To say Nitro and I didn’t get along was a gross understatement. The animosity between us started because of a screen door. One of Pita’s friends threw a party a couple of months back, and as expected at any decent party, there had been a copious amount of boozing going on.

Around 2 a.m., after most guests had left, roughly ten of us remained behind. Pita’s friend was renting the penthouse unit in some old Art Deco building. We’d moved to the patio to take in the city views. At one point I went inside to the kitchen to get another beer, and when I returned to the patio I walked straight into the screen door, knocking it off its track. I picked it up and set it aside, given I wasn’t in any condition to figure out how to replace a screen door. No harm done, I thought. But Nitro seemed to take the whole thing personally. He started railing on about me in Spanish. I didn’t know what he was saying, but it was clear he was insulted. I asked him what his problem was. He told me to fix the door. I told him to mind his own business. He got up in my face, reeking of testosterone, so I clocked him. He came back at me like a loosed pit bull. We pin-balled around the patio, toppling plants, smashing bottles and glasses, breaking a glass coffee table—in other words, causing much more damage than a dislodged screen door.

When people pulled us apart, Nitro had a busted lip, and I had a black eye. Pita and I took a taxi home, and I figured it was the last I’d see of the guy. But the fight seemed to have endeared him to Jesus, because Jesus began inviting him everywhere after that. He even showed up to Pita’s birthday party in July. I did my best to ignore him when we crossed paths, but he was as adept as Jesus at pushing my buttons, and we’ve come close to blows on a few more occasions since.

Looking at Jesus and Nitro now, you’d think they were complete opposites. Jesus was his typical preppy self with a tweed jacket over a white button-down shirt, khaki chinos, and oxblood penny loafers. Nitro, on the other hand, was dressed like me in a tank top and shorts and flip-flops—the difference between us being his arms were brocaded with ink and his hair was tied back in a ponytail.

It was Nitro who’d called me “Mr. Days of Thunder.”

“You know, chavo,” Nitro went on, “for a race car driver—a former race car driver—Jesus totally left you in his dust on the highway.”

“Who got pulled over?” I said.

“Who wimped out?”