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Tucked into the tiny kitchenette, Driver grinds his teeth. They need an early start tomorrow if they want to get out of the state before sundown. That’s his purpose in this two-part act they’ve got going on. The getaway, the turn-and-flee. He’s good at that. It’s better than what happens if he sticks around.
He’s not good at this. Sharing a room, letting someone else handle the radio. Luke’s gaze is like a crowbar, splitting him open, trying to figure out how he ticks. They’ve both got that itch to take something apart to see what’s inside. He’s not sure what Luke finds, if there’s anything more than gears and oil in there.
None of that changes the fact that he should be asleep right now. Pale moonlight slithers its way through the curtains onto a slice of mattress carved out next to Luke. Luke never takes the blankets, choosing to instead wrap himself in his sleeping bag and angle his back towards a wall. He always faces Driver. He wakes up sweaty.
Driver crosses to the thermostat, rolling from heel to toe on old instinct. They’re a crapshoot in motels but this one seems to be at least somewhat functional. He sets it as low as it will let him. The compressor whirrs to life, sending cool air through the room. He glances back at Luke, but he doesn’t stir. He’s proudly stated that his days as a carnie have granted him the ability to sleep through any noise. Driver knows that’s just a cover that buys him a little time to tighten his grip around his knife before anyone realizes he’s awake.
This isn’t helping.
He drags his gaze off Luke and sets it upon anything else in the room. His fists clench at his side before he spots them. Their boots, one pair tan and slim, the other black and tall. That’s something he can do, something to take into his hands and fix.
People are complicated. People lie and obfuscate and conceal for reasons he can never quite grasp. They speak in languages that he tried to learn, but never reached fluency. They act with such confidence and then tell him that he’s doing it wrong, even if it looks the same.
Cars are complicated. Cars can have a dozen different issues in a single engine. They can bury the lede on their most concerning problems till he’s put the thing back together, only to find the wiring’s fired. But they don’t deceive, they don’t judge, they hold no expectations of him. He knows that if he’s patient enough, that if he takes his time and works through every diagnostic flag, then it will unfurl, he will understand it, and then he can put it back together, till it is a machine humming in harmony with itself.
Leather is simpler. It is not his first and dearest love that cars are, but it’s steady, solid. His gloves are a layer of distance from the world, a protective coating that smooths the rough textures away. They take care of him, so he takes care of them. Leather is a material that needs maintenance, but it doesn’t ask for much.
He grabs both pairs of boots and swings by his duffle bag to retrieve his tools. Saddle soap, conditioner, a toothbrush, and an old rag. They get the job done. There’s no desk or coffee table and he doesn’t want to set them where they’ll have their breakfast of instant coffee tomorrow morning so he puts them on the floor. He runs the tap till it’s warm and fills a mug from the sink.
His own boots are familiar. He can’t remember when he got them. Maybe someone else bought them for him, considering they’re real leather. They’re stained slightly at the toes. He turns away.
Luke’s boots are new to him, but not to the world. Driver sets his kit down and sits cross-legged on the floor next to the table. He assesses each shoe, trying to identify what they need.
Military in style, old, black, genuine leather. 10 silver eyelets. Steel toe caps, minor dents. The left boot is more worn down than the right, presumably due to shifting gears. Bottom tread on both is in decent condition but the ridges are choked with gravel and mud. Laces ragged from being worn loose when Luke’s not riding.
The leather itself is not too far gone, luckily. Driver wouldn’t know how to repair anything structural. They’re just dry, creased, starting to pull away from the seams. Probably would hold together for a few more years before they disintegrate.
But there’s no need to be wasteful.
First, he strips each boot of their laces, putting them aside for later. Tasks like these have always been meditative, soothing. His dusting rag isn’t one of the rough things he keeps in his trunk. It’s softer, a scrap of an old shirt too ragged to wear. He folds it around two fingers and begins to swipe gently over the boot.
The next steps won’t be useful if he doesn’t take his time here. Dusting removes grit and dirt and prepares for the soap.
Driver runs his covered fingers along the inside of the eyelets, presses them down into the crease where tongue meets shaft. There’s a thin line of dust he can’t quite get, so he swaps to the toothbrush, using short sharp strokes to send juts of grime onto his lap. He drags the toothbrush along the seam where welt is sewn, following along with his rag to wipe away the sprays of dust. The tread is scraped clean with the base of the toothbrush.
Through the legs of the table he glances at the bed. Luke huffs, one short choked breath that tells Driver to not push him the next morning. He seems almost like Driver those days, eyes far away and voice trapped somewhere beneath his throat. It unnerves Driver more than he’d like, how much he’s come to rely on Luke to fill the silence that used to be his sanctuary. He prefers his violent temper even if it earns them both a few bruises.
Now that there’s no dust, he can use the soap. He flicks the toothbrush a few times and rubs it against his shirt to clear off any lingering dirt. A long time ago someone taught him to dip the toothbrush into warm water and work up a lather in the small metal tin. The soap is gentle, not the harsh degreaser of mechanic shops or artificial cherry hand soap in cheap restaurants. He scrubs in small looping circles, the pleasant scritching sound rhythmic. He eases the soap into the worn stitching and the creases of the back stay. When it turns streaky and dry, he dips into the mug and lathers up again.
Dip, lather, scrub. Dip, lather, scrub.
Once the whole boot is clean, he fills a second mug with water and soaks a corner of his rag and rinses the soap away. While waiting for the first boot to dry, he scrubs the second.
Dip, lather, scrub. Dip, lather, scrub.
He wishes it was always this easy to fix something. He wipes the second boot down.
While they dry he shifts his attention to the other pair. It’s too soon for another round of conditioning, they’ll go soft and porous. There’s no way to get the stains out. He settles for digging at the sand still in the stitches. Nothing but a few grains remain, but they refuse to loosen. Sitting, waiting, till one day they’ll tear through the thread completely. They’re fine enough for now. He rubs a touch of conditioner across the front curve to hide the blood under shine. He puts them aside.
Luke’s boots are dry now, slick shiny black gone dull with all the built up oils removed. Without the haze, the damage is laid bare. Scuffs and scrapes across the toe, leather threatening to give way to steel. The heel crushed from being stomped into every morning. The silver aglets rest in divots, worn down by yanked tight laces. They are in poor condition.
Driver’s seen worse.
He wraps another corner of the rag around two fingers and drips golden conditioning oil onto them. With tenderness usually reserved for his Malibu, he spreads a generous amount across the boot, and hums in approval as it gets soaked up readily. The cloth glides over the leather, the minimal separation from his right hand to the material providing ample feedback. He slips his left inside to press the tongue forward, rubbing the oil deep into where the laces lay. He slots the collar in between his index and middle fingers and rocks them back and forth where the seam has begun to split.
His mind drifts. His overactive focus pins to a boot, hands, knees on the floor. The numbness and quiet of his left side doesn’t bother him. Everything is subsumed into the simple pleasure of doing something well. The world is one room, steady breathing to his right, and leather in his hands. The minutes ebb away.
Slowly, he returns back to himself. An odd sense of regret sits low in his stomach.
Taking a breath, he sits back on his heels to appraise his work. The light gray scratches have receded into black, not hidden but melded into the whole. The leather looks flexible and sturdy, dry spots known only in memory. The conditioning oil forms a shiny barrier, not quite waterproof but enough that moisture can’t sink in and distort the leather further. Tilting his head, Driver can see that Luke has curled up tighter, one fist tucked by his chin, the other hidden underneath his pillow.
Maintenance is not finished until it is confirmed. There could be problems he didn’t catch, he could have missed a spot. That’s why he does what he does next.
Driver raises a boot to his face and inhales. They smell of days in a mechanic shop, sweat soaked soles, and a hint of floral oil overtop. His mouth opens and his tongue falls out. Slowly, he laves across the span of the toe. The steel cap presses back against him, sturdy, protective of the interior, now protected itself by revived leather. It doesn’t taste like much, slightly bitter, fragrant. He needs more.
His tongue finds its way into every crevice, searching for a missed spot where his spit might sink in and cause ruin. His jaw aches from being held open for so long, but his lines of work always need a little pain. He finds no sour spot. Each inch has been tended to, wrapped up in safflower oil. He buffs out his marks with the cloth, wiping away the testing evidence. He drags the laces through his cloth and pulls them through the eyelets, making sure to get the aglets even at the end.
He brings both pairs of boots back to the front door. Side by side tan seems almost bone white next to rich black. To an untrained eye, they don’t look much different than they did earlier that night. The slick black shine is less flashy and more matte but the scuffs are still there. Driver knows though. He can see how they gleam. He doubts Luke will. He doesn’t mind. All they need to do is not fall apart.
Finally, fatigue overtakes him. He strides to the bed and lays flat on his back, good ear tilted toward Luke.
-
Luke tugs his boots on and freezes. Something’s fucking off here. This whole morning has been off. He kicked himself out of his sleeping bag and went to wipe his neck of sweat and found nothing. Driver was already awake, sipping black coffee that Luke knows he can’t stand without creamer. As always, his right side faces Luke. Their dingy motel smells vaguely sweet, pleasant, like some chick’s perfume is stinking up the place. Did Driver go and get laid last night? No, Luke nearly laughs to himself, that guy’s more likely to stick his dick in his car’s tailpipe than hunt down a one-night-stand in the few hours Luke’s been asleep. Actually, that’s probably a lot more likely. Luke’s gonna stop thinking about that now.
Still, doesn’t change the fact that his boots feel fucking weird. They don’t make that creak he’s been ignoring for ages as he yanks on the laces. The dings on the front from jamming the left one into the shifter are nearly invisible, like they’re scars starting to fade. Leather doesn’t heal though, it’s dead and inert. It doesn’t just fucking fix itself for no reason.
His half-remembered nightmare prickles along his neck. Someone once again touched his shit while he wasn’t looking, and he doesn’t know in what way or why or who’s teeth he’s gotta knock out to tell everyone else to never try that with him again.
Driver’s boots look different too though. A little smoother, a little less dusty. It baffles him that he doesn’t wear steel toes, being a gearhead and a mechanic, instead going with those slim little low cuts that look like he bought them from the wrong aisle of the thrift store. Maybe he did. Luke doesn’t fucking know with him.
Looking closer, this has got Driver’s name all over it. His tiny leather gloves, his stupid shoes, his constant tinkering. Guess it was only a matter of time before he decided that something of Luke’s was broken and Luke was too stupid to fix it.
“The fuck you do to my boots?” He calls out, low and dry, coughing at the end. He downs a gulp of the awful coffee Driver’s poured him and winches at the burn.
Driver inclines his head towards his own pair, rotates the cup in his hands.
“Needed to condition mine. Your’s looked like they could use it. Couldn’t sleep,” he shrugs.
Classic Driver, sticking his nose into business that isn’t his cause he just can’t help himself. Guy’d be a lot better off if he could keep well enough alone. Not like Luke can get on his ass for that, pot and kettle and all.
“Don’t touch my shit like that, man. You see me rooting around in your glovebox for no reason?” He does do that actually, but only when Driver’s watching, y'know, to piss him off a little. It’s funny. Driver raises one eyebrow. Luke looks at his boots. It’s the first time since he got them that they’ve been clean. He’s not too proud to admit Driver does good work. “You didn’t fuck ‘em up too bad but…” his leg bounces, “ask next time.”
Driver nods. Doesn’t poke at him for being defensive when someone repairs something his dumb ass can’t. He leans against the torn up linoleum in all his faux-stoic calm that Luke’s getting good at cracking the shell of. He likes seeing the reactive flesh and blood man underneath the silk jacket.
He nods back. Solid, man-to-man understanding. Good.
He wiggles his toes in his boots. They don’t pinch. He can’t feel rocks needling through the soles. He once got told that these boots were “Spit-Shineable”. He wonders what Driver used to get this pearl-like look. Probably not spit. Probably something fancy he keeps to pamper the Malibu with. He’s seen the way he works on her, long fingers trailing her gray lines, hands gritty with grease but careful in her engine. Luke’s a decent mechanic, having kept his bike running this long, but Driver’s in his own league. Maybe instead of putting all his chips on charisma, he learned to be competent. Luke wouldn’t know.
He ties off his boots at the ankle, wraps the excess laces around and back again. Snagging his pack of cigarettes from his bag, he steps out to the walkway. Driver doesn’t smoke, and never seems to want to. Smart guy. He watches the shadows hiding from the rising sun behind the motel and lights up, breathes deep. He rolls his ankles around, testing the flexibility, likes what he finds. The metal of the railing is cool on his forearms as he leans against it. He lets his ash fall to the cracked concrete below, clear of anything he might not want to ruin so soon.