ARRIVAL IN THE STEEL CITY
The rolling hills of southwestern Pennsylvania yield suddenly to squalid hamlets as we drive north on Interstate 79. These boroughs and towns are the remnants of the communities that housed the industrial proletariat who supplied the steel that provided the infrastructure of twentieth century America as well as the armaments that destroyed the Axis. The now decrepit houses, presently inhabited by the African-Americans, Hispanics, and the white trash who displaced the unionized laborers of the 1950's and 1960's in these suburbs of Pittsburgh, once contained upwardly mobile moms and dads whose kids moved onto college and then into professions.
Nazis and Communists struggled for the allegiance of the oppressed masses such as those who lived in these places in the years leading to World War II. That neither triumphed would seem ironic to the protagonists in that struggle could they be catapulted into the early twenty-first century. Thus I wonder if Garth and I are simply anachronisms, the archetypes of the primal brute and the rootless Jewish cosmopolitan, destined to be locked in existential struggle as life bypasses us and establishes new paradigms to be tested and discarded.
"You'll have to tell me where the fuck you live," Garth announces over the noise of a lame country-western ballad that blares from the radio.
"I thought we were going to hang out at some motel."
"Why should we pay fifty bucks a night to some bastard for four walls and a roof when you've got a place all set up?"
Imagining what a fifty-buck-a-night room would be like, I see his logic. We get off the interstate and traverse the city until we reach my former domicile.
We travel through the city to the old Jewish neighborhood that was my abode. Garth parks near the rear entrance of the high rise in which I lived on the sixth floor. My manacle springs open, freeing my right wrist, as he turns the key to my handcuffs in the lock. He then tucks his pistol into the waist of his trousers as he gets out of the car.
"I hope no one saw that piece you packed away."
"I hope not either, because then I'd have to use it on them."
"You mean you'd shoot a seventy year old lady? I think I was the only person below sixty who lived in this place!"
"Then I'll just tell them that I'm your brother who's here to protect you from your ex-boyfriend."
"That would be pretty fucking ironic," I tell him as I get my keys out of my purse to open the back door of my apartment building.
"I've given you more pleasure than you ever deserved."
I then think I must be dreaming as he walks to the passenger door, and opens it, takes my hand, and helps me out of the car. We walk into my apartment building and then down a flight of stairs to the basement. Luckily, we're able to proceed to the elevators unnoticed.
"If there are any cops outside of your apartment, they're gonna die," he announces as we ride up to the sixth floor.
"Then wait here until I get a chance to see if the coast is clear. If you hear me talking to a cop, just ride down the elevator, get whatever you need from the car and disappear. I'll let you get a head start."
"You'd lead them right to me, if you were smart."
"I don't want anyone to get killed, including you."
The elevator doors open. I give Garth a peck on the lips and walk through the doors as my lover hangs back in the elevator car, lacking the swagger of a thug now that a showdown with the police might be in the offing.
I turn to the right and then to the left. Looking down the corridor, I see that it is empty, so I take a few steps toward the door of my apartment and find there is no yellow tape or any designation of a crime scene in the doorway.
I walk back to the elevator. The door is open. Garth is holding the pistol in plain view.
"Put that goddamn thing away before somebody sees it!"
"Is there anyone out there?" he whispers. For the first time I detect fear in his voice.
"No, but if one of the old biddies who live here even thinks you're carrying a gun, I'm sure they'll call the cops. And we won't know if they see us through a peephole while we walk down the hall."
He sticks the gun back into his waistband. "This better not be one of your Jew tricks."
"Be quiet!"
He trails me from the elevator and upon confirming that the corridor is empty as I promised, he begins to trudge down the hall. I catch up, take his hand, and place my index finger at a right angle to my lips. "Shush!" I caution him.
He slows down and lightens his steps. A moment later we are in front of my apartment door. I turn the key in the lock and open the door as softly as I can, trying to avoid the scrutiny of my nosy neighbors.
I look behind me and see only light coming through the peephole of the door across the hall and hear no stirring in any of the adjacent units. I walk across the threshold with Garth in tow and re-enter the place that I had until just a few weeks ago called home; finding no sign anything had been disturbed since I my forcible removal.
I close the door gently. Garth and I scan the room that bears witness to the struggle that led to my imprisonment. The empty bottles from the beer he consumed sit undisturbed on the coffee table. Crumbs from the bagel he had eaten lie still on the kitchen table. The odor of the rotten food in the trash can is nauseating.
"I'll help you clean up," he says sheepishly.
Amazed by his generosity, I begin handing him the beer bottles from the coffee table, which he then deposits in the trash.
I then tie up the trash bag and announce, "It will smell better in here after I get rid of this."
When I return, I see Garth sitting in front of my computer, waiting for the device to boot up.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"I need to see something."
"To find out what's been written about the bank robbery?"
"Yeah, right."
He opens the web browser, and instead of typing the name of a newspaper, or 'bank robbery', he looks in my Favorites menu and goes to 'Personal". He selects 'Brokerage Account' and double clicks the mouse. A web page with my name at the top appears with an empty box in which to type in my password.
He pulls the gun from his waistband and undoes the safety catch. I watch him swivel around in the chair, grab my right arm, point the gun at me, and cock the trigger.
"What's the password?" he demands.
"So being nice to me was just a way to get my money? You ain't getting a fucking dime from me, you goddamn rapist!"
"Everything's alright with you Jews until it comes to money, isn't that the truth?"
"I thought you were a man! You're just a goddamn thief."
"Hey, you're the one that doesn't want me knocking off any more banks."
I break into tears. "I worked for that money. I was going to use it to pay for law school!"
"Hey, you can't go to law school if you're dead. But I can still knock off banks even if you don't give me your goddamn password."
I begin pounding on his chest with my fists. The gun drops to his side as he allows me to vent my anger. My hands begin to hurt as my fists strike his rock hard muscles.
Deep down, I know he is right. In order to remain invisible, neither of us can work. The only sensible thing is for us to pool our funds and live off the money until it runs out.
The safety clicks as he puts the trigger guard back on the pistol. I collapse on my knees and bury my head in his chest whimpering, "You bastard!"
He pats me on the back. I can't believe I am relishing his touch as I prepare to relinquish all that I've earned in my life to him.
"You can't leave me. You'll remember where this comes from," I plead.
"I ain't leaving you; you know too goddamn much."
"After all I've been through, if I ever catch you with another woman, you're getting a round in your head, or if I'm in a bad mood, between your legs."
"Yeah, sure; now what's the goddamn password?"
"Zion3417."
"What the fuck's that?"
"'Zion' is another name for Israel."
"That's a fucking weird password."
"Just type it in; go ahead, steal all my fucking money!"
