I saw him hand washing a Barbie corvette outside his repair shop and I asked if I could take a picture. He was happy to and even did this action shot. When I asked if it was for his daughter or something, he said no it was for his nephew. He found it in the dumpster, peeled off all the Barbie logos, was washing it now, and would be painting it black tomorrow to make it into a “boy’s” corvette. He also told me his whole former and current life story from Ecuador and NYC (he’s been here 9 years already). I told some of my life story too and then he said two things: 1) he would stop letting work consume his whole life and go have adventures and fun for awhile cuz he was basically wasting his life away working so damn hard and 2) that he would fix my truck for $300 less than Toyota wanted to charge me because he admired my approach to life. To think I almost didn’t ask him if I could take a photo.

(Bushwick, Brooklyn)