Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

lawsuits?”
    Michael smiled at him. “The lane dwellers are used to it.”
    Thack looked around him, like a dog sniffing out his bedding, then went directly to the window and peered out to the bay. “The lane dwellers, huh? Sounds almost anthropological.”
    “Well, it is … kinda.”
    “Like an Amazonian tribe or something. Well, there it is, all right.”
    “What?”
    “The Alcatraz lighthouse. You said you could see it from here.”
    “Oh … yeah. That’s it. Look, if you don’t mind making yourself at home, I should go fix that step.”
    “Now?”
    “It’s kind of … an agreement we all have. There are planks in the basement already cut to fit. It shouldn’t take that long.”
    “This I gotta see,” said Thack.
    “If you’d rather wait here …”
    “No. Go on, lead the way.”
    So Michael went to the basement, with Thack on his heels. He took a plank from a stack of ten (marked SOS—Save Our Steps by Mrs. Madrigal) and found a hammer and the appropriate nails.
    “The steps are in jeopardy,” he explained, as they crossed the courtyard into the pungent darkness of the lane.
    “As are the steppers,” said Thack.
    “If the city gets another complaint, they’ll tear them down, no questions asked. They’ve already got plans to replace them with reinforced concrete.”
    “Can’t have that,” said Thack, a little too deadpan about it.
    Michael looked at him, then continued: “We’re buying time right now, trying to get public support.” He gave up the pitch, wary of Thack’s irreverence.
    When they reached the steps, the broken one was immediately apparent, white as a dinosaur bone under the Barbary Lane streetlight. Michael pulled the fragments free and removed the rusty nails with his hammer.
    Thack squatted next to him. “The support beam is almost as rotten.”
    “I know.”
    “Hardly seems worth it.”
    Michael looked up at him. “I thought you said you were a preservationist.”
    Thack shrugged. “Antebellum stuff. These steps don’t have any historical interest.”
    Michael lifted the plank into place. “Maybe not to you.”
    Thack watched him hammer for a while, then said: “Gimme that.”
    “What?”
    “Do it right, if you’re gonna do it. Gimme the hammer.”
    Michael blinked indignantly.
    “You hammer funny,” said Thack.
    Michael considered several retorts, then handed him the hammer. “I’m a nurseryman, all right?”
    Thack made the nail disappear in three deft strokes. In spite of his mild humiliation, Michael actually enjoyed the moment, his eyes fixed on the set of Thack’s jaw, the corded white flesh of his neck. When he had finished, Thack sat on the mended step and patted the spot next to him. “Try it out,” he said.
    Michael took a seat. “I guess this seems kinda dumb to you.”
    “What?”
    “Caring so much about these steps.”
    “I dunno,” said Thack.
    “I’ve been here almost ten years, so this place is kind of in my blood.”
    “Yeah. I’m that way about Charleston. I’d have a hard time leaving it.”
    “Well,” said Michael, “then you understand.”
    Thack drummed his fingers against the railing.
    “How long will you stay?” asked Michael.
    “Oh … four or five more days.”
    Michael nodded, mad at himself for capitulating to Brian’s panic. It was high time he started catering to his own needs again. “You know,” he began, “if you’d like to join us at the river …”
    “Thanks,” said Thack. “I wouldn’t horn in on your date.”
    “Oh,” said Michael. “He’s just an old friend.”
    “Oh.”
    “He’s straight,” Michael added. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. I mean, I was the one who asked him. It’s no big deal.” He felt a little traitorous saying this, but Brian would just have to deal with it.
    “Well,” said Thack. “It does sound like fun.”
    “You bet.”
    “Three buddies in the boondocks.”
    “Right,” said Michael a little uneasily. What sort of compromise was he accepting? “You’ll like Brian, I think. He’s a great guy.”
    They stayed there on the steps, bantering jovially under a lemon-drop moon. Half an hour later, having established a late-morning rendezvous, Thack bid Michael a hearty farewell and set off to catch the cable car at Union and Hyde.
    Elated but a little confused, Michael called Brian and broke the news to him. He took it well, all things considered.
    “No problem, man. It’s your cabin.”
    “Well, it’s our trip, though. I didn’t wanna …