My dad left when I was twelve. My mom worked two jobs, cleaning offices in the day and stocking shelves at night.

So after school, I worked at my Uncle Ray's garage. Sullivan's Auto Repair. A two-bay garage on Metcalf Avenue with a hand-painted sign.

Uncle Ray taught me everything. How to listen to an engine. How to find a problem without guessing. And most of all, how to be honest with people.

“Anybody can fix a car, Nicky,” he'd say. “The trick is not lying to the person who owns it.”

I loved that garage. But I went to school every morning smelling of engine oil. My hands were always black around the fingernails, however hard I scrubbed.

Chad Whitmore noticed in the first week of ninth grade.

“Hey, Grease Monkey!”

It stuck for four years.

Chad's dad owned Whitmore Motors, the biggest car dealership in town. Chad drove a brand-new Mustang to school on his sixteenth birthday. Once, he poured a can of motor oil through the vents of my locker. Everyone laughed. Brooke filmed it.

In senior year, the class voted for the yearbook superlatives. Chad organized it.

Most Likely to Change Your Oil.

People still laughed at it at graduation.

I didn't go to prom. The tickets cost a hundred and fifty dollars. That was a whole week of my wages at the garage.