In which Adam runs afoul of Mike’s proclivity for intellectual bigotry

A landscape lighting project downtown acquired new dimensions when the building architects (not the landscape architects who got me involved in the first place) became interested in how one might light the building to enhance its features from afar. One of its salient details is the cruciform corner columns, which straddle the octagonal lobby volume, beginning as “plus signs” for three stories before merging with the upper square tower volume for the next 40 stories (effectively losing two sides into the façade). The building thus has four “innie” corners all the way to the roof, and we decide to uplight one of these as a test.

Even the narrowest-beam spotlight I could scrounge only carried a dozen floors or so – clear that we’d never reach the roofline from the ground, we decided to see what a similar spotlight at the roof would do aimed down (new contract with a new client). After a quick reconnoiter on a crackerjack Indian summer January evening, I came back on a less friendly night to actually test it out.

The views from the 42-floor mechanical penthouse parapet floor are spectacular – that I never brought my camera up there should be simply condemned up front then ignored … The night of the test, a front was coming in. Upriver along the Charles to the west was a spectacular band of peach being squeezed out of the sky by the descending grey, and chill wind buffeted us. The building supervisor assigned someone to assist and secure me — in deference to blog anonymity, I’ll call him MG (for “maintenance guy”), but his actual name evokes the adjectives “Mighty” and “Young” for anyone versed in 50’s science fiction.

30-something, short and stocky, MG’s got a pugnacious but friendly face, skewed by a notable growth on the bridge of his nose, and a pleasant, can-do attitude. We set off from the loading dock for the elevators with a cheerful, “Let’s get up there, brother!” Since I’d be hoisting a 20 lb. light out over 42 stories on a 10’ piece of Unistrut, both the gear and I needed to be tied off so neither could go over the edge (not very far over, anyway … ). Which involved MG coaching me into how to don an OSHA harness (“Let me show you this, then, brother”), me squeezing my above-average height and weight into a difficult-to-adjust rig set up for someone smaller and shorter, and then his tying me and the gear off to the window washing davits once in position (“Feels tight — you good, brother?”).

So I’m oddly trussed up, standing on a scaffold with the light in place, me and it roped to the roof, and we’re gazing out on the impressive city skyline view waiting for darkness to fall, and I’m wondering what MG and I can find to talk about — other than his fondness for the epithet, “Brother”, the lack of circulation in my legs, and my envy of his thermal coveralls … As far as I know, his life is all building maintenance – boilers and chillers, ducts and valves, probably brawling on weekends. I don’t want a Young Frankenstein, “What hump?” moment, so I’m not going to ask about his nose (but I do ponder his dating difficulties some … ), and I’m determined to avoid cars, assuming he’s a protectionist Ram pickup guy, me having driven there in a Toyota Matrix (Asian wagon).

But as topics come and go, I find myself explaining my job and lamp and fixture technology in more and more detail to a guy who knows more about electricity than me, musing on the state of Boston commercial real estate with someone who works in several major buildings and knows both some history and what’s “in the pipeline”, debating smart phones with much more of a power-user than I’ll ever be, and comparing kids to grandkids. Yes, he has a wife and children ….

Turns out he owns the Volvo I’m parked behind, and while beer figures in our chitchat for awhile, he’s a reader, and an avid watcher of nature channels – not the Crocodile Hunter (R.I.P.), but Nova, National Geographic, etc. – and we talk evolution, space travel, lunar colonization, LED lighting, nanotechnology, Homeland Security, urban flight, you name it. While the architects are tromping all over Boston seeking various vantage points to evaluate the effect (and while our core temperatures plummet), MG and I are finding easy conversation on all manner of topics. All liberally punctuated with “brother”, which has gone from dubiously ironic to an honorific I feel I don’t deserve.

We passed a fine evening, and once we were done he demonstrated equally unexpected tactful grace to go with his erudition. After helping me down from the scaffold, he said he’d set about untying things if I wanted to get out of the harness. Not thinking past the beckoning warmth of the open mechanical bay door, I slung the Unistrut with its hyper-secured light over my shoulder and headed for the lit doorway — when I was stopped dead in my tracks by an unseen force. The rope tied to the D-ring of my harness. One of the things he had to untie was me …

Never said a word about it.