Jake Chambers Quotes

“Time's the thief of memory”
― Stephen King, The Gunslinger

“Susannah smiled at them nervously, then looked up at the route-map. "Hello, Blaine."
"HOWDY, SUSANNAH OF NEW YORK."
Her heart was pounding, her armpits were damp, and here was something she had first discovered way back in the first grade: it was hard to begin. It was hard to stand up in front of the class and be first with your song, your joke, your report on how you spent your summer vacation ... or your riddle, for that matter. The one she had decided upon was one from Jake Chambers's crazed English essay, which he had recited to them almost verbatim during their long palaver after leaving the old people of River Crossing. The essay, titled "My Understanding of Truth," had contained two riddles, one of which Eddie had already used on Blaine.
"SUSANNAH? ARE YOU THERE, L'IL COWGIRL?"
Teasing again, but this time the teasing sounded light, good-natured. Good-humored. Blaine could be charming when he got what he wanted. Like certain spoiled children she had known.
"Yes, Blaine, I am, and here is my riddle. What has four wheels and flies?"
There was a peculiar click, as if Blaine were mimicking the sound of a man popping his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It was followed by a brief pause. When Blaine replied, most of the jocularity had gone out of his voice. "THE TOWN GARBAGE WAGON, OF COURSE. A CHILD'S RIDDLE. IF THE REST OF YOUR RIDDLES ARE NO BETTER, I WILL BE EXTREMELY SORRY I SAVED YOUR LIVES FOR EVEN A SHORT WHILE.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“I do not shoot with my hand,'" Eddie said. He suddenly felt far away, strange to himself. It was the way he'd felt when he had seen first the slingshot and then the key in pieces of wood, just waiting for him to whittle them free ... and at the same time this feeling was not like that at all.
Roland was looking at him oddly. "Yes, Eddie, you say true. A gunslinger shoots with his mind. What have you thought of?"
"Nothing." He might have said more, but all at once a strange image-a strange memory-intervened: Roland hunkering by Jake at one of their stopping-points on the way to Lud. Both of them in front of an unlit campfire. Roland once more at his everlasting lessons. Jake's turn this time. Jake with the flint and steel, trying to quicken the fire. Spark after spark licking out and dying in the dark. And Roland had said that he was being silly. That he was just being ... well ... silly.
"No," Eddie said. "He didn't say that at all. At least not to the kid, he didn't."
"Eddie?" Susannah. Sounding concerned. Almost frightened.
Well why don't you ask him what he said, bro? That was Henry's voice, the voice of the Great Sage and Eminent Junkie. First time in a long time. Ask him, he's practically sitting right next to you, go on and ask him what he said. Quit dancing around like a baby with a load in his diapers.
Except that was a bad idea, because that wasn't the way things worked in Roland's world. In Roland's world everything was riddles, you didn't shoot with your hand but with your mind, your motherfucking mind, and what did you say to someone who wasn't getting the spark into the kindling? Move your flint in closer, of course, and that's what Roland had said: Move your flint in closer, and hold it steady.
Except none of that was what this was about. It was close, yes, but close only counts in horseshoes, as Henry Dean had been wont to say before he became the Great Sage and Eminent Junkie. Eddie's memory was jinking a little because Roland had embarrassed him ... shamed him ... made a joke at his expense ...
Probably not on purpose, but ... something. Something that had made him feel the way Henry always used to make him feel, of course it was, why else would Henry be here after such a long absence?”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Roland: This is as light as a feather, yet no man can hold it for long.

Blaine: (without hesitation) ONE'S BREATH.

Yet he did hesitate, Eddie thought suddenly. Jake and Susannah were watching Roland with agonized concentration, fists clenched, willing him to ask Blaine the right riddle, the stumper, the one with the Get the Fuck Out of Jail Free card hidden inside it; Eddie couldn't look at them-Suze, in particular-and keep his concentration. He lowered his gaze to his own hands, which were also clenched, and forced them to open on his lap. It was surprisingly hard to do. From the aisle he heard Roland continuing to trot out the golden oldies of his youth.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Jake: Blaine, what may go up a chimney down but cannot go down a chimney up?

Blaine: (in that tone of jolly complacency which Jake, too, is coming to loathe) A LADY'S PARASOL.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Blaine: THE HAND-SCAN SPECTRUM MAGNIFIER IS A DIAGNOSTIC TOOL ALSO CAPABLE OF ADMINISTERING MINOR FIRST AID, SUCH AS I HAVE PERFORMED ON YOU. IT IS ALSO A NUTRIENT DELIVERY SYSTEM, A BRAIN-PATTERN RECORDING DEVICE, A STRESS-ANALYZER, AND AN EMOTION-ENHANCER WHICH CAN NATURALLY STIMULATE THE PRODUCTION OF ENDORPHINS. HAND-SCAN IS ALSO CAPABLE OF CREATING VERY BELIEVABLE ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS. WOULD YOU CARE TO HAVE YOUR FIRST SEXUAL EXPERIENCE WITH A NOTED SEX-GODDESS FROM YOUR LEVEL OF THE TOWER, JAKE OF NEW YORK? PERHAPS MARILYN MONROE, RAQUEL WELCH, OR EDITH BUNKER?

Jake: (laughter; guessing that laughing at Blaine might be risky, but this time he cannot help it) There IS no Edith Bunker. She's just a character on a TV show. The actress's name is, um, Jean Stapleton. Also, she looks like Mrs. Shaw. She's our housekeeper. Nice, but not--you know--a babe.

Blaine: (silence) I CRY YOUR PARDON, JAKE OF NEW YORK. I ALSO WITHDRAW MY OFFER OF A SEXUAL EXPERIENCE.

Jake: (sounding suitably humble hopefully) That's okay, Blaine. I think I'm still a little young for that, anyway.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Blaine: ONE MOMENT. I MUST ADJUST THE VOLUME FOR YOU TO ENJOY THE FULL EFFECT.
There was a brief, whispery hooting sound (a kind of mechanical throat-clearing) and then they were assaulted by a vast roar. It was water (a billion gallons a minute, for all Jake knew) pouring over the lip of the chasm and falling perhaps two thousand feet into the deep stone basin at the base of the falls. Streamers of mist floated past the blunt almost-faces of the jutting dogs like steam from the vents of hell. The level of sound kept climbing. Now Jake's whole head vibrated with it, and as he clapped his hands over his ears, he saw Roland, Eddie, and Susannah doing the same. Oy was barking, but Jake couldn't hear him. Susannah's lips were moving again, and again he could read the words (STOP IT, BLAINE, STOP IT!) but he couldn't hear them any more than he could hear Oy's barks, although he was sure Susannah was screaming at the top of her lungs.
And still Blaine increased the sound of the waterfall, until Jake could feel his eyes shaking in their sockets and he was sure his ears were going to short out like overstressed stereo speakers.
Then it was over. They still hung above the moon-misty drop, the moonbows still made their slow and dreamlike revolutions before the curtain of endlessly falling water, the wet and brutal stone faces of the dog-guardians continued to jut out of the torrent, but that world-ending thunder was gone.
For a moment Jake thought what he'd feared had happened, that he had gone deaf. Then he realized that he could hear Oy, still barking, and Susannah crying. At first these sounds seemed distant and flat, as if his ears had been packed with cracker-crumbs, but then they began to clarify.
Eddie put his arm around Susannah's shoulders and looked toward the route map.
Eddie: Nice guy, Blaine.
Blaine: (his booming voice sounds laughing and injured simultaneously) I MERELY THOUGHT YOU WOULD ENJOY HEARING THE SOUND OF THE FALLS AT FULL VOLUME. I THOUGHT IT MIGHT HELP YOU TO FORGET MY REGRETTABLE MISTAKE IN THE MATTER OF EDITH BUNKER.
My fault, Jake thought. Blaine may just be a machine, and a suicidal one at that, but he still doesn't like to be laughed at.
He sat beside Susannah and put his own arm around her. He could still hear the Falls of the Hounds, but the sound was now distant.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Jake: This thing runs but cannot walk, sometimes sings but never talks. Lacks arms, has hands; lacks a head but has a face. What is it, Blaine?
Blaine: A CLOCK.
Jake: (whispering, lips compressing) Shit.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“If we've been riding for seven hours or more, I grew up with the Brady Bunch.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Blaine: (as Humphrey Bogart) TIME'S DIFFERENT HERE, SHWEETHEART. YOU MUST KNOW THAT BY NOW. BUT DON'T WORRY; THE FUNDAMENTAL THINGS APPLY AS TIME GOES BY. WOULD I LIE TO YOU?
Jake: Yes.
That apparently struck Blaine's funnybone, because he began to laugh again--the mad, mechanical laughter that made Susannah think of funhouses in sleazy amusement parks and roadside carnivals. When the lights began to pulse in sync with the laughter, she shut her eyes and put her hands over her ears.
Susannah: STOP IT, BLAINE! STOP IT!
Blaine: (as Jimmy Stewart) BEG PARDON, MA'AM. AH'M RIGHT SORRY IF I RUINT YOUR EARS WITH MY RISABILITY.
Jake: (hoisting his middle finger) Run this.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Roland: We play for keeps. No one cries off.
Blaine: CORRECT. NO ONE CRIES OFF.
Roland: All right, Blaine, we play for keeps and no one cries off. Here's the next.
Blaine: AS ALWAYS, I AWAIT IT WITH PLEASURE.
Roland: (to Jake) Be ready with yours, Jake; I'm almost at the end of mine. (to Blaine) Blaine, I occur once in a minute, twice in every moment, but not once in a hundred thousand years. What am I?
Blaine: THE LETTER M.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Blaine: WOULD YOU TRY ME WITH RIDDLES FROM YOUR BOOK? OUR TIME TOGETHER GROWS SHORT.
Jake: Yes. I would try you with these riddles. Give me your understanding of the truth concerning each, Blaine.
Blaine: IT IS FAIRLY SPOKEN, JAKE OF NEW YORK. I WILL DO AS YOU ASK.
Jake: Listen, Blaine. In a tunnel of darkness lies a beast of iron. It can only attack when pulled back. What is it?
Blaine: (without hesitation) A BULLET.
Jake: Walk on the living, they don't even mumble. Walk on the dead, they mutter and grumble. What are they?
Blaine: (without hesitation) FALLEN LEAVES.
If Jake really knew in his heart that the game was lost, why did he feel such despair, such bitterness, such anger?
Jake: (in his mind) Because he's a pain, that's why. Blaine is a really BIG pain, and I'd like to push his face in it, just once. I think even making him stop is second to that on my wish-list. (to Blaine) I am emeralds and diamonds, lost by the moon. I am found by the sun and picked up soon. What am I?
Blaine: (still relentless, still unhesitating) DEW.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“One after another, Jake posed his riddles; one after another, Blaine answered them. When Jake turned to the last page, he saw a boxed message from the author or editor or whatever you called someone who put together books like this:

We hope you've enjoyed the unique combination of imagination and logic known as RIDDLING!

Jake: (in his mind) I haven't. I haven't enjoyed it one little bit, and I hope you choke.
Yet when he looked at the question above the message, he felt a thin threat of hope. It seemed to him that, in this case, at least, they really HAD saved the best for last.
Susannah: Hurry up, Jake!
Jake: Blaine?
Blaine: YES, JAKE OF NEW YORK.
Jake: With no wings, I fly. With no eyes, I see. With no arms, I climb. More frightening than any beast, stronger than any foe. I am cunning, ruthless, and tall; in the end, I rule all. What am I?
Blaine: (promptly) THE IMAGINATION OF MAN AND WOMAN.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Susannah: (sotto voce) Everybody's a goddam critic.
Jake: Blaine, I have one more.
Blaine: EXCELLENT.
Jake: Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came sweetness.
Blaine: (amused) THIS RIDDLE COMES FROM THE HOLY BOOK KNOWN AS 'OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE OF KING JAMES.' IT WAS MADE BY SAMSON THE STRONG. THE EATER IS A LION; THE SWEETNESS IS HONEY, MADE BY BEES WHICH HIVED IN THE LION'S SKULL. NEXT? YOU STILL HAVE TIME, JAKE.
Jake: (shaking his head negatively) I've told them all. I'm done.
Blaine: (as John Wayne) SHUCKS, L'IL TRAILHAND, THAT'S A PURE-D SHAME. LOOKS LIKE I WIN THAT THAR GOOSE, UNLESS SOMEBODY ELSE CARES TO SPEAK UP. WHAT ABOUT YOU, OY OF MID-WORLD? GOT ANY RIDDLES, MY LITTLE BUMBLER BUDDY?”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Eddie: What has four wheels and flies?
Blaine: (disapproving) THE TOWN GARBAGE WAGON, AS I HAVE ALREADY SAID. ARE YOU SO STUPID OR INATTENTIVE THAT YOU DO NOT REMEMBER? IT WAS THE FIRST RIDDLE YOU ASKED ME.
Eddie: (in his mind) Yes. And what we all missed--because we were fixated on stumping you with some brain-buster out of Roland's past or Jake's book--is that the contest almost ended right there. (to Blaine) You didn't like that one, did you, Blaine?
Blaine: (agreeably) I FOUND IT EXCEEDINGLY STUPID. PERHAPS THAT'S WHY YOU ASKED IT AGAIN. LIKE CALLS TO LIKE, EDDIE OF NEW YORK, IS IT NOT SO?
Eddie: (smiling and shaking his finger) Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Or, as we used to say back in the neighborhood, 'You can rank me to the dogs and back, but I'll never lose the hard-on I use to fuck your mother.'
Jake: Hurry up! If you can do something, DO IT!
Eddie: It doesn't like silly questions. It doesn't like silly games. And we KNEW that. We knew it from Charlie the Choo-Choo. How stupid can you get? Hell, THAT was the book with the answers, not Riddle-De-Dum, but we never saw it. (to Blaine) Blaine: when is a door not a door?
Blaine: (clicking his tongue) WHEN IT'S AJAR, OF COURSE. WOULD YOU DIE WITH SUCH STUPID RIDDLES IN YOUR MOUTH?”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Susannah: This place...it may or may not be Topeka, but what it really looks like to me is one of those creepy little towns on The Twilight Zone. You boys probably don't remember that one, but--
Eddie and Jake: (in perfect unison) Yes, I do. (laughter)
Jake: They still show the reruns.
Eddie: Yeah, all the time. Usually sponsored by bankruptcy lawyers who look like shorthair terriers.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Eddie: (standing and smiling into an invisible camera) When I'm travelling through the Land of Oz in my new Takuro Spirit, I drink Nozz-A-La! It fills me up but never fills me out! It makes me happy to be a man! It makes me know God! It gives me the outlook of an angel and the balls of a tiger! When I drink Nozz-A-La, I say 'Gosh! Ain't I glad to be alive!' I say--
Jake: (laughter) Sit down, you bumhug!”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“The banks on either side had grown steadily steeper, and now, at their tops, they could see slim, pointed shapes looming against the sky. Roland thought of arrowheads--huge ones, weapons made by a tribe of giants. To his companions, they looked like rockets or guided missiles. Susannah thought of Redstones fired from Cape Canaveral; Eddie thought about SAMs, some built to be fired from the backs of flatbed trucks, stored all over Europe; Jake thought of ICBMs hiding in reinforced concrete silos under the plains of Kansas and the unpopulated mountains of Nevada, programmed to hit back at China or the USSR in the event of nuclear armageddon. All of them felt as if they had passed into a dark and woeful zone of shadow, or into a countryside laboring under some old but still powerful curse.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“Look at me when I'm talking to you. I'll have some respect, Jake Chambers, or I'll have your balls.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“Blaine is the truth.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“Tick-tock appeared to have forgotten all about both Brandon and the woman who had literally laughed herself to death. His brilliant green eyes had fixed on something which interested him much more than the dead woman.
"Come here, cully," he said. "I want a better look at you."
Gasher gave him a shove. Jake stumbled forward. He would have fallen if Tick-Tock's strong hands hadn't caught him by the shoulders. Then, when he was sure Jake had his balance again, Tick-Tock grasped the boy's left wrist and raised it. It was Jake's Seiko which had drawn his interest.
"If this here's what I think it is, it's an omen for sure and true," Tick-Tock said. "Talk to me, boy--what's this sigul you wear?"
Jake, who hadn't the slightest idea what a sigul was, could only hope for the best. "It's a watch. But it doesn't work, Mr. Tick-Tock."
Hoots chuckled at that, then clapped both hands over his mouth when the Tick-Tock Man turned to look at him. After a moment, Tick-Tock looked back at Jake, and a sunny smile replaced the frown. Looking at that smile almost made you forget that it was a dead woman and not a movie Mexican taking a siesta against the wall of an adobe over there. Looking at it almost made you forget that these people were crazy, and the Tick-Tock Man was likely the craziest inmate in the whole asylum.
"Watch," Tick-Tock said, nodding. "Ar, a likely enough name for such; after all, what does a person want with a timepiece but to watch it once in a while? Ar, Brandon? Ar, Tilly? Ar, Gasher?"
They responded with eager affirmatives. The Tick-Tock Man favored them with his winning smile, then turned back to Jake again. Now Jake noticed that the smile, winning or not, stopped well short of the Tick-Tock Man's green eyes. They were as they had been throughout: cool, cruel, and curious.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“He reached a finger toward the Seiko, which now proclaimed the time to be ninety-one minutes past seven--A.M. and P.M.--and pulled it back just before touching the glass above the liquid crystal display. "Tell me, dear boy--is this 'watch' of yours boobyrigged?"
"Huh? Oh! No. No, it's not boobyrigged." Jake touched his own finger to the face of the watch.
"That means nothing, if it's set to the frequency of your own body," the Tick-Tock Man said. He spoke in the sharp, scornful tone Jake's father used when he didn't want people to figure out that he didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about. Tick-Tock glanced briefly at Brandon, and Jake saw him weigh the pros and cons of making the bowlegged man his designated toucher. Then he dismissed the notion and looked back into Jake's eyes. "If this thing gives me a shock, my little friend, you're going to be choking to death on your own sweetmeats in thirty seconds."
Jake swallowed hard but said nothing. The Tick-Tock Man reached out his finger again, and this time allowed it to settle on the face of the Seiko. The moment that it did, all the numbers went to zeros and then began to count upward again.
Tick-Tock's eyes had narrowed in a grimace of potential pain as he touched the face of the watch. Now their corners crinkled in the first genuine smile Jake had seen from him. He thought it was partly pleasure at his own courage but mostly simple wonder and interest.
"May I have it?" he asked Jake silkily. "As a gesture of your goodwill, shall we say? I am something of a clock fancier, my dear young cully--so I am."
"Be my guest." Jake stripped the watch off his arm at once and dropped in onto the Tick-Tock Man's large waiting palm.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“Gasher's right. You're pert. But you don't want to be pert with me, cully. You don't EVER want to be pert with me. Have you heard of people with short fuses? Well, I have no fuse at all, and there's a thousand could testify to it if I hadn't stilled their tongues for good. If you ever speak to me of Lord Perth again...ever, ever, EVER...I'll tear off the top of your skull and eat your brains. I'll have none of that bad-luck story in the Cradle of the Grays. Do you understand me?"
He shook Jake back and forth like a rag, and the boy burst into tears.
"Do you?"
"Y-Y-Yes!"
"Good." He set Jake upon his feet, where he swayed woozily back and forth, wiping at his streaming eyes and leaving smudges of dirt on his cheeks so dark they looked like mascara. "Now, my little cull, we're going to have a question and answer session here. I'll ask the questions and you'll give the answers. Do you understand?"
Jake didn't reply. He was looking at a panel of the ventilator grille which circled the chamber.
The Tick-Tock Man grabbed his nose between two of his fingers and squeezed it viciously. "Do you understand me?"
"Yes!" Jake cried. His eyes, now watering with pain as well as terror, returned to Tick-Tock's face. He wanted to look back at the ventilator grille, wanted desperately to verify that what he had seen there was not simply a trick of his frightened, overloaded mind, but he didn't dare. He was afraid someone else--Tick-Tock himself, most likely--would follow his gaze and see what he had seen.
"Good." Tick-Tock pulled Jack back over to the chair by his nose, sat down, and cocked his leg over the arm again. "Let's have a nice little chin, then.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“We'll begin with your name, shall we? Just what might that be, cully?"
"Jake Chambers." With his nose pinched shut, his voice sounded nasal and foggy.
"And are you a Not-see, Jake Chambers?"
For a moment, Jake wondered if this was a peculiar way of asking him if he was blind...but of course they could all see he wasn't. "I don't understand what--"
Tick-Tock shook him back and forth by the nose. "Not-See! Not-See! You just want to stop playing with me, boy!"
"I don't understand--" Jake began, and then he looked at the old machine-gun hanging from the chair and thought once more of the crashed Focke-Wulf. The pieces fell together in his mind. "No--I'm not a Nazi. I'm an American. All that ended long before I was born!"
The Tick-Tock Man released his hold on Jake's nose, which immediately began to gush blood. "You could have told me that in the first place and saved yourself all sorts of pain, Jake Chambers...but at least now you understand how we do things around here, don't you?"
Jake nodded.
"Ar. Well enough! We'll start with the simple questions."
Jake's eyes drifted back to the ventilator grille. What he had seen before was still there; it hadn't been just his imagination. Two gold-ringed eyes floated in the dark behind the chrome louvers.
Oy.
Tick-Tock slapped his face, knocking him back into Gasher, who immediately pushed him forward again. "It's school-time, dear heart," Gasher whispered. "Mind yer lessons, now! Mind em wery sharp!"
"Look at me when I'm talking to you," Tick-Tock said. "I'll have some respect, Jake Chambers, or I'll have your balls."
"All right."
Tick-Tock's green eyes gleamed dangerously. "All right what?"
Jake groped for the right answer, pushing away the tangle of questions and the sudden hope which had dawned in his mind. And what came was what would have served at his own Cradle of the Pubes...otherwise known as The Piper School. "All right, sir?"
Tick-Tock smiled. "That's a start, boy," he said, and leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. "Now...what's an American?”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“Could I have something to drink?" Jake asked. His voice came out sounding furry and nasal. Both his mouth and the tissues in his abused nose were swelling up. He looked like someone who has gotten the worst of it in a nasty street-fight.
"Oh, yes," Tick-Tock replied judiciously. "You could. I'd say you certainly could. We have lots to drink, don't we, Copperhead?"
"Ar," said a tall, bespectacled man in a white silk shirt and a pair of black silk trousers. He looked like a college professor in a turn of the century Punch cartoon. "No shortage of po-ter-bulls here."
The Tick-Tock Man, once more seated at ease in his throne-like chair, looked humorously at Jake. "We have wine, beer, ale, and, of course, good old water. Sometimes that's all a body wants, isn't it? Cool, clear, sparkling water. How does that sound, cully?"
Jake's throat, which was also swollen and as dry as sandpaper, prickled painfully. "Sounds good," he whispered.
"It's woke my thirsty up, I know that," Tick-Tock said. His lips spread in a smile. His green eyes sparkled. "Bring me a dipper of water, Tilly--I'll be damned if I know what's happened to my manners."
Tilly stepped through the hatchway on the far side of the room--it was opposite the one through which Jake and Gasher had entered. Jake watched her go and licked his swollen lips.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“Now," Tick-Tock said, returning his gaze to Jake, "you say the American city you came form--this New York--is much like Lud."
"Well...not exactly..."
"But you do recognize some of the machinery," Tick-Tock pressed. "Valves and pumps and such. Not to mention the firedim tubes."
"Yes. We call it neon, but it's the same."
Tick-Tock reached out toward him. Jake cringed, but Tick-Tock only patted him on the shoulder. "Yes, yes; close enough." His eyes gleamed. "And you've heard of computers?”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“Tilly returned with the dipper and timidly approached the Tick-Tock Man's throne. He took it and held it out to Jake. When Jake reached for it, Tick-Tock pulled it back and drank himself. As Jake watched the water trickle from Tick-Tock's mouth and roll down his naked chest, he began to shake. He couldn't help it.
The Tick-Tock Man looked over the dipper at him, as if just remembering that Jake was still there. Behind him, Gasher, Copperhead, Brandon, and Hoots were grinning like schoolyard kids who have just heard an amusing dirty joke.
"Why, I got thinking about how thirsty I was and forgot all about YOU!" Tick-Tock cried. "That's mean as hell, gods damn my eyes! But, of course, it looked so good...and it is good...cold...clear...”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“He held the dipper out to Jake. When Jake reached for it, Tick-Tock pulled it back.
"First, cully, tell me what you know about dipolar computers and transitive circuits," he said coldly.
"What..." Jake looked toward the ventilator grille, but the golden eyes were still gone. He was beginning to think he had imagined them after all. He shifted his gaze back to the Tick-Tock Man, understanding one thing clearly: he wasn't going to get any water. He had been stupid to even dream he might. "What are dipolar computers?"
The Tick-Tock Man's face contorted with rage; he threw the remainder of the watter into Jake's bruised, puffy face. "DON'T YOU PLAY IT LIGHT WITH ME!" he shrieked. He stripped off the Seiko watch and shook it in front of Jake. "WHEN I ASKED YOU IF THIS RAN ON A DIPOLAR CIRCUIT, YOU SAID IT DIDN'T! SO DON'T TELL ME YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M TLAKING ABOUT WHEN YOU ALREADY MADE IT CLEAR THAT YOU DO!"
"But...but..." Jake couldn't go on. His head was whirling with fear and confusion. He was aware, in some far-off fashion, that he was licking as much water as he could off his lips.
"THERE'S A THOUSAND OF THOSE EVER-FUCKING DIPOLAR COMPUTERS RIGHT UNDER THE EVER-FUCKING CITY, MAYBE A HUNDRED THOUSAND, AND THE ONLY ONE THAT STILL WORKS DON'T DO A THING EXCEPT PLAY WATCH ME AND RUN THOSE DRUMS! I WANT THOSE COMPUTERS! I WANT THEM WORKING FOR ME!"
The Tick-Tock Man bolted forward on his throne, seized Jake, shook him back and forth, and then threw him to the floor. Jake struck one of the lamps, knocking it over, and the bulb blew with a hollow coughing sound. Tilly gave a little shriek and stepped backward, her eyes wide and frightened. Copperhead and Brandon looked at each other uneasily.
Tick-Tock leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, and screamed into Jake's face: "I WANT THEM AND I MEAN TO HAVE THEM!"
Silence fell in the room, broken only by the soft whoosh of warm air pouring from the ventilators. Then the twisted rage on the Tick-Tock Man's face disappeared so suddenly it might never have existed at all. It was replaced by another charming smile. He leaned further forward and helped Jake to his feet.
"Sorry. I get thinking about the potential of this place and sometimes I get carried away. Please accept my apology, cully." He picked up the overturned dipper and threw it at Tilly. "Fill this up, you useless bitch! What's the matter with you?"
He turned his attention back to Jake, still smiling his TV game-show host smile.
"All right; you've had your little joke and I've had mine. Now tell me everything you know about dipolar computers and transitive circuits. Then you can have a drink.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“Jake opened his mouth to say something--he had no idea what--and then, incredibly, Roland's voice was in his mind, filling it.
Distract them, Jake--and if there's a button that opens the door, get close to it.
The Tick-Tock Man was watching him closely. "Something just came into your mind, didn't it, cully? I always know. So don't keep it a secret; tell your old friend Ticky."
Jake caught movement in the corner of his eye. Although he did not dare glance up at the ventilator panel--not with all the Tick-Tock Man's notice bent upon him--he knew that Oy was back, peering down through the louvers.
Distract them...and suddenly Jake knew just how to do that.
"I did think of something," he said, "but it wasn't about computers. It was about my old pal Gasher. And his old pal, Hoots."
"Here! Here!" Gasher cried. "What are you talking about, boy?"
"Why don't you tell Tick-Tock who really gave you the password, Gasher? Then I can tell Tick-Tock where you keep it."
The Tick-Tock Man's puzzled gaze shifted from Jake to Gasher. "What's he talking about?”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“Jake tried to pull away from the clutching hand and went sprawling on the Tick-Tock Man's throne. His eye fell on a pocket which had been sewn into the right-hand arm-rest. Jutting from the elasticized top was the cracked pearl handle of a revolver.
"Oh, cully, how you'll suffer!" the Tick-Tock Man whispered ecstatically. The O of surprise had been replaced by a wide, trembling grin. "Oh how you'll suffer! And how happy I'll be to...WHAT--?"
The grin slackened and the surprised O began to reappear as Jake pointed the cheesy nickel-plated revolver at him and thumbed back the hammer. The grip on Jake's ankle tightened until it seemed to him that the bones there must snap.
"You DASN'T!" Tick-Tock said in a screamy whisper.
"Yes I DO," Jake said grimly, and pulled the trigger of the Tick-Tock Man's runout gun. There was a flat crack, much less dramatic than the Schmeisser's Teutonic roar. A small black hole appeared high up on the right side of Tick-Tock's forehead. The Tick-Tock Man went on staring up at Jake, disbelief in his remaining eye.
Jake tried to make himself shoot him again and couldn't do it.
Suddenly a flap of the Tick-Tock Man's scalp peeled away like old wallpaper and dropped on his right cheek. Roland would have known what this meant; Jake, however, was now almost beyond coherent thought. A dark, panicky horror was spinning across his mind like a tornado funnel. He cringed back in the big chair as the hand on his ankle fell away and the Tick-Tock Man collapsed forward on his face.
The door. He had to open the door and let the gunslinger in.
Focusing on that and nothing but, Jake let the pearl-handled revolver clatter to the iron grating...”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands