“You couldn’t get one of those for less than a hundred, and you’d have to find one first. And you know it.” Oh, he could have gotten something for twenty bucks. Maybe even that speaker, from someone who didn’t appreciate its solid, deep-throated sweetness.

“Five,” he said, one syllable of pure bravado. “Soft.”

“Kid,” I said, smiling kindly and leaning on the counter between the popguns, “have you ever heard the joke about the plumber and the little teeny hammer?” He was beaten. I could tell by his eyes. “Tapping, fifty cents; knowing where to tap, fifty dollars? Now, because I always enjoy telling a joke, I’ll give you a deal: fifteen, soft.” I should have held out for ten hard, but visions of carbohydrates were beginning to dance in front of my eyes.

It was a little tougher job than the plumber had. But I got the grille off and the cone out, and I carried a few things in my pockets that nobody else would have recognized as valuable. A roll of heat-shrink fiber tape, for instance; good for strain relief on cords, for covering spliced wire, and for mending tears in any stretched material. I covered the rip in the cone with a narrow piece and borrowed matches from the kid to shrink it tight. The speaker was not as good as new; one more fine and irreplaceable thing had slipped out of the world, and the world, as usual, hadn’t noticed. But a normal human being could now listen to it with teeth unclenched. At least, if said party liked City broadcast.

I wandered off with a light head, a sense of duty done, and fifteen folding City-made dollars. The first food vendor I came upon did Chinese. After six pot-stickers and three cups of lemon-balm tea, I was able to see the world with less prejudice. After another block, a few smoked pork ribs, and a skewer of batter-fried vegetables, my sense of proportion was restored. I tallied the day’s accomplishments. Today, after an impressively bad start, I had saved the life of one twelve-inch speaker cone, fed myself, and got all the way to Sherrea’s under my own (I granted myself some poetic exaggeration) power.

Where I’d been made no wiser, and been told besides to start shoveling or don’t show my face again. A fine friendly gesture. How was I to get my ordure in order if she couldn’t even give me useful clues? My theories about her mind reading were a little shaken, too; I refused to believe that the afternoon’s display of amateur theatricals had come out of my head.

In the deep, gritty voice that, looking back, I couldn’t call male or female: That’s bringin’ danger on you, and all the ones bound to you. I wasn’t bound. That would have been flying in the face of good sense, and I tried not to do that. Surely the pure voice of my subconscious would have a better handle on me than that. Sherrea — or her friend — seemed to declare that sacrifice was the road to salvation; but I wanted to fix a busted head, not a rotten soul.