The Charmer

The Charmer By R.W. Clinger I work at Robinchex Puzzle Company. I’m in charge of wrapping puzzle boxes in plastic. An interesting job. Nothing fancy, but I really like to do it. The job pays the bills. I have health insurance and a retirement plan. I get a slew of vacation and sick days. There’s no reason why I should leave my job. After putting in my eight hours, I decide to have a strong drink at The Hoffstetter Inn on Mayden Street in downtown Pittsburgh, near the old Heinz factory on the North Side. The redbrick and steel building stands seven stories high. Brass doors with lion-shaped handles welcome visitors. Most of its interior is designed with black and gold hues. There are over sixty bedrooms to rent, a restaurant with the same name, and a common bar. The Hoffstetter was built in late 1891 by brothers Robert and Joseph Hoffstetter. For the next thirty years, it thrived through the steel-making years of Pittsburgh. Things had slowed down during the Great Depression, though. Robert hung himself in the lobby, losing close to a million dollars in stocks. Joseph vanished, leaving behind his hotel. Rumors suggested he ran away with a young farmer. The two had fallen in love and vanished to Hollywood. Joseph had never been seen since. Nor was he viewed in Hollywood films. Thereafter, the hotel financially fell into the city’s hands. It sat empty from 1929 to 1941. In the spring of 1941, middle-aged alcoholic Marshall Weddington paid pennies to the city for the hotel. Marshall, unfortunately, died from alcohol poisoning less than three years later. Enter Fitz Hoffstetter-Murrer in 1955, Robert Hoffstetter’s love child to his mistress, Miss Jane Murrer. Fitz was born in 1929 and raised by his mother in Pittsburgh. He went to Yale for business, played the stock market wisely, and purchased six buildings in Pittsburgh, including his father’s abandoned hotel. I love The Hoffstetter Inn because of its turn-of-the-century extravagance: eighteen-foot-high doors off the lobby, gold banisters wherever I look, mahogany chairs, steel beams inside the lower rooms. English furniture, Pittsburgh Plate Glass windows designed by architect/artist Arthur Bentingstein, and so many other intricate features. Frankie O’Toole mans the bar, a third-generation bartender at the place; his career for the last fifteen years. He’s a handsome ginger at thirty-five, married with children. I know he’s witnessed more than I can imagine within The Hoffstetter throughout the years. A true friend of mine. Honest. A good listener. I rely on seeing him behind his U-shaped bar, a white towel always hanging over his left shoulder. Frankie’s all smiles when he sees me enter and knows my drink of choice: two fingers of whiskey over three ice cubes. He has my drink ready for me. “You’re three minutes late, Pete. I’ll make you a fresh one.” “It’s fine. Thank you,” I tell him as I sit at the bar. “I’ll drink it the way it is.” “Someone was just here to see you.” “Who? What woman?” I’m a handsome man at thirty-five. I have a job. I’m not crazy. City women always find these facts out about me, learn that I’m single, and desire me. Good men are hard to find among so many women. I’m a good man who wants to find another good man. Frankie will tell you if you don’t believe me. “It wasn’t a woman. A gentleman. Big. Blonde. Blue eyes. He looked like a Hollywood actor.” “You just described Chris Hemsworth.” Frankie chuckles. “Sorry, I didn’t see if he had a hammer.” “Too bad. I’d bed any of the Hemsworth brothers, even at the same time.” I wink at him. “If given the opportunity, of course.” Marilyn Monroe, Rock Hudson, Prince, and Janice Joplin sit around Frankie’s bar during happy hour. They’re not ghosts. They simply look like dead icons. The quartet is scattered around the bar, searching for new lives, fresh dreams, something, uncertain regarding their current positions in the world, perhaps lost. I finish my drink. Frankie makes me another one. While doing so, he’s on the phone with his wife, Carly. Their oldest daughter has lice, again. He mumbles something like, “f*****g public school. If I made enough money, I’d send all three girls to private school.” Frankie slides the fresh drink in front of me and meanders away to wait on Marilyn and Rock, who now sit beside each other, flirting. “Peter Find,” a masculine voice says to my right. It’s not someone I already know, or he would call me Pete, like most of my friends and acquaintances. I turn my head to the right and see Thor standing there: awesomely tall at six-four, awesomely muscular at two hundred thirty pounds, awesomely handsome with short hair, under-the-sea blue eyes, and blonde fuzz on his cheeks and chin. His hands are massive, too. And his lips are almost pink. He looks older than me. Maybe by just a year or two because of the acute wrinkles around his eyes. Thirty-eight, tops. I look at his style of dress and approve: tight khakis against his Herculean-like legs, sky blue shirt glued to his chest, n*****s hard and pointy, and a brown leather belt at his middle that matches his Italian loafers. “Pete,” I mutter to him. “People call me Pete.” He extends one of his plate-size palms for a shake. “I’m Waverly…Wave Yorkshire.” I shake his hand, stare into his eyes, and become somewhat lost. What I see isn’t proper: our bodies twisting around on a king-size bed in one of The Hoffstetter’s upstairs rooms; Wave drawing his tongue along my chest, his teeth nipping at my n*****s; his c**k inside me, separating me into two equal halves and. Politely, he asks, “May I sit down?” I love a man with manners. He…he looks at me and studies my six-foot frame, one hundred seventy-five pounds, and Tom Brady smile, hair, eyes—the works—before he sits to my right. I become his prey, or at least I feel like his prey. It doesn’t bother me. On the contrary, it turns me on. “Of course.” I don’t offer men drinks. Never. It’s not in my character. But I do offer to buy Wave one, maybe because I’m attracted to his hulking frame and easy smile. “What will you have?” “Ginger ale over ice. Sorry. I don’t drink.” “Never apologize for saintly behavior.” “I’m not a saint.” He chuckles. “I just don’t like the taste of alcohol.” “I respect that. Would you rather continue this in the restaurant? We can move there where it’s quieter.” He shakes his head. “I’m good. Here’s fine. It’s better lighting. I’ve always thought the restaurant a little dark. Thanks for the offer, though.” Frankie prepares Wave his ginger ale. He discreetly winks at me and grins. The grin says: Have fun with the stud. Even straight guys like me think he’s beautiful. I ignore Frankie and ask Wave, “How do you know my name?” “You’re the lawyer, Peter Find.” “You’ve got the wrong Peter Find. There are two of us. You do know this, right?” He turns in his swivel chair and faces me. “What do you mean?” I tell him what I know about the attorney, Peter Find. “He’s been in business for the last seventeen years. He’s older than me. He’s married to Lillian Daye, the artist. They have a cottage-like house in Brentwood. I’m nothing like him.” He scratches his chin, perplexed. “There are two of you?” “Yes. If you want the defense attorney, you’ve got the wrong Peter Find.” “Is there any relation between the two of you?” I shake my head. “None whatsoever. I’m quite boring and work for a puzzle company. I wrap puzzles in plastic for a living.” “You work at Robinchex Puzzle Company?” “For what feels like forever. What do you do?” He takes a sip of his ginger ale, swallows it down, and chuckles. “If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.” “So, you’re a bounty sniper, right? Wealthy people pay you big bucks to take out their enemies.” He shakes his head, grinning. “I’m afraid not. I’m a professor.” “Over at Car-Mell?” He nods, keeping his stare glued to my face, perhaps liking what he sees. “With robots?” “Close but no cigar.” “Bigger things, I’m sure,” I tell him, knowing the college works to create biological bombs, aggressive computer viruses, and houses poisonous swamp creatures. Rumor has it there’s is a nuclear bomb facility hidden under the university. Everyone who lives in Pittsburgh hears about the secret facility but doesn’t know if it really exists. Maybe Wave works there. He says, “Huge things.” “Dangerous things?” “Of course,” he tells me: confident, alluring, and sexy as hell. He smiles, winks. Is he flirting with me? I’m not sure. I’m so bad at such man games. Shame on me. “You can’t talk about your job then?” “I’d like to, but then I would have to be killed.” “That’s too bad. I’m sure you have some amazing things to tell me.” “Secrets are dangerous, Mr. Find. Some are so gruesome, you don’t want to hear.” I sigh and take a drink of my cocktail: soothing, pleasant, just right. “I’m sorry I’m not the Peter Find you’re looking for.” “Me, too.” He winks again. He is flirting with me. I can’t remember the last time a guy played such a game with me. Three months? Maybe four? It’s a comforting emotion that folds around me. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Pete. Even if you’re the wrong Pete.” I’m about to ask him to have dinner with me, just the two of us, either here or elsewhere. It doesn’t happen, though. Wave stands, nods, and ends our conversation and brief meeting. He tells me, “My search continues for the attorney, Peter Find.” I stand, shake his hand, and steady my gaze on his. “Until we meet again, Waverly Yorkshire.” His grip is tight on my own, so very much like Thor’s. I slightly lower my head and finally see his hammer between his thick legs. It’s outlined in his khakis, six inches soft, cut; a massive tool that interests me to the fullest. Overpowered by the mass, I’m weak in the knees. Maybe he is a superhero from another planet. Can be. Possible. I can only hope. “Goodbye, Pete.” “Goodbye,” I tell him, sad to see him walk away. What a good-looking, tight ass. He’s the first guy I’ve been interested in for quite some time. * * * * Ira Baye, my best friend, and I go way back. I can’t even remember when we haven’t been friends. For most of our lives, we’ve lived in the same area of the city. While growing up in Pittsburgh, attending public school, he and I shared the chicken pox in third grade. During high school, he went to the prom with Lisa Chandler, and I gave her twin brother a blowjob in his aunt’s basement. During our college years, Ira went to Carlington in Erie and obtained a degree in writing. I chose Pitt, majoring in business. When Ira graduated from college, he moved back to the city. He found a job at Masterton Publishing as an editor and continued to live in the city. He still lives by me, a half mile away. “Google Waverly,” Ira Baye says, scanning Netflix for a horror movie to watch. He’s crashing at my apartment on Strand Street for the night because he’s having a fight with his current boyfriend, Lou Rexroad; something about Ira spending too much money on his art supplies and not making anything from his oil pieces. Ira adds, “Everyone Googles people when they’re attracted to them. It’s our culture.” He looks over his right shoulder. “He’ll be easy to do homework on because of his name. I’m sure there’s not a lot of Waverly Yorkshires in the world.” I stand at the two-person table behind the small sofa and thumb through bills. “It’ll be a waste of time. He’s looking for a different Mr. Peter Find. My drink with him meant nothing.” “Untrue.” Electric bill. Car insurance. Book of the Month Club bill. “Why do you say that?” “Because he didn’t pop you in the face when you checked out his d**k. Some guys would have done that. Wave is different, I guess. Plus, you told me he was flirting with you.” “Are two winks really flirting, though?” I ask. “Could be.” “I don’t think they are. He was just a nice guy getting information out of me that I didn’t have. He needed to see an attorney, not me. Again, he found the wrong Mr. Find.”