Foolish Dreams, Futile Hopes

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Hutch sees his therapist.

 

This story was first published in the zine, “The Fix #11,” published by April Valentine, in 1992. It was later reprinted in the zine, “Turned to Fire,” published by Idiot Triplets Press, in 1994 as the prequel to Futile Dreams, Foolish Hopes.

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“So I made a decision.”

“You did? Tell me about it.”

Hutch wriggles in his chair to find a more comfortable position. He looks up at the ceiling, then focuses on a leather-bound book in the upper right corner of the bookcase. “Well, I’ve decided there’s nothing there. In fact, I don’t think there was ever anything there. I’ve decided I’m just wasting my time and putting myself through a lot of unnecessary pain and it’s time to stop.” Hutch pauses. “He’s not worth it. I am. I have to take care of me.”

“That’s kind of an abrupt about-face.”

Hutch shrugs his shoulders. “Not really. I think I’ve just finally faced up to reality.”

“And what’s–reality?”

Hutch shrugs again. “Reality is, he’s not interested in me. He never was, and he never will be.” His gaze moves from the leather-bound book to the enamel display plate next to it on the shelf. “I mean, I’ve been at this for almost four years now. I’ve tried everything I can think of. I’ve flirted. I’ve teased. I’ve hinted.” Hutch sighs. “I’ve given him more openings than Ethel Merman. And he hasn’t picked up on even one. I think it’s pretty obvious that he’s not interested in me, don’t you think?”

“I haven’t really made a decision about that.”

Hutch snorts and folds his arms across his chest. “What’s to decide? Every time I try and create an opening for him to declare himself one way or the other, he declares himself the one way instead of the other.”

“What’s the ‘one way’ and what’s ‘the other’?”

“The ‘one way’ is–” Hutch averts his eyes, looks out the window, takes a breath, “–the ‘one way’ is that whenever I say how he’s the best person I’ve ever had in my life and he’s the only person I’ve ever known that I could see spending the rest of my life with and I’d just as soon spend it with him than anybody else he replies that we just need to find me a nice woman.” Hutch scratches his cheek without unfolding his arms. He still stares out the window.

“Have you ever asked him why he says that?”

Hutch abruptly returns his gaze to the speaker. “No.”

“Why not?”

Hutch looks disgusted. “Because he says it because he really believes a woman is what I need. If he was at all interested in me himself, he’d pick up on what I was hinting. But he never picks up on what I’m hinting. Which means he doesn’t see the same thing in me I see in him. He doesn’t think I’m the best person he’s ever met. He doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life with me.” His fingers dig into his arms.

“But you’ve never asked him.”

“Why should I?” He lifts his feet up on the leather ottoman and crosses his ankles. “It’s obvious that he has never felt any sort of attraction to me at all. All he sees me as is his best buddy. His pal. His partner. It doesn’t go beyond that. He simply is not like that. It is just not in his make-up.” Hutch snorts again.

“Do you think that’s funny?”

Hutch’s lips narrow. “No. It’s not funny. It’s not anything. It’s just the way he is. And it’s just the way I am. I mean, you cannot force another person to be in love with you. As much as you might like to, you just can’t. And you especially can’t force a sexual attraction.” Hutch drops his arms and grabs the squared ends of the chair arms.

“You seem pretty sure about that.”

Hutch rubs his thumbs along the cool leather. “Then you tell me how I’m supposed to change his feelings.”

“How about by giving him some indications of your own?”

“I have!” Hutch sputters. His body tenses, then just as quickly relaxes. He re-crosses his ankles. He lets his head drop back on the chair. He stares at the ceiling.

“Change the emphasis of what you talk about.”

“To what?” Hutch holds his breath, counts to five, then lets it out. “Make it more personal? Our conversations can’t get more personal. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows what I like, when I like it, and when I don’t. He knows where I’ve been, who I’ve been with, and what I was doing when I was there. He knows the intimate details of my life, including my sex life. We talk about anything and everything, right down to the most painful details, and we always have. So how am I supposed to make intimate conversations more intimate when there’s no place more intimate to go?”

“What about injecting sexual innuendo?”

Hutch looks over at the orderly desk. “What about it? We’ve been the kings of the double entendre, the dirty pun, the sexual quip since the first day we met. We’ve been talking sex since before we knew we were partners.” Hutch runs his fingers through his hair, then smooths his moustache. “Adding sex to the conversation is nothing new, and it’s not going to give him any new ideas at this stage of the game.” He reaches over to feel the waxy leaf of the plant potted next to him. “I mean, think about it. How do you flash your body to someone who’s already seen your body a thousand times? How do you arouse someone with sex talk when you’ve been talking sex for years? What kind of touch is left when you’ve touched someone in every way possible?” He gazes at the forest green leaf between his thumb and forefinger. His voice, when he speaks, is husky and low. “We’ve done it all before, but as friends, so when we do it now it’s not any different to him.”

“You haven’t–”

“Look. It’s not like I haven’t thought about doing something really obvious like jumping him in the car or on the couch.” He drops the leaf and rests his head in his hand. Hutch shuts his eyes. “I even thought of fixing our hotel reservations when we go down to that law enforcement conference next week so that we’d be in a room with only one bed. But that wouldn’t phase him. It wouldn’t bother him, it wouldn’t make him think, he wouldn’t suspect a thing. He’d just get into bed with me like he has a hundred times before and go to sleep.” Hutch takes a deep breath, his eyes still shut. “Even if I had an erection, he’d just joke about it, maybe even tease it, or just ignore it.” He opens his eyes and looks at the lamp on the far side of the room. “Do you see what I mean? There’s nothing new I can do to show him what I want. He’s already seen it all. And he’s never done anything about it. So it’s obvious. He either doesn’t see it, or he doesn’t want it. Either way, it’s ridiculous to keep swooning over him. It’s not going to happen.”

“Why don’t you just come right out and tell him?”

“You mean, tell him there’s a little bit more sugar in my coffee than you think? Tell him my heart’s running around in my shorts?”

“I mean, tell him you love him. Tell him you want him.”

“Because–” Hutch’s voice is a hoarse whisper. He swallows. “Because, I know what he’d say.”

“What would he say?”

Hutch laughs. Bitterly. “He’d say, ‘I’m flattered, but…’” Hutch stares at his feet. “I hate that speech. ‘You’re a nice guy, but…,’ ‘I like you as a friend, but…,’ ‘You’re really cute, but….’”

“So if you know what he’s going to say, then why not just get it off your chest? What have you got to lose?”

Hutch looks up, his eyes bright but unfocused. “Him.” he says simply.

“But if he’s such a great guy, don’t you think he’d treat you with more respect and compassion than that?”

Hutch shakes his head. His voice is soft. “He might leave me. He might not be able to handle me thinking of him like that.” He pauses. “I mean, I remember how I felt when some girl would profess her love for me and I didn’t feel anything back. It’s like you’ve just been handed this big, obvious boulder to carry around on your back. At first you think it won’t change things. That once it’s out in the open you can both relax and just go on being friends. But after a while you start to feel awkward and self-conscious about everything you do and say. Am I making her think I like her more than I do if I comment on her appearance? Am I making her think I want to spend more time with her if we go out to lunch or a movie every so often? Is there any way I can touch her without it seeming sexual?”

There is silence for a time.

“Eventually you have to just quit seeing this person because the friendship has been irreversibly damaged. All you can think of when you’re around her is that she wants more from you than you can give.”

“And you think Starsky would react this way?”

Hutch shrugs. “He treated Teresa like that.”

“How did he treat Teresa?”

Hutch shrugs again. “He stopped talking to her. He started making excuses whenever she came around and wanted to talk or go out. After a while he sat next to the wall in our briefings and he made me sit next to him so she couldn’t sit next to him.” Hutch smooths his moustache. “He froze her out.”

“Did he say why?”

Hutch clears his throat. “She made him uncomfortable. She wouldn’t keep her hands off him, especially when she’d been drinking. She just couldn’t accept that he wasn’t interested.”

“Sounds like that was more her problem than his.”

Hutch doesn’t respond.”

“Is that the way you’d act around him if you told him and he gave you the ‘but’ speech?”

“No!” Hutch lifted his feet from the ottoman and planted them on the floor. “I’d never force myself on him like that!”

“But you think he’d gradually move away from you anyway if you told him.”

Hutch shakes his head. He stares out the window. “I can’t risk that. I need him. He’s my best friend.”

“What do you need?”

“I need him. I don’t mean I need him, like I sexually need him, I mean I need him. I feel better when I’m around him. He listens to me whatever I have to say. We have the same values and standards when it comes to what we do.” He pauses to think. “Things are more fun when I do them with him because he enjoys what I enjoy. I’m comfortable around him. I don’t feel like I have to say certain things or look a certain way when we’re together.” The words come faster. “I can count on him. He shows up every time I call him and ask him to come over. He sits with me in the hospital. He doesn’t hang back when I need to cry. He protects my back so I don’t have to worry about it. I can’t afford to lose that.”

“What would happen if–”

“See, that’s what I don’t understand.” Hutch straightens his posture. “I thought that’s what love was based on. Shared values. Mutual goals. Similar pleasures. You both like to do the same things, so you do them together. You share intimacies with each other that you can’t share with anybody else.” He gestures to emphasize his points. “You start with a basic friendship, and it just gets stronger and deeper. And pretty soon you just start spending most of your time together, because that’s the person you want to spend all your time with. And you don’t just like being with them, you like being beside them. You like it when they touch you. It feels good. And special. And comforting and protecting and exciting. And you want more. And that’s sex. But you also want to do things for them. And make them feel as good as you do. And protect and excite them, too. And you put it all together and that’s love! And I don’t understand why, when one person fills up all the holes and empty places inside you, you don’t do the same for him! I don’t understand why the perfect match for me isn’t the perfect match for him! I don’t understand!”

“You’re very angry at him.”

Hutch runs his thumbs under his eyes. “I’m not angry at him. You can’t force a person to do what you want them to do. I can’t be angry at something he has no control over.”

“Then who are you angry at?”

“I’m not angry!” Hutch puts his feet back on the floor. “I just don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

Hutch kneads his thigh muscle. “I don’t understand why he doesn’t like me.”

“I think he likes you.”

“Likes me the same way I like him.”

“Loves you?”

Hutch hesitates. “Loves me. I don’t understand why he doesn’t feel the same way.”

“Why do you think he doesn’t?”

“That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

Hutch rolls his eyes. “We’re not just dealing here with ordinary love and lust. I mean, there’s a little twist here involving homosexuality or bisexuality or whatever you want to call it. You either swing or you don’t.”

“Perhaps. I think sexuality is a spectrum of likes and dislikes, desires and needs, fears and emotions. You can fall anywhere on that spectrum, and you don’t have to stay in that one place all your life. But let’s put aside pure sexual leanings for a moment. Tell me why Starsky doesn’t ‘like’ you.”

Hutch tilts his head. His fingers continue to work at his leg muscle. “I screw up.”

“Screw up what?”

“Relationships.” He laughs weakly. “Haven’t had a successful one yet.”

“What’s a successful relationship?”

“One where I don’t let the other person down. I always let them down, somehow.”

“And why else doesn’t Starsky like you?”

Hutch shrugs. “I’m pretty arrogant. Sort of a snob. He’s much more egalitarian. I can be a pain in the ass to be with. I like people to do things the right way, and if they don’t I get pretty irritated. He lets things roll off his back.

“I’m not very ambitious. I’m not very funny. I’m kind of uptight.” Hutch pauses. “I’m getting older. Getting a few lines on my forehead. Putting on a few extra pounds. I’m not exactly Mr. Golden Body anymore.” He pauses again. “I’m not his religion.”

“You’re not a lot of things, according to you.”

“I’m smart and I’m rich.”

“According to you. What are you according to him?”

Hutch smiles thinly. “A good partner. A good buddy.”

“I think you’re more than that if he’s been your friend this long. He must see something in you if he comes when you call and visits you in the hospital and puts your life ahead of his when you’re on duty.”

The room is silent.

“I think we’ve got plenty to talk about next time. Remember, we’ve switched to Tuesday for next week.”

Hutch stands. “Yeah. I remember.”

“See you next week.”

Hutch walks toward the door. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“‘Bye.”