John Smith grew up in a town where summer weekends seemed tailored to lazy afternoons and neon lights; his first job at fourteen was sweeping cereal boxes out of a bowling alley after school, and by the time he was old enough to drive he knew how to coax an old bumper car back to life. He’s the kind of person who remembers birthdays even if you only met once and can talk for ten minutes about why a particular arcade cabinet refuses to align its joysticks. Quietly practical, he studies the mechanics of things the way other people study birds — for pattern, temperament, and the joy of making them run better.