Diminished Third

A party leads to a discussion long overdue.

Hutch definitely preferred this kind of open house, where the guests were invited, and friendly, and didn’t carry guns or knock him unconscious or attack his couch cushions with knives.

Leaning his hip against the kitchen counter, he looked out across the gaggles of people spread around his apartment. Stewardesses mixed with cops mixed with Venice locals mixed with go-go dancers and regulars from Huggy’s bar, plus Huggy himself of course, the best-dressed person in the place by a country mile. The LP spinning on the record deck had played through, and the sound of the needle skipping in the groove was drowned out by the chatter of the party, threaded through with the honky-tonk strains of the piano as a beautiful drunken girl attempted to teach Starsky to play a duet, the two of them smushed up together on the piano stool. Hutch wandered over to help out, leaning forward to place his hands over Starsky’s floundering fingers in an attempt to coax him closer to playing something like the right notes in the right order. The cacophony ended in giggling chaos, and the beautiful drunken girl gave up and went to change the record.

Hutch leaned back against the piano.

“Don’t think you’ll be giving Jerry Lee Lewis a run for his money any time soon, Starsk. Or Liberace for that matter.”

Starsky looked up at him. “No need, we got you if one of us has to go undercover as a lounge pianist. I can be the maitre d.” He gestured downwards at his legs, summoning a vision of immaculately tailored black trousers. Hutch grinned.

“You’re just too lazy to put the work in. I could show you where to put your fingers.”

Starsky flickered through a variety of obscene gestures as if Hutch had put a nickel in a machine at the end of the pier for ‘What the Butler Saw.’

“I know exactly what to do with my fingers, pal.”

Hutch responded with an obscene gesture of his own and followed the pretty girl to the record player, only to be intercepted by Huggy. Hutch found himself being steered out to the balcony and backed into a quiet corner.

“What’s on your mind, Hug?”

“You and your foolish antics, man. You’re taking third-wheeling to new heights. It’s like watching a circus act. Like a clown car.”

Hutch shrugged and feigned innocence in the face of Huggy’s disapproving look. Huggy remained unconvinced.

“C’mon Hutch, I saw your pitiful moves over at the piano. You just went ahead and confirmed the hunch I’ve had ever since you stole Abby out from under him.”

Hutch flinched slightly.

“Well, Abby’s gone now. Better off without either one of us. We’re nothing but trouble.”

Huggy raised an eyebrow, refusing to be distracted from his point.

“Thing is, when you swoop in on Starsky’s ladies that way, I always get the feeling that you’re falling on your own sword. It ain’t that you want them, or even that you don’t want him to have them. You don’t want them to have him.”

Hutch gave the only sane response he could summon to being busted. He ducked under Huggy’s arm and took off back inside to where Starsky still sat on the piano stool, now with go-go dancer Sally Ann in his lap, all sparkles and curls, apparently regaling him with her therapist’s latest theory. Hutch strode over, leaning across Starsky to twirl a finger in the blond waterfall of her hair. Huggy turned away, heading for the record deck.

Manny, preoccupied proprietor of the Panama Club, wandered over towards the piano with two of the club’s dancers, Francine and Cherry, one on each arm. Francine — Starsky had always had a keen appreciation for Francine — gave a little shimmy in greeting. Cherry rested her glass on top of the piano as she told them,

“Nice to be having parties in your new place, Hutch. We’ve been missing the cottage.”

Manny tucked her in closer against his side. “At least here there’s no chance of someone falling in the canal.”

Francine threw back her head and laughed, her auburn hair catching the lamplight.

“Yeah Hutch, always some drama at your place. What’s it gonna be tonight? Another old friend staggering in, all beat up?”

Starsky, getting drunker, looked bamboozled. “Huh?”

Hutch looked down at him. “Colby, Starsk.”

Starsky’s face clouded.

“Oh, right. Colby.” He tossed back the rest of his drink, setting the glass down on the piano keys with a click.

Hutch shrugged. “Well, no chance of him darkening our door tonight. He’s all tied up, paying his debt to society.”

Huggy had ramped up the party energy with his DJ skills, and as the needle dropped on ‘I Feel Love,’ Sally Ann scrambled off Starsky’s lap and the three dancers dragged Manny to the impromptu dance floor, leaving Starsky and Hutch in suspended animation as Donna Summer’s vocals swirled around the pulsing bass like smoke. Hutch caught Starsky’s eye, then watched as Starsky slowly listed forward until his forehead came to rest against the smooth wooden surface of the piano, keeping him upright but unspeaking. Apparently awkward silences were possible at a noisy party. Who knew?

Hutch steeled himself to break the stalemate. “Nothing like a mention of John Colby to lift the party mood, huh.”

Starsky shrugged without moving his head, still steadfastly avoiding Hutch’s eyes. He turned enough to mumble a reply,

“You know, I got a real sinking feeling when you first had that call from him at the gym, when he reappeared outta nowhere, showed up like a bad penny.”

“You did, huh?”

“Yeah. There you were, all excited. Meanwhile I was secretly taking great pleasure in knocking him into the laundry basket with unnecessary force.”

Hutch looked at the ceiling, blew out a breath.

“Yeah, some judge of character I am. Wish I had your instincts, Starsk. I get fooled every time.”

Starsky chuckled mirthlessly against the smooth veneer.

“Wrong, babe. I was shocked, when he turned out crooked. I’d figured my uneasy feelings were just the same old jealousy rearing its head.”

“You were jealous? Of what?”

“Of you, dummy. Or him. You and him, whatever. I never wanted to be the third Corkis… Corkisan…”

“Corsican brother.”

Starsky rolled his eyes. “Whatever. The third wheel. Didn’t wanna share you. And he knew it, too. Used to rub it in every time he got a chance, back at the Academy. Took every opportunity to remind me you were both college-educated, the two of you looking slick in your slacks, collars all crisp and nice. Made me feel like a dumb greasy kid every chance he got.”

“Aw Starsky, you’re crazy. You think I cared about that, him being a college boy?”

Starsky sighed. “I couldn’t shake the feeling Hutch, it got right under my skin. Even last year when you and me were with Mr Smooth Guy Colby, sitting at the table in Huggy’s…”

Hutch stole a glance over to where Huggy stood by the stereo, lining up his next record as Donna Summer’s vocals gave way to the throb of the synthesiser, and the hi-hat began to ricochet. Huggy looked back at Hutch, raised an eyebrow.

Hutch gave a curt nod and took a steadying breath, deep into his belly. He reached to shake Starsky’s shoulder, felt the tension in it.

“Starsky, I don’t know how you managed to feel insecure when I was leaning on you, right in front of Colby…”

Hutch gave the tense shoulder under his hand an emphatic shove. And either the party drinks had messed up Hutch’s perception of his own strength, or sabotaged Starsky’s ability to stay upright… Regardless of the cause, the effect was the same. At the same moment that Huggy’s record ended, Starsky’s forehead landed hard on the piano keys with a loud, dissonant chord, killing every other conversation in the room just as Hutch loudly declared,

“…with my hand halfway up your inseam, and you still didn’t get a clue!”

The notes faded and a heavy silence fell across the crowded room, like an old Western feature when a stray bullet hits the saloon’s piano player in a shootout. After several long, drawn-out seconds Huggy’s voice broke the stillness,

“OK people! Time to move this party down to the boardwalk, make the most of the ocean location on this beautiful night! I got a half-finished barrel of beer in the back of Manny’s car and I don’t plan on carting it all the way up the stairs to Hutch’s place here, so grab those party cups…”

The party spirit ramped slowly back up as guests grabbed cups and bottles and personal effects and headed for the door, sending sheepish goodbyes mixed with salacious whoops in the direction of Starsky, slumped at the piano on keys still pressed down long after the resonance of hammers on strings had dissipated. Hutch stood awkwardly beside him, allowing himself a sudden fascination with the rug beneath his feet.

As Huggy passed them, shepherding the crowd ahead of him, Hutch grabbed his elbow.

“Thanks, Hug.”

Huggy gave him a look dry as the Mojave desert.

“You better make it worth my while, my man. If I have to watch the two of you dance around this any longer I will Lose My Mind. Time’s long past due for me to intervene, save you lovesick fools from yourselves.”

As the mass of footsteps clattered down the stairs, Cherry’s voice came floating up the stairwell.

“But honey, I thought they were already… I mean, you remember that party at Hutch’s old place, with the serenading…”

Francine’s voice joined in “…and the Goulash of Love, and the toasting…”

Their hysterical laughter faded into the distance as the party guests went off down the street. Silence settled over Hutch’s apartment like heavy velvet drapes.

Hutch tried shaking Starsky’s shoulder, but Starsky stayed right where he was, forehead resolutely applied to the piano keyboard.

Hutch was far too sober to deal with this situation.

Giving in to Starsky’s staunch refusal to move, Hutch walked around the apartment gathering abandoned glasses and ashtrays. After a while, Starsky cleared his throat. Hutch dropped an empty beer can. Not that he was in any way on edge. He picked it up and strolled as nonchalantly as possible back over to the piano.

“Got something to say, Starsk?”

“Yeah… What you said, about, you know, your hand, in Huggy’s bar?”

“My hand, your thigh? Strangely enough I do remember that, yes.”

Starsky’s brow furrowed. “Well, Huggy said the same thing to me.”

Hutch did a double-take. “Huggy said what?”

“Back then, when I checked in on him after Colby’s goons had beat him up, little did we know at the time. He said he never knew there was a third musketeer, and I told him how I was feeling a little thrown having Colby around, how Colby was always keener on you, and I kinda wished you were less happy to see him.”

“Well yeah, me too, now. Hindsight being twenty twenty and all.”

“Anyway… so, Huggy pointed out the same thing you did, how your hand was right on the inside of my thigh, right in front of Colby, right in front of the whole bar and everyone. He told me, ‘Hutch don’t put his hands on anyone the way he puts them on you.’”

“Well he should know, he sees us often enough.”

“Hug said, maybe that was you sending a message, staking your claim.”

“He’s a yenta, is what he is. He’s been matchmaking all night tonight, lecturing me—”

“Oh a yenta, huh? Like you ever saw one outside of ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’”

“Hey, I like that film! I always liked Perchik. Kind of a younger version of you, with brown eyes.”

“You don’t like my eyes?”

“I love your eyes, Starsk. Though I may never see them again, with your head down there on the piano for the indefinite future.”

For the second time that night, Hutch leaned over Starsky and placed his hands on the keys. A discordant sound rang out. Starsky flinched.

“Hey, what’s that racket, Blintz?”

“Augmented third.” Hutch played another, equally dissonant chord. “Diminished third.”

Starsky groaned. “Diminished third? Yeah, sounds about right. That’s Colby’s chord for me.”

Hutch played a few bars of ‘If I Were A Rich Man,’ segued into the chorus of ‘Matchmaker, Matchmaker.’ Starsky admitted defeat and sat up.

Hutch laughed. “You’ve been down there so long you got lines on your face from the piano keys.”

Starsky grinned up at Hutch. “But you still love me, huh?”

Hutch sighed, suddenly worn out, the evening’s events catching up with him. He sat down on the piano stool, knocking into Starsky.

“Full disclosure? I’ve had a thing for you since the Academy, Starsk. And yeah, Colby suspected as much, made mean remarks about you. But I’d already fallen for you like a ton of bricks, so he could have saved his breath.”

“Huh.” Starsky turned towards him, brushed Hutch’s hair back. “Can I, uh, can I kiss you? ‘Cause man, I really wanna kiss you. I mean it’s like a permanent condition with me.”

Hutch blinked. “I mean I…. Yes. I mean yes. Do that.”

So Starsky did. Then he reminded Hutch that there was, in fact, a bed outside on the balcony, under the stars. So they left the cups and the ashtrays and the beer cans, and the LPs strewn around without their covers, and headed outside. And as they lay down in the warm California night, neither one of them made a joke about making sweet music together.

But they both thought it.