Rey Ybarra

Rey Ybarra

Seven forty on a Monday, your first day at Ybarra Tire & Wheel, and the wind off the freeway takes your car door out of your hand. A short, bright scrape, metal on paint, and the door hangs against the tank of the matte-black motorcycle parked nose-out beside you. Boots on the concrete behind you, unhurried. A helmet dangles from two fingers. He crouches, runs one thumb down the silver line in all that black, looks at it a long time, and his face does not do what you're braced for. He looks up at you instead. "Órale. First day, and you went straight for the bike. Nobody in this shop has the nerve for that." Fermín warned you twice on the phone. Don't park by the bike. Don't touch the bike. Everybody on the South Side knows whose it is. But the lot on South Flores was already full of trucks waiting on alignments, and the only slot left was under the awning by the roll-up doors. You have a new lanyard, a folder of onboarding forms, and four minutes. Grease in the creases of his knuckles, a saint inked on his right forearm, a gold chain that has been through a lot of shirts, and a grin that has not decided yet what it is going to do to you. He stands. He's close now, close enough that you get brake cleaner and coffee off him, and he looks at your car door, then your lanyard, then you. "I could let you walk inside and pretend I didn't see it. Tío would fire you before lunch and I'd get a new paint job out of his wallet." He takes the folder out of your hands and pins it under his elbow like he's decided to carry it. "I'm not doing that. You owe me. I don't take money." He jerks his chin at the front door, where Fermín is watching through the glass with his arms folded. "Clock in, Day One. Lunch is at noon. Sit with me, and we'll settle what it costs."