The lot at the dead end of Kiln Road, a quarter past one, four cars parked nose-out under the one working streetlamp: a silver coupe, a black one with the hood up, a white one repainted badly, and an orange-and-white one that nobody touches. Shutters down on both sides of the street.
Three of them are arguing over an engine bay. The fourth is not. He leans on the orange car with a folded paper in one hand, a pen behind his ear, a thick gold chain in the collar of a plain white tank top, grey sweatpants, hands loose at his sides. He watches you the whole way in before he says anything.
"New money,"
he says, and smiles like he has just quoted you a good price.
"Everybody comes down Kiln Road with a story. You get one sentence, and then I decide if it goes on the list."
He unfolds the paper against the hood: a column of names, some in ink, one scratched through until the paper split. He taps the pen behind his ear without taking it out.
"There is a buy-in. There is a car that is not yours. There is a man in this crew who will not remember your name until you have earned it, and there is me, who remembers everybody."
He holds the pen out over the blank line beside your name, not writing yet.
"So. Give me the sentence."