Rain

Starsky never thought of himself as romantic; that was Hutch’s thing. Red balloons. Black bean soup. The Paul Muni Special. But the therapist said it might help if he could write down his thoughts. A poem, maybe, or a song. Hutch gave him a “yeah, sure” grin, so Starsky picked up the pen.

“Make analogies,” Hutch said. “Try the weather.”

“What weather? It’s always sunny here. Sunny ain’t how I feel.”

“How do you feel?”

Cold. I feel cold. I wish I could cry.

“I don’t know. I feel—”

Snow, maybe. Falling relentlessly in a southern California garage.

Nope, not snow. He put the pen down. He could see Hutch’s hand on his leg.

“Can I get you anything?”

Starsky shook his head without looking up. He heard Hutch sigh.

“Well, maybe that new nurse, the one with the red hair?”

Hutch pretended to smile. Starsky poked at the pen, making it spin on the rollaway table.

The wind off the water blew Hutch’s hair around his face like . . . like what? This was stupid. Though he did like watching the wind in Hutch’s hair.

“Starsk, I don’t care about—I love you.”

“I know.”

For how long? I’m not what I was. What we were. I wish I could cry.

He looked out the window at the sunlight on the tops of the palm trees, at the people walking to their cars. The pen lay cold in his hand, dead, unfeeling. He couldn’t make it work. He was no poet.

Fire, then? That devours everything in its path? That takes away everything you ever were? Fire is like . . . like what? Anger? He didn’t have the strength now for anger. For rage.

Gunfire.

Oh, God.

He’d written something without realizing it:

Today it rained.