Free Fearless by Rafael Yglesias Page B

his Uncle Sol had commented when Max announced his intention to go there.
    Recently Max had read that Pittsburgh was voted the most livable city in the United States by a survey. No doubt its air had benefited from the collapse of the steel industry. The article said Pittsburgh had made a particularly successful transition to a service economy, the same transformation that had become the fate of the United States generally. Max knew what that meant. It meant lots of yuppies and renovated brownstones, maybe even the same ramshackle ones that he and his friends used to rent. Actually he remembered there were plenty of great old buildings whose dilapidated utility could be converted to the current fashion of living in work spaces and working in living spaces. He could easily imagine young lawyers turning the ruined town houses into offices and the old warehouses into living lofts. Pittsburgh had always had pretensions to civilization. Even in Max’s day there had been Carnegie’s guilty and self-ennobling charities to the arts, housed in great buildings that probably looked much better without the air filled by the belching of his money machines.
    Truth is, Max had liked the asshole of the United States. It was a real melting pot, where you could see steel sizzle and glow: a town of genuine production. There were workers who hated him because he was young, dirty, and free. There were students who wanted to become engineers and get ahead even if it cost them participation in the sexual revolution. He thought both groups admirable. He also liked his own kind, the students who wanted to act and take drugs; or play music and take drugs; or write plays and movies, and take drugs. And, above all, there was a higher purpose: the Vietnam War to march against, and a black population that had been taking shit for centuries and was amazed you were on their side. At least for a while. What he didn’t know, and understood now as he toured through his old campus, was that he had been in the middle of death all the while, the end of both Americas, imperial and idealistic.
    Max drove to a hill only a mile from the campus where he and three buddies had rented a four-story turn-of-the-century brownstone. He pulled into a spot in front of a hydrant and looked up into the windows. The predictable had been done: root-canal therapy on the decay. The inside had been gutted and replaced with the embalming fluid of renovation: plasterboard, polyurethaned pine flooring, Thermopane windows. In what had been his bedroom he saw a young mother carry a baby across to a dresser. From his angle he guessed she was changing the infant. Her long hair was straight and brown. Her expression was intent on her chore, neither happy nor harassed.
    Max had stood on the window ledge of that room twenty-one years before, high on LSD. He remembered the red face of a student who had the thankless job of being the “control” (namely the sober one) for that day of tripping. The control was flushed from the effort of holding onto Max’s legs while Max shouted back at him, “Let me go! I know that if I jump I’ll die! I’m not going to jump!”
    Max laughed.
    He hadn’t remembered that moment in years. That Max had died without a funeral.
    He had to pee. He hadn’t since takeoff, hours ago, and although this was the first request from his bladder, the need was pressing. He went up to the door of his old quarters and pushed the white button. The sound it made was different from the old harsh buzzer. Chimes played softly in the distance. The urgency of having to urinate was delicious and brought tears to his eyes.
    The young mother asked, “Who is it?” warily. She opened the door guardedly, only a crack, peering out at him.
    “Excuse me. I really have to use a bathroom.” He didn’t mean to be comic, but he swayed from one foot to another, unable to stand still without releasing his bladder.
    “I’m sorry,” she said and shut the door.
    He peed on her steps. He