Ambient Read Free Page A

suspected he would.
    The store manager eyed the book a moment, at last pretending
that he had glimpsed an appropriate flaw. "Let me see whether
we might have another. "

    "Fool," said Mister Dryden, rapping another book over the
manager's head; the book split and bent. "Thank me."
    "Thank you."
    Mister Dryden hit him with the book again. This wasn't a
professional's behavior, I thought, and-admittance-suddenly
felt embarrassed to be connected with him at all; felt disgusted
for having to feel such a way about him. But amateurs of any
sort draw my ire deep, and he behaved no better just then than
any amateur.
    "Disirregardless," he said, "If this is how I'm serviced I'll
spurn. " He almost sounded as if he meant it.
    "Please, sir-"
    "I've decisioned."
    "At least," said the store manager, holding his head as if quietly trying to rub the pain away, "I should let you deal with the
one responsible as you see."
    Mister Dryden appeared so startled as I was; this was twisting
anew. When scenes such as this usually unwound, the store managers beat the clerks themselves before firing them. There was
but one thing to be done if this ploy was enforced.
    "AO," said Mister Dryden, staring at the clerk.
    "I'll be in the car," said Avalon, turning away. I wished to
take her and run, forever avoiding the unavoidable.
    "Wait," said Mister Dryden, scratching at his arms; she stopped.
"Safety first. Don't alone streetways." He looked at me, and
nodded.
    "For what reason?" I heard myself asking.
    "He disturbed, O'Malley," he said, sounding calm again.
"Victimize."
    "No sense doing what hasn't point," I said; he would have
agreed, once. "Let's-"
    "O'Malley. "
    He knew and I knew that it was this or the gutter, awash in the
millions, adrift with the chanceless, alone in the crowd.

    "I don't feel that this is part of my job."
    "He disturbed. Revenge me."
    Freedom rings but no one answers; it was difficult to remain
ever optimistic. I sighed, turning, dreamlike, toward the clerk. A
job's a job, and I do my job; the work ethic, after all, made
America what it is and I always found my pride in honest work.
My father told me anyone could make it to the top; he was easily
led, and so often seduced by other's wiles, and for the loveliest
lies the deepest fondness grows. I feared, that day, that I was so
close to the top as I would get, if I did not find another way,
some way, somehow; a kid allowed to dust the candy in the big
window.
    "O'Malley. "
    Look your form in mirrors and run mad, Ambients say, and I
knew of what was told. As he sank, I sank, and I knew I could
sink no more. That morn I felt my mind shift, and at once made
ready to seek other-but there was no other, nor did it seem possible that there ever would be. Take the given or lose the all; that
was the way. There I stood, sans ears, sans love, sans soul; part
owner, part Ambient, each together less than each apart.
    "O'Malley!"
    I pondered which of my suit's accessories would be most appro: the batog, the chuks, the chain, or the trunch. I estimated
that my batog-two sharp sticks lashed together with heavy wirewould do. Never howitzer a housefly. Once more, I paused; my
limit neared. Mister Dryden spoke.
    "Don't see, muchacho," he said, quivering as if being charged.
"Do."
    I did.

     

2

    "Blue Moon of Kentucky" played while Avalon
sipped Glenlivet through a straw from a liter. She
drank heavily on conference days in hopes of being
unable to recall them from month to month.
    "He bleed enough for you?" she asked, pulling
off her cap, unlacing her suit.
    She wasn't speaking to me. Mister Dryden said nothing, nor
did he watch her as she shed. He picked up the phone and called
the bookstore, asking that his books be delivered to his office
within the hour. The books were reshelved, he was told. He said
he saw no reason why his wishes wouldn't be fulfilled as demanded, and hung up; he hung up on everyone except his father.
Taking beauties from his