Garrett barked louder, making sure every phone in the lot picked it up.
"One lucky poke doesn't make you a mechanic. My dead grandmother could have knocked that chain back if she tripped over it."
"You want a cookie? You want me to clap for you?"
He slow clapped. Loud.
Mocking. The crowd joined in.
60 pairs of hands beating a rhythm designed to humiliate.
"Clap louder, boys. The car wash kid fixed one thing."
"Somebody call the news. Alert the president."
Vince grabbed Owen's shoulder and spun him around.
"You got lucky once, roach. Touch that engine again and you'll regret it."
Owen turned back to the bike without a word. He pulled the carburetor bowl off with four quick turns of a Phillips head.
Inside, the float, a small brass pontoon controlling fuel level, was supposed to ride freely, opening and closing a needle valve to regulate gasoline entering the carburetor throat. This float was stuck.
Jammed fully open by a microscopic piece of debris, a flake of old gasket material wedged between the float arm and the bowl wall. With the needle valve permanently open, fuel poured in non-stop.
The cylinders flooded. Raw gasoline pooled on top of the pistons.
A flooded cylinder can't compress. It hydraulic locks.
Even if the timing had been perfect, the engine would never have fired. This was Nolan Briggs's mistake.
He'd pulled the carb apart, cleaned every jet, checked every gasket, but he never tested the float under load. On a Keihin butterfly carb from 1972, the float doesn't look stuck unless you press exactly the right spot, exactly the right way.
Owen pressed. Index finger on the pivot point, gentle push at 15° off axis.
The debris flake popped free. The float dropped to neutral.
The needle valve clicked shut. Owen held up the flake between his thumb and finger.
Smaller than a grain of rice.
"This is why she flooded. The float was stuck open, with fuel pouring straight through."
Nolan Briggs shoved through the crowd, face twisted. Not anger.
The specific shame of a specialist watching his reputation dissolve in public.
"I checked that float. I checked it twice," Nolan said.
"You checked it assembled," Owen replied.
There was no malice in his voice. "The debris only shows at 15 degrees off axis."
"Known defect on pre-74 Keihins. Harley issued a technical service bulletin in 1978."
"Bulletin number HD-78-041." The crowd murmured.
A bulletin number from memory. From a kid who couldn't afford new shoes.
Garrett stepped in fast and jabbed a finger into Owen's chest. "So you memorized a number."
"My grandmother memorizes bingo numbers. Doesn't make her an engineer."
"Two down," Owen said, like he hadn't felt a thing.
Garrett's face flushed dark red. "Two lucky finds don't make you special, boy."
"They make you a freak who got lucky twice." He grabbed Owen's shirt with both fists and pulled him close.
Buttons popped and fabric stretched. "You've got a real mouth for someone standing in a parking lot full of people who want it shut."
"One more smug whisper and you'll regret it." He released Owen.