The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh

Phlox

'Let's go sit on the steps,' said Cleveland, pointing, a hollow olive stuck on the tip of his index finger. The cheese in his sandwich stood an inch thick. 'You look like you could use some fresh air, Bechstein. You really look sick.'

'Hmm? Oh, no, no, it's just, um, something.'

'Oh, well, something. That's a relief.'

'I had a bad night.'

We sat down on the cracked steps and I wondered if I really might be sick. It was nearly eight o'clock in the evening. I had a very dim memory of having woken up that morning, come out to the living room, and lain down again on the sofa; I'd slept for around seventeen hours. Cleveland slipped the paperback from his pocket and chucked it into my lap. It was a cheap old assortment of Poe, secondhand, a skull and a bat on the cover.

'Ten Tales of Tension and Terror,' I read.

'I'm rereading the Big P,' he said, talking around the cheese in his mouth. 'I used to be crazy about him. I used to think I might be Poe reincarnated.' He lifted his lank bangs to show me his pale Poe brow. 'Whew. I'll tell you something, Bechstein.' He poked his thumb into another olive and then flicked the olive, like a shooter, into his mouth. 'The evil Carl Punicki is an okay fellow. He laughs a little too hard, and he throws his money around a little too much, and he slaps me on the back a little too often, but I can work with him.'

'Work with him how?'

'I'm afraid to tell you.'

'Oh.'

'So what did you do last night?' he said, eyeing the half-crumpled letter in my hand.

I looked at him. He'd been babbling, he was eating the cheese sandwich almost without stopping to swallow, and I wondered if he might be stoned. The usual tracery of broken blood vessels on the skin of his face, under his eyes and across his nose, looked darker than usual; his eyes were pink, his hair was filthy. Although part of me wanted just to tell him everything, I resented his being so out of it, his doing something for Carl Punicki that was evidently worse than what he'd done for Frankie Breezy, and, finally, I was afraid that he would make fun of me, or-who knew?- even get angry. And what had I done last night?

'Yes, I'm stoned and I've been drinking all day. I'm half in the bag,' he said. 'Okay?'

'So you came over because there was no food at your house?'

'Right.'

'Oh.'

'Asshole. That isn't why I came over. I came to converse.'

'You did?'

'Sure.' He reached over and patted my thigh, then took the letter from between my lax fingers. 'Disturbing news?'

'I'm not really sure. Confusing news.'

'May I?'

'No. Come on, Cleveland.' I reached for the letter, but he lifted it up over his head, out of my reach. 'I can't believe you're going to work for that monster Punicki, I don't feel well, you're all fucked up-'

'I'm normalized. Look, Bechstein, you're upset; something's wrong. Here.' He handed back the letter, tapping it against my knee. 'Why don't you at least tell me something of what's contained therein.'

My little neighbor started up again with her Beethoven. Cleveland wore a very sincere, if somewhat bleary, expression; there was only the faint trace of a sneer.

'It's a ransom note, right? She's taken herself hostage. 'Dear Art,'' he said, biting his lip in thought and rolling his eyes upward. 'Um, 'Leave Arthur in an unmarked paper bag inside locker thirty-eight at the Greyhound station, or you'll never see me again.' Is that it?'

'Oh, here,' I said. While he read Phlox's purple letter, which he did very slowly, as though he was having difficulty making sense of it, I listened to the music next door and stared down at a tiny white sliver of fluff that he had caught on a spider thread and was spinning in the breeze like a pinwheel, at the end of its miniature tether. Cleveland would ball up the letter and throw it to the ground; would stand and spit on my head; then he, too, would leave my life forever. I had ruined everything.

After a few minutes Cleveland raised his giant head and looked at me. He grinned.

'You little slut.'

I half-laughed, through my nose, the way one does when one is also crying.

'Oh, stop it, you big baby. She doesn't mean any of this. The whole thing is nonsense. Here she says no one has ever done this to her before, and then here she says it happens all the time. She's jangling your wires.'

'She never wants to see me again.'

'Bullshit.' Carelessly he folded the letter and slid it back into the ragged envelope. 'It sounds like she's handing you your papers, but this is just a goddamn ultimatum. These things always are. It's like, 'I'll never see you again, ever. Unless. ' Jane sends me these all the time. Quarterly. Relax. You can call her tonight if you want, ' he said. He picked at a cheese fragment that had lodged in a fold of his jacket. 'Unless.'

We sat for a few moments, not talking about Arthur.

' Cleveland?' I said at last.

'Well, I'm not surprised, anyway.'

'You aren't?'

'It had to happen. It's pretty funny in the letter when she says they 'get you from behind. ' Ha ha. Ah, Bechstein, you dope. What are you crying about? Cut it out. I hate crying. Tell me what happened.'

I recounted to him, very briefly, the events of the previous evening.

'He said I shouldn't bother to call him anymore.'

Cleveland snorted.

'There's a big 'unless' stuck onto that one too,' he said. 'They're both hedging their bets. Stop crying. Goddamn it.' He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a ragged ball of old Kleenex. 'Here. Shit. You haven't lost them both. It's either one or the other. Do you want to hear this?'

'I guess.' I began to feel restored, unconfused, even less achy, simply from the weight of Cleveland 's grouchy attentions. 'Thank you, ' I said. 'I'm sorry. I'm kind of upset to hear about your working for Punicki too.'

'Working with the Evil Poon, Bechstein; we have an arrangement. It's nothing to cry about, Bechstein, Jesus. I'm being admitted to an ancient and honorable profession. I'm learning a valuable skill. Okay now, let that go for one second and listen.'

'I know, I know. If I forget Arthur forever, call Phlox-'

'You could be back in her arms again, as Phlox, or Diana Ross, would have it, within the hour. Really. But I guess you would really have to forget Arthur. Or the other way around.'

He picked up the envelope again and flapped it thoughtfully against the back of his hand. 'So who do you love? Phlox or Arthur? Who do you love more, I mean?'

'I don't know. The same,' I said.

'Invalid response,' said Cleveland. 'Try again.'

I guessed that he was right, that my feeling for Phlox, which I was calling love, could not really be the same as my feeling for Arthur, which I was also calling love. I thought of her clear broad forehead, and of her closet full of spectacular skirts, and of the perfume of her bedroom, and when this didn't instantly move me to decision, I thought of her tenderness and care for me, of her so obvious and persistent affection. It seemed to me that I shouldn't have to think so hard. Something stood between me and Phlox-perhaps it was myself-which made loving her a perpetual effort; she was a massive collection of small, ardent details that I struggled always to keep in mind, in a certain order, repeating the Phlox List over and over to myself, because if I forgot one particular of her smile or speech, the whole thing came to pieces. Perhaps I did not love Phlox, after all-I just knew her by heart. I had memorized my girlfriend.

Or perhaps it was presumptuous and conceited of me, and of Cleveland, to think that Phlox would really have me back. Perhaps she was calling it quits because it was, in fact, quits.

'Urn, Cleveland -do you really not find it a big deal…'