Next to the door is a beat-up couch and a tiny dorm-sized fridge being used as a side table, a stack of books and a lamp on top. But that’s not the bulk of what’s taking up the room in here.
Salvaged metal parts.
Everywhere.
Spokes. Wheels. Bars. Fenders. Pipes. Sheets. The walls are lined with industrial shelves that are packed with metal parts of all shapes and sizes. Metal hangs from the rafters. It’s stacked in the corner next to a large rotary machine that looks like it cuts or grinds—both, maybe. A large table in the center room stands near welding equipment; I recognize the small orange machine and nearby mask from seeing a similar one in use at the boatyard.
At the end of the garage, opposite the door, Lucky flips on a lamp over a workbench. Hammers and saws and a variety of strange tools hang from a pegboard. Rows of tiny drawers.
I look around in amazement, feeling his eyes on me. He doesn’t say a single word. Which is kind of weird. That’s when it hits me.
“This is your thing,” I say. “This is your photography.”
He nods.
“Metalwork.”
“Yep.” He pulls out the steel stool from under his workbench. “I made this.”
It’s not fancy. Simple, clean lines. And I can see where it was welded together at the joints. But it’s beautiful. And it doesn’t squeak like the stool behind the counter at the Nook.
Before I can open my mouth to say anything, he points to other things and explains what each is for and how they came to be: A basket-shaped dome around a light fixture that was once a tin can. A cage he salvaged from a crab trap that holds more scrap parts. A set of drawers from a 1950s paint shop that he cut up and reassembled. He melts down metal. Cuts it up. Joins it. Makes it into something new.
“You’re an artist,” I finally say, stunned. “Like me.”
“Craftsperson,” he corrects. “Small difference. I need things I make to have a practical purpose.”
“For the coming apocalypse,” I say, remembering our talk on the Quarterdeck.
He chuckles. “Hey, I like art, too. A lot. But this … is my thing. It’s just a personal choice. Like your photographs of signs. This is what speaks to me, I guess.”
“Hey, I get that.” I look around. “You rebuilt your motorcycle here.”
“Yep.”
“You weld.”
“I do,” he says, nodding.
I blink up at all the scraps of metal hanging from the rafters. There’s something else up there too. A sword. “What about that?”
“That,” he says, taking it down to unsheathe a rustic black blade, “is what I’m learning. The forge.”
“Wow,” I say, touching the pommel. “So cool. You can fight off zombie hordes.”
“Maybe slice off an arm or two before it goes dull,” he says with a shy smile. “Not that great at forging yet. It’s hard work. But really cool. You can hammer iron into anything you want, if you’re patient. Not sure I am, but I’ve got a good teacher. I just haven’t had time to take lessons from him lately, what with everything going on.”
Iron. Hammer. Forge. Anvil.
Blacksmith.
“Your shirt—the one you were wearing when you took me out on the boat …”
He nods and looks at me a little funny. Like maybe he’s surprised I remembered it?
“The blacksmith,” I say. “There’s a blacksmith on Lamplighter Lane with a wrought-iron wolf hanging above the shop. That’s what was on your shirt. That’s your teacher?”
“Mr. Sideris,” he says, nodding slowly. Squinting at me.
Why is he looking at me so strangely?
He’s making me nervous, so I scratch my arm and yammer. “My mom has this weird hang-up about Lamplighter Lane. Like, I sort of remember her mentioning it once or twice when I was kid, but she definitely freaks about it now. Anywho, she thinks there’s a black cloud over that street, or a portal to hell. It’s haunted? Something, I don’t know. She hasn’t stepped foot there since we came back.”
“Really?” he says, making a face and chuckling.
“You know how superstitious we Saint-Martins are. The whole romance curse and all.”
He sheaths the sword and hangs it back up on its hooks. “I’ll definitely have to tell Mr. Sideris about Lamplighter Lane. He’ll get a kick out of that. Maybe he unwittingly opened up the portal inside his forge. Hot enough, that’s for sure.”
Hot enough to burn someone. I glance at the burn scars on his forehead. “There’s actual fire in the forge, right? I mean, I don’t know anything about how it works, but