Ambient

by Jack Womack

  "Why then toil for his betterment? In just admiration of his holy glory?"

  "No. We've got to have money, Enid. Godness knows your businesses don't bring enough in-"

  "Ah," she said. "Then for the long long green and a better's taste. "

  "Yes. "

  "A taste better fitting our own soft mouths?"

  "Of course."

  "And your tidbit's mouth so well?"

  "Yes."

  "Is it for her rather than you that you ready for this?"

  "For both of us," I said.

  "Both?"

  "For all."

  "For her," said Enid. "As said, sight your own risk first. In her paw would you lay your soul? Do you fret that if you do she might leave you noddypeaked and bowelfettered?"

  She wouldn't do that," I said. "I trust her."

  "And what of your owner?"

  "As much as I can."

  "How far could you throw, then?"

  "Far enough," I said. "It's just hard to tell. I have to run on hunches and guesswork."

  "His plays might miss the cushion?"

  "Maybe. He's been so off and running for so long."

  "So if the young one troubles so well," she said, "overthwart him. Nail and faretheewell."

  "It's the Old Man I'm supposed to-"

  "Double their trouble. Carry off and pash them. First the one, second the other. Squeeze their sheets and have their drippings warm."

  "It's not worth it," I said. "Slip doing that and I'm in the street. If I'm unlucky."

  "If luck shines?"

  "I'll be dead."

  "Beat me. What else to do?"

  "What I'll be doing."

  "If luck yields you'll be off no worse than most."

  A middle-aged woman slipped at the edge of an excavation and tumbled in. The rats set upon her before she could be dragged out. Everyone listened to her screams, and watched.

  "So worse is most that nothing bears so little bad. If loss nears, Seamus, then lose all and be proudfull. "

  "If that comes, it comes. I wish-"

  "Wish and wing away. You could Hamlet for age over age," she said. "Hear me now before you pave your dark road, thripping fingers to perp and blast. My brother's soul I feel my own. Your power is mightier than your sword. I've seen all. In light you insinuate smooth. At dark's need you take your tyrant garb. Let your inside traipse limber. Earplay the life and list to other options. Time irons all and the pieces drop like maydown. Destiny's book is unreadable but you can steal the lines ahead. If triumph comes, use gain to good effect. Salve the lost and damned in New York's stews. Flea the owner's ears. Lift their dresses high and rip their oysters' pearls. Be the Naz and still spend your biscuit in your honey's little pot."

  "That'd be the best," I said, thinking of Avalon; however it went, we wouldn't be apart. If I had to leave Enid, though"But I'm afraid it'll slip through my hands if I try."

  "Then take hands and grab," she said. "Even romance has a room if a house is there to hold it."

  We kept walking. At 12th was a small Ambient iglesee; the inverted cross hung over the door. In the window was a ceramic Jesus: he lay on his back, his arms outstretched; his wrists and legs bled, the hump between his shoulders was scored and diced, his head was bloodied, his guts poured out his side. A broad grin calmed his face. Regular services and weekday affairs took place at the iglesees; one Sunday each month--the one upcoming would be this month's-all Ambients, original and voluntary, met at a place they called Under the Rock. I knew where it was, but had never gone there, for those meetings are offtouch to non-Ambients. When I first heard of the place, years before, I wondered about the name. Upon the rock shall the church be, said Enid, and under the rock will be we.

  Only Catholic churches and Ambient iglesees served the purposes for which they were consecrated. I remembered when there were many churches. Bad judgment by past government leaders caused them, long before, to push through the acts that sanctified America as a Christian nation in law so well as in spirit a year before the Q documents were revealed.

  The Q documents-discovered by a team of Israeli and American archaeologists-were the long-lost original gospels. They detailed how Jesus, a trusting sort, was hired by Pilate to spread confusion among warring Jewish factions; how Judas found out and so betrayed his betrayer; how Jesus, pulled from the cross in time's nick by those wishing to use the affair for their own effect, recovered and was by accident seen by his horrified followers; how some of his followers were so horrified that they wished to kill him-again; how Jesus escaped with his wife, Mary Magdalene; how he died, at an advanced age, somewhere far from Gethsemane. You can infer the rest.

  The documents were examined by all concerned until it was admitted that there could be no doubt. My old Catholic church, troubled by its own problems, felt that the matter certainly warranted further investigation in the future. America had little time to live fully as a Christian nation before the Ebb fulfilled itself. Only vaguely did I recall posters in the subway, put up by churchmen: photos of log-stacked Auschwitz victims, the message below reading Accept Christ And Live.

  When we reached Sloan's we bashed through the curbside crowds, busy victoring the spoils from the street bins. We passed the barriers set up to thwart food rioters, went through the metal detectors, and at last received a basket in exchange for our deposit. Enid ran down the aisles, dumping in horrors galore: Slurpies, Sugar Tarts, Whoopies, Stickies, and a brand of candy called Braineaters, which came in the form of jelly-filled skulls. I picked up a few apples and oranges, fresh from Spain, which at least retained the skins in which they had been issued. To keep our buys separate I stuck my fruits onto Enid's nails.

  "We need toilet paper," I said, realizing as I said it that I supposed mine would be supplied elsewhere for awhile.

  "The tile is free for all to peel."

  She threw a loaf of Softee bread into the basket; it bounced out, as if trying to escape. We caught it near the dairy aisle.

  "I've a bizarre idea," I said.

  "Que?"

  "Why don't you buy something healthy?" I said, looking over the colorful labels and shiny bags in the basket.

  "Porque?"

  "Variety," I said, picking up a bag of Sugar Chips and shaking it; it rattled, as if filled with tacks. "It wouldn't kill you."

  "Why enact what hasn't conclusion?"

  I convinced her. She picked up a box of Soyream and a block of Kraft Dairy Solid. She would even have gotten a carton of eggs, but this month's New York delivery was consigned by the government for our Italian friends, or friends of theirs, or friends of someone's. There were other things needed, but the store was out; no matter how much of anything came into Manhattan, it was never enough.

  Supplied, we aimed for the exit, returning our basket before we entered the line. The mob resembled rush at the barricades, but our line was short; we reached the cashier in less than half an hour. The market had Vidiac; a bank of monitors hung above the checkout aisles, but I didn't watch. I thumbed papers in the nearby racks. There was a useful article detailing how vampires might be distinguished, and thus avoided, in the work place; another entitled IS YOUR SPOUSE A REINCARNATED SEX KILLER? with the True Story of The Hackensack Ripper As Told By His Ex-Wife From Beyond The Grave. Tiempo's cover article concerned the coming food explosion-sounded unpleasant-and, past the features, several news photos-thus allowable-showed dead young women decked in lingerie.

  "Oneseen, allseen," said Enid, glancing over my shoulder. "Man's pride dulls all." She tossed back the copy of McCall's she'd been looking over; FORTY THINGS TO DO WITH MACARONI was the lead article.

  Once we were rung Enid laid out two dollars; we stuffed the goods into the bags we'd brought. Our trip home was calm; we didn't talk. My mind drifted off to be with Avalon, and I counted the minutes till I'd see her again.

  "No visitors?" I asked Lester, when we returned.

  "No blood," he said, extending one arm, balancing with the other.

&nbs
p; "I didn't ask that," I said. "You'd have licked it up, anyway. " Lester smiled, and bounced down the stairs. We went inside.

  I didn't have to leave just yet-it was only past noon-and so I soaked my apples and oranges, having plucked them from Enid's head, carefully dropping the fruit into the sink one piece at a time, so as not to splash out overmuch water. Enid turned suddenly, as if she'd been slapped.

  "Memory returns," she said. "Tarry a mo. I've an add to your repertoire. "

  She ran back into the bedroom. My refrigerator consoled me.

  ---door ajar. Please shut. Door-"

  I took out the apples and oranges, dried them, and slipped them into my Krylar coat's pocket. Enid returned, carrying a new button-push chainsaw that was no more than a foot and a half long.

  "I'm not going dancing," I said.

  "Court and tease, then," she said. "On off's chance."

  "It's rather puny, isn't it?"

  "But marvel." She held the chainsaw away from us, turning it on. As she pushed the button the saw shot outward, tripling its length as it roared away.

  "Cunning," I said, impressed. "A bit overmuch for what I expect. "

  "Then in event your expectation adjusts. Carry, for me if you will."

  "What if it goes off accidentally?" I asked. "I could lose something. "

  "As you could if you don't tote it," she said. "The safety's on, till yours goes off."

  "Where'd you get it?" I asked, noting the file marks obliterating the serial plate.

  "A friend whose fingers burned with it. Encloak it in your wrap. "

  "All right. Gracias, Enid."

  "Por mivida," she said, slipping it into one of my long coat's inner pockets. "Seamus?"

  "Yes?"

  "I spec we'll glimpse sooner than you see," she said, "But-"

  "I'll be back in a couple of months."

  "If but in other shape we ever clasp again," she said, "My blood beats your heart allafter, everafter, till time's lovely end. Take as you will. "

  She kissed me; her spikes scratched my forehead. I didn't bleed much.

  "Too early on the light aroused," she said. "Left me drumbling poor and undermeal. I'm to bed and bideaway till eve crawls up dark. "

  "Take care."

  She walked back into the bedroom, shedding her clothes as she went. Before she went in she bent over to pick up one of her bottles. I smiled as I looked at her massive gray flanks, thinking of Lucy, the late rhinoceros. She'd be fine in my absence, I knew, and so I worried about her not at all. Only Enid had kept me straight and narrow, made me continue school, found the funds that allowed me to do so, stood by me at every time of pain. But her life was hers; mine was mine.

  As I went downstairs I readied myself; I walked out, heading over to Third Avenue. Jimmy always picked me up on the north side of the 14th Street barricade, before we cruised uptown to pick up Mister Dryden and Avalon. I'd be the last one in the car today, it was so late.

  The guards at the barricade's pedway looked to be vets of the Brooklyn campaign, judging from their mien and their insignia. When I showed them my IA card they waved me through, sans exam, sans questioning. Just outside, some Army boys took turns raping a woman; one standing near appeared to have rigged a reproduction of his unit's insignia from a coat hanger and held the decorative end over a fire. I turned my head, so as to pretend I hadn't seen. Jimmy stood by the car, watching; when he saw me he waved.

  "Hop in," he said, looking up at the sunny gray sky. I slid in beside him, nodding to Mister Dryden and Avalon who were in the back, seated some feet apart. We took off, aiming toward Broadway. Most of our trip passed in silence, as if by speaking we feared we might break our bond and spoil our luck. On occasion a few words slipped out, as if to increase tension.

  "Anything but party this afternoon?" Avalon asked; she lay curled up in the back seat's corner. Mister Dryden sat in the seat behind me, playing a game-to have judged from the beeps, and lack of dialogue-on the IBM.

  "Dad'11 want to sport after."

  "And chapel?"

  "You know Dad," he said.

  Midtown and Times Square and the Clinton Twilight Zone were as they ever were. After we entered the Upper West Secondary Zone at Sixty-first, surroundings felt busy but not so tenuous (the ridge east of Broadway, further up, was high enough to remain above the water, it was believed, and so remained better kept). At 120th West Harlem began. That Twilight Zone ran to 181st; there, the Inwood Secondary Zone-boozhie-laden, like the Upper West-picked up.

  At 119th, Jimmy patted my arm and motioned beyond the exit.

  "Bullyrige it looks up there," he said.

  Between 120th and 135th the subway became an el. Youngsters had derailed the train. The Demon Lovers, likely; they'd divided the area since domesticating the neighborhood Droozies. Jimmy and I lifted binocs so we could viz more clearly what was downcoming. Half the cars remained on the trestle, half hung over the side. The front car lay crumpled in the intersection of Broadway and 125th. Members of the gang scampered over the sides of the cars, tossing in mollies, ducking as they blasted. Others ran through the cars still on the track, greeting those who hadn't escaped.

  "Duppies look like roaches, don't they?" said Jimmy. He turned on the broadcaster, tuning what might be heard on the train's intercom. The automatic recording played, saying, "there is another train just behind this one. Step lively."

  Army vehicles positioned, rocketing the train. As the fires climbed up the cars, the bright graffiti blackened; flashes flew up with each blast like sparks from a fireplace log. Only the need for reliable public transport kept trains running; only in Manhattan, only during the day. The fare was high-a quarter-but I doubted that anyone paid, not anymore. I never went in the subway; trouble finds you well enough without your looking.

  "Overmuch warifying. Boys too blueswee and jang-bang with vex. We'll take Henry," said Jimmy. "Belt up."

  We belted, and we turned onto 120th; Jimmy switched on the electroshield. We passed Riverside Church and Grant's Tomb, dark and battered in the afternoon haze. Handy, unoccupied structures were often used by the Army boys for target practice.

  The drive up Riverside was uneventful. Residents of West Harlem needed fuel too badly to live with the comforting sight of a forest at riveredge, and where once a squirrel could leap from limb to limb for blocks without touching ground, stumps replaced trees and stews replaced squirrels. As a teenager, I remembered hearing stories of the Naturals, who, it was said, lived in the park, having turned against civilization as they found it, living off whatever or whoever might be caught. They were said to wear cloaks of thorned shrubbery and masks of carved tree bark. All romance, after all, one of those tales you grow up hearing-such as how blind alligators swim through the sewers' murk, or that if you piss on the third rail you'll be electrocuted, or that most of the homebodies once had money in bushels. Certainly not; only the ones living before the Ebb.

  Driving beneath the Army-green girders of the George Washington Bridge, watching the great flags hanging down from the arches billow in the breeze, passing the broken stubs of the toll booth plaza, we reached the Saw Mill Parkway, which was under Army guard. In lieu of conversation, I turned on the radio, dialing to WINS news. Israeli settlements on the Persian Gulf were shelled by Iraq. Tass reported that the Czara and the Politburo met to discuss the growing demand among the Russian people for vid channels of their own choosing. An unconfirmed report from the White House listed the security adviser missing and unaccounted. The president's Food Commission reported that hunger in America had been eliminated among those who hadn't starved. Dryco had done its part in the past to accomplish that goal. Parcels of supplies had been airlifted to starving farm communities in Indiana at the Old Man's request nine months earlier. That the supplies consisted of surplus diet pills, laxatives, and pictures of E was noticed before takeoff. Not even the Old Man's foes claimed that the huge boxes were deliberately dropped into the midst of the crowds; they were.

  After an hour-i
t was just past three-we turned off the parkway onto the estate road; the guards saluted as we passed. The estate stretched from the river several miles in and several miles up. There were forty-five buildings on the grounds besides the main house and the chapel. Guards, relatives, friends, tutors, proxies, lalas, visitors, and hangers-on stayed in the other houses. I even had a house provided for me on our weekends. Mine had fourteen rooms; I'd never seen half of them.

  "Dress," Mister Dryden said to Avalon. He seemed eager for fun. She put that wonderful wig back on again; slipped on a pair of black stilettos and pulled on a heavy white ribbed sweater. It covered her to the tops of her thighs.

  "Wifey ought to like this outfit," she said.

  "She won't notice."

  "You could set her on fire and she wouldn't notice. But I know who will. "

  "Birthday boy?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Father equals son," Mister Dryden said, smiling.

  We drove by the airstrip. The Old Man retained four jets, refitted Boeing 837s. Neither the Old Man nor Mister Dryden flew much anymore; it was too easy to take a plane down. The copters, big black Sikorsky autogiros, were also there. Tucked in one of the hangars was the Old Man's first airplane, a prop job he and his first partners had bought in Boca Raton, in the days before he'd even met Susie D; some wit, years past, had scrawled Rosebud across the nose. The airstrip's radarscopes were in constant operation; if an attack was launched by anyone other than Russia itself-not likely-exos would take all intruders so well as most of the neighboring property. A starscope searched the skies hourly for flying saucers. The Old Man faithfully believed a Church of E precept that, upon his return, E would come to earth in some sort of flying saucer, accompanied by a retinue of, in the Old Man's phrasing, "space critters."

  The Old Man loved security. A twelve-foot stone wall surrounded the central estate. The grounds were further protected by razorwire, searchlights, alarms; by wolves; by machine-gun towers spaced every five hundred feet along the walls. Copters flew over every five minutes clockround. There was a small-gauge railroad running underground from the estate to the Dryco building in the event that a hasty escape became necessary-it never had, and doubtless never would.