35¢ Twist

98

Could Starsky be right? Was Hutch really a “self-undoing” person?

 

Originally published in the SHareCon 2016 zine.

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Leaning in the doorway with a bottle of Schlitz, Hutch watched Starsky dance. He observed with amusement that he was a better dancer with a broken arm. Cast steadied against his chest, the rhythm was all in his hips.

If you couldn’t hear, you might guess the man was grooving to “Low Rider.” But, no, the 45 was “Earth Angel.” Everyone else was slow dancing. A woman in a poodle skirt sat by the turntable, flipping through records to play. Low lamps illuminated the smoky room. These 50s parties had become a regular occurrence in their circle of friends. Something about 1977 made time-travel appealing.

Starsky shimmied double-time over to Hutch.

Confined to desk duty, his outlets for action were limited. Allowable forms had amped up tenfold. With his one good hand, he’d drum the steering wheel off the dash. If Hutch would let him drive, that is.

“I’ve been driving with one hand for years,” Starsky had said earlier that evening.

“Starsky, listen. You’ve been driving with one hand as a two-handed person. Now, think. If you’re currently a one-handed person, how many hands are you really driving with?”

He grabbed the keys. Starsky looked genuinely confused, despite the fact that Hutch had picked up this brand of cartoon-logic from him.

“Besides, it’s a 50s party. My car’s in costume.”

***

Judy shuffled over in roller skates. The shag carpeting slowed her down considerably. She held up a tray of ice-cream drinks. The cute soda glasses & straws disguised how boozy they were.

“Boys?”

Hutch held up his beer bottle in refusal as he intercepted Starsky’s reach for a second drink.

“Better stay on Earth, angel.”

Starsky glanced witheringly at him.

“You look good,” Judy said, stroking Hutch’s arm.

At Starsky’s suggestion—more accurately described as Starsky’s insistence—Hutch had slicked his hair back and donned a tight white T-shirt, James Dean-style.

“Told ya,” Starsky said with a wink.

“You too, Dave.” In Hutch’s closet, Starsky had found a bowling shirt loose enough to fit over his cast. “How’s the arm?” Judy asked.

“Destitute and losin’,” Starsky said.

“A true American, huh?”

“The Twist” came on, and Judy shuffled away.

Starsky went at it with commitment, grinding low. He jerked his head at Hutch in invitation.

“Come on, baby,” he mouthed, “let’s do the twist.”

Hutch shook his head.

The doctor hadn’t mentioned increased flirtiness as a side-effect of the painkillers.

He suddenly wondered if it was odd that he’d accompanied Starsky into the doctor’s office, resting a hand on his back while his arm was set and asking concerned questions on his behalf. Then again, Hutch was at least partially responsible for his injury. After splitting a 6-pack with him while watching Abbott and Costello, Hutch had convinced Starsky to attempt one of Costello’s pratfalls in the living room.

He’d put his full body into the flailing crash and it looked terrific. But snap went the arm.

The doctor looked at them. They certainly weren’t brothers.

“Is there anything he should avoid eating? Also—I know this isn’t why we’re here—but his knee blows out when we’re jogging sometimes. What do you think could cause that?”

Could it be me? Could it be that I call him at sunrise to go for a run with me and when he tries to stop at mile 5, I promise to buy him a pancake, and when the bribe fails I call him a wimp and run on without him, knowing he’ll catch up with me to call me a masochist around mile 6?

“I’ll refer you to a specialist.”

***

Starsky bent over, panting.

“Take a break, Gordo,” Hutch said, and Starsky joined him against the wall.

“Yanno,” Starsky said over the music, “this was playing in the, uh… laundromat when I was twenty.”

It was also playing in Tom’s Restaurant when his girlfriend broke up with him that year. Apparently, he’d spent too much time teaching her older brother to play pool in their basement. He was on the swim team, with shoulders that flexed under Starsky’s hands as he guided his shot. “You only come over to see him,” she’d accused.

He decided to go with the laundromat story.

“Fascinating, Starsk. Really gripping.”

“Where were you when I was twenty?” Starsky said.

The way he emphasized “you” made Hutch wonder again whether he was flirting. Of course he’s flirting, he decided. Friends like us flirt. Cop friends flirt. Starsky flirts. He’s just flirting out his excess caged energy.

“In another laundromat,” Hutch said.

They laughed as the song ended. “Sea of Love” started.

Do you remember
When we met?

Did he remember the day Starsky walked into the academy, clowning like a goof?

Yes, he did.

He cleared his throat as people paired off around them. A woman came over and asked Hutch to dance. “You don’t want this big lug,” Starsky said, stepping in front of him. “It’s me you’re looking for.”

Good––go flirt and dance off that excess caged energy. He wouldn’t see Starsky again that night.

But when the song ended, Starsky was back. Hutch took the pack of Marlboros from his rolled-up sleeve. “Do you know how to work these things?”

“C’mon,” Starsky said, heading for the patio door.

“Mr. Sandman” followed them outside. The bouncy opening tones reminded Hutch of the way Starsky hummed whatever came into his head.

Christmas carols. Bits of famous operas. Ads.

Have you got trouble? Wait, don’t run!
This kind of trouble is lots of fun!

He looked at Starsky, who was fussing with his sling.

You, he thought. You’re the reason I even know the song for that goddamn board game. You’re the reason I know Trouble’s “Pop-o-matic.”

The night air blew away the muggy living room. Starsky threw his head back for a breath and stumbled on a garden flamingo. Hutch grabbed his shoulder to steady him.

“Thanks,” Starsky said, shrugging him off. “Now let’s take care of these.” He took the cigarette pack from Hutch and without pause threw it over the fence.

“Hey! Those cost me thirty-five cents!”

If Starsky’s arm wasn’t broken, Hutch could tackle him for that. Friends like us tackle each other. Cop friends tackle each other. He tackles me onto my couch to release his excess caged energy.

“You’d get hooked, Hutch, you’re the type. Then you’d always be borrowing money for cigarettes. And it would ruin your pretty blond hair.”

Hutch was momentarily dumbfounded as he considered which falsity to address first.

“What do you mean, I’m the type?”

Starsky walked into the yard, grass cropped like a golf course. “Long legs, a little bitter,” he said with his back to Hutch. He turned around. “Self-undoing.”

“I don’t undo myself,” Hutch scoffed. “You undo me.”

He hadn’t meant that to sound so suggestive.

(Long legs?)

“Why would a person hang out with someone who undoes them unless they’re a self-undoing person? It’s your twelfth house, Hutch.”

Hutch rolled his eyes, remembering the astrology book, Love Signs in Starsky’s bathroom.

But did he have a point?

Hutch generally operated under the assumption that Starsky didn’t have a point. Then sometimes he had points to knock your socks off. It annoyed him to feel that familiar uncertainty while Starsky wore that familiar expression of playful expectancy. The same look that came over him after he’d said something flirty. As cop friends do.

Maybe I am self-undoing, he thought.

“Then again, maybe I’m self-undoing,” Starsky said, “to hang out with someone who’s self-undoing. Cause I’m not self-undoing. Which is why it’s self-undoing of me. But that’s not my twelfth house, it’s yours.”

“Go get my cigarettes,” Hutch said. He grabbed Starsky’s shoulders, driving him backwards towards the gate in the fence. He was surprisingly easy to steer. So easy that they stumbled into the wood slats, and Hutch fell against him.

He tried to push away. “Did I hurt your arm?”

“No,” Starsky said, and pulled him into a kiss, his good hand winding into Hutch’s hair.

Hutch froze, then melted into him.

The cigarettes came sailing back over the fence, landing in the grass. Hutch broke away quickly as the screen door slid open.

“Boys?” Judy called into the dark. “Come back in, we’re going to do the limbo.”

They walked back toward the smoky house. Starsky scooped up the cigarettes and handed them to Hutch. “Don’t get hooked,” he said.

I already am, Hutch thought.