Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

their metier. I’d always had doubts about this theory, not being as much a believing man as my father was, but I had to admit once I got a gander at my ghosts I was willing to buy it. Judging from the looks of those two I wondered if the demiurges hadn’t figured out a way to hold onto passers-through indefinitely.
    »Hello, out there,« I hollered. Nothing. Decided to taper off on my theological meanderings, and went to dump my dish in the sink. I noticed something on the counter, near the breadbox. Bless her heart. Chlojo left me a present; a forest-green bud about the size of a shooter waited for me, probably the one she’d done me in with earlier. I slid my paw into a kitchen mitt before plucking that June bug. Considering how scent alone produced a DMT-like rocket launch I could only imagine how high I’d fly if I actually touched the bud; dropping it into a baggie I smiled, knowing I’d never have to smoke it to go sailing – perma-pot! you couldn’t beat it with a stick. Before snapping the bag shut I couldn’t resist taking one quick huff. When I came to, next morning, I saw two empty boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix and a used batter bowl, but no evidence that I’d baked.
     
    »Tell me,« she said, »tell me tell me tell me –«
    Trish beseeched me all that day, wanting the dirt on how my evening went. Finally the little voyeur wore me out and I hoisted the white flag.
    »Uncle,« I said. »Where you want to touch knees?«
    »I’m in a mood for high life. Enough rolling in the gutter. Let’s do the Plaza.«
    No use trying to put the quietus on this lunacy; once Trish put desire into word there was no turning back. »Swell,« I said. »Not in the Fancy Dan rooms, though. So much starch in those shirts, makes me itch.«
    »All right, we’ll lurk on the shadier side. 59th Street’s more your speed anyway.«
    »Damn straight. Trader Vic’s?« I suggested, getting a big-league jones for a pupu platter – that had to be an aftereffect.
    »So tiki tacky,« she said. »Why don’t we take in the Free Movement of Musical Air?«
    »For real?« I asked. »All right. Sold American.«
    »You better be ready to tell me the once-upon-a-time.«
    »Nine sharp,« I said, staring at that bagged bud lying on the counter. »Don’t go in the drunk tank before I make the scene. I’m bringing a surprise that won’t mix with gin.«
    »Everything mixes with gin,« she said. »Toodles, noodles.«
     
    In the Northeast, the Plaza’s Theremin Room was the last of the Mohicans. There were still joints like it in LA and Frisco, and the one in Seattle in the Olympic was still there as far as I knew. They were the bee’s knees back in the twenties and early thirties; then they found out the gizmos were bad, bad news anywhere within a two-mile radius of Teslas. Thirty-block blackouts if the frequencies harmonized right and never mind the gas ruptures. Back in the big sky country they’d always favoured hydroelectric, so it wasn’t as much of a problem; out west they claimed never using Teslas helped keep people out of tumour town but that was probably nothing more than xylocaine, something to ease the pain but not quite succeeding.
    That night I headed uptown and once the witching hour struck I made my walk-on. Spotted Fabs at the bar, savouring a bilious toddy, a grasshopper by all indications. As I strutted over to her I glommed the stage. In the pit a rhythmiconist plinked out a series of overtones and five thereminists stood in front of diamond-shaped speakers, fluttering their fingers over their boxes’ tone bars to evoke the countermelody. Two hepkittens in black leotards pranced atop the metal soundstage, shimmying away at some mean rain dance. Every move they took made additional notes warble by way of the oscillators picking up on the air currents, and the more they wiggled the more elaborate came the arpeggios and glissandos.
    »Good to see you in one piece,« Trish said, and we enjoyed a mutual standing massage. »Thought those rangerettes’d grind you up and spit you out.«
    »I’m too chewy,« I said, and signalled the barman to dredge up a high head. »What are –«
    »Look who I bumped into on the way over,« she said. I looked; wasn’t much taken with the sight. Trish had thousands of best friends, housed in every penthouse and gutter in New York, native-born and Euro, but not many hit the spot with me. Sometime earlier I’d met this one – Biff? Boff? whatever mater pegged him back in Beantown