Free Ambient by Jack Womack Page B

Tobacco's sale was again legal in
America, but the national habit had been fairly broken over the
years. There were still private antitobacco groups in existencetheir favored mode of reprisal being, upon sighting a smoker, to
squirt lighter fluid upon the offender and torch away-but you
would never find their reps in a Twilight Zone.
    "What have you been doing with yourself?" I asked.
    "Nada fatal," she said. "Kept a coil in the hough a time.
While the bands delivered. Margot ticed me off and away. Sub-
tlelured. We played bedwedded brides in Heaven's soft arms. We
ingled and tongued, unblushing and hellraked."
    "Sounds like joy overjoy."

    She sighed, and smiled.
    "Anything on TVC?" I asked.
    "Overload. Flip your fancy if you list."
    We had a 1:25 Cinescope Sony. We rarely used our unit's
VCR; we could rarely spare money for tapes, and the ones used
in the theater didn't fit. I took the remote in hand. With Citicable
we received nineteen channels. Enid had it tuned to one of the
vid channels, the limited one that on occasion played Ambient
groups; there were three vid channels besides Vidiac. I started
punching through the stations. "I Love Lucy" rerun. Basketball
game; the Hanoi playoffs. Movie, Devil Bat. Variedade from Cuba.
"Leave It to Beaver" rerun. Movie, Sound Of Music; to save
time for commercials, all the songs had been cut. "Twilight Zone"
rerun. News program from Japan. "Amos N'Andy" rerun. Health
network; a doctor detailed the dangers of nonessential amputation. Movie, Godzilla Versus the Smog Monster. "Dobie Gillis"
rerun. Static. "Honeymooners" rerun. Weather channel.
    "Return to Lucy," Enid said. We sat there, drinking and
watching. TVC shows had commercial breaks every three minutes, and so it was hard to make any sense of whatever plots there
might once have been. It was always disquieting to watch those
old shows, even when they were colorcoded (they never got the
color right-for example, I could not see Fred Mertz wearing
purple pants) and transferred to digital tape. I regretted not having more of a choice in TVC viewing. There were seven other
special channels, showing business reports, art programs, classical music and opera performances, ballet and modem dance events,
gray-bearded British comedy and drama shows. Only owners and
thrifty, pretentious boozhies had money enough to obtain those
channels. The Drydens never watched them; if they watched TVC
at all, they watched the Violence Channel. That was strictly controlled, so as to shield from the owners' impressionable youth
ideas for acts that they hadn't yet conceived by themselves. Porn channels, like the magazines, no longer existed; under the Equality Acts ours was not a society to favor the exploitation of women
over any other group equally available.

    "What sinks your lids so low?" Enid asked.
    "Nothing. I'm just tired. "
    "No yielding when you're fishyeyed," she said, again watching the screen, zapping repeatedly to savor the color's shifting
murk. "No lipsalve spent. When you guzz over the flow will spill
like Serena itself."
    "Nope. "
    "Does the pain burn diamond sharp?"
    "No pain yet in what isn't hurt."
    "Did something implead your name too near?"
    "His waiting room blew. It drew close."
    "Was la puta laced?"
    "Avalon, mayhap?"
    "AO."
    "Wasn't even hurt. Her skin unblemmed."
    "Sauce for drake's duckling, then," said Enid.
    "Much was on her mind," I said.
    "Not her alone and sole. You're under shrift to her wet scent
til the walls pour warm and steaming."
    "We may be going away for a while."
    "To pass this way again?" she asked. I didn't respond at once.
"Seamus?"
    "Of course."
    "So deep in mystery you tread. May we hear?"
    "In a while."
    "Say what upsets you so," she said. "Your dreams?"
    "No worse than ever."
    "The nightmare rides you hard, but at morningshade you're
left whole and freshly dewed. What else bends you twice?"
    "Nothing."
    Enid punched off the TVC; she looked troubled. "Then bed and