SPENT THE DAY going around the hotel touching up the paint where leaks had stained the ceilings and in the thousand little places where the walls had taken a beating, and for quite a while I felt content, almost elated.  Painting does that to me.  The task is simple.  The product of the task is smooth and clean and attractive.  During the work the mind is free to wander.  When the task is over, or even when a small but significant part of the task is over, the painter is justified in taking a moment to admire the work, and to praise the painter who did it.  I generally count as a significant part of the task the obliteration of any one stain, nick, gouge, or smudge, so I spend much of my painting time in self-congratulation, but I feel that I deserve it.  On this occasion, however, the mind, free as it was to wander, wandered to some places I would rather not have gone.  I found myself thinking about Matthew Barber.  I would rather not have been thinking about Matthew, and I hadn’t meant to think about Matthew, but other thoughts had led me to him, subterranean thoughts.  I had been trying to recall everything I could about the cave we had dug together, once upon a time, when we were boys, a couple of adolescent troglodytes, because I intended to include the cave later in Dead Air.  In recalling the cave, I found myself “recrawling” the cave, making my way on hands and knees along the corridors that branched from its vestibule.  Each of these corridors was the work of a different digger, and each led to a private place, its digger’s den.  In the course of my recollective crawling, I arrived at Matthew’s chamber, his sanctum.  Its boy-built door was secured with a boy-built lock.  Matthew wasn’t inside—I knew that—but his secrets were inside—I knew that, too.  I picked the boy-built lock, and I violated his privacy, and I discovered his secrets.  I remembered, and I was ashamed.  I quit painting for the day.

THE SOUND OF EXUBERANT HAMMERING was coming from the roof.  I went outside, walked backwards away from the hotel until I could see figures up there, and called out, “Yo, Tinkers!” 
   The two surviving tinkers came to the edge of the roof. 
   “Hey, Peter!” called the little one, waving.  “Sorry it took us so long to get around to this.”  To my surprise, he seemed quite happy in his work, as jolly as he would have been if the Big Tinker had been working beside him. 
   “That’s understandable,” I said, “considering the circumstances.” 
   They took their derbies off and held them over their hearts. 
   “Look,” I said, “I never know what to say about death.  I’m really sorry about the Big Tinker.  I know you’ll miss him, and Albertine and I are going to miss him, too, and—and—” and then, to my indescribable surprise, a large form, a third person, wearing a derby, a big tinker, moved to the edge of the roof and called down to me, “Hey there, Peter, how’s they hanging?” 
   “What?”  I shaded my eyes with my hand.  I bobbed this way and that, trying to get a clearer view.  “Who—who—?” 
   “Not a ghost!” he shouted.  “Not even dead yet.  It’s me, Clark.  Call me Cluck.  That’s what my granddaughter calls me, Grampy Cluck.  It comes out Grumpy Cluck.  Actually, I think Alice taught her that, but when she says it, it sounds so cute I decided it’s me, Grumpy Cluck.” 
   “Grumpy Cluck is giving us a hand with the roof,” said Middle Tink.  “Later he’s going to take a look at the boiler.” 
   “He’s a wizard with boilers,” claimed Little Tink. 
   Grumpy Cluck shrugged modestly and said, “I’m not making any promises, but I did spend much of my early life in an engine room.” 
   “He was in the navy,” said Little Tink. 
   “Good enough for me,” I said.  I saluted Grumpy Cluck, in my way, raising two hands with crossed fingers, the official salute of the assistant innkeeper at a small failing hotel who’s hoping for the best. 
   “Look alive, you tinkers!” said Grumpy Cluck.  “We’re not getting anything done standing around here yakking.” 
   The tinkers came to attention, raised their hammers, shouldered them, spun smartly right face, lost their footing, slipped, slid, waved their arms, bobbled their hammers, lost their derbies, bobbled their derbies, juggled derbies and hammers, teetered on the very edge of the roof, rotated their arms, regained their balance, and gingerly, very gingerly, backed from the edge, wiped their brows, rearranged their derbies, waved, and slowly, carefully, with exaggeratedly measured steps, returned to their work.  It was, I think, an act. 

THERE WERE NINE at my reading of episode ten of Dead Air, “Kap’n Klam’s Salad Sandwich,” since the tinkers made it off the roof safely and stayed to hear what I had to say, and Suki joined the group, too. 

ON THE WAY UPSTAIRS, I noticed all the stains, nicks, gouges, and smudges I’d missed when I was touching up, and with every flaw I noticed, the way up the stairs became harder.  Maybe the hotel was beyond patching and touching up, and maybe my life was just as shabby, stained, and leaky as this old hotel—and beyond mending. 
   “You missed a few spots,” said Albertine. 
   “It’s a job for Sisyphus,” I said, “but I’ll give it another shot tomorrow.”  Then I had a thought.  “Speaking of Sisyphean tasks,” I said, “are we—are we paying Grumpy Cluck?” 
   “What?  Who?” 
   “Clark.  ‘Call me Cluck,’ didn’t he tell you that?” 
   “No.” 
   “His granddaughter calls him Grumpy Cluck, and he’s decided that he likes it.  Anyway, he’s working with the Tinkers—did you know that?” 
   “Oh, yeah,” she said, laughing, shrugging.  “We’re not paying him.  He’s paying us, just like any other guest.  He’s working because—I don’t know—he says he likes it.” 
   I lay there for a moment trying to make sense of Grumpy Cluck, but I couldn’t.  Finally, I asked, “Al?  Does that make him a Bob or a Baldy?” 
   “I am much too tired to think about that,” she said.  “I’m thinking about Manhattan.” 

a beguiling tale of hope, friendship, memories, and love

Leaving Small’s Hotel is published in paperback by Picador, a division of St. Martin's Press, at $14.00. 

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