1 Chapter 1

Raleigh replaced the cap on the Corolla’s radiator overflow tank. He took the tattered, faded-from-red-to-pink rag he kept handy in the back pocket of his blue work pants and wiped grease from his fingertips. He didn’t bother attempting to get any of the filth from beneath his fingernails. After a decade as a mechanic, Raleigh had grown accustomed to a perpetually tacky film of motor oil and dirt on everything. People in this podunk, backwoods, tiny Southern town seemed to expect a black man to be hard working and grimy. Raleigh blended into the background and he liked it that way; nobody bothered him.

The Corolla’s hood latched into place with a soft click. Raleigh tapped the cold blue fiberglass. New cars weren’t made like a car ought be; sure the bare bones of the frame were steel, but most of the body was made from plastics and polymers. He thought about how he’d rather drive a newer car like the Toyota more than his ‘83 Chevy Cavalier. The car was compact and required Raleigh to bend his six-foot 230lb body in unnatural ways to fit behind the steering wheel and the Cav’s close ceiling flattened the twists of hair on top of his head whenever he drove for longer than five minutes.

Raleigh grabbed a clipboard from the pegboard above the rusty and battered Craftsman tool cabinet propped against the back wall of the garage. While checking the Corolla’s work order, he toyed with the twists of hair that fell over his left temple. The movement was habit. When Raleigh’s head spun, playing with his hair calmed him, made him focus on something other than the blur of random thoughts whizzing through his brain.

“Raleigh, come ‘ere.” Raleigh’s boss, Calvin, poked his head out of the back office. Calvin owned Baker’s Towing & Repairing, the place Raleigh had worked since he was a high school freshman.

Calvin had been in the Green Berets during Vietnam. The war had wrinkled his face and silvered his hair, but sitting behind a desk had softened his belly. Calvin carried himself like a soldier and Raleigh had seen the special forces training in action once when a customer got nasty about the price of fixing the transmission on a Mustang. Ultimately, the guy decided he’d rather pay the amount Calvin was asking for than have his arm broken.

Raleigh stopped in the office doorway. The ten by six room was crammed with junk. Somehow, though, Calvin had managed to wedge a cheap Walmart particle board desk and the two traffic-cone-orange tub chairs straight out of 1970 that he’d found in the dumpster inside the miniscule spaces left between book shelves laden with automotive manuals and trade magazines. The young man sitting in the chair farthest from the door caught Raleigh’s attention.

The man leaned back, his hands clasped behind his head of short-clipped, spiked in the front, blond hair. He reclined against the office’s tobacco stained drywall, blue eyes trained on Raleigh loitering beneath the doorjamb.

Raleigh’s gaze skimmed along the honey-colored stubble dusting the young man’s jaw and the two elegant diamond studs in each earlobe. His eyes followed the rolling curve of the man’s biceps and down along his lean body, over the white T-shirt, sporting the logo of some surf shop Raleigh wasn’t familiar with, and the faded slim fit blue jeans with holes torn in the knees that the man wore. Raleigh snapped his roving vision back up to the man’s face when Raleigh realized he’d been lingering a second too long on the guy’s crotch bulge.

The young man smiled, a coy half-smile, drawing Raleigh in…

“…nephew, Harry.”

Raleigh hadn’t realized Calvin had been speaking to him.

“It’s Dawson, now. Remember, Uncle Cal?” the beautiful man in the chair said. He crossed one ankle over his knee and Raleigh noticed Dawson’s worn out trainers, the soles flattened and peeling from wear.

“Yeah, out of the closet under the stairs.” Calvin rolled his eyes and huffed. “He had to explain that dumb joke to me.” Calvin jerked a thumb at Dawson.

Raleigh looked from Dawson to Calvin and back again. If he said he didn’t get the joke either, Dawson might think he was stupid. Raleigh kept his mouth shut.

“I’m doing my little sister a favor. Har-goddammit-Dawson is gonna work here for a while,” Calvin said.

Dawson rose from the chair and extended a hand. He was a few inches shorter than Raleigh and he was slim. “It’s Raleigh, right? Like the capital?” Dawson asked.

“Yeah. Sorry, hands are dirty,” Raleigh said as he pulled the rag from his pocket and wiped at his fingers again.

“It’s cool.” Dawson’s cheeks reddened and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans

“Got some coveralls you can use.” Raleigh inclined his head toward the three dark blue jumpsuits hanging limp on an old coatrack beside the beat-up Craftsman.