Ever get the feeling you just saw the person you could've been?
It happened almost exactly like this:
I'm out at the agreeably grimy auto parts store picking up a few quarts of oil for the Audi and a couple of cans of Fix-a-Flat for my besieged tires, given how the city is lined like a Christmas parade with nails and splinters and broken love, and of course the place smells exactly like every similar joint the world over -- a deliciously acrid, metallic, petrochemical perfume emanating from 10,000 toxic substances that grease the engines of the world but which you don't really want to think too much about lest you get completely depressed.
Upstairs/upramp from the store, in this scabby, wind-blown, bare-bones parking garage covered in 20 years of residual oil, skanky rainwater and Geary street traffic grime, there are maybe a dozen other cars of every make and degradation parked all asunder; it's the perfect place to take your recent purchases, open the hood and mess with your vehicle's innards, as you gaze around and wonder how many murders and drug deals and odd epiphanies have taken place in this magical, concrete wasteland. A hundred? A thousand? Is that blood on the floor? Hmm.
I get my 5W-30, I go back upstairs and I do as the natives do: I pop my hood and check the levels, and I'm pouring in a fresh quart of Satan's blood when suddenly I feel some eyes on me. I glance around and sure enough, just over there, in the far corner, I see this car. ...
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