While Mortals Sleep_ Unpublished Short Fiction - Kurt Vonnegut [25]
“You go on up,” said Earl. “I’ll be up in two shakes, soon as I get the equipment back in the yards.”
Earl and Ella, as a grand finale to their companionable afternoon in the basement, had put almost every piece of rolling stock into service on the little countryside, so Earl had a big job on his hands, restoring order to the pike while Ella took a shower and dressed. He might have picked up the trinkets and set them down again where he wanted them, and been done with the job in a minute or two. But he would have stolen from the poor box before he would have done such a thing. Under their own power, creeping at scale speeds, the trains made their way to their proper destinations, and were there broken up by switchers.
Signals winked on and off, road barriers dipped and rose, bells tinkled—and euphoria and pride filled the being of Hotbox Harrison, who had this much of the universe precisely as he would have it, under his thumb.
Over the tiny din he heard the outside door of the basement open and close. He turned to see Harry Zellerbach, who grinned and hugged a long, heavy parcel to his chest.
“Harry!” said Earl. “By golly, I thought you’d forgotten me. Been waiting for you to call all afternoon.”
“I’ll forget you when I forget my own name, Hotbox,” said Harry. He looked meaningfully at the box he was carrying, and winked. “The stuff that came through was mostly junk, or stuff you already had, so I didn’t bother calling. But there’s one thing, Hotbox—” He looked at the box again, coyly. “You’ll be the first one to see it, next to my wife. Nobody else even knows I got it.”
Earl clapped him on his arm. “There’s a friend for you!”
“I try to be, Hotbox,” said Harry. He laid the box on the edge of the layout, and lifted the lid slowly. “First one in the state, Hotbox.” There in the box, twinkling like a tiara, lay a long, sleek locomotive, silver, orange, black, and chromium.
“The Westinghouse gas-turbine job,” said Earl huskily, awed.
“And only sixty-eight forty-nine,” said Harry. “That’s practically cost for me, and I got it at a steal. It’s got a whine and a roar built in.”
Reverently, Earl set it on the tracks, and gently fed power to it. Without a word, Harry took over the controls, and Earl stalked about the layout, spellbound, watching the dream locomotive from all angles, calling out to Harry whenever the illusion of reality was particularly striking.
“Earl—” called Ella.
He didn’t answer.
“Hotbox!”
“Hmm?” he said dreamily.
“Come on, if we’re going to get any supper.”
“Listen,” called Earl, “put on another plate, will you? Harry’s going to stay for supper.” He turned to Harry. “You will, won’t you? You’ll want to be here when we find out just what this baby can do.”
“Pleasure, Hotbox.”
“We’re going out for supper,” said Ella.
Earl straightened up. “Oh—for gosh sakes. That’s right, we were.”
“Listen to this,” said Harry, and the locomotive blew its horn, loud and dissonant.
Earl shook his head in admiration. “Monday,” he called to Ella. “We’ll go out Monday. Something big has just come up, Sweetheart. Wait’ll you see.”
“Earl, we haven’t got anything much in the house for supper,” said Ella desolately.
“Sandwiches, soup, cheese—anything at all,” said Earl. “Don’t knock yourself out on our account.”
“Now, get a load of the reserve power, Hotbox,” said Harry. “She’s taking that grade without any trouble at half-throttle. Now watch what happens.”
“Whoooooooey!” said Earl. He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Oh—hi Mom.” He pointed at the new locomotive. “What do you think of that, eh? That’s the new era in railroading you see there, Mom. Turbine job.”
“Earl, you can’t do that to Ella,” she said. “She was all dressed up and excited, and then you let her down like this.”
“Didn’t you hear me give her a rain check?” said Earl. “We’re going out on Monday instead. Anyway, she’s nuts about the pike now. She understands. We had a whale of a time down here, this afternoon.”