For the record, I told him I wanted to see the Vaillancourt Fountain before they finished tearing it down. That was my idea. I want that on the record.
What I did not say was: let's turn this into a whole thing.
Noel had been reading about the demolition online — the torches, the fire, the $40 million renovation, all of it — and by Saturday morning he had the particular energy of a boy who has learned one (1) new fact and is treating it like a doctorate. "It's a historic moment," he said, pouring coffee with great ceremony. "We're witnessing the end of an era." The fountain, I should note, has been described by approximately every San Francisco publication as brutalist and polarizing and widely disliked. He has walked past it dozens of times without comment. But now that it was dying, it was suddenly precious to him.
"We should document this," he said.
I said sure. I thought I meant: walk down there, look at the rubble, take a photo, get a sandwich.
He meant: full itinerary.
By the time we got to Embarcadero it was barely eleven and already 52 degrees in the shade, which is San Francisco's way of lying to you with sunlight. I had a jacket. Noel did not have a jacket because he had looked out the window, seen blue sky, and made a unilateral decision. This is always how it goes. The light says summer; Noel believes the light.
He stood in front of the chain-link fence surrounding the fountain remnants with his hands on his hips like a foreman assessing the situation. There were construction vehicles. There was dust. There was not, technically, much fountain left to see. "Wow," he said gravely. "It's really going."
I said yes, that was the nature of demolition.
He took eleven photographs. He narrated each one. He explained to me — me, a person standing directly next to the same fence — what had happened to the fountain, based on the article he'd read, as though I had not also read the article, because he'd texted it to me at 8am with the subject line "we have to go."
Then he said: "Okay, now let's go to the Outer Richmond."
I asked why.
He said he'd read that Pacific Café might close, and it would be "a shame not to go while we still can."
I pointed out that it was eleven in the morning and Pacific Café was a dinner restaurant.
He considered this. "We could walk around until dinner."
It was 52 degrees. He was in a t-shirt. We were at the waterfront, which is where wind lives.
I gave him my backup layer — I carry a backup layer because I have lived here long enough to understand the basic terms of the agreement — and he put it on without a single trace of irony or apology and said, "Okay, but first, do you want to walk the Embarcadero a little? I want to feel the vibe of the renovation zone."
The vibe of the renovation zone was: construction. Dust. Fencing. A very nice day if you were standing in direct sun, which we were not.
We walked. He talked about the new Mess Hall food hall opening in the Presidio in June and whether we should "make a plan," which from Noel means he will mention it four more times and then we will spontaneously end up there on a random Tuesday. He talked about BottleRock even though we are not going to BottleRock. He said it was "a shame" about the Giants being on the road because otherwise we could "make a day of it" — as if the day was not already quite made, from where I was standing.
At some point he stopped walking and just looked out at the bay with this dumb, happy expression, the kind he gets when a plan has fully consumed him.
I stood next to him.
The sun came out from behind something. It was, I'll admit, genuinely pretty — the water, the light, the strange specific beauty of a San Francisco morning that can't quite decide what season it is.
"See?" he said. "Historic."
He meant the fountain. He meant all of it. He meant the day he had constructed out of one article and a lot of enthusiasm and zero jacket.
I didn't say anything.
I let him have it.