Ambient (9 page)

The smog was nearly translucent. I passed through the checkpoint at Canal Street. A sanitation truck roared through the barricade behind me, rushing down Canal. It stopped at Bowery; the
driver raised the truck's bin and dumped its load into the street.
Hundreds of bags burst, hitting the ground. The driver returned
to his starting zone. Trash pickups in the Downtown Control Zone
and in the abutting Secondary zones were recycled over the wall,
in the Loisaida Twilight Zone, the barrio de noch, my neighborhood. It was easy to get into a Twilight Zone. The official name
for such an area was an Enterprise Zone, but no one who lived in
them called them anything but Twilight Zones.

I stepped through previously recycled garbage as I strolled Canal, garbage scattered further by tads plucking deposit cans, hoping
to turn them roundo, penny for ten. At Mulberry I weaved north,
pushing through the crowds, scooting past the clunkers scuffling
the streets; once such a mobile home was obtained, a family could
drive a Twilight Zone indefinitely, taking turns at the wheel,
stopping only to tank and turn. I knew the streets by rote; none
bore street signs. A stranger might be lost for days, though the
locals would surely spot him long before.

Merengues blared from a thousand boxes. Droozies (the Dru-
zhinas-local vigilante units who, in zones, parceled order as
they saw fit) had stripped a young girl, shaved her head, and,
having daubed her in tar, trounced her with long poles. Consorting with Army boys, or so suspected; that was the usual treatment
for such dalliance. There'd been a blast farther up; smoke dyed
the air brownish-blue. Folks perused the bodies in the street, retrieving what might later prove usable. Someone from on high
lobbed a chunk of concrete; it bounced off the hardhat I wore
down here. Knees buckling, I moved along, suspecting no personal animosity. Ahead, youths lithely sprang through a restaurant window, followed by additional youths swinging bats, pipes,
and old parking meters. Losing their quarry, they upended pedicabs and trampled the riders. Their colors announced them as
members of the Law's Long Arms. An old Pontiac scraped along
the street, hauling produce from the Javits Center. The car was
tireless; the women pulling had a rough time of it. Nearby, two
rascals wedged a boy into a crack between two buildings and took
turns playing Johnny-in-the-pony. At the corner of Grand, a woman
straddled a man lying in the walk, caressing him repeatedly with
a hammer; her point seemed moot. I paused to give ear to two
accordionists playing Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and gave them
each a nickel. One put the change into a plastic capsule and swallowed it, so that it might be recovered safely, once home. I always went through Chinatown, walking from the Tombs; when
stalking time settled, it was the safest route.

An Army truck bashed through the crowd, lights on and sirens
roaring. The Home Army boys never patrolled Twilight Zones in
standard fashion; they'd sooner go into Long Island. Antiterror
units came in periodically, for gaiety, and for the touch of the
multitude. The truck stopped; soldiers stood up in the back.

"Baffle!" they drawled, firing into the people.

I dove into a nearby doorway, estimating I'd be missed. The
soldiers shrieked like ghosts as they reloaded. I edged my head
past the corner of the door and looked out. The wire shirt beneath
the truck had pulled away on one side; someone so observant as
I tossed in a mollie. Seconds later the truck hurtled into the air,
crashing in flames on a group holding the corner of Kenmare.
Those troops who survived were extracted from the wreckage by
samaritans, and torn and shredded.

I ran down Delancey, a wide street lined with buildings' dry
shells. The Brooklyn sky was deep red; the towers of the old
Williamsburg bridge far away shone bloodish in the reflected light.
I heard shouts; the truck blew.

On Eldridge Street I slowed. Nobody lived here, not anymore,
not even squatters. Hanging from the sides of buildings were
bloody-boned remains, left as warning. The Moonboys, an undernourished contingent, controlled this area; but they knew me,
and if any prowled nearby, they must have supposed it not worth
giving greeting. Haphazard blockades of cement blocks, boards,
and barrels still filled the intersections, tossed across by citizens
long lost. I walked the street's middle, whistling "Big Noise in
Winnetka," avoiding open manholes and excavations. There were
no streetlights in our zone-they brought good money as scrapand it was a smoggy night, but I pulled my flash and had no
trouble. I passed the hull of a century-old synagogue; every inch
of it was graffitied. There were the usual tags, obscenities, and
political messages: U S OUT OF NORTH AMERICA, NO FUTURE, MY RIGHTS OR I BITE.

A better-lettered sign stood in the midst of the street, placed by the Army years before. Don't Touch Anything, it read, It Could
Kill You. Smudged handprints nearly obliterated the warning.

I climbed over heaps of debris where buildings had fallen into
the street. Near one heap was a skeleton, lying languidly on the
pavement, as if awaiting the next course. Feeling my high school
soccer-team days again, I booted the skull down the street; ran
and booted it again. It went for point against an empty hydrant;
startled rats scrambled for cover. Two copters whipped over, all
searchlights on, their pale beams piercing the smog. Someone
had dropped off a city bus further along; it lay on one side, blasted
and burned. HAVE A NICE DAY, its destination sign read.

Heading east on Houston Street, I entered my quarter. People
crowded the streets once more: residents of every creed and color,
Ambient throughout. I walked north on Avenue C. My part of
the neighborhood was safe as could be; our Droozies kept a pretense of order in the area, and Ambients tended not to injure
others reasonlessly-though when they had reason they were the
most dangerous opponents of all. As I walked through, I felt the
sustaining comfort of being in the place where I had grown up,
knowing all and having all know me.

In lieu of streetlights, trash can fires, supplied and fed by the
block associations, cast warm orange light through the haze. Our
building was at Avenue C and 4th, two five-story tenements joined
years before to form one. We had abandoned the upper three
floors; nobody around here could afford to rent apartments no
matter the charge, and landlords weren't esteemed no matter who
they were. I'd blocked the windows of our building, and sealed
the upper stairway, but bargain finders had still snuck in. The last
time I'd looked, it appeared that much of our roof was out on
indefinite loan.

Enid and I lived on the second floor. On the ground floor were
her two small businesses; Ambients were born entrepreneurs. One
was a nickelodeon, the Simplex, a rep house showing classic
films on vid. The screen was of unbreakable thirty-foot liqrystal that she'd obtained in trade for our father's old leather coat. The
sound wasn't marvelous, but you could usually hear something.
You kept your feet propped unless you wished to feed the rats.
The marquee was unlit, but I knew what was playing. This week's
bill-subtitled in Spanglish-was A Clockwork Orange and The
Wizard of Oz, favorites of the heartyoung nostalgic.

The other business was her club-hough, Ambients called itBelsen. It catered to Ambients and lovers of Ambient music. Ruben
and Lester, the bouncers, greeted me as I entered. Being Ambients, they dressed as if Halloween Carnival went on year-long.
Being Ambients they would have been hard to miss in any season; Ruben had no arms, and Lester had no body below the navel. Their agility was so great as the average Ambients'. If any
customer grew testy-except during Happy Hour-Ruben loosened them up with his hobnails; then Lester leapt on and windsored. Lester was quite the sweeter of the two; he wore a black
reverse Mohawk and a domino mask with sequins, the kind
Woolworth's sells. Ruben, whose hair was uncombed blond, wore
a discarded camouflage jumpsuit, obtained when he had discarded the former wearer. Inverted crosses hung from their ears.
Ruben and Lester were lovers, which, though no longer illegal,
was frowned upon among non-Ambients.

"Hi-de-ho," I said. They grinned.

"Who hangs and how high, O'Malley?" Lester asked me.

"Skyhigh," I said, "How's biz?"

"Bloody fucko."

"Enid near?" I asked.

"To the clouds she rolled," said Ruben, gesturing upstairs.
"Margot atow. Persuading what she lists."

"Spin and wheel with little diddle," Lester laughed. He reached
up, pulling himself onto a stool one-handed. His arms were big
as my legs.

"Little little."

"Margot lowlying still?" I asked. Margot was Enid's lover. She bartended three nights a week. Except for Ruben and Lester,
Enid never hired any but women, notwithstanding that discriminatory hiring was illegal.

Ruben shook his head, tossing his cigarette to his mouth with
a quick flip of his chin. "To sight your ragged puss in glory
grand," he laughed, "to taunt your mind with apish tricks."

"Wonder and glory," I sighed.

I sat at the bar, nearly ordering my usual-a Pepsi-then,
changing my mind, ordered a triple gin. I hadn't drunk alky in
years, but that evening I wished to bibtuck my mind a spell. The
bartender, a young black woman whose right hand consisted of
two thumbs joined at the shoulder, was new; except for Ruben,
Lester, and Margot, there was constant turnover in the hough.
Ambients tended to circulate in ease if not care. She knew me;
she waived payment. I left her a penny tip anyway; the glass was
clean and unbroken, and she hadn't thrown it at me.

Over the backbar was a scrawled poster listing coming attractions.

TOMORROW

ANN FRANK/BATTERED CHILDREN/MULTIPLE BIRTH DEFECTS

SATURDAY

CELESTIAL PALSY/IRREVERSIBLE BRAIN DAMAGE/ZYKLON-B

The club was closed on Sundays.

At the far end of the bar gathered a pride of transies, resembling proxies at first viz. Their dresses, their hair, makeup, and
forms approximated. Transies were unique among voluntary Ambients in that they chose to add rather than subtract. Those who
could bribe it had T and A augmentation; no one became a transy
who couldn't bribe it. Having done so much, they retained their
artillery, to flash at the uninitiated. They made love only to each
other; posed and preened for all.

I wasn't sure which band prepared to play; Ambient bands were
as one to me. This outfit had a one-armed bassist. They stumbled
over, untuning their instruments. I drank my gin quickly, hoping
to exit before midnight. The band introduced themselves by
throwing a table into the audience. They began bashing the first
song; a composition of their own, I suspected. The audience
thrashed about, hopping up and down, smashing heads together,
clapping stumps, flapping flippers, bouncing from side to side,
wailing and baying and howling for the moon. Ambient singers
are prone to tonelessly shout all lyrics at voice's top; this fellow
was of the traditional school. Two-thirds of the way through their
first number the clock read midnight, and Happy Hour began.
The red lights on the ceiling flashed and the sirens blared. I gulped
my gin and made for the side door. The audience pulled out their
toys and began to play. The chainsaws were revving up as I ran
to our apartment.

At the top of the stairs, I stepped over the homebodies who
had bedded near our door; they were called such because their
bodies were their homes. There were seven in our hall. Many
places provided floor space for them-even the Army let some
spend each evening in Grand Central, perhaps a thousand, by
their count. The official government tally, much lower, enumerated only those who died before morning.

I unlocked the five locks on our door, then the two on the gate,
and went inside. I relocked the locks and slid the gate shut and
put up the police bars. Enid was there, watching TV; Margot
lurked unseen.

"Hi-de-ho, Seamus," she said.

"Ola." Something about her was different; for a moment I
couldn't tell what. "You painted your nails."

"Finified bright and embaled dark," she said. She'd painted
them black; they'd been red. Enid, tired of her head simply shaved,
had six months earlier wheedled the Health Service-she'd gone
to high school with a doctor in the appropriate field and had something on her-into implanting nails, points up, in her scalp.
There were seven great spikes above her forehead and fourteen
smaller ones scattered over her skull. Officially the Health Service refused to treat Ambients, much less offering to adapt those
who wished to become such.

Enid's presence awed the most jaded. She was my height-six
three-and not dissimilar in bulk, for she had worked with weights
since she was seventeen. Tonight she wore a black blank tee, her
spike bracelets, and pink tanga lacies.

"They're you," I said, sitting beside her, kissing her cheek.
Stuffing oozed onto the floor from the sofa as I sat; a rat pattered
off to the kitchen as if to bring me my slippers. I removed my
hardhat and my boots and pulled off my ears, laying them carefully on a nearby crate. Enid gave me those earrings for Easter,
three years before; I was quite protective of them. The throb of
the drums and the bass and the chainsaws resounded through the
soles of my feet; I lolled to the lulling sound of breaking glass.

"Fizgiggling and wandering far, I viz," she said. "How does
downstairs go?" She was drinking from a bottle of Stolichnaya;
she drank two quarts a day.

"Bloody fucko, I'm told."

"Beat me. Pestered full and joyful?"

"Looks that way. Little bitty surly one near?"

"Don't meanmouth," said Enid. "You think her such a whipperginny. Consider her mode."

"Dreadful thought."

She looked at me, quizzical. "Does alky wash your mind?"

"I had one drink."

"Tu?''