Page 71 - Leather Blues

Leather Blues 59

work. He caught a steak-n-eggs breakfast and with a day’s
butch stubble cruised into Martin’s filling station. He said
nothing to his boss, but walked straight to the uniform cabi-
net. He stripped off his leather jacket giving Martin full view
of his naked muscular torso. “What’s with no T-shirt and no
shave?” Martin asked. Den pulled out a green work shirt. He
glowered at Martin. “I’ll work in the back today,” was all he
said. He tossed the shirt over the sinew of his shoulder.
Martin knew better than to argue. He had seen Den
hyped before. But never so high. Besides, the light shine of
sweat beneath the hairs where the boy’s smoothly curved
spine entered his jeans above his lean buttocks distracted
Martin for a moment too long. A lust he didn’t understand
and that he couldn’t tell his wife was swirling in from the
back of his head. “I’m gonna have to fire that boy,” he said
to himself.
Denny worked like a fiend all day, stopping only to speed
out of the station on his bike to hit the gym and grab some
lunch. Wheeling back toward the station, Den stopped at a
corner phone booth. It was the same one Chuck had called
from ten hours before. A swastika of dried spit was smeared
on the glass. He dialed the office number on the business
card he had shoved into his jacket. The extension answered.
“You be ready in your workout gear at nine.” Den said.
“You’re on.” He hung up the phone. He stepped out of the
booth. “You better believe you’re on!” He stood with his legs
apart and his basket hardening with anticipation.
A girl, a friend of Madonna’s, watched Den straddle his
leg across his bike and envied the luck of the girl who claimed
Den as her guy. She choked as the roar of exhaust exploded
and fumed around her. Den had not noticed her, had never
noticed her, and would have never missed her if he had.
Chuck slept most of the day. In the late afternoon he
drove into Saugatuck and hauled back plenty of beer in the
van.

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