One evening a man dropped off his car, a nice one with an oil leak from the rear differential. Vasek was working that night and fixed it while the customer waited. His name was Sal Macarelli. He was relatively short and stocky, with shoulders about twice as wide as mine — a very powerful man.

He called us about 5 minutes after he drove away. One of his wheel axles had come out and he needed a tow. We brought the car back and found that Vasek had forgotten to reinstall the retaining clip in the differential that held the axle in place. We fixed it and apologized sincerely.

Sal became one of our best customers. He appreciated that we were honest about our mistakes and took responsibility for them, and that we worked hard. He also called me “good people.” As time went by he learned our backgrounds and the stories of how we had come to be running a gas station in Wellesley, and a certain mutual respect developed.

One evening he brought in a small handheld device and asked me, knowing I had an electronics background, whether I could manufacture the equivalent in quantity. It was a device that delivered an electric shock — designed to be used on racehorses during a race to make them run faster. He explained that the jockeys using them threw them away before the finish line, so there was a constant need for new ones. He told me I could make a lot of money.

I declined. I was not yet a citizen, and any involvement in illegal activity could mean deportation. I was not going to risk everything I had built for that. Sal understood and did not press it.

He mentioned from time to time that he occasionally collected money from people who had fallen behind on gambling debts, and that he worked periodically as a bouncer at a strip club in Boston. But to us he was a good customer, and we were his good people.