Barry Farland was sweating buckets. No, more like barrels. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve, then bent over, nose to carburetor inside the heart of an old Chevy Caprice. It was a hot day, even being just shy of noon, and the raised hood blocked the breeze. But he didn’t mind. Working on cars for him was like a Zen master meditating on a lotus blossom, and he loved the way it blocked out other realities around him.
barrelsHe couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t around cars or working on them, too small to see over the bumper. His father would lift him up onto the frame of the engine where he would perch and stare at the cables, pistons, and valves. He knew what a spark plug was before he knew how to find his state on a map.
What he didn’t like was having to work early today—he thoug
