Ace Computer & Scrap

It was raining — the grey, winter monsoon sputter that washes away this city’s veneer of charm and transmutes it into something a little emptier, more alien. I sat, annoyed, watching the Bayshore truck traffic trundle past, waiting for the triple A truck to come help me with a flat I couldn’t fix because I’d managed to leave my cellphone, my tire iron, and the keys to the hub locks at home.
What was supposed to be a quick sprint down the hill for a used computer part had turned into (to borrow from the colorful vernacular of the military) a class-​A goatfuck.
Two hours later, burdened with the knowledge that I’d soon be out-​of-​pocket for a replacement set of rear tires (sidewall tear), I was thrumming down a street that was less a collection of potholes than it was a thin crust of rubble. Ace was only three blocks from where I’d broken down, at the heart of the Bayshore industrial zone. It was easy to find it — a dingy but oddly festive sign over a classic junkyard, with a gate pulled shut and a board that screamed CLOSED in day-​glo yellow. It was four PM. Shit.
I saw someone moving around in the rain behind the fence though, so I got out and stood by the gate until this guy, who was doing something with what looked like cabling, noticed me. Both of us were soaked. His red leather forage cap, slick with rain, and the whole chaotic scene of abandoned electronic gear and scrap metal behind the fence between us, was like something out of a dystopic vision of the future. Shades of Blade Runner. Or Neuromancer.
He wasn’t too sure about whether they were open or closed, sign notwithstanding, so he called out the manager, a wiry fellow sporting glasses and two wide-​brimmed hats.
«You sure picked a shitty day to look for anything here,» he barked as his colleague opened the gate for me. He ushered me past puddles of water that shimmered with traces of oil, over to a pile of boxes exploding with cables stacked atop oil drums filled with an even greater profusion of wiring. In the vicinity were coffee percolators, a broken Henry Mancini LP, and a dumpster full of analog telephones.
«Check these over here and over there too,» he offered. «Those bins have at least one kind of every cable you could ever need. Watch out, though, there’s some jagged metal around. Try not to leave it any messier than you found it.»
I rooted around, my turtleneck steaming in the December drizzle, occasionally finding myself distracted by a bin full of motherboards, or some old array.
In the end, I didn’t find what I was looking for. I chatted with the guy as he rooted around his small office, which was filled with odd interesting bits.
Something orange exploded out of a window next to me.
«It’s just a cat,» he said.