Pittsburgh Noir

by Kathleen George

  She left the kitchen and began to head his way. He receded into the shadow provided by the highboy as she returned to the front door and stepped out onto the porch. With her back now to him, he took a chance and darted toward the kitchen. There he saw up close the food she’d lugged from Kregar’s: a Lady Baltimore cake, steak, a couple potatoes.

  She was coming back inside, this time with the mail in her hands. Her eyes were cast downward as she rifled past the bills and landed on his postcard. She sank to the sofa. He watched her. She did not look happy when she reached for the telephone and lifted the receiver. She asked for an exchange that he didn’t recognize and waited for the operator to connect her.

  He emerged from the shadows. “Hello, Lorraine,” he said.

  She looked up, startled. They stared at each other. Someone said something into the receiver and she replied in a rush: “I have to go. My husband’s home.” She replaced the receiver and stared at him still.

  “I thought you’d be at the station. At least that.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” Remembering the postcard, she raised it toward him, as though it were a letter for him, not from him. “I didn’t see your postcard until just now. I thought … I thought next week.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you looking at?”

  “You.”

  “I’m glad you’re home.” She stood and came to embrace him, but he caught her wrists in his hands and held her at arm’s length.

  “Don’t lie to me, Lorraine.”

  Her smile faltered. “I’m not lying. You’re hurting me.”

  He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to snap both of her arms in two. She tried to free herself from his grip, but he held on even tighter.

  “Please, Bill.” Her voice was tense with pain. “We have to talk.”

  “I think I know that.” He shook her. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “Bill, let me go. You’re scaring me.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  He released her. She looked at the deep red marks he’d left and again they didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered finally. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”

  “It’s all right.” She rubbed the feeling back into her wrists.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “I know.”

  He didn’t want to know after all. When she opened her arms wide, he sank into them and inhaled the scent of her new perfume. They held onto each other for a long time, maybe five minutes, just rocking.

  The kitchen door opened and footsteps sounded behind him. He turned. It was Roger.

  “Did he hurt you?” Roger asked.

  “No, no.” Though he had pulled away from her, she touched his arm still.

  “Buddy, we need to have a serious talk.”

  “You can’t do this.” He stumbled toward his duffle, then stopped and eyed the fireplace poker, knowing he looked desperate, that he was desperate, the boy who went to war, not the soldier who had done the killing over there.

  “Sometimes things change,” Roger said. “We were hoping you would understand.”

  Bill started to cry. Once he started, the sobs grew louder and more ugly with each second. “I want to kill you,” he blubbered. “I want to kill the both of you.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s going to be all right.”

  “Get him a whiskey,” Roger said. And she hurried to the cabinet to pull out a bottle of booze. “Sit down,” Roger continued. “Have a seat. Let’s take it easy.”

  He was tired of killing. He didn’t think he could do it again.

  “Sit.”

  He didn’t know where to go. He sat. Roger handed him a tumbler of whiskey, saying something again about the way things change, they just change.

  He had to go somewhere.

  Tonight.

  He didn’t belong.

  Roger Cleveland had come home.

  CHEATER

  BY AUBREY HIRSCH

  Squirrel Hill

  Alex’s apartment looks like a hotel room after the guests have gone to check out. There are towels on the floor and dirty wine glasses scattered around. The bedspread came with the sheets, came with the curtains, came with the throw pillows on the couch. A complete set. The fireplace is fake. There is only generic art on the walls. No photographs. No real trace of a permanent personality. Maybe Alex is a different man with every girl he brings home. Or maybe there is no real Alex. Or maybe he just doesn’t care to decorate. I tend to think people have more depth than they really do.

  When I wake up the first time, the sun is nowhere in sight. So I think it’ll be okay if I go back to sleep for a little while. But when I wake up again the sun has pounded its way through the shades, dropped to the floor, crawled across the carpet, over my clothes, up onto the bed, and into my hair.

  I am already in a terrible mood when I gather my clothes. Luckily, it is a Saturday, so I’m not late for work. Alex is still asleep as I start to get dressed. After too many mornings spent searching in vain for my stockings, I stopped wearing them to pick up guys. So now it’s my wedding ring I’m looking for when I realize that I’ve forgotten to take it off again.

  I wake Alex up to tell him I’m leaving. He says okay and doesn’t even roll over before he goes back to sleep. He stopped offering me cabs a long time ago.

  April in Pittsburgh is schizophrenic. Sometimes it feels like December. Today, it feels like August. I try to read the Post-Gazette on the bus back to Squirrel Hill, but my head is brimming over with stories about last night and no one to tell them to. I’d never done it in a bar before. But when I replay the scene under my eyelids all I can see is that little band of gold on my fourth finger. My clothes feel heavy and out of place, like they’ve soaked up a little of Alex’s apartment. Maybe I have too; I feel a little generic.

  By the time I get off the bus, I have taken my mind off of the bar and focused it on how badly I need a shower. I spot Evan across the street. I don’t know his real name, but he looks like an Evan. I can walk for blocks on autopilot without ever taking in the scenery, but I never miss Evan, even in a crowd. He’s on his way to work and I curse myself for going back to sleep at Alex’s. He has a folded copy of the paper in one hand and with the other he is idly twisting the little gold band mine is designed to match. I wonder if he notices me. For a second I almost feel a connection. I imagine that the rest of his paper’s sitting on the kitchen table next to my clean coffee mug. I ignore the fact that I wake up at my own place so seldom that I don’t even get a paper delivered there anymore.

  When I get to my apartment, I notice that my clothes are starting to smell like me again, but my bag still reeks of stale cigar smoke and the Irish shower I took at Alex’s. Figures. It’s the only piece of my outfit I can’t wash. I bet a real designer bag would blend seamlessly from life to life. The second I came back it would smell like vanilla-scented candles and carpet that’s been vacuumed too often. Instead, my bag reminds me of the Squirrel Cage and how I had to try and clean up the mess between my thighs with cocktail napkins. They were the brown, recycled kind with the name of the bar screened onto them. The ink left little black streaks on my legs. Plus, I was sore and they were scratchy, but Alex was hissing at me to hurry up because the bartender was giving us looks. We got out of there and I tried to lighten things up a little by saying thanks and flashing him a secret smile. He ignored me until we got into his car and he asked if I was on the pill.

  After my shower and a shot of Febreze to my bag, I try to meet Evan for lunch, but he doesn’t show up to the Murray Avenue Grill at the usual time. Instead, he ambles in just as I am leaving. I open my lips to say something, but he walks past.

  It is moments like these that ruin my fun, when Evan refuses to play along. I know he isn’t really my husband. He’s just someone I noticed on the street once and followed to work. And then home. Then to where he eats. And shops. I bought a ring that looked like his and inserted him into my fanta
sy. Because I don’t have anyone to cheat on. And I love the rush. It makes me feel dangerous and exciting, and I am neither of those things without it. So I tell myself that it is worth the work I have to do in these moments. I reinvent the exchange. In my mind: I opened my lips to try and explain, but he mistook it for a smile and walked away.

  I wake up on Kevin’s couch at six a.m. He isn’t next to me; I didn’t expect him to be. I look for him in the bedroom, but he isn’t there either. Even though the sun is still low enough to cling to the ceiling and not the floor, both sides of the bed are cold. I try the kitchen and the shower before I accept that he’s gone and start to get myself together. My wedding ring is in my empty champagne glass and most of my clothes are still on from the night before.

  We’d met at Fanattics, a sports bar, where I’d pretended to cheer for his hometown basketball team and he took me home with him. He led me away from the bedroom, saying his girlfriend would smell me on the sheets. We did it on the couch, which is plastic, treated to look like leather. I had to spread my jacket down under my bare legs and constantly rearrange myself to keep from sticking to it. It was less than comfortable, but the champagne we spilled and anything that leaked out of the condom were easy to wipe up afterward. I only felt a little unsanitary when I woke up with my mouth pressed against the pleather. The sex was good. I was drunk enough to be loud and he was drunk enough not to notice that I was leaving the “K” off of his name.

  I walk around his apartment once, slowly. I tell myself I’m making sure I haven’t left anything; but when I start to look around rooms I was never in, I realize I’m searching for some kind of goodbye. Or some sort of affirmation that I was close to someone the night before, even for a little while. I don’t find anything.

  I was drunk when we left the bar, so I have no idea which bus to take home from Kevin’s building. Luckily, he bought the drinks and I have just enough money to cab home on.

  The cab ride is my first chance to think about how I feel. I have come down completely from the night before, and I start to think about grade school when they taught us about drugs. My hair is crunchy from dried champagne that the couch didn’t soak up and my legs feel sunburned from peeling them off the plastic. I can still taste Kevin’s hair gel under my fingernails when I bite them. My bag smells like champagne and pine tree air freshener. I am glad I cannot smell my heart. Seven a.m. is not a good time for me. Maybe I am going through some kind of withdrawal.

  I try to focus on the positive. The cool thing about sleeping with different people is the constant string of surprises. Kevin, for instance, started reciting the Our Father about twenty minutes in and didn’t stop until he came. There will probably be a time when I find that creepy, but for now I am fascinated.

  By the time I get to my apartment it’s too late to catch Evan on his way to work. After an hour or so of doing nothing I start to feel transparent, like I’m bleeding into the wallpaper. So I shower and get the hell out of there. I don’t realize where I’m going until I hit Shady Avenue. Then, I instinctively walk toward Evan’s office building. Maybe it’s because I feel guilty. Examining my motivations doesn’t seem important.

  Evan is outside on a cigarette break, a stubby Parliament looks ready to drop from his fingers. He stares right through me and I think, Wallpaper.

  “Hey.”

  “Hello,” he says.

  I can’t find any emotion in his voice at all. “I’ll make this fast, I know you’ve got work to do. I was thinking maybe we could have dinner later in the week.”

  He looks confused and glances over his right shoulder. “I think I’m busy,” he says, and gestures to his wedding band.

  My hand instinctively goes to mine. I can’t find anything between us at all. His eyes look dead and I take a second to wonder if I’ve killed this. I try as hard as I can to think of the perfect thing to say, but I’ve got the Our Father stuck in my head and I can’t think of anything at all.

  I walk back to the bus stop slowly and start to worry about my fantasy fading. I have a pretty safe cure for times like these. I buy things for Evan. Then I look at them and I can feel him in my apartment again. I stop into CVS and buy him a green toothbrush. I stop into Littles Shoes and buy him an expensive pair of boots. I stop into Orr’s and buy him a new watch. By the time I stop home to drop his things off, I feel much better. I can’t wait to go to the Squirrel Cage later. I imagine I’m telling Evan I’m heading to a meeting and will be out late.

  When I wake up, Mark is making breakfast. I quickly tie my hair back and throw on some lip gloss, then walk into the kitchen. I can hear the bacon frying before I can smell it.

  “Smells good,” I say.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t make enough. I figured you’d be leaving.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I am.”

  My stomach starts to hurt as I drag it away from the bacon smell. I think it’s mad at me for filling it with so much alcohol. Fucking tequila sunrises; they’re so pretty.

  My clothes are thrown over a chair in the bedroom. There’s nothing to look around for and no reason I can think of to prolong my visit. Not that I really want to, I just hate that surreal feeling I get on the way home: Did that really happen? My imagination’s so good these days. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Luckily, Mark’s apartment smells like kitty litter and my skirt probably does too.

  Mark’s place is small, but charming. The border on the wallpaper is matched up perfectly, which makes me think he has a girlfriend, even though he swore he doesn’t. The furniture looks like college leftovers. There are desk chairs where there should be recliners, futons where there should be couches, beer cans where there should be vases. He called it his “bachelor pad” but it doesn’t have foosball, so I don’t think it counts.

  The sex was unremarkable. Even when I thought he was making me breakfast, it didn’t seem that great. Every time I got close he would pull back and prompt me to beg for it. I did a half-assed job just to get things going, but I wasn’t into it. I also thought he got too sweaty. I was tempted to get up halfway through and switch on the ceiling fan, but I figured that would make it last longer, and at that point I just wanted to get to sleep.

  By the time we finished, I was sober again and getting restless. He passed out right away and I stayed up for a little while. I wanted to know something about him. I didn’t need his life story, or even his telephone number. Just something to make him feel like a real person. I walked around searching for the foosball table. Nothing. I checked his fridge to see if maybe he was a vegetarian. Nope. I looked through his wallet for photos, but I didn’t find any. I learned his eye color from his driver’s license and went back to bed.

  On the way home I slip into withdrawal again. I feel sweaty and laced with doubt. I smell my skirt for evidence of last night. Kitty litter. I stop thinking about how delusional I might be and puzzle over why I never saw a cat.

  The tequila makes my stomach feel like it’s closing in on itself. I look through the cupboards to find something to prop it up with, but the only thing I have a taste for is bacon. I head to Pamela’s, best breakfast in the ’burgh.

  Evan is there with some woman I don’t recognize. I watch them flirt back and forth for a bit, but I don’t worry until he leans over to kiss her. Then I walk past, letting my heels click loudly, which I never do.

  He doesn’t look over. Neither of them follows me with their eyes. Their right hands are clasped across the table and the fingers on their left hands are looped through the handles of their coffee mugs. I can see their matching wedding bands. Hers looks more expensive than mine and she wears it under a diamond solitaire. They seem right together. I don’t realize I’ve stopped to stare until Evan, or whatever his name is, glances over. I fake a yawn to hide the tears in my eyes, but he doesn’t notice them anyway.

  I storm out of the diner thinking some combination of Maybe I’ll buy him that expensive bathrobe and Now I’ve gone too far. I hover over a sewer grate outside the restaurant a
nd pull my ring from my finger. The skin is a little lighter underneath it and the feel of skin brushing skin there is foreign and unpleasant. I know Evan and I are over. I can’t fix that. I struggle to tell myself: He didn’t treat me right. I’m filing for divorce. But I know I won’t feel like my dangerous, exciting self again until I’m remarried, for better or worse, for real or … not. I palm my wedding ring, and carefully tuck it into my purse on the ride home.

  The next weekend I need an adventure, so I go to Silky’s. It’s mostly Pitt students watching the Penguins game, so wouldn’t usually be my pick, but it’s ladies’ night and my drinks are free. On the way in I get a plastic cup and a black stamp on the back of each hand. I say a silent prayer that they’ll fade by Monday. I take a look at my options. Too young, too short, too skinny, not in a million years, out of my league, maybe if I was drunk enough, and then I see him: perfect. He’s too old to be here, at least forty, and when I glance over, a sorority girl is giving him a dirty look and storming off. I know he’s not having any luck and think maybe he’s as desperate as I am to get laid. I make eye contact from across the bar and sit down next to him, our legs touching. He offers me a drink and I display my ladies’ night stamps. He smiles.

  He asks if I’m married.

  I tell him, “We’re working on a divorce.”