Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

returned to the world; no longer imagined she felt the rubber beneath the sheet, the dryness of constantly recirculated air; no longer saw the eyes of those who mattered above the masks; felt the uncontrollable coughing up blood, the 104-degree fever day in day out. No longer had the dreams. These terrible scenes were no longer any clearer than a tenth-generation videotape. They were only in her memory; she forgot them, deactivated them, she let them go; she removed them. She had the power, and she did it.
     
    Vladimir Bulgarin, a.k.a Maliuta Skuratov, lives in Moscow and uses his 1974 Zhiguili to pick up those in need of rides. His standard rate is one ruble per kilometre. A drunken man from Trenton, New Jersey, once gave him a fifty-dollar bill over the protests of equally drunken Russian friends, but it was one of the new fifties and banks refused to accept it. He has lost nineteen teeth, his wife refuses to sleep with him. On days when he tires of driving he sometimes goes to the new underground mall in Manezh Square, listens to the instrumental music half-heard over speakers in the ceiling, and gazes at ceramic statues of Mafia thugs hollering into mobiles. Although he is loathe to admit it, he liked it better when you could call strangers comrade.
     
    Oktobriana Osipova, with her mother, emigrated at age 15 to the United States. Worked, briefly, as a flashdancer in Kearney, New Jersey, employing the professional name Platynym Card. Quit after refusing to have breast implants, telling her boss she had no desire to be a broiler chick, i.e. factory-enhanced. She had no greater desire to work as a cosmetologist, fast-food employee, court interpreter, or waitress. With good old Russian know-how borrowed a Powerbook 145 and successfully hacked into Chase, NatWest, FirstUnion and Citibank N.A. deducted five cents from each account at every bank. FBI team arriving at her Brighton Beach studio found the remnants of a charred female corpse, not hers. Spontaneous human combustion ruled out as cause of death. The suspect’s present whereabouts, the institution or institutions to which she made electronic transferrals, and the total amount transferred from all banks remain unknown. Those who have studied the case believe that wherever she is, she is content with her lot.
     
    Dr Alexander Amoldovitch Alekhine, after the fall of the Soviet Union, moved from the field of ferrous metals to that of bartending. You may find him working the 6 to 2 shift at a bar called Pizdyetz, on Clinton Street between Rivington and Delancey in »happenin’« LoEaSi (as some in the neighbourhood have taken to calling it, although none who have lived there longer than six months). His claim to fame is a brutal mixture of three parts Ketel One vodka, one part Chambord liqueur, one part Everclear grain alcohol, topped off with Ocean Spray cran-raspberry juice, stirred (not shaken) and served over finely-crushed ice. (A similar drink is served at finer Moscow establishments, Hermes men’s cologne substituting in some cases for the grain alcohol.) He calls it a Red Mercury.
     
    Norman Quarles, who during his Army days played bass clarinet in James Reese Europe’s famed marching band, returned to the U.S. in time to die of the flu during the great pandemic of 1918-1919 that killed, among others, Randolph Bourne, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and two of the three children who’d witnessed the sun stand still at Fatima. Norman’s father had wanted him to be a Pullman porter, but Norman had other ideas. His father never found out what they were.
     
    Wanda Carroll [Quarles, in some pasts] applied for a job as a charwoman at the Empire State Building. The hiring agency chose not to hire a Negro, and she was, happenstance, not killed when a twin-engine B-25 Army bomber crashed into the 78 th floor of the structure on July 28, 1945. She found employment instead as a charwoman at 44 Broadway, had three children, and outlived them all.
     
    Luther Biggerstaff, never married, served as a quartermaster in the New York National Guard, bought a house in Staten Island, had a heart attack in his driveway in 1998, died while his dog, a Toy Manchester Terrier, licked at his ears.
     
    Avi Schwartz wasn’t.
     
    Bernard Pearlstein, a dentist, specializes in preparing multiple crowns and fixed bridges. Lives with his wife and two children in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. Used Nair on the backs of his hands until the use of rubber gloves became mandatory. He