I'm still entertaining the notion of working in Pittsburgh for a year. Thanks to my landing a White House tour when I was expecting to be in New York, my vacation plans were shattered and I decided to spend a middle two days in the 'Burgh.
Waking up in DC, I dropped my wet toothbrush on the hotel room carpet next to my bed. I entertained myself with the "How much money would it take for me to put that back in my mouth?" game. More than most countries' GNP, I decided. Thus did I stop at a DC drugstore on my way to Pittsburgh. I was buying my toothbrush when I spotted a tube of KY jelly.
"I'm going to need that tonight," I sighed.
Driving in Pittsburgh is my nemesis. I don't think a single street runs north-south or east-west, and they meet at bizarre angles. The map looks like the city's planners threw wet spaghetti at the wall and said "build that." Worse, if you make a mistake, you are well and truly screwed. I've spent hours upon hours trying to recover from wrong turns there. Once for Football Weekend, I suggested to Bubba that we not even rent a car this time. "Let's just cab everything," I said.
"No," he snapped, still butthurt from our last Pittsburghian vehicular analcide. "I want to slay The Beast."
We didn't.
Freshly arrived, I was walking across Penn Ave when a passing car stopped in front of me and a guy rolled down his window. "Fuck you, man!" he screamed, emphasis on the fuck, as if he wanted to be sure no one thought he said he loved me.
Surprised, I pointed to myself. "Fuck me, man?"
Impatient with my stupidity, he used his forehead to point to a guy behind me. "No, fuck him, man."
"All right then," I said, continuing on my way.
I checked out my prospective yuppie apartment and the upscale restaurant next door. I knew it had a cigar bar, so in I went. I expected to see a bunch of 30ish Google employees in hockey jersies pretending to smoke cigars. What I got instead was a time warp. Wearing the slacks and jacket I packed to wear at the White House, I was woefully underdressed. I had stepped back in time to the 1920s. Everyone was in a suit. Everyone. Packing the mahogany room and its leather furniture were men and women smoking cigars, sipping brandy, and talking business and politics. I asked a 60ish guy if I could sit at the long table he occupied by himself. He said he was expecting others, but would I please join them. He asked for my story and introduced himself as Bobby. As his friends trickled in, he graciously introduced me to each of them.
"You a Pollack?" he asked, beaming with a cigar clenched in his teeth. I said yes. He pointed to himself and his friends. "Wop, wop, hebe, kyke. Welcome." Everyone nodded their warmest greetings.
"What's the difference between a hebe and a kyke?" I said, genuinely confused. They laughed at my question, but they didn't answer it. When the final friend, a black guy, joined us, I was both grateful and rueful that he'd missed the ethnic slur round-robin.
We talked and drank, and they told me all about their lives, their wives, the strippers they have known. And of course, about living in Pittsburgh. When I said how much I hate Roethlisberger, they regaled me with stories about what an insufferable prick the guy is to locals. ("Not any more," one guy added. "The Stillers clamped down on him. No one ever sees him anymore.") At one point Bobby waved over a city councilor and introduced him to me, saying if I was going to live in this district, I simply had to know Timmy. I puffed my cigars and marveled at how I'd traveled back in time 90 years by simply walking through a door.
"So how long," I asked all assembled, "will it take me to learn how to drive here? This town is my nemesis."
"It's everyone's nemesis," they groaned in chorus. Bobby rolled his eyes with empathy. "At least 60 years. I'll let you know if I ever figure it out." They all told spectacular driving stories. I told them about the KY.
We, the brotherhood of butthurt, bonded.