Page 80 - Leather Blues

68 Jack Fritscher

scene. Preferably western. Arrow’s his real name; but I figure
he’s maybe got some complex about not being the straight
Arrow his daddy wanted. At any rate, he’s starved for all that
true west shit.”
Arrow pulled on the roach of his joint. When he raised
his big hand to his lips, Den figured he’d grown up working.
His hands were rawboned. His gear was real. His jeans were
worn white where construction materials had frictioned up
his thighs as he lifted cement blocks into position. His torso
bulked up to his broad shoulders. His chest was a mat of
red hair pouring up out of his cotton undershirt. The white
tank top was the kind young Mex pickers wear to transform
themselves into low-rider toughs. On his left shoulder above
the bicep, a griffin—half lion and half eagle—was tattooed
into the freckled skin, so that when the muscles of his arm
moved, the mythic animal undulated sensuously.
Arrow handed Den the joint. Den hit it and said, “Great
tattoo.” Arrow said nothing. He was spaced. “What’s the
chain around his neck?” Den asked.
Chuck put his hand on Arrow’s close-cropped red hair.
He was one of those strawberry-roan redheads who come
together. Redheads either make it or they don’t. This was
no freaky carrot-top. Chuck pulled Arrow’s head back by
the hair. The chain resting in the high fur of his rusty chest
hair came into view. “It’s the pull chain,” Chuck said, “from
a toilet at the Gold Coast. Sort of a souvenir. For being best
in his class.”
“What’s the Gold Coast?”
“A sewer in Chicago. A great little leather bar. Arrow is a
devotee of the dark night. A slave of Satan. A pissoir. A toilet.
A real live Port-O-San. His idea of a holiday is the day after
Thanksgiving. Some guys eat turkey. Some turkeys eat shit.”
Chuck smiled at Denny’s disbelief. “There’s a lot to learn,
my friend. Our tribe does strange things in strange ways and
calls them by the best names possible.” He pulled Arrow’s

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