Hung Like a Hammock

121

Hoping to find the secret to Hutch’s bleak mood, Starsky is trying to help Hutch with a crazy home improvement project.

 

Originally published in the SHareCon 2016 zine.

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“Are you sure about this?” Starsky asked.

Hutch looked at him blankly with a screw held between his lips.

“I mean, are you sure you wanna do it this way?” he said, standing with his hands tangled in the netting.

Hutch dropped the screw into his palm, annoyed.

“Nevermind, nevermind,” Starsky said. His sixth sense told him Hutch was on the verge of a tirade. Drastic peace efforts must intercept. “Want some more coffee?”

No. He wanted to get this hammock hung before dawn. And he didn’t want to be pestered about his decision to hang this hammock at 3am. Right.

“Hold this,” he said.

Starsky knelt beside him and held the peg in place while he twisted the screw.

It felt pathetically good to help him, to be of some small, undeniable use. Gentle questions had landed him nowhere in the past year. Angry questions had landed him angry answers that only deepened Hutch’s graveyard demeanor.

He had the whimsical notion that if he could just shave off that mustache, Hutch would slip free of whatever parallel universe gripped him. In the meantime, Starsky didn’t say much.

That is, in comparison to how much he usually said.

“You’re letting it slip,” Hutch said. “Hold it straight.”

“Sorry.”

Starsky took it as a bad sign, this hammock. He himself had given it to Hutch last Christmas, figuring he could hitch it between trees on camping trips. Instead, it was three screws away from replacing the couch Starsky had spent so many nights on.

Hutch didn’t take camping trips these days. Starsky had no proof, but his gut told him that when he didn’t answer his phone on a Saturday night, he was probably getting wasted to the Lawrence Welk show.

“We need to make sure they’re even,” Hutch said, spreading his arms between the pillars on either side of his living room.

“Here,” Starsky said. He stood up with his back to one pillar and held both arms straight in front of him.

“Starsky, how the hell is that going to help?”

He shrugged with a little laugh. “Guess I’m tired.”

Oh, I’m sorry, Starsk. Here you are in the wee hours of the morning on account of my mysterious psycho whims. Go on, go sleep. My bed is yours. Take a shower if you want. Use my towel. Pajamas on the hook but I know you prefer to sleep nude. Go on, make yourself at home. Oh, and I’m sorry about this last year and also every time I’ve ever thrown away your food. Good night, Hutch did not say.

“You want some coffee?” Hutch said.

“Thanks.”

“Help yourself.”

The hammock was hung by 5am. Starsky was commissioned to be the test monkey. He lowered himself onto it cautiously.

He was so tired, he instantly closed his eyes, sighing. He wondered if Hutch would let him sleep here sometimes. Maybe they could get wasted to the Lawrence Welk show together. Maybe he could use Hutch’s towel in the morning.

“Feels nice,” he said.

He expected Hutch to oust him for a turn. Instead, he was surprised to feel a body come down and carefully settle halfway on top of him – the only way the netting allowed. He resisted the urge to open his eyes. The moment seemed so fragile, he dared not disturb it. Hutch’s shoulder was bearing down almost painfully on his chest.

If he turned his head to the left, he could bite the bridge of Hutch’s nose. Why on earth that particular idea occurred to him, he couldn’t figure.

Other ideas occurred. Hutch had told him he had an overactive mind fueled by too many movies. If this were a movie, Starsky thought, but failed to come up with anything. When he inhaled, his finger brushed against the metallic bud at the corner of Hutch’s jean pocket. Shallow breaths.

If he could just open his eyes, he could get a better of sense of exactly how Hutch was laying, and if it meant anything. In all likelihood, Hutch simply wanted to test the full bearing potential of the hammock.

The familiar query: Does this mean anything? How about now? How about now?

No. Because you’re his friend, because he’s drunk.

But he wasn’t drunk just now. And he hadn’t been particularly friendly for a long time.

Starsky felt spent across the board. He considered actually falling asleep, odd scenario be damned. Hutch would be odd again, no doubt. In fact, he might be in for a lifetime supply of encrypted gestures.

He tried to picture them lying there from above, but achieved only a small sensation of vertigo. In his bedroom, he could’ve seen them in the mirrored ceiling. Hutch hated that thing. He had pitched a subtle but unmistakable fit when Starsky showed him the installation.

It was only an expression, but Hutch could pitch a fit in one face flat.

“Is that really necessary?” he had said.

“Is what necessary?”

Then the face.

Though Starsky couldn’t picture them lying as they currently were, he could somehow see them lying on his own bed, looking up at the mirror. Something in his gut swerved a little.

The sun was breaking through the kitchen window. He wondered if Hutch was asleep. But his breathing didn’t feel any deeper than his own. He could feel it faintly against his neck. Hutch shifted his feet and the hammock swung slightly.

He felt Hutch’s arm leave his side and froze, wondering where it would land.

Suddenly there were fingers on his forehead, and a thumb pressed against his cheek. He was breathing into Hutch’s palm, reminded ridiculously of a the Vulcan mind meld from Star Trek. Then the fingers moved down over his face, over his eyelids, down his nose, parting his lips on the way to his jaw.

He kept his eyes shut. Hutch traced his jawline in detail.

Starsky’s gut was swerving again.

Without thinking about it – unable to think – Starsky found Hutch’s wrist and raised it to his mouth. He held it there for a few seconds, breathing. Then he dragged his lips across the palm. Hutch made some minor sound which somehow struck Starsky visually instead of aurally, as a small green spiral.

He dared not open his eyes, sucking on the plush part connecting to the thumb. The impulse bewildered him and the swerving sensation traveled to his head. He traced down to the wrist. It’s funny which thoughts assert themselves amidst a noisy cloud. How many bones in a body…

The inner wrist.

“St–uh…” very faintly.

He wasn’t sure if Hutch had been about to say “Starsky” or “stop”.

Hutch abruptly wrenched free and stumbled off the hammock, nearly capsizing it. “Garbage truck,” he said hoarsely, pulling his boots on and running out the door.

“Shit,” Starsky breathed.

Hutch came dashing back across the living room. “Forgot the garbage.” The truck was rumbling close now. Hutch flung the bag from under the sink, spilling coffee grounds in the process. He swore with disproportionate volume.

Starsky’s ears told him the truck was directly below them now. He leaped up, half falling out of the hammock. Grabbing the bag from Hutch, he ran over to the kitchen window, scrambled up onto the counter, and took aim. He threw it.

“Starsky!” Hutch cried.

Starsky held up a hand defensively, waiting. Then he pumped his fist. “I’m good. Oh, I’m really good.”

Hutch hurried to the window and they broke into laughter. There was no sign of catastrophe as the truck rolled down the block with a honk of admonishment or approval.

In the other room, Hutch’s alarm sounded. They’d been lying there longer than he realized.

There were coffee grounds on Starsky’s socks. And the hammock was twisted.

Hutch gestured toward the sound. “I’m supposed to go for a jog.”

Starsky stared at him, sitting on the counter.

“Do you like the hammock?” Hutch said, looking at the sink. The buzzer droned on.

“It’s your hammock,” Starsky replied.

“It’s a little unsteady.”

“I like it.”