The chains hit the front axle of the midnight blue Chevrolet with a sound that carried all the way down Sycamore Ridge Drive, a cold, scraping metallic drag that seemed too loud for a Saturday morning in a neighborhood this quiet, this manicured, this certain of its own order.
A man in his late 50s stood on the curb and watched it happen without moving, without raising his voice, without stepping forward a single inch toward the truck that had belonged to his father and now belonged to him and was at this moment being prepared for removal by a tow truck driver who kept glancing over his shoulder as if he already knew something was wrong.