Mysteries of Pittsburgh

When we were going through undergrad together, Mike Darling and I would spend evenings reading Michael Chabon, alternately praising and cursing him, convinced he's left absolutely nothing to write about Pittsburgh -- or much else for that matter. We were young. We were, often times, drunk. We were always reminded of him walking to and from Carnegie Library as newly minted clouds were released from the stacks down by the Bat Cave. I think about the Cloud Factory a lot now, living, as I am, 2700 miles from Pittsburgh. The only clouds here are made by planes flying in and out of the Sacramento Airport. Even the water upstream in the American River is clear. It hasn't rained in the month I've been living here. This is not Pittsburgh. This is not the place I'm only now realizing was/is worthy of being lionized in writing. I want to sing you a love song, Pittsburgh. I miss you and your filthy rivers and streets and people and buildings. I miss your Dirty Eagles and dirty Souf' Oakland, yo. But most of all, I miss the shambling lot attending the University, drugged as they are on the abysmal weather that swirls around the top of the Cathedral like crazed Falcons bashed senselessly by a deranged Chancellor high on power. I miss all of my friends and classmates. Dearer to me now than family and scattered to the wind just as effectively. Can any of you hear the siren song of Pittsburgh? Can you feel the pull back to that place? Or have we all lashed ourselves to the masts and are sailing quickly past? There are mysteries in Pittsburgh and there are mysteries in us that we now carry with us. Look for me some day, sitting on the secret staircase watching the clouds rise from the smoke stacks, in the rain.