Working

I am in the No Man’s Land of Lower Manhattan watching a man weld a lamp. We are in a building surrounded by truck bays and warehouses. People still live in cavelike spaces here; not all of the area has become sweetly residential. There is still some grit. Some secrets. Like in this building.

The man is converting a 1930s truck lamp that ran on DC to an AC (large) desk lamp. He had stolen the circular hollow piece of metal along with the disk of thick striated glass that rests over it from a nearby closed-up truck-repair place. He stole a lot of things from there. He stole an entire lathe.

I wear a welding mask to watch his sunlight-bright torchlight become green and moody as he joins a hexagonal joint to the post. Solder pools.

A few minutes earlier, I had wandered across the hall—from loft to shop, passing the zooming sounds of a carpentry studio perpendicular to both. I see the guy with curls of blond hair, one of the men I see every day these days as I head off to work, usually walking by in a skirt and black boots, feeling very much a woman in a man’s space. I wave and smile; he waves and smiles. I hop down some stairs, turn the deadbolt and squint out into the day.

Last night the welding man and I ate octopus. He ate octopus, specifically, I watched him slice tentacles off the twisted-looking creature and put it in his mouth. I ate mozzarella di bufala. He chewed.

Just now he walked back into the apartment. I confirmed for him that reviews I read today of this restaurant agreed with his assessment of the octopus.

“It is great octopus,” he says to me. “And I’ve had a lot of octopus.”

He empties a bag of coal into a stove and leaves to continue working on the lamp.

When I wandered into the metal shop before, I caught him focused, head tilted over a series of worn-in thumbscrews. The air was chilly. There was a chemical smoky smell and I watched him, arrested. Watching someone absorbed in their work is bracing.

I hear it is snowing out.