But
*real* low-hanging fruit ripens last, and should be therefore picked as
late as possible. Further, picking the low-hanging fruit first meant
that you'd have to carry your bushel basket higher and higher as the day
wore on, which was plainly stupid. Low-hanging fruit was meant to be
picked last. It was one of the ways that he understood people, and one
of the kinds of people that he'd come to understand. That was the game,
after all -- understanding people.
So the floors would come last, after the molding, after the stairs,
after the railings and the paneling. The railings, in particular, were
horrible bastards to get clean, covered in ten or thirty coats of enamel
of varying colors and toxicity. Alan spent days working with a wire
brush and pointed twists of steel wool and oozing stinging paint
stripper, until the grain was as spotless and unmarked as the day it
came off the lathe.
*Then* he did the floors, using the big rotary sander first. It had been
years since he'd last swung a sander around -- it had been when he
opened the tin-toy shop in Yorkville and he'd rented one while he was
prepping the place. The technique came back to him quickly enough, and
he fell into a steady rhythm that soon had all the floors cool and dry
and soft with naked, exposed woody heartmeat. He swept the place out
and locked up and returned home.
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