In North Beach

We were somewhere in North Beach, walkin hand in hand down the street when we heard a lone guitarist playing and singing Johnny Cash in in a soft baritone. Shana and I turned our heads and saw some dude jammin inside a long narrow bar, and she said “Cool” and we walked in. Dude finished playing Ring Of Fire, then launched into Folsom Prison and Shana and I were grinning, because we both like Johnny and the tune holds special meaning for divorcees like us. I can’t help but think it, and then I say “He’s good but he’s no Slim Forsythe” and she says: “He’s not bad…”

Then Dude comes to a turning point in the song, singing:

I shot a man in Frisco

And he stops, a few folks laugh as if in on a joke, then he continues:

Just for callin it Frisco…

And Dude finishes the tune as some in the crowd applaud and laugh. Shana and I don’t even stay for a beer and walk out, hand in hand. She is wearing a short denim mini and a white peasant top and looks striking—at 5’9” tall she is curvy beyond imagination, crowned with that wild dark hair, a hundred percent good Russian Orthodox girl who turns the heads of the skinny Italian boys in the pizzerias we walk past. I ignore them, knowing I have her full attention. A bit further down the street, she whispers into my ear: “Those Italian guys looked at me, then they looked at you… I feel so safe with you.” We kiss.

*

Just a couple weeks before, I’d been texting Shana Mae while I watched Slim and his New Payday Loners jam at the Inn Termission in Pittsburgh’s South Side, in the back room of that narrow bar. The room has a vaulted ceiling with wooden beams and stained glass skylights, and about 20 people were spread around the place and Slim was his characteristic wiseass self, jokin a bit between songs.

“Thanks for comin out, folks. We’re happy to be here playin the Inn Termission’s Great Hall,” he says and laughs. Then he starts into Ring Of Fire and I text the name of the tune to Shana, as I chug on my beer and puff a smoke like I gotta finish them and run out, but I’m just feeling fast…

Slim and the band are makin a joyful noise and the acoustics are fine, and it surely helps that he is backed by Evan “Big Rock” Knauer on electric guitar, standup bass player “Mister” Craig Roberts, “Bossman” Shane McGraw on drums, “Spider” Bob Wentzel on tenor sax, “Uptown” Steve Browne on trumpet, and singers “Country” Don Bistarkey Perrone and the Gospel Girls: “Wailin Jenny" Safron and the “Queen of the High Cs” Melissa Ippolito. They roll into Ghost Riders In The Sky and it is haunting, magical and some tall yuppie-looking guy moves over in front of me, blocking my view, and he glances back at me. He looks like he works for a bank, with his close-cropped hair and habit of wearing a blazer when he’s out partying with his buddy, a guy who looks like a muscular “Hootie” of Blowfish fame.

I don’t hide my enthusiasm, hootin and hollerin “Yeah!” because I just can’t get enough of this guy and his band, who play like they’re in the Grand Old Opry instead of in the back room of a mostly empty Pittsburgh bar. I look around and, through an old reporter’s habit, I do a head count of the place and find that there are just 18 people in the back room, watching these folks play like pros. I can’t believe it, just as I couldn’t believe it when I first caught a Slim Forsythe performance months earlier, in Murphy’s Tap Room in Regent Square, where about a dozen souls were groovin on how talented these people are.

“I’d like to wish all the Sons and Daughters of Abraham a happy Rosh Hoshanah,” Slim says between tunes. “And may each and every one of us, have peace…”

He starts singing Peace In The Valley, with that harmony behind him so angelic, the musicians so perfect, it’s like everything is flowing right all at once. Tall yuppie blazer guy looks back at me incredulously, and shakes his head. I nod back at him, knowing what he means—amazing. After the song ends, yuppie guy is clapping as he says to me: “These guys are great!” I say I know, I see them every chance I get.

“I’m from New York, and just moved here… It’s been a long time since I’ve heard this kind of music,” he says. “My wife heard from a friend that he’s good, and she told me I should go see him… They are incredible. Will they play any old time stuff?”

Oh yeah just hang out, I say, as Slim and the Loners croon into Long Black Veil, and the Gospel Girls' high voices sharpen the poignancy of the sad tune. Yuppie guy shakes his head, smiling from ear to ear. I smile back, then text Shana the name of the tune. “He plays a lot of Cash,” she responds.

He plays with a lot of heart, too. A former lawyer, it wasn’t so long ago that Slim Forsythe was Kevin Forsythe, working in city government. But several years ago, the nickname he took for the stage overtook him, and he transformed himself into the schoolbus drivin, guitar playing cowboy from Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood. His second CD soon will be released, and those who know this country crooner recognize his real style and talent, and know he lives above Nied’s Hotel and that he has a song about it, too. He has created his country-playin character, and performs it very well.

*
I have my right arm around Shana’s shoulders and she has her left arm around my waist as we slowly walk down the street and head to a bar that pretends to be a pub, but which Shana calls “Irishy.” We are both playing our roles flawlessly—she’s the hot divorcee with the charms that can lure a man across the continent to see her. I am the Pittsburgh stud writer who has come all this way to claim her as my prize, acting as if I fully deserve her.

Inside the bar, she whispers to me: "You’re the best looking guy in this bar,” and I kiss her neck and her full lips and ask her if she’s sure she’s not Irish. She’s drinking a rum and coke and laughs at the suggestion, as I sip a Guinness. Then she tells me about how she visited Ireland, and all the guys in the bars thought she was Irish. She melds into a sweet, soft brogue:

"'So tell me Shana, are ya married?' No, I’d say. 'Who’re ya here with, then?' I’m here with my mother. 'Yer here with your mum? Lemme meet your mum… I’ll marry you.'"

Full Circle

Writer's note: I wrote this piece three years ago, and was reminded of it with the passing of my old friend, Dave Demarest.

My former English professor, David Demarest, ambled up to me in the basement hall of St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, which was partly filled with food-munching parishioners and members of the crew for “Gift To America,” Dave’s play about the church’s famous Maxo Vanka murals. Dave leaned toward me, his lamb-chop beard trimmer than it had been in my college days, and thanked me for my help in the production, which originally was staged in 1981. I was embarrassed, because I couldn’t express all he’d done.

About 20 years ago, I first visited St. Nicholas Church in Millvale for a field trip for a class Dave taught at Carnegie Mellon. He arranged the Saturday afternoon tour, and he checked to see that we had rides to the church. “Those of you who have cars, help your classmates out,” Dave instructed.

We all made it to Millvale and assembled outside the small Romanesque building. Perched on a bluff along State Route 28 outside Pittsburgh, the little church didn’t look impressive. But walking into the church, my heart felt tight in my chest as I viewed Vanka’s paintings on the ceiling beneath the choirloft. Christ on the cross, wearing a crown of barbed wire and being bayoneted by a World War I-era soldier, and Mary separating two soldiers on the battlefield, snapping a soldier’s bayonet from his gun like a matchstick. Those two scenes are part of 22 murals that decorate the church, and nothing Dave told us could have truly conveyed their magnificence.

I’ve been amazed by the murals ever since, and I have written about them for various publications. I just recently started volunteering with the Society for the Preservation of the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka, which produced Gift To America. Dave had known about the murals for decades, and had written a play about them and also an illustrated guide about them. He’d told friends, students and many others about the masterpieces.

I’m thankful that Dave introduced me to the murals, which convey an understanding that is universal, while being uniquely Croatian. The paintings also are special to me because I am part Croatian, through my mother.

My late father sometimes referred to Carnegie Mellon as a “communist” school, because in his eyes the school was liberal. I know my churchgoing father would be pleased to see that my connection to CMU led to an awakening. I realized that working with others on the goal of restoring and preserving the murals gave its own catharsis.

On the opening night of the play, as the first strains of tambura began to play and  a few soulful Croatian voices sang as the actors slowly entered the sanctuary, a teardrop crept out of the corner of my right eye. I quickly wiped it with my hand. Then a teardrop trickled out of my left eye. I felt foolish, not understanding why I was reacting so, and quickly wiped the tear. My stomach was strangely queasy. And for a moment, I never felt closer to my great-grandparents, Franjo and Lucia Vukelich, who came to America from Croatia nearly a century ago.