Pittsburgh Noir

by Kathleen George

  From the deck he could peek through the slats in the railing and watch the festivities without being seen. The basement door two stories below opened out to a brick patio some twenty feet square; it was dotted with a disreputable but solid collection of lawn chairs culled from sixty years of family gatherings. A gas grill the size of a player piano sat on a far corner of the patio, and his father was replacing the propane tank underneath it, something his mother had wanted him to do the day before, and had loudly wanted Ronnie to help him. Ronnie was relieved that his father had ignored her on both counts. His mother didn’t seem to know he was up on the deck, and his seated position allowed him to be invisible from below unless he chose to poke his head up above the wooden railing.

  Behind him, he heard the brushing sound of the screen door into the upstairs den, and turned to see his cousin Gary standing on the threshold. He hadn’t seen Gary in several years, and his looks hadn’t improved. Gary was a few inches shorter than Ronnie, and was usually heavier. Ronnie had always thought that Gary had a head the shape of a potato, though of course much larger; he thought about this now, since the resemblance had grown more pronounced with the years. Gary came onto the deck, a soda can in his hand as well, and sat down on a chair identical to the one on which Ronnie sat, white-painted rattan with cushions in a loud floral print. “So, Ronnie,” he said, “how’s it hangin’?”

  Ronnie gave the automatic answer, rehearsed and perfected and enjoyed many times in their shared youth: “High and long, Gary, high and long.”

  Gary tipped his can toward Ronnie, who raised his, and they met with a satisfying tink. Ronnie remembered that Gary had had to stop drinking a few years ago. Two years? Three? He couldn’t recall, nor could he recall any of the details his mother had told him, although he was pretty sure that Gary had ended up in rehab. Gary no longer had a wife, and the divorce was complicated by the fact that he had two kids, or maybe it was three; Ronnie couldn’t recall the details of that either. Ronnie hadn’t seen any young kids running around the backyard below, so he supposed Gary’s ex had custody. Here at last, he thought, was someone who would also understand the meaning of bad luck.

  Ronnie pointed to the atom smasher. “Any new plans to tear it down?”

  Gary said, “No, and no one wants to buy it. They tried to get the Smithsonian to take it, but the damn thing’s too big. Too expensive to trash it too.”

  “Is it still radioactive?”

  “Supposed to be. If that wasn’t all just scare talk to keep teenagers away.”

  Ronnie smiled. “Does it work? It didn’t used to.”

  Gary laughed, and Ronnie could see that he was missing a couple of teeth. His mother had died of some kind of cancer when they were kids; now with his wife gone, there seemed to be no one monitoring his oral hygiene.

  Gary sipped his can. Cola was written in blue letters on a red background. He said, “Sorry to hear about your troubles. But your mom’s glad you’re back.”

  “Thanks.”

  Gary nodded at the great inverted teardrop on the horizon. The summer light caught it so that it gleamed like the dull side of a sheet of aluminum foil. “You been back there?”

  “What?”

  “You know. You take any girls there?” He wasn’t looking at Ronnie, but at the big teardrop.

  “It’s been a long time, Gary. I don’t know any girls that are available. And worth it, if you know what I mean.”

  “You got your eye out, though, right?” Gary turned to face him, and he was still smiling. His face was sweaty. Ronnie wondered if he’d spiked the cola with something; Gary almost looked a little drunk.

  “Sure,” answered Ronnie.

  “Sucks about your job. Sales sucks now too. Fuckin’ economy.” He said ecawnomy, and Ronnie tried not to find it annoying while Gary repeated, “Fuckin’ economy.” Then he got up abruptly, crunching the empty soda can with fat fingers, causing the rattan chair to twitch and rustle in unpleasant ways. “I’ll be back,” he said in a weak Austrian accent, and then disappeared through the sliding doors.

  Ronnie heard voices from the front of the house, where his mother was greeting whatever neighbor or relative had just arrived. The number of people on the patio below was gently increasing, as was the volume of the voices. No one was looking up; most eyes were turned toward the grill where his father presided over a dozen or so fat sausages. Ronnie caught the smell, and it made him hungry.

  His mother appeared from beneath the deck, leading an old woman by the arm. He recognized her: Mrs. Asch from three doors down. Skinny and saggy and gray, oh my, he thought. But then he watched his mother reach a welcoming hand out to someone behind old Mrs. Asch, another woman, but not an old one, and from what he could see of her, she was far from saggy or gray. She was tall and slender with a beautiful ass in tight white shorts, nice tan legs, bare between cuff and sandal, and a yellow tank top that fit snugly across round breasts. Her hair was brown and very curly and full, caught up in an attractively messy ponytail. He thought, she’s got to have the face of a moose, with a body like that.

  Gary came through the door again with a clatter as he accidentally nudged the vertical blinds that were pressed together in a skinny wad at the side of the door. He was carrying a compact blue cooler, which he plopped down beside Ronnie as though it was heavy. Gary opened it and the inside glowed gold, like pirate treasure. Gary pulled out two sweating cans of Michelob and handed one to Ronnie. The cool feel of it in his hand was delightful in the day’s heat. Gary sat down again in the whispering chair, and together they popped the tops of the cans, tilted them at each other, and each took a sip. Both cans were empty within a few minutes. Ten minutes later, Ronnie was on his third, and Gary his fourth. Ronnie wondered how many the cooler could hold; every time Gary opened it, it glowed from within.

  Ronnie was about to ask Gary to lean forward and identify the woman with the beautiful body when his cousin said, “You remember Josette?”

  It took a few moments for Ronnie’s neurons to reorient, and then the information clicked together—a face, a body, a smell, a voice. He said, “Josette Foyle.”

  “Yeah. Oh man. She came home for her mom’s funeral last year, and she looked exactly the same, man. Exactly the same. Tits like basketballs.” He waited for Ronnie to answer, but when he didn’t get a response, he went on: “I ’member when you took her up there.” He nodded at the great W that hung above them. “She was so fuckin’ sexy. No pun intended.” He grinned his gappy grin.

  Ronnie grinned back, only slightly uncomfortable. The beer helped. “Yeah,” he said. “She was something.”

  “How many times did you take her up there?” He said it up air.

  “Only twice.” That’s all it took, he thought.

  “Right, cause then her dad got that job where they moved away, somewhere overseas.”

  “Paris.”

  “Goddamn France,” said Gary. “Couldn’t pay me.”

  “If someone paid you, you’d go to fuckin’ Shitsville,” Ronnie said without giving it much thought. Old rhythms, like call and response. He thought, she was so happy it was all she could talk about. Paris, Paris, Paris.

  “I already live in Shitsburgh,” Gary said. Another old joke. Gary lived in Forest Hills, two blocks from his parents; the borough had its own mayor and so it technically wasn’t the city. But everyone said they lived in Pittsburgh when it was easier, or when they were talking about sports. “Didn’t she marry someone there and sort of become a Frog herself?”

  “Yes,” Ronnie said. “I thought you spoke to her when you saw her last summer.”

  “No.” Gary shook his head. “She’d never remember me, bro.”

  Ronnie was starting to feel drunk. “She married a Michelin.”

  “A tire?”

  “No. A person who’s part of a family who owns a tire company.”

  “Shit yeah. That’s right.”

  Ronnie drank more, sitting up straighter so that he could see over the railing. The girl in t
he tank top and shorts was talking to his Uncle Lou. She laughed at something Lou said. Ronnie still couldn’t see her face, could only tell by the tilt of her head and a faint sound that seemed to come from her, that seemed to be laughter. And Lou was all smiles himself. Ronnie thought, she must be pretty.

  Gary said, “Who else was there? Mary Galetti?”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “And Brenda Bergamo. Nia Petrandis.”

  Ronnie said, “Stacey Trelski.”

  “Yeah. Blond. Cute. Small.”

  “Yes,” Ronnie said. “She’s an actress now.”

  “Really? I never heard.”

  “She changed her name, and she’s mostly been in horror movies. But she’s done pretty well. She changed her name to Stephanie Thomas.”

  “That’s her? Jesus, I didn’t know.” I dinno.

  Ronnie added, “Nia got into Penn on a full scholarship and then went to vet school there. She’s written a few books. I even saw her on C-SPAN once, talking about one of them. Something to do with mad cow disease.”

  “No shit.”

  The unknown girl was still talking to Lou, but Mr. Kray from next door had joined them. All Ronnie could see was the back of her head, but he could tell by the grins on the faces of both old men that she had to be pretty. He said, “Brenda Bergamo is a news anchor now in New York. I think it’s an ABC affiliate.” He could feel his control slipping, along with his coordination and his ability to speak clearly. He was revealing more than he would have if sober.

  Gary popped a can. “I never asked before, but what did you do? I mean, did you scare ’em shitless with the story of Boneless Bernie?”

  “Shit no, Gary. Jesus.”

  “I never heard of his ghost being seen around the place, but if I’d been you, I’d’ve used it. You’d think he’d haunt the place … You know what’s weird? I’ve always thought of the guy as a lot older than me. But he was only seventeen when he died, so he never got older. Weird.”

  Ronnie nodded. He’d felt much the same, although he thought it would lower his dignity to agree with Gary too strongly.

  Gary said, “Imagine falling so far that you turned every bone in your body to oatmeal.”

  “I’d rather not, thanks.”

  “No one ever figured out what he was doing up there.”

  Ronnie said, “Being a dumbass. Wasn’t he drunk?”

  “Yeah.” Gary crushed the can in his meaty hand, and stared at the crumpled, sharpened edges of it as though there were coins somewhere inside. “I heard his brains were coming out his ears.”

  Dwelling on this image against his will, Ronnie said, “I don’t know. I was, like, four years old. If that.” He was doing his best to keep his squeamishness to himself. He couldn’t tell how convincing he was being. He knew that Gary would run with it till they were both steeped in ghoulish stories and gross-out jokes, and Ronnie’s stomach was feeling just delicate enough from the excess of beer that he knew this might ruin his afternoon.

  He was on the verge of asking Gary about his kids just to change the subject, even though he was less interested in them than he was in Boneless Bernie, but then Gary asked, “So where the hell is Mary Galetti?”

  Ronnie felt his surprise as anger, and said, “Shit, Gary, do you pay attention to anything but football?” Gary looked surprised, but Ronnie was committed to being irritated for the moment. “She was on the goddamn space shuttle. Three years ago. It was all over the goddamn news: Pittsburgh’s own Mary Galetti. You know the way they do. She’s some kind of scientist.”

  “Oh. No shit. You’re right. I don’t pay as much attention as I should to stuff like that.” Like at. “But I’m not a hot-shit sports writer. I don’t have an in with the papers and shit.” Ronnie waited, knowing that Gary would take care of it for him, would take the blame, even though Ronnie had been the one out of line. Sure enough, Gary went on: “My dad gets my news for me. He watches all the news shit. The local channels anyway. The Channel 4 folks.” He had a smile on his face now, a sickly one, drunk and ingratiating, and it made Ronnie feel lousy, so he took another drink. Gary added, “Those girls were behind me in school, so I never knew any of ’em, really. Except for Nia. But she never had anything to say to me, and that’s not the kind of thing my dad knows about. C-SPAN and such.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t follow it so much myself except …” He stopped himself, and covered by taking a drink. As he’d hoped, Gary took over for him again, still not grasping the important thing about these women.

  “Except that you nailed all of ’em,” Gary said, vicarious glee returning. “You nailed ’em by the light of the silvery atom smasher.”

  He was good and drunk by the time he could sever himself from Gary and join the rest of the party in the backyard. There were almost no children, which was refreshing, but which also made the gathering oddly sedate; in his youth, Memorial Day cookouts had teemed with them. Many of the same people were present, just grown up, and most of them were childless, one way or another. He saw Lou’s daughter, his cousin Melissa, younger than him by four or five years, and waved her over. She’d always had a crush on him, or at least that was what Gary had told him a few summers ago. Ronnie had found the idea creepy, not only because of their blood tie, but because she had a jutting jaw, bad skin, and no breasts to speak of. She’d bred since then, so her breasts had more oomph to them now, but she was still homely. She greeted him with too much happiness, telling him that her three-year-old daughter was inside with the kid’s father, a man from the city who Ronnie knew he’d met, but couldn’t remember anything about. Ronnie made a slurred promise to say hello to them later, but managed to achieve his principle aim, which was to get information on the hot but faceless woman. Melissa said, “You mean Dana Asch? She just moved back in with her mom. Bad divorce. No kids.” It didn’t seem to occur to Melissa that she’d just described Ronnie’s own situation. To his delight, Melissa hollered, “Dana! You met my cousin Ronnie? He’s back now too.”

  She was older than he’d thought, maybe even over forty, but she looked great, the way a lot of movie stars manage to look perfect at forty, or even fifty, sometimes even hotter than they’d been at twenty. He didn’t know what it was, maybe good bones or lucky genes. Probably just money, he thought. She looked like money too. Skin just tanned enough to look golden, hair just blond enough to look real, skin just taut enough to look like it was due to virtuous exercise, not plastic surgery. She smiled at him and his soberest thought was Come to Papa.

  At first they chatted glibly by the grill, under the elated stare of Uncle Lou. They exchanged facts, some of which they already knew about each other. He learned that she’d gone to Pitt, then moved to San Francisco, gotten a job as a hospital administrator, married a doctor, and had lived in a large house with an ocean view. Neither mentioned divorce. She was enough older than he was that they didn’t share many acquaintances, despite growing up in the same neighborhood. Then Mrs. Asch yelled, “Dana!” in an old-woman voice, and Dana gave a quick smile to Ronnie, then Lou, and moved away toward where her mother sat surrounded by three or four other elderly people in loud golf clothes. Yet he felt that some subtle consent had passed between them; he kept her in his peripheral vision, and when she walked into the house alone thirty minutes later, he followed her without anyone noticing.

  She was in the kitchen, looking at a picture held by a strawberry-shaped magnet on the refrigerator door.

  “My mother’s black lab,” Ronnie said. “Pepper. The dog’s been dead for six years.”

  “That’s sweet,” she said.

  She still looked good, even when he was quasi-sober. His head was finally clearing after all the beer he’d had with Gary, and he couldn’t believe his luck. She turned to peer at him, and then her eyes broke away, darting around the room. His eyes followed hers, and he could see they were truly alone, if only for a moment. He turned back to her and then she leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth, quickly but hard, a serious kiss. She pulled back
and stared at him with shining hazel eyes. She said, “No one can know. I’m ‘going out with girlfriends’ tonight. I just moved back. I don’t want my mother to know anything.”

  He nodded, then asked, “Do you know the path to the atom smasher? Where it comes out by the ballfield?”

  She smiled wide, almost laughing. “Oh my God. Yes.” She dropped her voice. “Two hours from now. Bring wine. I’ll bring cups. And watch out for poison ivy.”

  It was like a military maneuver through a jungle. It was only spring, so the milkweed and Virginia creeper weren’t as thick as they would be in July or August. Still, the path was dark and a little muddy; if there hadn’t been a tacit ban on speaking, he would have joked that they could use a machete. Here and there they passed wild raspberry bushes; he remembered that Mary Galetti had liked to eat the ripened berries on the way up the hill.

  The hurricane fence was at the top of a rise, steep like all hillsides in the neighborhood. The fence was the same, which was a shock. Even the spot he’d most often used in the past hadn’t been mended, where the green-painted metal knots only kissed the ground instead of digging deep into it. The fencing was even still bent in the same places. All it took was a hard jerk and the hole was big enough to scoot through. Nothing has changed, he thought. How weird is that? He’d brought pliers in his backpack, hoping they’d be enough to bend the wire fence to get in; he’d been praying that he wouldn’t need his father’s bolt cutters. There was simply no way he could have snuck them out of the house. Now it turned out that even the pliers were unnecessary.