The Long Faces of Row Houses

He is seventeen years old and it is 1947. He has been waiting in the park next to the row houses for at least five minutes, maybe ten, probably more like fifteen. They had agreed on ten o'clock in the morning to make their escape.
     It is spring. He is waiting, standing, his athletic bag beside him packed with his pajamas and toilet articles and a change of clothes. Because it is Sunday, the church bells are ringing. The sun shines on the flowers which run along the grass of the park out to the street where he has parked his older brother's car next to the yellow fire hydrant. It was spring last night, too, when he lowered her to the grass near where he is now standing, not that far from the light of her parents' window up in one of those row houses -- although, of course, down where they lay next to the flowers it was quite dark. She fit his hand in hers and lifted one of his fingers to her eyes where he felt her tears.
     “How can I possibly wait until tomorrow?”
     That is what she said.
     She really did say that.
     But she was crying.
     So, standing there, it is now twenty after ten and the church bells keep ringing, and not just from one church, but it must be from two or three of them, he is thinking of tonight, how he will lay her down and how she will take his hand in hers. His older brother has loaned him his car until morning.
     Except twenty minutes have gone by.
     Of course, all this time he has been watching the door of her parents' row house. People come out of other doors into the street shining in the sun. Mostly older people. Mostly older ladies. Because of all these church bells, the ladies are going to church, some alone and others walking in groups of two or three. Since it is spring, and even though the streets, unlike the park, are bare of flowers, most of the ladies have dressed in bright colors, each with a hat, some with half-veils. Only the women in mourning wear black.
     “How can I possibly wait for tomorrow?” is what she said.
     He had eased the back of his hand down her cheek -- she didn't stop him -- further along her neck and shoulder -- she still didn't stop him -- until his hand rested beside her breast.
     “Wait,” she said.
     “Not now,” she said.
     He said, “I love you so very much.”
     Standing there, the bells ringing, he remembers her breast next to his hand and looks at the flowers in the little park running out to the street.
     “I have to go now,” she said.
     “My parents expect me,” she said.
     “My father will be angry,” she said.
     They stood in the park not that far from the light in the window of her parents' row house and looked into each other's eyes. They promised each other ten o'clock in the morning. He would be there. She would be there.
     “I love you so very much,” he said.
     But now it is ten-thirty in the morning. That means that ten more minutes have gone by. Most of the ladies are now well on their way to church. He can still see the last groups walking along the street past the closed shops at the corner. The bells continue to ring.
     Look! There she is!
     But with her family. Father, mother, big sister, little sister, her. All in church clothes. The father steps out ahead of the rest of the family along the street without flowers. He wears a black suit and white shirt in the sun, and, as always, he is short with a broad chest and swarthy looking with black hair, and now that he has walked a ways, he turns and waits for the rest of his family. The mother is taller and thinner than the father and wears a pink dress and a white hat. All the girls, big sister, little sister, and her, wear white, white blouse, white skirts, white stockings and white shoes in the sun. All have long black hair, and for some reason the three of them wear red roses in their hair.
     It is as if he were not there.
     It is as if they had not looked into each other's eyes and promised each other.
     She walks down the sidewalk towards the shops at the corner with her family, the father out in front in his black suit, then the mother in her pink dress following her husband, then all the three sisters in white, walking together, she in the middle, all following their mother.
     But he is there.
     He has been there in the park since ten o'clock. Since before ten o'clock. That's when the church bells first started ringing.
     And now he is watching her follow her mother and father down the street, dressed in white, a red rose in her hair.
     “Wait,” he says.
     “Not now,” he says.
     And he starts out after them.
     He leaves his athletic bag right where it is.
     He cuts over the green of the grass in the park, over a border of bright flowers in the sun and along the sidewalk across the street where the five of them, the father ahead, walk past row houses. They have not seen him. He walks faster. He makes it to the next corner before they do and crosses the street and stands in front of the closed green grocer's shop as if he has been there all the time.
     “Good morning, Mr. Menza,” he says.
     The father looks at him, says nothing, and keeps walking.
     “Good morning, Mrs. Menza,” he says.
     The mother doesn't look at him and keeps walking.
     “Marie,” he says.
     She does not answer him, but he is in beside her, right in there with her sisters.
     “Marie,” he says again.
     First the father stops, then the mother and the other sisters stop.
     “Marie!” says the father.
     Only the father has said her name in a much different manner, in a much sharper manner, and the family starts walking again long the sidewalk, she with them.
     But she turned and looked before her older sister took her arm and pulled her around. He saw the tears on her cheeks.
     Now he is back at the yellow fire hydrant beside his older brother's car. Now he remembers his athletic bag and runs to pick it up. Now he is inside the car, starting the engine, revving it up, and squealing the tires as he pulls away. Now he is racing along the streets, too fast, past the long faces of row houses, past closed shops at corners, past a church at another corner, older ladies crossing the street. He doesn't slow down.
     Now he has crossed out of those streets where people live and is driving even faster along the river, the Monongahela, passing great gray blocks of the Jones and Laughlin steel mills where his father works and his older brother has just started to work. He swings up the hill towards Mt. Washington, winding up. The road flattens out near Fetzer Street, not that far past the Incline, and he slides the car to a stop at that tiny little grassy place on the edge of the cliff where couples come at night.
     But it is broad, broad daylight now, the sun shining, with all of Pittsburgh before him.
     The church bells keep ringing as he gets out of the car and walks past the flowers to the railing where he looks out.
     This is where he grew up. This is where he has spent his entire life.
     To his right he can see the river making its way past the dark forms of Jones and Laughlin, directly below him the light of the sun dances off the water, and to his left, beyond all the bridges which join the South Side and the towns of Mt. Lebanon, Bethel Park, Castel Shannon and Dormont to the high buildings of downtown, he can see the Point, the place where the Monongahela joins the Allegheny and forms the Ohio. He knows that the Ohio flows all the way to the Mississippi, and he also knows the Mississippi flows all the way to the ocean.
     This ringing of the bells comes from more than two or three churches, maybe five or six or seven, probably eight or nine, those last ones further and further away.
     He is seventeen years old.
     He thinks: I will never, never stay in this place. I will never work in the steel mills. I will join the merchant marine. I'll take my bag and go down the Ohio and down the Mississippi and I'll sail all the oceans of the world.