Chapter 1 - Another Lonely Night.

Some people called it the ‘Triangle Building’. That’s the name that was written on the doors to the lobby on the street level. Well, I assumed that was what was written there - several of the letters had been scratched off so now it only reads, ‘R ANGLE BUILDING’, but you know.

If you looked it up in the history books, though, the official name of the building is ‘The Flatiron Building’. When I first read that I had to go research to find out what a flatiron was because, being a millenial and all, I had no clue what that meant. Apparently, a flatiron was an old-fashioned clothing iron - you know, the kind you used to get wrinkles out of fabric back before they’d invented dry cleaners - and it was usually shaped like a triangle. They were generally made of iron or something else really heavy. You’d put them on top of your big old wood burning stove and let them heat up until they were piping hot and then hoist them onto an ironing board where you’d drape your shirts. Then you’d rub them across the clothing, steaming out the wrinkles, making sure not to let it sit in any one place for too long or it would burn through the fabric. Anyway, buildings that were constructed on triangular shaped plots of land back in the nineteenth century came to be known as ‘Flatiron Buildings’ because of the resemblance to these unwieldy appliances. I guess I could see it if I squinted up at the building across the street and imagined a clunky wooden handle stretched across the roof. Maybe.

So, at one time there were tons of ‘Flatiron Buildings’ around. Mostly because the streets didn’t always go in straight lines and there were lots of strange shaped plots of land that were built on, including triangular plots. But over time, city planners became better at plotting out streets and went with square grids, so the triangular buildings disappeared. There were still a few around. The most famous, of course, being the Flatiron Building in New York City, which was one of the first modern ‘skyscrapers’. But in my humble opinion, Pittsburgh’s Flatiron far outstriped the one in the Big Apple.

For one thing, our Triangle building is a good twenty years older than theirs. And while it isn’t as tall or as well-preserved, it has a lot more character. Every time I came by here to look at the building, I fell more in love with it. There was so much detail put into every stone of the building. The cornices were all hand carved and the brickwork was done so meticulously. There were elaborate ironwork flourishes on the outside, like the big gas lamps by each door and the downspouts. It just looked like a building that had a hundred stories to tell. If only I spoke whatever language the stories were written in.

Okay, so maybe I was over romanticizing a stupid building. Daphne used to tell me all the time that I’m a huge drama queen, and I suppose she’s right. But of all the buildings in the city of Pittsburgh - which, by the way, is chock full of magnificent architecture pretty much everywhere you look - this was the one building that had called out to me when I was directed to find a subject for my Art & Architecture class at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

So I was sitting on the bench across Liberty Avenue from the Flatiron Building, drawing its facade for the two hundredth time, trying to capture whatever quintessential characteristic made up the building that had captured my imagination to the exclusion of almost everything else for the prior two months. By that point I had already drawn it from about every angle I possibly could. I remember feeling like I could draw the building in my sleep, I’d done it so many times. But it still seemed like I was missing something. Something that could make the image of a building made of charcoal on paper come alive.

If only I could have got inside. I was sure that there was so much more inside that building that needed to be discovered. Details and minutiae that would have answered all the questions I had about this building. I mean, I had already researched just about everything I could about the building, the architectural style it was built in, and even the architect himself - Andrew Peebles - but it just seemed like there was more there. There was a part of the story that I didn’t know yet. And if I could have found that part of the story, then I would be able to not only ace my end of term project, but I would have somehow felt justified in my obsession.

Yeah, Daphne was probably right. I really was a total nutcase. But that’s why she loves me. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

So there I was, just doodling really, drawing the western point of the triangle - the one made by the intersection of Liberty Avenue and Smithfield Street - not even paying any attention to the images that were coming out of my pencil. The weather was starting to turn colder and it looked like it might rain so I pulled my jacket closer around me but I didn’t rush off. I was done with classes for the day and I didn’t really have anywhere else I had to be, so I figured I’d just do one more sketch before catching the bus back to the University District where I shared an apartment with Daphne. My mind wasn’t really on my drawing though since, like I said, I could almost draw that building in my sleep.

Which is why, when I looked down at my sketchpad, I was actually quite surprised to find that I’d drawn something different that time. The building itself had remained as immutable as the stone it was built from, but there was a new detail there that had never arisen before. I quickly looked up at the building across from me, searching to see if the picture I’d drawn truly did match the reality of the building or not, only to be left wondering. All the windows of the mostly vacant building were as empty and blank as they always were. But that’s not what my sketch had shown.

In that one sketch there was a face looking out the big end window on the third floor.

I returned my attention to the drawing, examining this mysterious face that I didn’t actually remember seeing. It was a face that looked haunted. Which is an odd thing to say, because I had never felt that the building itself was haunted. If anything, that building had always seemed welcoming and warm to me, despite the fact that it appeared to be unoccupied. In my mind I could see the past denizens filling the rooms and walking the halls, throwing parties, doing whatever work their jobs required, living their lives. But if the building wasn’t haunted, this face certainly was.

The face was that of a man. It was difficult to tell, since I’d drawn the image from a distance and the details I’d caught were few, but he looked to be older. I’d decorated the face with a big bushy beard and clunky, horn-rimmed glasses that further obscured most of the facial features. But there was just something about that face - there was a sense of longing there - maybe it was in the lines around the eyes or the twist of the mouth, I didn’t know which, even though I had drawn it.

That was all I could see of the man, though. Either I hadn’t caught the rest of him or his body had been obscured by the darkness of the room behind him, so that all I got was that disembodied face. Or maybe he really was a fucking ghost. Who knew, right?

I was just about to get up, march across the street and start banging on the door to see if a real live person would answer, thus proving to me that I hadn’t simply imagined the face in the window, when I felt the first raindrops hitting my face. That big grey cloud that had been threatening all afternoon had moved up faster than I had expected. It looked like it was going to start pouring. A glance at the clock on my phone showed me that the next #66 bus was due in only three minutes. If I didn’t make that bus, there wasn’t another one for a half hour and I did NOT want to stand in the rain for thirty minutes waiting on it. Making a quick decision, I opted for dry clothing over the pursuit of my mystery man, and started off in a sprint down the block towards the bus stop.

The face in the window would have to wait for another day.

On my way into the apartment I checked my mail again, hoping against hope I’d finally get a response from the LLC that owned the Flatiron building, but there wasn’t anything. I’d actually gone to the trouble of digging through the Allegheny County property tax records to find the name of the registered owners of the lot. The County said the property had been owned by a Donal Byrne for several decades but was apparently purchased by a vaguely named corporation about ten years earlier. The Flatiron Consortium, LLC was one of those faceless, soulless, holding company type organizations that had only a PO box for an address and no other way to contact them. But, undaunted, I had sent them a letter early on, asking for whatever information they might be willing to give me to help me in my research for this school project. I’d also asked to be allowed access to the interior of the building, hoping to see if any of the architectural details of the time - 1880s Pittsburgh - might still be evident inside. So far, though, they hadn’t answered and I was running out of time before my project was due.

I’d been slaving away on the written report that needed to accompany the rest of the presentation - which was NOT my favorite part of the project - for about an hour before Daphne came in from her shift as a patient escort at the Magee-Women’s Hospital. My roommate and best friend was a paragon of productivity. I still don’t know how she did it: she worked forty hours a week and still managed to take almost a full course load of classes at the University of Pittsburgh. She had wanted to be a doctor since she was five. I can vouch for that personally, as I still remember her making me pretend to be her patient as she played doctor on me by wrapping my entire head in toilet paper to bandage me. And, no, we had never ‘played doctor’ any other way, but there was almost nothing besides that which we hadn’t done together in the thirteen years we’d known each other. She was my best friend, my closest confidante, my primary emotional support system, and the only person who’d put up with me. I literally don’t know what I would have done without her over the years.

“Hey, Justin. Haven’t you finished that report yet?” she commented as she peeked over my shoulder in the process of hugging me hello. “Sheesh. You’d think you were working on the Gettysburg Address judging by all the effort you’re putting into this project. I didn’t think you were even that into architecture.”

“I’m not. Well, not really,” I replied, one-handedly hugging her back over my shoulder. “I mean, I’ve always liked architecture but it’s not creative enough for me to do as a career. There’s too many rules involved: like making sure the building won’t fall over and shit. If I were doing it, I’d probably WANT to make buildings that leaned every which way, had impossible angles and that you couldn’t ever decorate because there was too much ‘useless’ space.”

“Yeah, I guess Picasso really wouldn’t be the best person to hire to design your new building,” Daphne agreed with him as she moved off to grab some food from the fridge. “Is that why you’re so enraptured by this building? Because it does lean a little bit, you know, and it has all those wonky angles.”

“Hey, stop ragging on my building. It does NOT lean. It’s just that all the other buildings around it were built crooked,” I argued, causing both of us to break into giggles.

“Well, make sure you put that in your report then,” Daph counselled, “since by this point you must have written everything else there is to know about that pile of rocks.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” I pretended to laugh at my friend’s ongoing critique. “I’m almost done with the report, actually. I just wanted to change a few things and do some editing.” I got quiet as I typed away at the computer, revising my manuscript as I went, only to groan and push away from the desk in frustration after only a few more minutes. “Unfortunately, the one big thing I’m not sure about, and which will definitely affect my grade from this particular professor, is exactly what type of architecture my building represents. I just can’t pin it down. It’s got little bits of everything in it, if you ask me. I guess, if I had to pick, I’d say it was Romanesque Revival. But it’s also got elements of Beaux Arts and maybe even some precursor leanings towards Art Deco. I just don’t think it can be classified as one or the other. My professor probably won’t be happy with that answer though, and it’s driving me crazy trying to figure out what to write on that MAJORLY important point.”

“I say you make up your own term and call it . . . Nineteenth Century Triangular Chic . . . and just be done with it,” Daphne offered unhelpfully.

I threw a pencil at the annoying girl to shut her up. She retaliated by throwing a piece of the popcorn she’d been munching on back at me. Before you knew it, the fight had morphed into an all out pillow fight interspersed with way too much giggling. When the hilarity had finally petered out we were lying on the floor in a panting heap but we both felt much better.

“I think I saw a ghost today,” I said, breaking the companionable silence.

“Really? That’s kinda cool. Where?”

“In my building. I was sitting on the bench across the street next to that little head shop, you know, where I usually sit while I sketch. I wasn’t even really paying attention to what I was doing. But when I looked down at my sketchpad, I realized I’d drawn a face in one of the windows. It wasn’t there when I looked up again, but I don’t think I just made it up. I think it was there and then . . . it wasn’t.”

“Creepy. Was it, like, all skeletal and dripping blood or something like that?”

“No. He just looked sad and lost. I think he’s lonely.”

Daphne slapped the back of her hand against my stomach and laughed. “Leave it to you to romanticize a haunting, Jus. You’re hopeless. We really, really, REALLY need to find you a boyfriend. Stat! Or else you’re going to die of an overactive romantic entanglement with your right hand.”

“Hey, at least Rosy Palm always puts out and I don’t have to buy him breakfast the next morning,” I countered with a snarky grin.

“Yuck! TMI times a hundred thousand, Jus!” Daphne complained as she leveraged herself up from the floor. “And that’s my cue to leave you to your wicked ways. I do NOT want to have to witness that much patheticness.”

I huffed a snort of laughter. “You’re not fooling anyone, Daph. We both know you’d love to watch me jerk off. Cuz you’re kinky like that and always have been.”

“Hush you! I have to go to class in a half hour and I do NOT need to be thinking about you jerking off. I have to be thinking about the muscles in the cardiac system. So please stop teasing me.”

“You’re no fun at all anymore, Daph,” I complained as my roommate deserted me to go take a shower and get ready for class. “Fine, just abandon me to my homework. See if I care. I can do this without you. I really can . . . I just don’t WANT to, is all . . .” I complained as I was forced to go back to my computer and finish the written report I’d been working on.

I was tired of tossing and turning. I’d finally finished the written report for my project - well, I’d done as much as I thought I could and consoled myself that it was as good as it would get - but even after I’d closed up my computer and gone to bed, I just couldn’t stop thinking about my building and that crazy, haunted face. I switched the light back on and pulled my sketchbook out, flipping to the page where I’d drawn that afternoon’s version of the building. There was that face again. It was somehow compelling. So compelling. I felt like I couldn’t look away from the eyes. They were calling to me.

“Argh! I can’t believe I’m being haunted by a fucking face in a building. This shit doesn’t happen to real people, does it? Go away already,” I ordered the face, which completely ignored me and just continued to stare at me from out of the paper of my sketchpad. “You know you’re really annoying right?” The enigmatic face didn’t answer, of course. “Fine. I’m going to figure this shit out once and for all!”

I threw off the covers and crawled out of bed. It was only about eleven and the busses didn’t stop until one so I could still make it back to downtown. How I’d make it back was more problematic, but I chose not to dwell on that issue for the time being. I pulled on a pair of old jeans, a baggy sweatshirt and a holey pair of trainers. My trusty messenger bag with my sketchpad was already waiting by the front door. Since Daph wasn’t home from the library yet, I left the light on when I locked the door behind me. And then I was off.

The bus was practically empty that time of night and very few people were waiting at any of the stops, so the trip downtown took less than no time. I hopped off at the last stop on Liberty Avenue and walked the five or so blocks east till I came to the 7th Avenue cross street and my favorite building. The street was well lit even though most of the buildings were dark. It was almost midnight on a weekday, so there weren’t a lot of people around and I had pretty much the entire block to myself. I wiped off the seat of my usual bench, glad it was no longer raining at least, and then made myself comfortable.

And then I just sat there, doing absolutely nothing, just looking up at the black windows and wondering what was inside.

From where I was sitting, all I could see was the pointiest end of the triangle - the end where the defunct Indian Food place had been. Behind that there was the door to the main building lobby, which was always dimly lit up even though I’d never seen anyone go in or out of the doors. I’d stuck my face up against the glass and looked inside many times, but all you saw was a narrow hallway with the door to what I assumed was the main stairwell on the right and another door to the back of the Indian place on the left, all of which existed in that perpetually flickering dimness of the one barely working fluorescent bulb. It all looked just like it always did. It looked empty and silent.

Or did it?

I scanned across the northern face of the building - the long hypotenuse of the triangle that abutted on Liberty Avenue itself - and thought that maybe I could detect the merest glimmer of a glow coming from the three windows in the center on the top floor. I got up from my bench and walked down the street a bit, coming to a halt standing directly across from the suspect windows. It was really difficult to tell, because those three windows seemed to be covered - which in itself was odd since none of the other windows seemed to have curtains - but maybe there was a hint of light coming from behind them. Maybe. It was a murky, dim light, which was only distinguishable by being slightly less black than the darkness of the other windows. It was the kind of light that you almost didn’t see if you looked at it directly, but when you turned your head to the side and looked at something else, you could detect with your peripheral vision.

Or maybe I was just imagining things I wanted to see.

After standing there staring at the suspect windows for fuck knew how long, I finally realized I was totally pathetic and needed to have my head examined. What the hell was I doing out here in the middle of the night looking at an empty building? Even if there was some light in one of the upper windows, it didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean there was a human in there. It could just be a light left on by the owners like the one in the lobby. Was I really going to stand there all night waiting for something to happen like a total moron?

Of course, the moment I made the decision to stop being an idiot and go home, that’s when it happened. That’s when the curtain that was obscuring the centermost of the three glowing windows in the top floor, moved the slightest bit and a let out a flash of brightness that sliced through the night. I only caught the motion from the corner of my eye right as I was about to turn away, so I didn’t see it clearly, but I thought I might have even caught a glimpse of the hand that had nudged aside the curtain at that moment. A hand that was attached to a lonely haunted face, maybe?

When I looked directly up at the windows again, there was once more nothing at all to see. No real light, no hand, no face. Nothing. The building looked as vacant as it always had. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

I sighed and shook my head. “I’ll figure you out yet,” I declared quietly to my own private ghost.

Smiling at myself and my romantic fantasies, I reached up to wave at the invisible figure behind the curtain before setting my steps to trudge back down the hill towards the bus stop. If I was lucky, I’d make the last bus back to Squirrel Hill. If not, I had a long walk ahead of me. But at least I’d have a lot to think about while I was walking.