still.
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 lightness.
“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.
11
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
(Whiteness)
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.
12
THE MANHATTAN RESTAURANT OF THE MIND, the sign painted in the window read. Jake went to the d(x»r. There was a chalkboard hung there; it looked like the kind you saw on the wall in diners and lunchrooms.TODAY’s SPECIALS
From Florida! Fresh-Broiled John D. MacDonald Hardcovers 3 for $2.50 Paperbacks 9 for $5.00
From Mississippi! Pan-Fried William Faulkner Hardcovers Market Price Vintage Library Paperbacks 75$ each
From California! Hard-Boiled Raymond Chandler Hardcovers Market Price Paperbacks 7 for $5.00
FEED YOUR NEED TO READJake 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. Mac-Donald, 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 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.
