Ambient (18 page)

"O'Malley. "

I steered Avalon off the curb, attempting to get us across the
street so that we might make our way down a block or so where
the crowds would thin. A cockfight was being held just off the
median between Broadway and Seventh; a ring stood round to
bet on the outcome, to see which bird would move toward greater
victories and which would provide soup for twelve.

"O'Malley!"

Someone was getting closer, coming up behind us, and I preferred to avoid. Avalon and I came to the unbroken rows of cars
in the street and began climbing over, stepping onto bumpers,
crawling over hoods where we had to, ducking back as cyclists
sped between the cars, whistles ablow. I lifted her over the spikes
at the 1 A lane and then leapt over myself. A halftrack rumbled
toward us as we cleared the opposite line of spikes. Agonized
cries arose over the hubbub. We looked away as two young women
and an old man were pressed flat; the vehicle rolled on, leaving
its red carpet behind.

"O'Malley!" the voice repeated, "Stop!"

We reached the south side of the street, pushed our way past
the Herald Center, slid through the lines awaiting admittance into
the ground floor's Army recruitment center. Ten stories up, along
the building's cornice, on continuous run, passed the message
SEE NEW YORK WHILE YOU CAN. I saw a Seventh Avenue
bus steering downtown, pulling to the curb near us.

''Stop!!„

"What'll we do?" asked Avalon.

The bus stopped; passengers tumbled out as new ones pushed
in, leapt on, clambered topside.

"Get on," I said, shoving her forward. "We'll outdistance
and get off. Breakaway then. Hurry."

Avalon and I were the last two to force ourselves inside before the door shut. We were held tight between passengers on the
higher entrance steps and the door, our arms squashed against
our sides, our legs pinned to where we stood, our bodies molded
against one another as if forming a vacuum seal. Had we been
able to breathe it would have been quite arousing to be so near
her. Something clawed at my back; turning my head, I could see
a man running alongside the bus. His arm was caught in the door
but he obviously wanted to keep his place; he jumped nimbly
over potholes, sprang high to avoid other vehicles. The bus stopped
suddenly and he was crushed between two postal vans. The bus
crawled a few feet further, pulling to within six feet of the curb;
the doors opened.

"O'Malley," Avalon wheezed, "Get out! This is fuckin' awful-"

"Too late-"

Dozens of people packed onto the bus; I felt my feet leave the
floor as we were rammed along. The driver seemed unconcerned
with taking fares, stared idly ahead, chewing on a toothpick. We
found ourselves within the front quarter of the bus, held so tightly
as if we'd been dropped into cement. By removing seats from
buses the city had been able to provide surplus room for additional passengers.

"Stept'rrr'd'gm'pl'z," the amplified voice of the driver crackled: the quality of sound coming over the speaker suggested
someone calling for help, while sinking in a fen, welded within
an oil drum.

"Fuck-" Avalon said; we were separated during the last onslaught. "I'm suffocating-"

"Hold on," I gasped. Someone prodded my side with an umbrella; there was still no way I could raise my arms. I wasn't sure
how far we'd gone; so many passengers hung on the outside that
it was impossible to see past them. The bus lurched again and
stopped. Another shipment jammed inward.

"O'Malley," Avalon screamed, "Help me!"

Only her head was visible; she drifted slowly away from me
as if toward a whirlpool. In the center of the bus the crowd became more liquid; I leaned forward, certain that I wouldn't fall.
It was almost possible to swim across.

"Help!!" Avalon reached out her hand; with enormous effort
I threw myself forward, seizing it.

"When I stop," I panted, seeing that she was level with the
side door, "Dig out. Push. Shove. Just get out."

"Yeah," she said.

The bus stopped; a hiss suggested that the unseen door to our
left was opening.

"Now!"

One of my feet brushed the floor; I used it to propel myself
forward. Avalon was out; a heavy man blocked my exit as he
attempted to sneak in.

"Move," I shouted as the doors began to close.

"Fuck you," he shouted back. I knew this would go nowhere;
with my free hand I reached up, digging my knuckles into his
eyes. His great weight wedged the doors apart; as he fell back I
plunged out with him, into the street. The bus pulled away, blowing vast black diesel clouds over us.

"Shamey," Avalon said, rushing over to help me, "are you
all right?"

My suit was torn, beneath my long coat. One of my shoes hung
halfway off my foot. Avalon's face was scratched, and her boots
were scarred and scuffed. Her jeans were damp with fresh stains,
and her sweater was yanked up over her breasts; as she began
rolling it down, she looked at me oddly, and screamed.

"You're hurt."

"No, I'm not," I said, feeling my face, attempting to discover
what had happened, wondering why I hadn't begun feeling the
pain. "Am I?"

"Somebody bit your ear off."

Raising my hand to the side of my head, I discovered a sorrowful absence. "It's gone," I said. "My earring."

"What about your ear?" she asked. "It's not bleeding yet."

"It won't bleed," I said. "They're fake. I can get another
ear-"

"I'll get you new earrings. Come on."

"Enid gave them to me-"

"Where are we, anyway?"

"Seventh and Twenty-sixth. Just outside Chelsea. Come
on. "

With our Drydencards we had no difficulty entering the Chelsea Secondary Zone, our bedraggled look notwithstanding. Chelsea, boozhie-crammed, was a dreadful area awash with those lured
to Manhattan by organizations such as Dryco, all hypnotized by
the promise that for a few well-suffered years here, one's driven
path to glory in other, more settled regions of the country might
be made all the more sunwashed-so long as the visit was survived, certainly. To supply the whims of the neighborhood residents, innumerable booties filled Seventh Avenue's storefronts,
each good for about three months' existence-until the fad died
or the rent raised. We passed restaurants providing naught but
confections of beche-de-mer and seaweed; stores selling nothing
but one particular item: lamps or signs, shirts or knives. At Sixteenth, just before the barricade separating Chelsea from the Village Control Zone, was a large antique shop whose sign proclaimed it as the largest vendor of Nasty Nineties furniture in
New York.

We walked the length of Fourteenth Street east, crossing through
the barricade at Broadway into the East Village Secondary Zone.
We were in that but shortly; at Third, we reached the wall surrounding Loisaida and went in.

"This is what it's like on this side?" Avalon asked. She seemed nervous, though it was difficult to read her features as dusk drew
deeper.

Ambient graffiti was etched into the side of an abandoned
building at Tenth Street: GODNESS LIVES-DO YOU? We
continued along; many people were having dinner at that time of
evening, and so the streets were not so crowded as they often
were. After so long we came to my building. The unlit marquee
showed the weekend features as being Children of Paradise and
Jules and Jim. During our walk down and over I'd kept sharp
eyes apprised; no one seemed to have followed us, whether on
foot or in car. The gates across Belsen's door were unshuttered;
we went in.

"Lester?" I shouted; there was no one in the foyer of the club,
and the lights were down within. Through the tobacco smoke I
distinguished several vague forms near the bar.

"Ola," Ruben said, emerging from the haze. His shirt was
off; he looked as if he'd been cleaning something, judging from
the dirt smudging his shoulders and chest.

"Enid or Margot about?" I asked.

"On the other side still," he said.

Avalon stared as Ruben lifted one foot to his mouth, extracting
his cigarette so that he could speak with greater ease; he tapped
its ashes away against the side of the door.

"Back this eve?"

He shook his head. "Spilling charms yon and hith. At play
with Brook's babble. Tu corazon?"

"Mi corazon," I said, holding Avalon tightly, as if fearful she
might try to dash away. "We'll raise and close. If lozels prowl
near-"

He nodded. We walked to the stairway and went up, picking
our way over those encamped in the hall. I unlocked the door and
we went inside. Avalon stood motionless in the center of the
room., as if overwhelmed.

"You live here?" she asked.

"You get used to it."

the sofa.
" This thing got any bugs in it?" she asked, pointing toward

"None that bite," I said. She frowned, but sat.

"Got anything to drink, Shameless?"

"Vodka. Pepsi. Want a glass?"

"Vodka. And a glass if it doesn't look like the rest of the
place. "

"Here," I said, recovering a bottle from Enid's stock. She
took it from me and gulped a long one. "Don't worry," I said,
"we'll be safe here until we figure out what to do."

"We must be on the takeout list now, on any score," she said.

"Join the crowd."

"What's going to happen to us, Shamey?"

"Let's just take it as it comes," I said, for the moment unwilling to even try to think of something.

"Is everyone down here like that guy-" she began to say; she
suddenly jumped, as if she'd been pricked. "Somebody's here."

"Where?" I whispered, looking around.

"Listen. I heard them say something."

I listened. The only sound I heard was Door ajar. Please shut.

"That's the refrigerator."

"Oh," she asked, relaxing, taking another guzz. "Are there a
lot of those freaks down here?"

"There're a lot of people like that down here," I said.

"I heard your sister's like that," she said. "Is she?"

"Enid wasn't a born Ambient," I explained. "She chose to be
one. She's not exactly like them."

"Looks more normal?"

"In a sense."

"She chose to be one of them?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Why are they called Ambients?"

"Because they're forever all around." That was how Enid put
it.

"Who came up with that name?"

"They did."

She shuddered. Her eyes drew quietly shut as she sat upon the
sofa.

"Tired?" I asked. "Stupid question."

"Can I use your shower?"

"Sure." We had a pump and tank in the basement; bought a
week's supply at a time. Even if water had been still provided by
the city to our zone, there were no pipes other than the old main
sewer lines through which it might be run, and there were none
of these near our building. "Try not to use too much water."

"I won't," she said. "Where's the bathroom?"

"In there. Be careful if you sit down."

"Why?"

"Rats crawl up through the pipes sometimes."

"You tried poison?"

"Things aren't that bad yet," I laughed; so did she. "There
might be a towel in there."

"Might be?"

"I usually drip-dry. Enid keeps a pile of dirt to roll around
in." She looked as if she believed me.

"Be out shortly," she said.

She closed the door behind her and started running out the
water; she flushed the toilet twice. I supposed I could catch rain
water in tubs and filter the larger impurities. I went into the bedroom and took a few minutes to nail a blanket over the crater in
the ceiling. Climbing down, I looked over the stacks of old books
that Enid had gathered over the years. She, like most Ambients,
read anything they could find. Visible titles included Anomalies
and Curiosities of Medicine, Bolitho's Camera Obscura, Human
Behaviour in the Concentration Camp, Nash's Unfortunate Traveller, Perverse Crimes in History, Fort's Lo!, and The Greening of America. I returned to the front room. Sitting down, I switched
on the news.

"-burned and raped before being-"

I watched for a time. The president and First Lady left for
Camp David for their monthly vacation, having sent condolences
to the security adviser's widow. A witch was burned in Ohio. In
Japan a defense plant leaked cumulonimbus clouds of azure gas;
forty thousand died. The anchor raised her eyebrows, as if she
was in on the joke.

"Coming up next," she said, "Cattle mutilators-friend or
foe?"

There was a commercial for Russian fur jackets; first you saw
the furry little animals and then you eyed the peelings. Then came
a campaign spot: a long white beach, a calm sea, the president
and his dog, Freedom Fighter, jogging along the sand; a folksinger sang of the joys of American mornings. It wasn't the president, of course, nor his dog; both were actors. The president,
when outside, was always surrounded by a phalanx of Secret Service agents.

Lastly a different spot came on, a public service message. The
first shot was of a little boy shooting up; his finger quivered as
the rush hit. There followed a scene of a crone thrashing a toddler
with a long stick; blood flowed from his nose and ears. Then
there was footage of a middle-aged man raping an eight-year-old
girl; she screamed in pain. Fade to black, and the message came
up:

KIDS.

Black, medium hold, and then:

KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF 'EM.

A repeated buzzing and bumping rang out downstairs; it sounded
as if they were cutting off their limbs with clippers. Dire screams snagged my attention. I got up and looked out the window to
estimate the turnout; the crowd was usually large on Saturday
nights. Dozens of Ambients queued outside. The evening fog
was light. A dark car was parked across the street. The shadows
within were lit by the dash's pale purple illumination. I was fairly
sure that the auto was a Redstar. I moved quickly to another
window, turning off the TVC on the way; from my new vantage
point I saw that the plates were IA. It was past eight; at this hour
one began to ready the cudgel even without such prompting.