“Why not? All the lights and everything? Like life’s still going on somewhere?”

“Who made you Little Mary Sunshine? Don’t know a waste of power when you see it?”

“The marina dudes can afford it.”

“None of us can afford it! Waste not, want not!”

I couldn’t disagree, not even to rouse him.

The 12th Street Bridge was a patchwork of rusted metal and warped boards arching two full stories above the water, to allow the bigger boats to pass beneath. It offered a sweeping panorama of the Stuyvesant marina a couple blocks uptown, with its solar arrays powering lighted guard towers and twinkling boat lamps, masquerading as a place of safety and good fortune when, really, it was a haven for pirates and rich uptown biz men. The Mainland net, when the signal wasn’t down, referred to Stuy Marina as Pirate Cove.

Leaning into the dented steel railing, as big around as my thigh, I breathed in the rank, salty damp and watched the occasional boat glide by on the outgoing tide, oars stroking, a fleet shadow trailing a blur of running lanterns, or the on-duty light of a pedal-powered water-taxi on call to the island towers down at the Battery, a far outpost of the more adventurous money. Other shapes slipped by in darkness, leaving only a wake to slap against eroding brick and stone, going about errands they preferred to keep private.

“I like it anyway, all lit up at night.” I wasn’t going to say something lame like, it might be nice living on a boat in Pirate Cove, or how a boat at mooring with its portholes lit filled me with longing. Not till I knew why I felt that way. “Makes things look almost normal.”

“Only if boats on Broadway is your idea of normal.”

Bad idea to point out that, riding on a ridge, Broadway was dry from Washington Square all the way uptown. Rube liked the sound of it his way.

Smarter, better educated than most in the den and prickly as a porcupine, Rubio didn’t have a lot of friends. He had so much to say, so much information and opinions to spread about and all of it important, at least to him. His tendency to lecture sent most denfolk fleeing for their bunks. I often wondered why I put up with him, but his encyclopedic knowledge was a bridge to my past, and in a pinch, no friend was more reliable. I trusted him like no other, except maybe Rousseau. Rube recognized how tender I was. He never made a move on me and he repaid patience with loyalty. But when his illness peaked, he was at his prickliest. Then, even simple conversation was an effort.

I moved on. “Feels like a storm coming.”

“What else is new?”

“I mean a big one.”

“You got the same weather report I did before we went out. Nothing about a storm.”

“I’m only saying . . .”