Kicks

Silent words descended on the minds of the racers. “Do this for speed and agility.” Benson Mitt sat in his car and just looked around the front interior. He noticed the knobs, gauges, and gears. He felt as if this car had flowed from his bones to form a specific way of melding metal with flesh.

Mitt stepped out of the car and walked into a gas station.

“Twenty on four,” he told the clerk Farren Lupe. He was about eighteen-years-old.

“That’s a sweet ride. What year?”

“‘67.”

“Wow. Vintage indeed,” Lupe remarked.

“Thanks, kid.” As Mitt walked to his ride, he noticed the tires had been slashed.

“What the hell?!” He whispered quietly to himself. He looked at the tire shop adjacent to the gas station. He walked to where Lupe had been standing.

“Hey, where’s your manager?”

“He’s working on an electric car right now. Battery’s busted.”

“Well, you tell him that I’ve got four deflated tires from someone, whoever, too envious and too cowardly to face me.”

Manager Jim Knox didn’t have stains on him because of the vehicle he serviced.

“What can I do you for?”

“I need tires.”

Knox looked outside at the car.

“Nice wheels. I’m sorry. I don’t carry any tires that will fit that car.”

“C’mon, goddamnit. You have to have something!”

“Call a tow truck buddy, we’re in the twenty-first century now,” Knox replied with ease and immediacy in his voice. He returned to his garage.

Smartphone in hand, Mitt dialed for a truck. He got no service where this station stood.

He then journeyed back to the shop with Lupe.

“Hey, you ever race that thing?” Lupe said, eyes as wide as saucers.

“Of course. I do it for kicks.”

“That actually sounds really cool.”

“It’s really not, my son.”