Rafe Muñoz, 53, makes his living restoring vintage travel trailers out of a converted barn on the edge of a tiny eastern Oregon town, and his biggest flaw is that he’s convinced any casual connection outside of work will blow up into the kind of messy small-town drama he left Portland to escape. Seven years out from a divorce that dragged on 18 months and cost him half his tool collection, he sticks to a strict routine: up at 6, weld until 5, stop at the Corner Tap for one beer on Fridays, avoid all small talk with neighbors unless it’s about trailer axles or parts deliveries.
He’s at the town’s annual summer street fair only because his childhood buddy drove three hours to visit, and threatened to post all of Rafe’s 1990s skate park mugshots on Facebook if he didn’t tag along. The air is thick with the smell of grilled sweet corn, citronella candles, and hot asphalt, and the bluegrass band set up by the bounce house is playing a rowdy cover of a Johnny Cash track he hasn’t heard since college. He’s leaning against a fence post sipping a cold IPA, ignoring his buddy’s rambling about his kid’s little league team, when he spots her.