I remember a dark musty house and inside a crowded room there were a couple dozen computers, spray painted in bright colors and designs. It smelled like smoke and aerosol.

A bull mastiff muzzled my neck wetly, and I shuddered in my attempt to match the dog's drooly, imposing strength.

When I was with my dad I felt more independent. He would talk about what I called "computer stuff", and I'd go outside and explore our old truck, grown over with giant reeds, parked for the rest of eternity in his longtime friend, Strauss' backyard. I'd pretend my dog and I were trucking along the 5, pulling the rusted stick this way and that, the wheel too decrepid to turn. The seats were vinyl, and sharp where they were torn. When my dad came to get me, I'd ask why the yellow truck was there.
Would he ever take it back?

"No--Probably not." My dad would say.

I followed him back to the house, passing a small workbench covered in computer entrails and spray paint cans. We went inside, and I stared fearful at an old man staring through his glasses at me, his mouth straight with a smoking cigarette stuck in it.
The man would haunt me as I left the dim, smoky house, looking round wide-eyed at the psychadelic blue and green computer shells.