Breathe In, Breathe Out

Hutch tries to face the unimaginable.

First published in Venice Place Chronicles, Volume IV.

June 20, 1979

The Department shrink suggested I write down my thoughts. Well, it wasn’t really a suggestion, more of an order. Get it together, Hutchinson, or else. He said it might give me an outlet, give me focus. He doesn’t understand. I have focus. Plenty of focus. It’s like I have tunnel vision sometimes. But I got the message, so I bought a journal and here I sit wondering what the hell the next sentence is going to be after I quit bitching about Michaelson.

Michael. David Michael Starsky. All my thoughts eventually lead back here. To this big empty, aching void that used to be filled to overflowing with the love of my life.

Write down what I’m thinking, the man said. He didn’t tell me what to do if there are no words. I’m living in a whole new world now. One that has its own language. One I never wanted to learn.

Hutch stared down at the few lines he had managed to write, and then closed the journal. Slowly, feeling about 103, he levered himself up out of the chair. Without bothering to strip, he climbed into bed and curled himself into a ball of misery around the pillow that still smelled very faintly of Starsky. He closed his eyes and told himself to breathe in and breathe out.

~*~*~

July 1, 1979

I cleaned out Starsky’s desk today. Dobey’s been really good about it. Hasn’t pushed me, even though it should have been done long ago. He even offered to do it himself. Said he’d just put everything in a box and keep it in his office until I felt ready to deal with it. I’m too selfish for that. I want every tiny little scrap of Starsky I can find in my hands. So, I asked Minnie to find me a box.

As tidy as Starsky was about his place, that’s just how untidy he was about that desk drawer. The stuff he had crammed into that little space was amazing. About twenty stolen pens, a stuffed animal, coins, and half a dozen little books on the crazy subjects that always seemed to catch his imagination.

I laughed out loud today. I guess it’s the first time since… No, I know it’s the first time because every guy in the squad room turned around to look. I couldn’t help it. Tucked right in the back of the drawer, under a pile of used carbons, I found two condoms. They must have been old because we never used them. Not once we got together, I mean. Across each little packet, Starsky had written ”void” like you do on a useless check. I guess he really was committed to me. You would have thought I’d cry, but it was just so damned Starsky. Small wonder I loved him so much.

Hutch put the journal aside. The box sat beside him on the couch, and he eased open the flaps to reveal its jumbled contents. After a minute, he carried it into the bedroom and set it on the table on the side of the bed Starsky had always claimed on the rare occasions they stayed at Hutch’s. Starsky’s last watch, the two pinky rings, and his coin necklace were already there. With shaking fingers, Hutch touched each one of them, and then took his hand back. Past the boulder in his chest, he breathed in and breathed out.

~*~*~

July 17, 1979

I got another letter from Starsky ‘s mom today. I feel so bad. She writes all the time and I never answer. I don’t know what to say. Funny, when Starsky was…before he… My God, I can’t write it. I think it all the time. It’s like writing it would give it a reality it doesn’t possess if it’s only echoing around in my head. Maybe that’s a step I need to take, but I don’t think I can. Not yet.

So, before, if I was there on Friday night when Starsky called his mom, sometimes I’d stay on with her longer than he would. I’d sit in that big chair of his, one leg thrown over the arm, and watch him puttering around the place as Ruth filled my ear with memories or gossip. Sometimes he’d watch me back, and there was such pride in his eyes. It pleased him that the two people he loved most, loved each other. I tried to keep up the calls after, but I’d never get beyond hello before I’d start to shake and my throat would close. I could feel her compassion from three thousand miles away and it only broke my heart all over again.

I’ll have to call soon, or write. She didn’t say a word in her letter, but she must be wondering about Starsky‘s things. All the bits and pieces he had accumulated over a lifetime that still wait for me to decide their fate. I should have let Nicky do it when he was here. I can’t keep paying the rent over there forever. I guess I could, actually, but the landlord is getting antsy.

Soon, maybe, I’ll go over there. Go up the staircase, walk through the door, go through the rooms and cupboards and closets and drawers. It seems like such an invasion. How can I think that, when Starsky gave himself to me body and soul? When there was no part of him, his life, his thoughts, that he did not share with me?

Hutch dropped the journal and leaned forward as a wave of vertigo swept over him. Resting his head on his knees, he tried to remember the last time he had eaten. He wasn’t intentionally starving himself; he just forgot sometimes. As soon as the dizziness passed, he would make himself something to eat. In the meantime, he reminded himself to breathe in and breathe out.

~*~*~*

July 24, 1979

Another day, another dollar, or some such bullshit. More like same shit, different day.

I asked Dobey for my gun back today. He said no. I guess he’s still afraid I might decide a 44-caliber nightcap sounds like a plan with possibilities. I’m surprised he doesn’t understand. I’m not taking any chances. Won’t even jay walk. I’ve got to stay alive until I nail that old man’s evil, wrinkled old carcass to the wall. Maybe that’s what Dobey‘s afraid of. That some night I’ll get tired of wading through the corporate blinds, the backroom politics, and the corrupt lackeys, and just buy myself a ticket to San Francisco and return the favor Gunther did Starsky.

I won’t. At least not until I’ve got a warrant in my hands. I want to sew that coward up tight. Dot all my I’s and cross all my T’s. Bring his empire down around him. Let him taste devastation. Then I’ll put a bullet in his brain. No, wait. First I’ll put the other six slugs in him. Someplace where it will really hurt. Like my baby hurt.

Except Starsky never hurt. Never regained consciousness, so there was no pain. At least that’s what the doctor told me. But he fought. Conscious or not, I know he fought like a demon to hang on to his life. Starsky was no quitter. And that’s why I hang on. Starsky valued my life. He offered his own for it often enough. How could I consider throwing it away no matter how empty it is now? But I was right all those years ago when Vic Bellamy tried to snatch him away–it is hardest on the ones left behind.

Hutch dropped the journal into his lap, covered his face with his hands, and struggled to hold the scream of anguish in his throat. It escaped, of course, oozing around the taut muscles to emerge as little more than a whimper. The journal fell to the floor as he pulled his legs up to his chest and huddled into the corner of the couch. Breathe in and breathe out.

~*~*~

August 2, 1979

I wish I believed in God. I know I say things like, “Thank God” and “Oh God,” but they’re just figures of speech to me. I don’t believe.

I was brought up to. Sort of. My parents took me to church, but not because they believed. It was the right place to be seen on a Sunday morning. To catch up on all the gossip or start some. To close a few deals. During the week, God was a non-entity in our house.

What I’ve seen as a cop hasn’t given me reason to change my mind. Newborn junkies and baby hookers. If there is a God, he must look at us and shake his head. Or laugh his ass off.

So, I don’t believe in Heaven or afterlife or angels-guardian, fallen, or any other variety, What I do believe is when you’re gone, you’re gone. End of story. Fini. Kaput. The only way to live on once your heart stops is in the memories of those who knew you. Another good reason not to cash in my chips, No one else knew Starsky the way I did. Inside my head, stored away in images so fresh and clear I could cut my mind on them is everything he ever was. Passionate and playful, naïve and wise. His humor, his loyalty, and his faith. So much to have packed into one short life, into only one man.

Hutch read the sentence he had written over and over. They said so little. He needed to say more. Perhaps write a book. But every book needed an ending, and he didn’t have one yet. Soon. Until then-breathe in, breathe out.

~*~*~

August 16, 1979

I drove the Torino today. Lasted four blocks. Thank God I took Huggy with me, although it was no damned picnic for him either. Sometimes I forget that Huggy loved Starsky, too. A different kind of love, but love nevertheless. Maybe even something close to the kind Starsky and I had before we became lovers.

I wasn’t ready to face it, Starsky’s pride and joy that had been as cruelly wounded as its owner. But Merle called, said the work was done and asked if I wanted to sell it. He had a guy who had taken one look and fallen in love. Just like Starsky had. I snarled “no” and said I’d be right over for it. Sell the Torino? Was he out of his mind? It was on the front seat of that car where Starsky kissed me for the first time. We’d even fucked in it once, though it wasn’t exactly one of our better moments. I’d spent the best parts of my life sitting beside him in that damned Tomato and Merle expected me to sell it!

I grabbed a cab and then picked up Huggy. He looked a little sick when I told him what I wanted for him, but he recovered quickly, put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed once, real hard.

Merle did a beautiful job. There wasn’t a trace of the dozen or so bullets that had torn through the car’s body. I wish to God there had been a Merle the Earl of the medical field who could have done the same for my love. Hell, I wouldn’t even have cared what scars were left behind. I’d have cherished them. Proof positive we had overcome once more. But we didn’t.

As soon as I saw her, I choked up. Couldn’t tell Merle how grateful I was, couldn’t even tell Huggy to get in the car. I wrote Merle a check with a hundred-dollar bonus, and Huggy, bless him, read my mind or my face and climbed in the passenger side. I slid behind the wheel, settled into the awkward fit of a seat that had contoured itself to my lover’s ass. I turned the key, the roar of the engine drowning out the sob that heaved out of my chest.

Like I said, I got four blocks. By then, I was crying so hard I couldn’t see the steering wheel, never mind the road. Huggy took over, and we drove Starsky’s Coke can to his apartment and left it where it belonged. One of these days, I’m going to have to deal with it. And the apartment, too. But not today.

Surprisingly dry-eyed, Hutch set the journal on the table and picked up the Torino’s keys. He held them tight in the palm of his hand until they took on his warmth. Starsky was one of the few people Hutch had ever known who always knew where his keys were. Which pocket, what table, or the little hook beside the door. He never once caught Starsky looking for his keys. Starsky had even hung a plaque with three little hooks beside Hutch’s door. Sometimes Hutch remembered to use it; sometimes he didn’t. He went there now and hung the Torino’s keys on the first hook and tried not to think of how wrong it looked. Looking at those keys hanging there, it was nearly impossible for Hutch to breathe in, but he did it, and then he breathed out.

~*~*~

August 28, 1979

I went to Starsky’s place today. It’s taken me three months to work up the courage to go. Even then, I sat in the car for two hours, just looking at the building. If the landlord hadn’t seen me and come over to ask when I was thinking of giving up the place, I might still be sitting there just looking. Remembering. Trying not to scream.

I’ve been paying the rent, but Peterson is getting anxious. I told him I was having trouble getting in touch with Starsky’s family. It wasn’t exactly a lie. I still can’t make myself call his mom. I told him I’d pay him an extra hundred a month to cover his inconvenience, and that seemed to satisfy him.

There are fifteen stairs in that staircase. I never realized that before. I guess because I always went up them two at a time. Or maybe because I went up them behind Starsky, one hand on that incomparable ass, anxious to get behind closed doors with him.

Alone, it seemed to take a year to reach the landing. Every step raised little puffs of memory like dust to swirl around my head, choke me, blind me. For a minute, just when I put the key in the lock, I thought I heard his voice. It was just an echo out of the past. From some night when we’d tumbled up the stairs in each other’s arms, not caring a damn who saw us or what conclusions they’d draw. His laughter was cut off when I took his mouth, invaded it with my tongue. Cut off forever now.

Christ. Why am I doing this? I don’t need to write down my memories of Starsky and what we shared. They consume me. Every waking minute and most of my dreams. It’s always a shock when I turn around to tell him something and I find the space that had been filled with his warm, vibrant presence is now empty and cold.

It overwhelms me. I have to remind myself to breathe, that walking means putting one foot in front of the other. I had to do that today to get through his front door. Look at my feet and make them take the steps into the musty, closed-up interior where I spent most of the happiest moments of my life. Starsky was always happiest on his own home ground, so mostly we ate, slept, played, and loved there.

Why did he have to be such a neat bastard? I wanted clutter, unwashed dishes he’d eaten from, magazines he’d read, a mountain of dirty laundry that smelled of him, and an unmade bed that still reeked of the sweaty, ecstatic love we made. One shirt. One lonely blue t-shirt tossed over the end of the bed that still smelled of him. I buried my face in it, inhaled so greedily that my head swam.

I wish I had thought to bottle that smell. It wasn’t just the soap or shampoo or cologne he used. He could never remember from one time to the next what he’d bought the last time, so he’d just buy whatever caught his eye. Anyway, it was so much more than that. Sweat and leather and what he ate and who he got close to. It was all part of the fragrance I could recognize from the barest whiff, because in there somewhere, under, around, or behind all the bits and pieces of his life, lay the distilled essence of Starsky. Safety, security, passion, and love. It meant all those things. It faded from the pillow weeks ago, overcome by my own scent from holding it too close, bathing it in too many tears. What will I do when it no longer clings to this one shirt? Will it always linger in my mind?

Hutch realized he couldn’t see what he was writing anymore, and put the journal down. His eyes burned; his sinuses tingled as he fought to hold back another useless tide of tears. They brought no relief, so why cry them? But they wouldn’t be held back, dripping down his cheeks when he closed his eyes. He brought his hand up, buried his face in Starsky’s shirt, and breathed in, deep, deeper, deepest, and breathed out a sob.

~*~*~

October 9, 1979

I haven’t written here in weeks. I’ve hardly been home. What began as a trickle is threatening to turn into a flood tide in my investigation of Gunther. It’s like I’ve found the end of the string and it’s all unraveling. Soon. Soon I’ll have that heartless bastard by the balls.

That isn’t why I haven’t been writing. I haven’t been here. It was like once I managed to get myself into Starsky’s place, now I can’t stay away. I start out for home every night, but somehow end up parked in front of his place.

Not that I’ve been doing anything constructive. I haven’t sorted out so much as the junk drawer in the kitchen. I’m just there most of the time. I feel more, not more of anything. Less. I feel less alone. Less afraid. Less hopeless. It isn’t like I feel Starsky’s spirit hanging around or anything. I already said I don’t believe in any of that. I guess what I feel is the echo of the happiness we shared. Lying in his bed, I close my eyes and I can sink into memory. Remember his voice, his touch, the way he felt and moved under my hands. I cry less. I sleep better.

One night, I got out the Monopoly game and set it up. I didn’t try to play. I just sat there and remembered the hundreds of games we had played, the beer we’d guzzled, the tears we’d cried. That game stood witness as our relationship metamorphosed down through the years.

I’m thinking about giving up my place and moving in there. Michaelson surprised me when I told him that yesterday. I thought he’d do the whole morbid, unnaturally fixated number on me. He looked at his notes for a minute or two and then looked at me and asked me if being at Starsky’s place made living without him the rest of the time easier. When I said yes, though I’m not sure if it does, Michaelson just nodded.

It wasn’t till I was on my way home tonight that I remembered they always counsel widows or widowers not to make any major changes for at least a year. Well, it’s just about five months now, but it still seems like yesterday, So maybe I won’t give up this place either.

Hutch closed the journal and set it on top of his folded shirts, then closed the lids on both suitcases and set them beside the door. Tomorrow, he would take the bags to work with him and go straight to Starsky’s after. No more kidding himself. No more pretending he had any intention of going home. As he moved around the apartment watering his plants, Hutch realized that, for the first time since he had turned around to find Starsky on the ground, his head resting in the Torino’s wheel well, it didn’t hurt to breathe in and breathe out.

~*~*~

November 12, 1979

Ruth called tonight. I nearly had heart failure. It’s the first time the phone has rung since I moved in here. I couldn’t believe how good it felt to hear her voice. Am I beginning to heal?

She didn’t say why she’d thought to try Starsky’s number. She didn’t say a lot of things, but I could hear them in her voice. I had forgotten when Starsky and I went to New York to tell her about us, she said that now she had three sons. Gunther took one away from her, and my cowardice was holding back another. I think I’ll be calling her again on Friday nights from now on.

She told me she saw that movie the other night. The one they cut my line out of. It was Ruth I meant all along when I said I’d already called my mom about my performance. Starsky knew that. That’s why he said he knew my mom would understand. She told me I could come visit her any time, and maybe I will. But not yet.

Hutch laid his pen on top of the journal and picked up the gold chain Starsky had given him their last Christmas together. He held it up before his eyes on the end of one finger, mesmerized by the spin of Starsky’s rings that now hung in the arc. After a minute, he gently laid it on top of the cotton padding in the small box that sat on the table before him. It took a few more minutes before he could put the lid on the box, but once he had taken that step, it was easier to then seal it inside of the padded envelope he had already addressed. He would mail it on his way to work tomorrow. It should reach her by Christmas. He thought Ruth would be pleased. He noticed there was a bit of a nip in the air tonight as he breathed in and breathed out.

~*~*~

December 26, 1979

Yesterday was very, very, very bad. The worst since the doctor turned off the machines. Worse than the funeral.

The telephone rang until I finally took it off the hook. Huggy and then Dobey showed up and pounded on the door. I ignored them. I’m surprised Dobey didn’t have a couple of uniforms break down the door.

I wallowed all day. In grief and guilt, a case of beer, and a whole bottle of scotch. I haven’t been that sick since Starsky helped me kick the smack Forest got me hooked on. I lay on the bathroom floor and remembered what it felt like to have his arms wrapped around me when I hurt so bad. Then I drank another bottle of something I found under the sink. I don’t remember anything after that.

If I’d had my Magnum this morning, I’d have blown my brains out. Hangover doesn’t begin to describe it.

I’m so glad that for once in my life I can say I figured something out before it was too late. For a good little Jewish boy, okay, somewhat relaxed in his observances, Starsky truly loved Christmas. I caught on and we had two wonderful Christmases together. Filled with laughter and love, mountains of presents, and hundreds of treats. We decorated this place until there was hardly an inch that wasn’t mistletoed or hollied, glittering and glowing. The lights on the tree were put to shame by Starsky’s smile. I’d never known, never suspected Christmas could be like that. Starsky could make Groundhog Day special. Given a holiday like Christmas, there was no holding him back. I may never celebrate Christmas again, but I will never, ever forget. Nobody, not all the Gunthers in the world, can take that away from me.

Hutch groped for the ice pack and set it gently on his forehead, closing his eyes to shut out the room that still had a nauseating tendency to sway at unexpected moments. His fingers moved restlessly over the smooth surface of the journal where it lay on his chest. Every few minutes, his thumb would ruffle the edges of the pages. He felt as if he had so much more to say. Maybe it was time he started that book. Tomorrow, maybe, when his eyelashes didn’t hurt, his hair didn’t feel so brittle, and it wasn’t such an effort just to breathe in and out.

~*~*~*

February 11, 1980

I gave Kiko Starsky’s model ship last night. I spent most of last week working on it first, remembering all the nights I’d watched Starsky working on it. Seeing him with yards of black string splayed between his fingers as he patiently knotted the whole confusing mess into rigging. It used to amaze me that a man as restless as Starsky would choose such a hobby. It never failed him. He explained it to me often enough, how the delicate work gave him a sense of calm. I never understood before. I do now. The lines I set this past week may sag a little, but there is a least a small space inside me now that recalls the peace of those many evenings.

Kiko cried. I guess it was a miserable thing to do to a teenage boy. Machismo is everything at that age. He didn’t try to hide it, though. Just looked at me as those big brown eyes filled and spilled over. I held him and I didn’t cry. It felt good to offer comfort for a change, to feel strong again, if only for a little while.

After he put the ship in his room, he asked if maybe we could start spending an afternoon together again once in a while. I didn’t even think about it first, I just said yes. I think maybe when I go over there to pick him up on Saturday, I might give Molly Starsky’s glove.

Does all this mean I’m healing? Giving little bits of Starsky away? Even thinking about spending time doing something besides working and remembering? I still cry sometimes. Okay, a lot of times, but sometimes I just choke up for a minute or two, then I’m okay. I miss him. My arms ache. Maybe I’ve just learned to package it all up and tuck it away. It’s almost nine months now. The length of time it takes for a new life to grow. Is that how long it takes to let go of a life that is gone? The symmetry of that idea appeals to me, but not the imagery. Perhaps I should have said to adjust to the absence.

Hutch smiled, just a wry twisting of his lips as he closed the journal on another of his infrequent entries. Michaelson had never asked to see the journal, and Hutch wasn’t quite sure why he continued with it. Habit by now, he supposed. He looked around the half-empty apartment. He was getting there. Slowly but surely, he was finding homes for the things Starsky had cherished. Soon, only the mundane, the items owned only for their usefulness would be left. A great many of the things were at Hutch’s place now, overcrowding the limited space. When he moved back there, he might even have to step out onto the landing just to breathe in and breathe out.

~*~*~

April 14, 1980

I went down the stairs for the last time tonight. I spent all day packing up the last of Starsky’s life and delivering it. I cried a few times, alone and with friends. Huggy offered to stay for the last of it, but didn’t kick up a fuss when I told him to go. Just squeezed my shoulder. He does that a lot now, but I didn’t realize until today how many times he must have seen Starsky and me do it. Or how seldom Huggy every touched me before…before Starsky died. There, I wrote it. I was right all along. Now it’s real.

After I put the last box in the car, I went back up to the apartment. I walked through the empty rooms listening to echoes. Years’ worth of echoes. Laughter and tears. Arguments and loving. I wasn’t saying good-by to my beloved. You can’t say good-bye to the best part of yourself. I just left the trappings behind. I don’t need them, or, at least, what I do need is here now.

I’m not even sure how long I wandered around, but eventually I knew I was ready. I went down the stairs, slowly. Not because I had to, but because it felt right. I dropped off the key to Peterson on the way home, I’ll sleep in my own bed tonight.

Hutch closed the journal, got up and slid it between two tall books on his shelf. Returning to the table, he picked up the warrant and airline ticket, and tucked them into the pocket of the jacket he planned to wear in the morning. His Magnum, returned to him by Dobey along with the warrant and ticket, he left lying on the table, and went to bed. Curling himself around the extra pillow, and even though the faintest traces of Starsky were long since gone, Hutch buried his face in the soft surface and…breathed in and breathed out.

The End