Just voices in the dark, till I got a better look as they paused at the walkway stair to adjust their packs, hooking the lanterns to the rail. Two teener Black kids, preppy, with soft faces, wearing gloves. Lanterns and gloves. Newbies for sure. Like, refugees from one of the districts Abel had washed out of Midtown. That could be my story, too, if I could only remember it.

I didn’t blame them for the luxuries. It’s safer to work in the dark, but the walkways are tricky if you don’t know them by heart. Lashed and bolted to the building fronts a story or two above flood level, they’re narrow and rough-built, mostly from storm debris. They take unexpected turns, step-ups or down. Don’t always have railings. Plenty near-pitches of my own into the oily drink to keep me humble. I peered hard to make out the boys’ den sign, but likely they hadn’t earned it yet. I’d embroidered the red ‘J’ on my own cap just before my first solo. Ladysmith’s was the nearest den, if the boys were headed home. A good den, word was, but really, these two deserved better prep before being turned out to pick their keep. Maybe best they were paired up.

I let them mount the long gangway and clump along for a block or so, then followed, slow and silent. Pretty sure they never tagged me. And I spotted Rubio long before they did. Only a ragged silhouette against a gray hint of dawn, lounging in the middle of the bridge at Second and 12th, but I’d recognize that stoop anywhere. The boys slowed like they meant to cross at the bridge, then saw him and scuttled away to the smaller crossover four blocks down.

“Rube!” I trotted up noisily, not sure he’d heard me, or even seen the boys slink by. Or he heard but wasn’t letting on. You couldn’t always tell. “Yo, Rube!”

I get distracted on occasion, had been just moments ago. But Rubio was plain absent-minded. A cause for concern, along with his weak health, his habitual gloom, never mind his heretical notions. Been an only child, he said. Never played well with others. But in a den, you had to at least make the effort.

I looked him over, tall and sick-skinny, alone in the open and gone somewhere inside his head. Somewhere in the past, bet on it. Not paying a lick of attention. What’s a pal to do?

First, hide my fat grab bag behind my back. His bag was a flat puddle by his feet. Then I sidled up beside him. Elbows on the rail, shoulders hunched up around his ears, he stared out at the Stuy Square marina as if it wasn’t there.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He was hoarser than he’d been at the start of shift.

“I love this view.”

“Why?”