Patrick the crazy engineer!
A couple of weeks ago, someone on my friendslist posted a link to a website called Normal Room, which lets you look into the homes of strangers from all over the world. I clicked through a couple of them and stumbled across this one and said:
Pete likes to come over in the evening to see what new device Patrick's building on his kitchen table, whose shape is unrecognizeable under the papers, wires, tweezers, oscilloscopes, and welding torches. Patrick spends his days building pumps, wiring generators, designing new greenhouses to more efficiently pull power out of the ten fuel-powered turbines the settlement has and convert it into food. Ugly things, but Patrick looks at them like they're beauties. Pete calls him a genius mechanic to see him roll his eyes and grimace at the ground, batting away the term with his hands. That reaction convinces Pete more than anything, more even than the competent way Patrick's fingers twist wire and solder, the way he can read a schematic like it's one of Pete's books of poetry. Patrick is very smart.
He's maybe not that smart, though, or maybe just in this one area Pete's smarter, because Patrick never asks why Pete keeps coming around to listen to him talk about how to properly wire a switch, even though Pete could care less about the difference between "in series" and "in parallel."
"Hand me those pliers, yeah?" Patrick isn't looking at him, has his head ducked down low over a ferrule and piece of deral tubing, keeping the long, thin wire anchored on the table with his thumb while his other fingers try to maneuver the ferrule into place.
Pete shifts from where he is straddling a chair, tapping a sporadic rhythm against the chair back. "You want the green handle, or red?"
"Red," Patrick mutters, bending so close to the table that his nose almost touches the wood.
"What's this one for?" Pete asks, handing over the pliers. His hand skims over Patrick's elbow and sleeve as he leans back onto his chair.
Patrick's attention is snagged like his sleeve on Pete's weather-roughened fingertips, and he stops for one moment, one hand still pressed flat on the wires and metal beads on the table, the other loosely holding the pliers, before his eyes sharpen and he seems to see Pete in front of him. "Oh," he says. Pete tilts his head. "Oh," Patrick says again. "Um. Just. Another. Trohman was complaining about his depilatory unit, so I thought I'd take a look. It's just a corroded wire, nothing big." He looks back down at his work, adjusting the pliers in his grip and snipping at the tubing in one motion.
"Trohman's probably just trying to hide the fact that he doesn't actually need to shave," Pete says. He rocks forward on his chair, staying suspended on two legs for a moment before settling back on all fours with a thump.
"Maybe," Patrick agrees, sounding amused. "But it was broken anyway."
"So you're going to fix it." Pete flexes his hand. The bone he busted on an asteroid miner's face three years ago still aches intermittently in the cold.
"That's my job," Patrick says absently. "Fix broken things."
Yeah, Pete doesn't say. Pete, the one everyone calls "crazy," the one all the other wild young men crowd around to see where he'll lead them next. Yeah, Pete thinks, you're pretty good at it.
"Genius mechanic," Pete says, and laughs when Patrick swears.
Pete likes to come over in the evening to see what new device Patrick's building on his kitchen table, whose shape is unrecognizeable under the papers, wires, tweezers, oscilloscopes, and welding torches. Patrick spends his days building pumps, wiring generators, designing new greenhouses to more efficiently pull power out of the ten fuel-powered turbines the settlement has and convert it into food. Ugly things, but Patrick looks at them like they're beauties. Pete calls him a genius mechanic to see him roll his eyes and grimace at the ground, batting away the term with his hands. That reaction convinces Pete more than anything, more even than the competent way Patrick's fingers twist wire and solder, the way he can read a schematic like it's one of Pete's books of poetry. Patrick is very smart.
He's maybe not that smart, though, or maybe just in this one area Pete's smarter, because Patrick never asks why Pete keeps coming around to listen to him talk about how to properly wire a switch, even though Pete could care less about the difference between "in series" and "in parallel."
"Hand me those pliers, yeah?" Patrick isn't looking at him, has his head ducked down low over a ferrule and piece of deral tubing, keeping the long, thin wire anchored on the table with his thumb while his other fingers try to maneuver the ferrule into place.
Pete shifts from where he is straddling a chair, tapping a sporadic rhythm against the chair back. "You want the green handle, or red?"
"Red," Patrick mutters, bending so close to the table that his nose almost touches the wood.
"What's this one for?" Pete asks, handing over the pliers. His hand skims over Patrick's elbow and sleeve as he leans back onto his chair.
Patrick's attention is snagged like his sleeve on Pete's weather-roughened fingertips, and he stops for one moment, one hand still pressed flat on the wires and metal beads on the table, the other loosely holding the pliers, before his eyes sharpen and he seems to see Pete in front of him. "Oh," he says. Pete tilts his head. "Oh," Patrick says again. "Um. Just. Another. Trohman was complaining about his depilatory unit, so I thought I'd take a look. It's just a corroded wire, nothing big." He looks back down at his work, adjusting the pliers in his grip and snipping at the tubing in one motion.
"Trohman's probably just trying to hide the fact that he doesn't actually need to shave," Pete says. He rocks forward on his chair, staying suspended on two legs for a moment before settling back on all fours with a thump.
"Maybe," Patrick agrees, sounding amused. "But it was broken anyway."
"So you're going to fix it." Pete flexes his hand. The bone he busted on an asteroid miner's face three years ago still aches intermittently in the cold.
"That's my job," Patrick says absently. "Fix broken things."
Yeah, Pete doesn't say. Pete, the one everyone calls "crazy," the one all the other wild young men crowd around to see where he'll lead them next. Yeah, Pete thinks, you're pretty good at it.
"Genius mechanic," Pete says, and laughs when Patrick swears.