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LIMITED Slip (a Lexington Avenue Express short story - 1,950 words) The chubby young man was gazing through the window of the diner at the faded letters on the water tower behind Neal's Texaco station. "BOVINA … what kind of a name is that for a town?" he asked sarcastically. His baseball cap was tilted backwards, revealing the landscape of fiery red blemishes that decorated his pale forehead. "Well I just don't know, MR. PIGG. Who named your whole dad-gum family after a snorting farm animal?" one of the companions sitting opposite him at the Bovina Diner shot back. Virgil Pigg glared at the skinny, bespectacled nineteen year-old but before he could speak the third member of the party chimed in. "C'mon, Virgil," Tom Vining said smiling, "just eat your breakfast. Slim has been giving you crap about your name since Kindergarten; I've never seen it bother you before. Besides, you know the town is named after the buffalo that grazed around here in the old days. What's wrong with you this morning?" "I'll bet Debbie dumped him again," Slim chided. "That's what he gets for dating a high school girl." "Shut up!" Virgil said. His tone was harsh and Tommy saw the hurt in Virgil’s eyes. He realized Slim was probably right about the girlfriend trouble. Virgil looked toward the Texaco Station and abruptly changed the subject. "Do you suppose Neal is ever going to fix that sign?" A powerful Kansas storm had blown the Texaco E and X characters off the building months ago. The joke had grown stale but patrons were still referring to the place as Neal's TACO Station. "You know Neal," Tommy grinned, "he's not in a hurry to spend any money." Glancing toward the station he added, "My new transmission came in yesterday. He's supposed to install it this morning. Should be ready by tonight. Neal wants to see my '57 running as much as I do; those Chevy boys are supposed to move on to Fort Scott tomorrow." "I was over at the station a few minutes ago while I was waitin' for you guys," Slim said as he munched a piece of toast. "Neal's under her working right now. He had me lower the lift part-way down so he could jack your new M-22 in place." Tom Vining spent every dime he earned on his primer-gray '57 Chevy two-door. He prided himself on owning the fastest car in the county. In 1966, street racing was illegal but usually overlooked in the sleepy Kansas town. Tommy looked out the window toward the Texaco Station. In the shop shadows, he could see the wide racing tires of his pride and joy dangling eighteen inches above the floor. A tractor trailer had rolled into Bovina, Kansas the previous day. When it stopped in front of the Chevrolet dealer it caused quite a stir. The truck was transporting four brand new, 1966 SS396 Chevelles. The two young men who accompanied the cars were demo-drivers hired by Chevrolet to convince buyers that the new model could outrun any muscle-car in the Plains States. "Them factory boys have beat everyone but you, Tommy," Virgil said. "Johnny Moss was in here earlier. He said the red 396 beat his Mustang by five car-lengths last night, beat Webster's GTO by two." Tommy nodded, brow furrowed as he thought about the shiny new Chevys. "It's not the red car you gotta worry about," he said quietly. "The yellow one, the one they haven't run yet, that's the fast one. It's supposed to have 375 horses but I'm guessin' they've got that Corvette four-and-a-quarter in her." Silence settled over the group. Tom Vining passed his hand through a shaft of sunlight that had reached the edge of their table; his motion disturbed the dust orbiting silently there. Such a delicate thing, he thought. "Well," Tommy finally said, "we'd better get going. Shift starts in fifteen minutes." Tommy always had a Coca-Cola with his breakfast; he moved the bottle away from the light that had reached the scarred tabletop and absently wiped condensation droplets ...

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