Ambient (24 page)

"Bearing east," said Enid, Margot holding tight to her spikes.

We splashed through the murk as if through a bog in the night.
Our flashes cast weak reflections here, as if the air was too sodden to permit the light's unsullied flow. Even on these walls graffiti was scrawled, the lettering dimmed and gray. Besides the
slow rush of water, the only sounds were the chirping of rats and
the occasional hiss of what I-romantic I-imagined to be alligators. The rats in the old sewers were more unsettling than any
alligator; nasty brutes two feet long or more, scampering and
swaying at the edges of the brick crawlways, swimming downstream with us, as if waiting for us to dive or fall below. They didn't come too close; I suppose Enid and Margot scared them
away.

"How much further, Enid?" I asked, after what seemed an
eternity. I felt near collapse.

"Down here and right. Then up, up, up."

We reached another ladder; Enid set Margot upon the rungs
and turned off her flash. Looking up, I could see that above this
exit there was no cover; diffuse light poured down from above.
We climbed up; reached the top and crawled out. I looked around;
my eyes were still adjusting to the brighter dark.

"Where are we now?" I asked.

"Near to riveredge," said Enid.

We stood in an intersection, in the midst of an old housing
project. Moonlight seemed to cause the fog to glow and swirl
around us. Buildings rose high on every side, black hulks with
edges blurred as if for camouflage. When I was young, people
still lived in these places, but before the Ebb, a ruling came down
that the state had no legal right to provide anyone's housing, for
to provide housing to some was unfair to those who didn't need
it. Everyone was evicted and left bare to street's equality.

"Enid-" I began saying as we trudged down the street; our
shoes splashed out lakes of filthy water behind us.

"That building center. Ours."

"Then what?"

"Over and up."

The fog grew more dense as we approached the river. The
huge buildings huddled in clusters as if in mutual protection. The
dusty yards once surrounding the blocks had become jungles of
wild scrub and ailanthus, and impenetrable grass. Roots of dead
trees buckled the sidewalks, and their limbs entwined overhead;
through their tunnels we now passed. Between their spidery arms
swept lights from copters buzzing far overhead. I no longer suspected that we were being followed. From across the river we
heard the kiss of distant shells as they landed.

"You know this part of town?" Avalon asked.

"I haven't been down here in years."

"It's horrible."

"Peaceful," I said.

"What's that noise?" she asked.

"Blasts," I said. "In Brooklyn. On the far side."

"No. I mean that other noise. What the hell is it?"

I listened again, tuning hard. There was another noise, low and
steady. There wasn't surf heavy enough in the East River to cause
such breakers, even during high tide. The sound was quick, and
rhythmic, and deliberate.

"Drums," Enid explained. "Long lengths of pipe pounded.
Brooklyn on the air, ticing all in hearshot. "

There were paths slashed through the brush, leading to the
towers, and so down one we walked, hearing animals moving
unseen on either side of us. Crossing the old parking lot, we
shortly reached the central tower's entrance. The doors were long
gone; access was free and easy. The lobby reminded one that the
buildings had been left unattended for years-no furniture remained, rubbish covered the floor three feet deep in places, the
walls were covered with an undecipherable blend of phrasings.
We didn't even go near the elevators; made our way, instead, to
the stairway. From there, our flashes still shining the route, we
ascended twenty flights.

"Here," said Enid, as we entered the hall, washed agleam
with moonlight. "This way."

Enid kicked in the door of our reserved room-a previous tenant had thoughtlessly left it locked-and we went in. There were
three rooms, mostly bare. Two futons lay on the living room
floor; there was a table in the kitchen, and in the cabinets an
assortment of boxes of heavily sugared breakfast cereal and bottles of water awaited. Enid nodded toward the undraped windows.

"Look there," she said, "Viz the stew ablaze with poison's
light."

So high up as we were-compared with where we had beenthe air appeared, however illusory, so clear as polished glass.
Clouds roiled around the towers as if arising from censers. The
city looked as it always did from a distance, or in photos-beautiful, and still, and warming. Taking comfort in such hallucinations, we made our feast.

"What are you going to do?" I asked Enid, finishing the
box of cereal I'd broken open. I hated to think what manner of
chemicals was encrusting my innards, even as I opened a new
box.

"Home to bed and hideaway after such late carryings-on," she
said. "See what goes. Hasten off callers awaiting your return. "

"Be careful," I said.

"Fear whelms like bile if the flow isn't choked, Seamus," she
said. "We'll away to drift warm in Morphy's arms, till we hear
other from you. AO?"

"But something afoots. What if-?"

Margot sat perched in the windowsill, staring out upon the city
as if, by gazing intently enough, she might at last make it disappear.

"Talk's time is longaway," Enid said. "Do as you list. Keep
eye alight. These wild souls roaming bespeak a cunning armed
to steal you soon from tear's vale."

"Not if I can help it," I said, wondering if I could.

"In all time comes all, well and bad. As events turn, I'll step
my way and go on. Compre?"

Inodded.

"Does the nightmare ride?" I shook my head.

"No," I said, "But it's not going to be amateur hour."

"Nor do amateurs go," she said. "If any foil or lead astray
our dead stand close in spirit, your hands to clasp. Chance no more shall call, Seamus. Use trickery and cozenage. Take hands
and grab."

"If there's naught to grab?"

"Then grab so well as if there were," she said. "It's the do,
not the get, at end-turn. And I spec now that we'd best fly."

"Be careful," I repeated.

"On angel's wings all fear passes far."

I saw them out, hearing the thud of her boots against the hall
floor, the clatter of Margot's hobnails as they tapped along. Avalon had pulled a futon further out into the center of the living
room. The apartment was on the narrow end of the building, and
from there the window's view faced east. I stared out, past the
surrounding towers-dark, mostly, but on each floor of each one
flickering candlelight betrayed squatter's presence.

"Look at the sky out there, Shameless," Avalon murmured,
lying on her side; she'd removed her boots before falling onto the
floor.

Past the towers, in the east, the colors diffused and glared won-
derbright. The crimson sky lightened into a yellowish ocher near
the horizon, sharply outlining the stubs and stumps of Brooklyn.
Particulates deepened the sky's natural hues, but knowing the
cause in no way lessened the effect. Spouts of flame rose up,
spraying like geysers at scattered points along the old city's visible length, as if Brooklyn's fathers had wished to decorate the
borough with spectacular fountains and had gotten it not quite
right.

"How are you?" I asked her, remaining by the window,
watching transfixed, as if gazing into a fireplace.

"Tired," she said. "I didn't think we'd make it."

"I didn't either," I said, not wishing to point out that we still
hadn't.

"Your head better?" she said, whispering. I reached up, pulling her sweater off. Placing my hand to my head, I felt a gigantic,
painful wound.

"Seems to be," I said.

We were silent for several minutes. Though I sat boneached
and sore, sleep wasn't finding me with ease. I remained at the
window.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked me.

"Years ago. I used to sit and stare out the window all the time,
just like this," I said. "When I was young, my family lived on
Riverside Drive. Corner of 79th. Dad owned the building. Enid
and I each had a big room all to ourselves. I'd listen to the stereo
or read. Enid would bring her boyfriends over-"

"Boyfriends?"

"She had them, then," I said. "From other schools. She went
to Brearley. In any event, my windows looked out over the Hudson, and you could see the park, and the river, and Jersey. It was
beautiful to watch the seasons change. The trees would all suddenly turn color in November. First heavy rain would come along
and the leaves would all fall off. Then one morning in late April
or May you'd wake up and new leaves would have popped out
overnight. Gray one day and green the next. I'd sit by the window for hours when I could, looking out, wondering what everything else was like. Wondering what I'd do someday. Where I'd
go.

"When Mom died, I stayed in my room a lot more. Then not
long after that everything changed. It happened so fast-course,
I was so young I hadn't paid attention to anything and wouldn't
have known what was happening even if I had just seems like
one Monday everything was fine and by the next we were down
on Avenue C. That first week down there we had our first breakin. They got my stereo, the TV. We didn't have money anymore,
Dad said, and couldn't get new ones. I remember that I couldn't
really understand why, it'd seemed like we'd always had plenty.

"The next week another bunch broke in while Enid and I were
home alone-the schools were still closed-Enid shoved me into
our old toy chest and told me not to come out or say anything when we heard them breaking down the front door. She tried to
get out on the fire escape but they caught her. There were three
of them, she said later, and I heard her scream as they raped her
over and over and over again. . . . Sometimes now, at night,
I'll hear her screaming again, and then I'll wake up and she'll be
lying there, safe and fast asleep.

"After they left, I dried her off and bandaged her up and then
Dad came home. He went in the kitchen and shut the door and
didn't come out for a long time. Enid and I talked. We decided
we'd stand together and fix them all if they tried anything else.

"She and I went out and bartered some stuff we had for a
sledgehammer and a couple of chains. Went home and both of us
practiced with them for a while, breaking stuff in our room. Dad
was out trying to get food, I think. Sure enough, the next evening
a couple of them came back to visit. We were ready for them.
We did kind of overdo it that first time, but we'd caught them by
surprise and once you started it was awfully hard to stop. Dad
came back while we were still working them over. He didn't say
anything. Not long after that he just went out and disappeared
one night . . .

"I don't know, Avalon. It's so strange. When I was young I
think it all just seemed like some kind of game, and then somewhere along the way I figured out that I never got to throw the
dice. I guess I've been trying to get my turn ever since.

"I never wanted that much, I don't think. Just a different sort
of something. Another chance. Anything like that. It just doesn't
seem right anymore. It's all wrong. I don't know if it'll ever be
right. What do you think?"

Nostalgia had rubbed me down as nothing else had. I felt ready
to sleep forever.

"Avalon?"

She had no reply; as I'd talked, she'd slipped into sleep's shadow
and fled the fretful world.

My dreams rushed in after I went to sleep, sparkling with fear, fresh and clean. I dreamed I ran,
then fell: from where to where, I had no idea; knew
only of my accelerating descent, tumbling downward as thousands cheered. Before I struck ground
I awoke, reaching out for Avalon, but clutching still air. As I sat
up I hoped to see her nearby, even as, at once, I knew I wouldn't.

"Avalon?"

She was gone. That I could have slept through her departure
seemed inconceivable, though obvious.