Megan Abbott - Detroit Noir

“Motherfucker on our bus,” I hear the homeless man mutter. I really wish he would stop saying that.

We pass by more construction sites. Things are changing here. New buildings push out the grand old ones, like bullies in a big rush. When you go downtown at night there are people there now, suburban people, city people, doing things, spending money.

“Hey, white man! Why don’t you go back to Livonia?” says the homeless man.

I ignore him. Nothing bad is going to happen — for some reason I know this. Yet it alarms me when I hear a startled inhalation, a collective Huh! roll through the bus. I turn to look at the invisible man and I see that he has now dropped filthy trou and is displaying his penis to me and everyone else.

Frankly, I’m kind of relieved. An act of aggression, but a harmless one.

“I ain’t too invisible now, am I, motherfuckers?” he yells, waving his spotted peter at everyone on board. To be on the safe side, I clutch my thermos, figuring it will work well as a cudgel if I need to use it that way. Taunt me, yes. Piss on me? I don’t think so.

Still, it’s a relief when the driver pulls the bus over right next to a construction site, stomps down the aisle, and tells the now-very-visible homeless man to walk his raggedy ass off his bus. Right now.

With great dignity, the homeless man pulls up his pants, turns, and exits. When the pneumatic doors close behind him, there is only the smell of him left. The woman with the child looks sternly at me. She is holding her child closely, protecting him, her lips squeezed tight.

For a moment, I try not to laugh about what just happened, but just can’t help myself. She looks at me, puts a hand over her mouth, but soon her head is shaking and she can no longer hold it in. Everyone on the bus starts laughing. Up in the rearview mirror, I can even see the driver smiling.

Megan Abbottis the author of The Song Is You, Queenpin , and the Edgar Award finalist Die a Little . Born in Warren, Michigan, she grew up in Grosse Pointe Woods, a suburb of Detroit. She lives in New York City.

Craig Bernierbecame enthralled with Detroit — its culture and nuance, its dread and hope — after returning from a stint in the Navy to attend Wayne State University. Most of his published works have focused on the city’s denizens. He teaches composition and writing on the adjunct faculty of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

Joe Bolandwas born in Detroit, and has lived and worked in the area his entire life. He is currently writing a crime novel.

Desiree Cooperis a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, a frequent contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered , and cohost of American Public Media’s Weekend America. She did anticrime and affordable housing advocacy work for New Detroit, an urban coalition that addresses the city’s social problems. She lives in the city with her husband and two children.

Loren D. Estleman, a Michigan native, has received four Shamus Awards from the Private Eye Writers of America for his Amos Walker, Detroit P.I. series, which he’s been writing for twenty-seven years. In addition, he is the author of a historical Detroit series that includes Whiskey River, Motown, King of the Corner, Edsel, Stress, Jitterbug, and Thunder City.

Lolita Hernandez, born and raised in Detroit, is the author of Autopsy of an Engine and Other Stories from the Cadillac Plant , winner of a 2005 PEN Beyond Margins Award. She is also the author of two chapbook collections of poems: Quiet Battles and Snakecrossing . Her family hails from Trinidad &Tobago and St. Vincent.

John C. Hockingobsessively reads, writes, edits, and collects pulp and noir fiction. He lives outside of Detroit with his inspiring son and superhumanly tolerant wife. He thinks more people should read Dan J. Marlowe’s The Name of the Game Is Death.

Craig Holdengrew up in the shadow of Detroit and went to sleep most nights with a transistor radio under his pillow — listening to the Tigers and Red Wings or experiencing the late ’60s via the old CKLW. His most recent novel is Matala .

Roger K. Johnsonis a native Detroiter who still lives in the city with his beautiful wife and their three lovely daughters. A graduate of Wayne State University and a middle school science teacher, he is committed to making sure that all the children he encounters realize their full potential.

Peter Markusis originally from the southwest side of Detroit. He now works with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project, which sends writers into Detroit public schools. He is the author of three books of short fiction, Good, Brother, The Moon Is a Lighthouse, and The Singing Fish. His novel, Bob, or Man on Boat, is forthcoming in 2008.

Joyce Carol Oatesis a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. Author of the national best sellers We Were the Mulvaneys, Blond, and The Falls , which won the 2005 Prix Femina, Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. In Detroit, she lived on Sherbourne Road north of Seven Mile, 1962–1968.

Dorene O’Brienwas born and raised in Detroit and currently teaches writing at the College for Creative Studies and Wayne State University. She won the Red Rock Review Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the New Millennium’s Fiction Award, the Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award, the Bridport Prize, and she is the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.