Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

now was how much I wanted to see what was under her jumpsuit. We reached Columbus Avenue and crossed against the orange. Within the park, beyond the trees, rose a dark black hulk. »What’s that?« she asked.
    »Natural History Museum. Awful place.« A new idea popped into my head, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it on for size. »Are you and Chlo poltergeist girls?«
    She stopped dead in her tracks. »Iterate?«
    »All right, so maybe you’re the guidance counsellor, but you can’t tell me Chlojo’s not experimental.«
    »Chlo’s perfected,« Eulie said. »Poltergeist girls? Detail, please.«
    »I’ve read some of the studies. Little missies who divert raging hormones into useful trades. Lock ’em in a room and they go to town. Think about people who did them dirty. How much they hate their mothers. Whatever, doesn’t matter long if they get upset. Once they build up a good head of steam, they let ’er rip. Break all the glasses in restaurants. Tracks in a freight yard bend out of shape. Cows spontaneously combust.«
    »Cows?«
    »My main man told me they did a trial run at Khe Sahn last year. Every man on the battlefield cooked from the inside out. Experiment succeeded, soldiers failed. I have to keep up on these things if I’m going to do my job right. What’s up with you two? Bringing the war home in a different way?«
    We strolled into the park. Didn’t think it’d be too hazardous this time of night, Central Park West was the place in this part of town that suffered the heavy action. »What is your job, Walter, and how do you do it right?«
    We stopped under a light while I tried to put it into words. »Government work. I freelance. Go where the market takes me. Satisfy the needs of –«
    »Yes?«
    Came to me that I didn’t think I was satisfying the right needs, just then. She looked at me, and I couldn’t say another word. I’ve always heard that the first tongue you touch other than your own is the one you never forget. Back in Seattle, Karen and I were both fifteen, and it was outside the school before the ninth grade dance. I remember my surprise at how wet her mouth was, how sharp her teeth were. Didn’t work out in the short or long run; wasn’t but a week later or so she fell in love with a quadriplegic, ten years older. (He’d taken shrapnel in the spine while he was in the Jackson Brigade, fighting Nazis in France.) I got over it, but never forgot that kiss. But when I kissed Eulie I knew I’d remember that kiss even longer. She didn’t try pulling away; she held me just as close as I held her, she up on her toes, me craning my head down. Each of us took a step back when we came up for air.
    »Ah, gee,« I said. »Eulie –«
    She didn’t look scared, not at all; but suddenly she turned and hopped over the broken benches to our left as if she was wearing springs on her feet. I saw her running deeper into the park, into the darkness where the streetlights didn’t shine. No telling what kind of characters were laying in wait down there. »Hey,« I shouted, »wait a sec. Eulie! Eule!!« I clambered over the bench, managing not to fall over it. I heard her feet crunching over the dead leaves somewhere between me and the museum. Just when I thought I was closing in somebody let off a flashbulb, or at least that’s what I thought it was; but who was there taking pictures? One of Frye’s photos, no doubt. »Gimme that film, you son of a –«
    But nobody was there, after all; not a wandering shutterbug, not Chlojo, not Eulie. A cold wind blew through the park, rustling the trees; for a few minutes it sounded as if it were starting to rain, and then I felt small plops on my shoulders and head. I started walking back toward the light, wondering how she’d pulled a Judge Crater so completely, wondering who’d taken a photo, wishing I had an umbrella. It still seemed to be raining when I reached a streetlight. The sidewalk wasn’t wet, but it was covered with what had been falling. Little green frogs, no bigger than a dime, hopped across the concrete, looking just like the ones that always fall in July thunderstorms. But it wasn’t July.
     

SIX
    »You’re working up a sweat, Walter,« Bennett said. »Taking too much of something?«
    »Yeah. You.«
    We hooked up in a gloomy knock’emback called the Expressway Bar, down at 40 th and Eighth, just below the last Manhattan exit ramp before the Robert Moses Bridge. At my demand Martin arranged a meet and greet when he hit town