"Live and work, work and live. It's the only answer I can give you because it's the only answer there is." —The Silver Book; Olivia Laing

now

The silver river is a wide expanse of breathing light, intersected occasionally by the flat shapes of boats and their rippling paths. He comes here to smoke, leaned against the railing with his hair whipping in the wind. Shirt collar unbuttoned, expensive watch gleaming on his wrist.

The year is irrelevant; he is forty-five, a similarly irrelevant age lacking the vivacity of youth, and the perceived wisdom of the elderly. Only the tangible facts present themselves to him as anything remarkable nowadays: the rusted metal under his palm, the nicotine he is sucking in, and the water. Robby used to come here to smoke when he was feeling overtired.

He would say, don't do this, don't learn this from me. It really is a bad habit, Dennis. I'm not joking. It's a really bad habit. Why do you do it then? Dennis would ask. Because I learned it from my father, Robby would sigh, and there would be smoke everywhere just like there is now. If Dennis was feeling coy, he would say, but you're my daddy, aren't you. Robby would blush fiercely, the color of bright lipstick, yet he would eventually be coaxed into sheepish laughter too. They must've had this conversation three dozen times in barely distinguishable rhythms.

The river stirs as another barge lumbers down the water, colossal and heavy as all of her sisters, some flanking her, some further out near the curving horizon—and Dennis does not know why this registers as an oddity. He spends ten minutes watching her cross until she is a wavering silhouette in the smog and another ship has taken her place, identical in all the ways that matter, but he does not watch this one. There is no metaphor or sense of kinship, it's just that the strangest things catch his eyes. Drifting things, mostly, and adrift things; there is a difference.

Jack didn't smoke. He was in the military so he was good at denying himself vices, but he specifically hated smoking for the same reason that Robby did it. It reminds me of my father, is what he told Dennis the single time he mustered up the courage to ask, and then he would leave the room whenever Robby even touched a matchbox.

Dennis lights another cigarette, and goes through three more before he decides he's moped enough, and stubs out the lasts one, dropping it into a nearby trashcan. He strolls away from the railing and the riverbank, wiping his hands on his pants. No one likes the smell of a smoker. The sidewalks are only sparsely filled with the late evening crowd; hipsters and office workers and tired night shift workers rubbing their eyes. A woman whose profile he can barely make out through her own smoke cloud waves at him conspiratorially, as if they have shared in some secret ritual. Dennis waves back, wondering if there is perhaps a language of smokers he has not yet picked up in his year-long study of the habit.

Good day? He asks the woman, raising his voice to be heard above the ever present din of Pittsburgh. She shakes her head, waving away her smoke. Sure, hon, she says. If you ignore the fact that we're in hell and it's all falling apart. Dennis laughs, says, hell's a lot warmer, I'd like to think. And probably has less buildings. Never mind then, the woman says. We're probably in a place worse than hell.

As he walks, skirting the edge of the sidewalk, just shy of spilling himself onto the wide asphalt, he looks at the dim streetlights casting circles of illumination. His vision is superimposed with a white burn when he tears his gaze away, so he stops, too dizzy to walk anymore. He pulls out his phone and calls a rideshare, fingers trembling. It takes five minutes for the driver to find him, but Dennis is patient. He gets into the car when it pulls up.

The driver is an older lady; she smiles, hi, where are we headed? Even though it shows her the directions right on the map on her dinky little phone, propped precariously against the dash. PTMC, he says. Her smile flickers: oh, yes, of course. Though, I don't know if… she trails off. Has it been a while since you last visited? Dennis gives her a lifeless smile of his own; yes, ma'am. It's been a while. But I know it's closed down, don't worry. I just want to see it. Oh, yes, yes, the woman says, flustered, and she starts driving.

What he tries to forget, listening to smooth RNB over the radio, is that when he had pulled out his phone, instead of clicking on the rideshare app he had started typing in Robby's phone number. Muscle memory is difficult to build but once the body remembers it will never forget. This is not his official diagnosis as a doctor but as a widower twice over. Even if his status isn't recognized in the eyes of the law.

The woman stops a street over, and once Dennis has paid and stepped out she still idles at the curb with the window rolled down. Did you know someone that worked here? She asks. Quite an innocent question, and not a completely surprising one. He does not try to hide the grief in his face; has only found it to be an exercise in futility. Yes, he says. I knew quite a few someones. I actually used to work here myself. Oh, her voice is soft, I'm sorry, she says. It really is tragic. I used to come here all the time with my wife. She had cancer, the doctors here were really good.

Dennis matches her rueful smile. My husband passed away a year ago, he says and watches her face change. I'm sorry for your loss, she says. He tells her, I'm sorry for yours too. It does not matter that he has not exposed to her the true enormity of his grief, and it does not matter that she has not exposed hers in turn.

They part ways. He passes through the hollow night—and it is night now, he notes with dull surprise—cutting through tree shadows and unsteady patches of illumination cast by flickering signs. He stops, recognizing a restaurant. Italian place, he and Trinity used to come here after shifts when they felt like splurging. It's been renovated into a real hipster type spot, dark brick and a red awning and modern art hung up by the door. There are people inside sitting at booths, and he is standing in the warm glow of the wide storefront window watching their happiness separated only by the glass and years of living. It is not easy to move on but he forces strength into his feet, compels them to keep working. His memories are just that: memories. Trinity is in California now, and he's in orbit.

Dennis never ends up visiting the husk of PTMC. He stops at a familiar intersection, streetlamps everywhere and the pedestrian lights blinking green, and all he can look at is the sea of people crossing. A child with a red pompom on her hat holds her father's hand, he's towing her across. A woman in a soiled dress tugs her flimsy windbreaker tighter around her thin shoulders. A man ducks out of a barbershop. Cylinders with blue and red stripes swirled together, spinning, spinning. Dennis thinks about sitting down on the curb but it's filthy and it's busy tonight, so he turns right back around and walks until his legs are burning. At a decrepit bus stop—empty, it's too dark here—he lights another smoke. Robby's voice in his head says Dennis, what the hell is wrong with you? And Dennis says shut up, you're dead. You're both dead.