One Plus One

Leotis does some figuring.

Episode Related: Huggy Bear and the Turkey

Special thanks to my star betas, LS and CC, for being both endlessly helpful and encouraging.

I’ve always been good at numbers.

Can’t explain it really, though people’ve asked me to. “Leotis,” they say, “how’d you get to be so good at math? You been schoolin’ when nobody’s looking?”

“I dunno,” I say. “I just am.”

See, it goes like this: I put down one number in my head, and then I set another number under it, and then a third number shows up, depending on what I told them to do. It’s always been that way, and I never had to question what showed up, because it was always right.

Go figure.

Lately, though, it got to feeling like things weren’t adding up like they should. What I was seeing and what actually was seemed to be two different things, and I didn’t know if there was something wrong with my head or my eyes or what.

I have to tell you, it made me nervous. I depend on my numbers, on account of there’s one thing you can always rely on them for, and that’s to make sense. And if there’s anyone who knows he sometimes needs more sense in his life, well…it’s me.

Let me tell you some things before you go thinking that I’ve gone and gotten even more thickheaded than I am already. Yeah, I know what they say about me. They said it behind my back at school, some of ’em, and a lot of them said it to my face, and I knew what it meant, even if they thought I was too dumb to understand it.

Usually it came after they found out I was good at math.

“What, you shove everything else outta your head to make room for those numbers up there?”, they’d say. “Stuff the rest of your brains in them big biceps you got?”

Sometimes they’d smile when they said it, but it still sounded mean in my ears. Don’t suppose I can explain it too well, but that’s how it is. Other times they’d just plain call me names, but once I figured out that if I acted even more clueless than they thought I was, they’d pretty soon quit. So, that’s what I’d do. Shrug and smile at their faces while they were calling names, until they got to looking kinda dumb themselves and decided to stop talking.

I even heard Cousin Huggy say it a couple times to Mr. Turk, quiet-like, sorta under his breath. Not mean, but just sort of matter-of-fact about how much of the clue department he thought I was familiar with.

The last time, I guess he was trying to be careful and look out for me, but he didn’t know I was in the pantry looking to see where the extra crate of beans had got to. He musta thought I was out back in the alley, taking out the trash. Which I had been, until I noticed that I was throwing away a stack with one more empty bean box than I could remember unloading onto the shelf.

Like I told you, I’m good at numbers.

Anyway, I was crawling around down on my knees there in the pantry, looking for the beans (which turned out to be tucked up under the canned corn, in case you’re interested. Cousin Huggy thinks he’s being helpful when he gives me a hand unloading the food truck, but he doesn’t know the way I got things arranged in my head, so when he helps…well, things end up lost), when I heard him talking about me to Mr. Turk in this real soft voice, saying he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with me since he didn’t need a stock boy anymore, now that he was planning to go into the PI business full hog. And he said that he didn’t know what else I could do, or even figure who would want to hire me, since I didn’t have a whole lot extra going on upstairs, and people don’t usually pay other people to be human calculators.

I came out in the middle of him talking, and when he saw me, his mouth snapped shut and his eyes went sorta wide – almost like he was scared, or embarrassed somehow. Mr. Turk turned around and saw me too, and then he started making all these noisy throat-clearing sounds, like that would cover up what’d already been said or something. Cousin Huggy swallowed – I could see the bump in his throat bobbing – and asked what I heard. I told him, and then he just looked sad all of a sudden and told me I had a job with him as long as I needed or wanted.

I said that was fine by me, but that I wasn’t sure there was going to be a whole lot of beans for me to keep track of at a detective agency. Mr. Turk laughed at that, real loud and sudden-like, though I’m not sure why since I didn’t think I’d said anything funny. Then Huggy kind of smiled and everything was okay. I smiled too, because I like Cousin Huggy and was happy to be able to keep working for him, even if he did think I was too slow for anyone else to want me.

The detective agency thing went on for a little while, but it didn’t really work for too long. Huggy explained it to me once – something about creative differences and the police – but I didn’t mind either way because my night classes had gotten awful busy, and I needed to take a little more time off from work to study than I had been doing with the weird detective hours. I might be good at numbers, but the other stuff takes a lot more effort.

I managed to find pretty good daytime work over the summer, cleaning boats (“You don’t need to think to scrub, m’boy!” is what Mr. Thompson said when he hired me. I just shrugged and asked him where he kept the buckets. He didn’t try to talk much to me after that.), and then after a while, Huggy worked out a deal to take over The Pits, and I asked him if I could come back and work for him. Soon enough, I was back to stocking, which suited me just fine.

Detectives Starsky and Hutchinson started coming in a lot, like I heard they had at Cousin Huggy’s old place. Detective Hutchinson was looking pretty pale there for a while — Huggy told me he’d been sick – but he seems to have pinked up since then.

They’re pretty friendly guys, and I always knew they were in good with Huggy, so I like seeing them most times…except for when they come and don’t drink. Huggy usually sends me into the back when they come up to the bar and don’t order anything. I never get to hear what they talk about, but by the time they leave, Huggy’s usually acting real jittery and has to have himself a drink to calm down. I don’t like them when they come and make Huggy all nervous like that, but it’s pretty rare, so most usual it’s fun when they come in to visit.

Lots of times they just get a booth off to the side and keep to themselves, having their beers and sharing a laugh or two with Cousin Huggy, but sometimes they invite me over, too. If it’s not too busy and Huggy gives me the ‘ok’, Detective Starsky challenges me to the old pinball game we have near the back. I tilt out a lot, but Starsky always gets Detective Hutchinson to give me another quarter for a do-over. I’ve offered to give it over to him when that happens, but Starsky always says Hutch won’t ever give him any good competition – something about him not taking his fair share of turns.

I know that’s a lie because I’ve seen them both playing before, looking like it’s the most fun they’ve had all day. But Detective Hutchinson always just laughs and agrees while he shells out another quarter for the game. Guess I’m not much in the mood to argue the point when they’re being so generous like that.

When it gets really busy and me and Cousin Huggy don’t have much time but to stop by and say hello, I still keep a corner of my eye out for their table, just because…well, I think they’re interesting people.

One thing you gotta understand before we really get into this…I like watching folks. Lotta times they don’t notice me, but even when they do, they don’t pay me much mind. And I don’t mind that.

Watching people teaches you things.

Like, just a couple weeks ago, Detectives Starsky and Hutchinson were in here, like usual. They brought some of their lady friends with them, so they didn’t have a lot of time or attention for socializing with Cousin Huggy – but it was okay because he himself was pretty busy, what with yelling at the beer man on the phone and all. I guess the guy messed up the order and tried to charge more than he should’ve for what he did send. Cousin Huggy ran the invoice by me before he called the guy up. “Leotis,” he says, “My fine figuring friend, c’mere and look at this with your old cousin Huggy. Now, do my eyes deceive me, or is that mister trying to take the Bear for a ride?”

I told him I didn’t know anything about any rides anyplace, but that sure enough, the numbers were wrong from what we got in stock. Huggy just smiled real big at that, and then sent me off to clean up some behind the bar.

Anyway, while he was busy fightin’ on the phone with the beer man, I was busy mopping…well, mopping and watching the detectives on their date. Can’t say as why I was so fascinated that night, except to think that maybe, even there at the start, things just didn’t add up right. People-wise, I mean.

See, Starsky and Hutch, they both had dates – real fine-looking ladies who seemed real nice…you know, classy. They were all of them situated around one of the round tables in the middle of the floor. Don’t know why they didn’t take a booth since we still had plenty of them open, what with it being so early and all. Most the people we get in here on dates seem to like the booths a lot, especially the dark ones in the back, but the detectives never sat back there – least not when they had their lady friends along. Sometimes I’d see them doing business back there, leanin’ on guys that we’d see around here every so often – those dudes Huggy always warned me not to mess with. Not that he had to tell me twice. They didn’t look so friendly, and I’m not much one for picking friends who don’t want to know me.

It’s funny how much Huggy tries to protect me from things, when you look at us side by side and all. I mean, he’s not real small or anything, but if you had to guess which one of us was going to be protectin’ anything, your odds would be real good to lay bet on me. I guess he feels like he owes it to me or somethin’…or maybe just to Mama. Growing up, she always used to tell me how close she was with Cousin Huggy when they were younger, and how much she missed him when he moved “up and out”, as she put it. I suppose he got to missing his family some though, and after Mama passed he tracked me down and said that even though he hadn’t been around much before, that was all gonna change, and soon.

But there I go, getting distracted from what I’m trying to put across to you. It happens sometimes, and I don’t mean it to, but it’s like the numbers in my head all over again: I lay down one thought, and then I set down another, and the next thing you know I end up with a thought that’s completely different from any of the ones that came before it. Sometimes it’s bigger, and sometimes it’s not…but it’s sure always different.

Anyway, so there they were, seated around this table: pretty girl, Detective Starsky, Detective Hutchinson, pretty girl. Except the girls had scooted their chairs over a bit, I suppose to get up close and cozy with their guys. Both of the detectives had their backs to me, but I could see each one of them was turned to his own particular girl, and I imagine they were looking pretty warm and soft-eyed too, based on the looks on those ladies’ faces, all blushy and googly-eyed and such. They were smilin’, laughing, all of ’em seeming to have a good time. Real friendly, that table.

The funny thing was, though, Detective Starsky had his arm slung up over the back of Detective Hutchinson’s chair.

Well, okay. That wasn’t actually the funny thing. That was pretty typical of what I’d seen of them before, and I wouldn’t ‘a thought anything else of it, except…

See, Starsky was holding his girl’s hand in his left, kind of tugging her in – real gentle, playful-like. She sure seemed happy to go, leaning in and giggling at whatever it was he was whispering to her. Likewise, Detective Hutchinson was chatting with his girl, stroking one of those big hands of his up into her hair, and ended up pulling her seat over so she’d be up real close to him.

Thing was (the funny thing), all the while Detective Starsky was holding his girl’s hand with his left, his right hand looked like it was sorta moving over the back of Detective Hutchinson’s chair. More I watched, the more I figured out what his hand was doin’.

He had his thumb movin’ up and down, just this little bit, stroking along…just rubbing Detective Hutchinson’s back. And Hutch, still talking to his lady friend, just leaned back ever so slight against Detective Starsky’s hand. Seemed to get real comfortable there, too.

They stayed like that for a long time, both of them flirting with their girls and Starsky rubbing Hutch’s back the whole time, until they finally all of them got up and left, giggling like a pack of fools on the way out.

Maybe it didn’t mean nothing, and maybe it did, but I didn’t think it was my business to try to figure out which, so I just left it alone.

Only thing was, it kept happening.

Detective Starsky and Detective Hutchinson would come in every few days or so, always with new girls, and always with each other. And every time I ended up watching ’em, they’d somehow get arranged in those same positions – girls on either side of the two of them, and Starsky with his hand goin’ at Hutch’s back.

Didn’t make sense to me how the two and two of their double dates never quite looked like four.

Finally, I got so curious about it, ’bout what I might be missing to make things add up right, that I asked Huggy about it the other night, just after the bar closed.

“Cousin Huggy,” I started out, talking while I was still mopping down behind the bar, “Does Detective Hutchinson have back problems?”

I regretted sayin’ so right after the words left my mouth, because he’d been in the middle of counting the till, and I guess I made him lose track. He was lookin’ kind of annoyed at me (it’s familiar, that look, and I don’t much like it, but I guess I deserve it sometimes), so I just reminded him, “You were up to three hundred twenty, and six deep into your pile of tens.” He rolled his eyes at me, but punched it into the adding machine anyway, so I figured it was okay if I kept going.

“I was just asking because Detective Starsky, I seen him rubbing Hutch’s back a lot lately, so I just figured that mayb-”

I stopped talking when I noticed that Cousin Huggy wasn’t moving, that he was just standing there with a stack of tens in one hand and his finger hoverin’ over the plus sign on the machine. I stayed quiet for a minute, waiting for him to say something, but nothing happened so I started talking again.

“Anyway, I just thought maybe you could tell me if you knew something, Cousin Huggy. Maybe you could use one of your connections to get him some help, if the regular doctors can’t do anything.” Then I waited some more.

Finally he turned to me, slow, real quiet-like, and just said, “Where?”

“Where what?” I said, because I didn’t know what he meant.

“Where’d you see them?”

I have to say, that surprised me because I thought it was pretty plain where I would’ve seen them.

“Well, here, a’ course. Where else? They come in with their girlfriends on their dates, Cousin Huggy, you know that. I guess Hutch’s back must get pretty sore or something. ‘M not sure how Starsky knows when it does, ’cause I’ve never seen Detective Hutchinson say anything to him about it, but I guess maybe it’s just one of those partner th-”

“Leotis.”

I shut my mouth real quick because he sounded so stern, harder than I think I’ve ever heard his voice. Kinda worried me, to be honest. Cousin Huggy gets upset about things sometimes, but he doesn’t ever sound like that. Then he looked at me, and there was something in his eyes that scared me – like there was trouble in the water and he was the only one who could see it coming.

I guess my face must’ve showed what I was feeling, because then he softened up – both his eyes and his voice – and he just said, “Go on upstairs. I’ll finish down here. Go on, now.”

So I just nodded and leaned my mop up against the bar, and then left.

That happened a couple of nights ago. Even now, I still don’t quite know what I said to upset Cousin Huggy at the time, much as I’ve turned it over in my head. I don’t guess it would’ve mattered any, except now things are different.

Starsky and Hutch came in again, just earlier tonight. They had girls with them like usual, both of them pretty young things – made for real cute couples, you know? Anyway, strange thing…they skipped the usual table and went to sit back in one of the booths. Detective Starsky and his date on one side, Detective Hutchinson and his girl on the other. I’m telling you, it was just plain weird seeing them like that when I’d got so used to the pair of them bookended with their ladies in the middle of our floor.

The mood of the table seemed kind of off somehow, too. Nothing you could lay a finger on, exactly. They seemed to both be into their girls, like usual, whispering and flirting on either side of the booth the way they were. But it didn’t feel quite as warm, maybe, as their little foursome used to. Not quite as happy.

Or maybe just not as simple.

I had to help out with the serving staff, on account of one of the waitresses called out sick, so I was running a big tray of dishes to the back at one point when I caught a glimpse of their table out the corner of my eye. Still tuned into them, from habit I guess, even if they did move places and change positions.

Anyway, I was hefting this bus tray full of dirty dishes back to the kitchen, and I happened to pass close by their table. Nearly dropped my tray at what I saw.

Detectives Starsky and Hutchinson were both really, really into their dates (if you accept my meaning), more than I ever remembered seeing them before. They’d definitely stepped up their act since the last time they were in.

But that’s not what startled me.

Starsky’s lady friend, this real sweet-looking blonde, was all curled up against him in the booth seat, looking like a cat in cream. He was nibbling at her lips, treating her like a world-class ice cream cone, and petting her hair real soft.

I know, I know. “Leotis,” you’re saying, “I still don’t see anything worth dropping a tray over.”

And you’d be right.

Except, the whole while, I saw his eyes were open and cast sideways. Looking at Hutch.

And Hutch, busy kissing on his own girl, with his hands all worked up into her hair…

…he was looking back.

After a minute of me standing there with my mouth hanging open, my head finally told my feet to start moving, so I lugged that tray of dishes the rest of the way back to the kitchen. Then I had to sit down for a second, because my mind was turning over something crazy, trying to get all the numbers to fit into the equation the way they were supposed to.

Only problem was, I didn’t know quite what the particular equation to use was.

I was still sitting there, staring down at my feet, busy trying to work things through when Cousin Huggy came barging in through the swinging door, hollerin’ for Debra-Ann to get on back out there and tend to her tables. When I first came in, Debra-Ann wasn’t back there anywhere I could see (I’d guess she was probably smoking out in the alley, since the waitresses aren’t allowed to when they’re on duty), but when he was turning to go look elsewhere for her I suppose Huggy caught sight of me sitting on my milk crate there in the corner, ’cause he came over and asked me, “Leotis, my man, what’s shakin’?”

I was still thinking hard, trying to figure things up, so I didn’t even think to answer his question for a second. Guess my silence bothered him, because he crouched down in front of me and asked again, but this time he sounded more concerned.

“Leotis? Something wrong?”

So I finally looked up at him. “Cousin Huggy, I was hoping you could help me understand something. I’ve been trying and trying, but no matter what I do, there’s this one piece that doesn’t fit, just this little bit left over that I don’t know what to do with.”

Well, he looked kind of confused when I said that, and I guess it didn’t make too much sense if you weren’t in my head – which most people aren’t – so I figured I had to explain it a little better.

“You know how Starsky and Hutch come in with their dates? Every time I see them, they seem to be having a real fine time, you know? But I was just watching ’em, and it looked kind of strange to me, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do it like this before, but…Cousin Huggy, why would Starsky and Hutch be looking at each other so much while they’re gettin’ romantic with their ladies?”

Cousin Huggy took a real deep breath when I got finished asking, and he looked so tired all of a sudden that I half wondered if he wasn’t going to collapse on me right there. He was quiet for a minute, just breathing in and out, in and out, and looking at his face it was almost like I could see into his head where there were all sorts of tumblers and gears whirring around while he tried to figure out something for hisself. Then he looked around almost stealthy-like, and when he saw the cook standing over by the fryer, shook his head and stood up, and then tugged on my arm to follow him.

We went out to the alley, back over near the dumpsters. Didn’t see Debra-Ann out there, so either she’d finished her smoke and come in the side way, or she wasn’t ever out there to begin with. The dumpsters smelled something awful, the way dumpsters do, and I was about to ask Cousin Huggy what we were doing out there when he started talking.

He told me things – a lot of things that seemed uncommon to me, but things that made a whole bunch of stuff fall into place and start equaling out right. Things that got rid of all the leftover parts that bothered me before, and most of all, things that made me feel real sad for Detective Starsky and Detective Hutchinson.

Cousin Huggy made me swear I’d never tell anyone, and while there’s a bunch of stuff that I’m not always so good at, I’m good at keeping my promises.

So I can’t tell you exactly what he told me back there in that alley, and I don’t suppose I’d really want to, either.

What I can tell you is this: even when things don’t look quite right, when you get to wondering if you’re missing out on something because your head is saying one thing, and your gut is talking something entirely different…well, there’s one thing you can always count on.

The numbers add up.