Page 49 - Leather Blues

Leather Blues 37

always been an escape. Now it was a weapon. He knew it
true between his legs. He envisioned the afternoon and the
secluded field not so far off when he’d tie some guy down
across his bike and let him lick chrome and taste leather. He
roared through traffic. He knew one thing sure: man-to-
man torture would be beautiful. He could make it beautiful.
He could make the other man want to take what he wanted
to give out. And what he wanted to give out was coiled tight
as a spring inside him. He dragged his steel-plated boot heel
around the corner to the block he wanted. He gunned the
engine one last time and swerved into half a space outside
the largest hardware supplier in town.
He ditched the clerk fast. “I know what I need,” he said.
“And I’m looking around.” He walked from aisle to aisle.
He judged merchandise. One after another he found what
was right and what was adaptable. A hundred-foot coil of
hemp rope. Four studded dog collars. A hard rubber carbu-
retor hose, beveled. A bag full of wooden clip clothes pins. A
dozen electrical clamps: point-faced and snub-nosed. That’s
about it, he thought. He felt like he was doing a juggling act.
Turning the corner of the last aisle, he thought he’d run
into a mirror.
“Sorry,” the guy said.
“Me too,” Den was surprised. The other guy was dressed
almost exactly as he was: greasy engineer boots, faded Levi’s,
sweat-pit T-shirt. But he also wore a black-billed bike cap
pulled lowdown on his brow. He looked at Den’s armload.
“Brothers?” he said. He held a couple lengths of chain in
his black gloved hand.
Den hesitated, not catching his meaning. Then, “Broth-
ers,” he said. They both laughed easy laughs. They had
more energy than words. “Picking up a few supplies,” Den
explained.
The biker reached for the black-leather dog collars. “Let
me take two through the check-out. No use being obvious.”

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