The Boil

268

There’s nothing ordinary or normal about the morning the partners are sharing.

 

First published in the 2019 SHareCon zine.

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Starsky grabbed his socks from the coffee table. He didn’t usually finish dressing in the living room, but this wasn’t a usual morning. He bent at the waist in order to get one sock on, and peered slyly at his partner. Hutch was still wearing what he’d slept in last night-not that they’d had much sleep-and the rumpled t-shirt and sweat pants spoke of a casualness that Hutch’s posture and hands tightly folded in his lap belied. He poked Hutch’s ankle with his un-socked foot. “Shower’s free, ya know, and I left you plenty of hot water.”

“I’ll shower later,” Hutch said without looking up. “We don’t have to be anywhere right this minute.”

“True, but you might enjoy a shower more than what you’re doing right now.”

“I’m not doing anything right now.”

“That’s technically not true,” Starsky said, and put on the other sock. “Technically, you’re staring at the phone, so you’re doing something.”

“I’m not staring at it, Starsky, I just happen to be sitting near it.”

“Well, it looks like staring to me, and you know what they say about a watched pot.”

“If I’m not watching the phone,” Hutch said, “I’m certainly not watching a pot. There’s no pot to watch.”

“It was metaphorical, Hutch.” Starsky reached under the table for the shoes he had left there last night and put them on. “Watched phones are like watched pots, and you know what they say about them.”

“Who are they and why do I give a damn what they say about pots?” Hutch’s tone held a spark of irritation.

“You know who they are, same as me. They are them, us, everyone. And they have opinions on things like watched pots.”

“You’re not possibly going to tell me that they say a watched pot never boils, are you, Starsk?”

“No, I was going to tell you that a watched phone never rings, but it works for pots, too. Basically, I was hoping to get your ass off the couch and into the shower. Your staring at the phone just distracted me.”

“How you can be distracted by anything this morning is beyond… Okay, wait a second, both of those things are categorically untrue!” Hutch said loudly.

“Categorically? You’re not overstating your opinion, just a little?”

“Nope, they’re categorically untrue! The phone rings several times a day, so my looking at it occasionally-looking, not staring-wouldn’t affect its ringing in any way, shape, or form.”

“It was a metaphor, Hutch, and if you get in the shower now-”

“And I’ll tell you something else,” Hutch said, getting to his feet and heading to the kitchen. “That pot thing is bullshit, too, and I can prove it.”

“Metaphor, Hutch!” Starsky said, following him to the kitchen. “Just a metaphor.”

He found his partner rooting in the cupboard under the stove and making a lot of noise with various cookware. With a loud “found it,” Hutch straightened up and held a large pot out triumphantly. “Once I’m done proving my point to you-”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” Starsky said. “I was just quoting them.”

“Yeah? Well when I’m done, they, them, and everyone else with a stupid opinion can stick it up their asses!” Hutch carried his pot to the sink and filled it with water. “I mean, geez, the world is sure full of uninformed opinions!”

“You might be getting a little worked up, partner, maybe you can take a shower and-”

“Get me an onion,” Hutch said, carrying his filled pot to the stove. “I’ll need some tomatoes, too.”

Starsky sighed, but after two years of living with Hutch, to say nothing of the ten years of partnership prior to that, he knew what to do. There was no reasoning with Hutch when he got into this kind of mood. He’d just have to let him play it out.

Thankfully, there were three onions in the pantry. He didn’t want to tell Hutch they were out of onions. Not now, and not when he was unsure of the tomato situation. “Here you go,” Starsky said, bringing Hutch the largest of the three onions.

“Chop it,” Hutch said. “Chop it finely, though, I don’t want big chunks.”

Starsky found a cutting board and watched as Hutch went to the pantry and pulled out a bag of pasta, and jars of assorted seasonings. He didn’t want to catch Hutch’s eye so he turned to the task at hand and started peeling.

“Looks like we’ll be eating Italian food after you prove your point,” Starsky said courageously, because Hutch in a mood could throw things. However, even if Hutch was in a mood, Starsky wanted him to know he was paying attention. “I love Italian food.”

“Damn straight you love it!” Hutch said.

“Damn right I do!” Starsky loved this man, in a difficult mood or not, and even if he was single-mindedly trying to prove his point. Starsky just had to keep from laughing at him. That could be very dangerous. “It’s especially good for breakfast.”

“Of course it is,” Hutch said. “What do they eat in Italy for breakfast?”

“They eat Italian food.” That felt like a safe answer, although Starsky wasn’t sure if Italians started their day with onions and tomatoes, but what did he know?

“Chop some garlic, too,” Hutch said. “Chop a lot of it.”

Starsky found some garlic in the pantry at the same time Hutch went to the window sill. That’s where they usually kept a bowl of tomatoes and a bowl of lemons, but Starsky was pretty sure Hutch was about to be met with disappointment.

“Starsky, we only have one tomato!”

“Yeah, I was afraid of that.”

“How did this happen?”

“How did we use all the tomatoes except one?” Starsky asked, unsure if he was supposed to be able to remember how many tomatoes had started in the bowl this week, and just when they had been consumed.

“Yes! How did this happen?”

“Well, there was the salad on Monday.”

“We only used two tomatoes for that,” Hutch said.

“I might’ve had a BLT yesterday,” Starsky said, and waited for the explosion.

“You might’ve had a BLT? A bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich?”

“That’s what BLT stands for,” Starsky said reasonably.

“I thought we weren’t going to eat bacon anymore.”

“No, you said we shouldn’t. I said you should feel free to stop, and I continued to eat bacon. I even bought it yesterday when I decided I wanted a BLT.”

“Why didn’t you buy tomatoes at the same time?” Hutch demanded.

“Because I knew we had tomatoes.”

Hutch picked the lone tomato out of the bowl and waved it in Starsky’s face. “Do we? Do we, Starsk, ’cause I only see one tomato here. How’re we supposed to make breakfast with only one tomato?”

“I don’t even know what we’re making!” Starsky said. “Can we use zucchini instead? I know we have zucchini.”

“Zucchini? Be serious, would ya? And the main thing we’re making is my point. Speaking of which, I need to turn the burner on now.” Hutch went to the stove and turned the knob with a flourish. “Get ready.”

“Oh, I’m ready, partner, ready to make you a reservation on a nice quiet island where you can get some rest.”

“Ha, ha. You’ll see,” Hutch said. “You’ll see that a watched pot does boil, because I’m not taking my eyes off of it until it does. You just keep chopping.”

Starsky chopped until he had a nice pile of onions and garlic minced fine enough to meet Hutch’s expectations, ready to go into the mystery breakfast they were preparing. He stole a glance at his partner, standing at the stove with bare feet and baggy sweatpants, and thought he looked awfully vulnerable.  An unexpected lump rose in Starsky’s throat and he had to swallow before speaking. “And a watched phone does ring?”

“Yes, it does. It rings when you watch it.”

“And that’s what you want to be watching right now, isn’t it?”

Hutch didn’t look up from the pot. “Yes. I wanna watch it and make it ring. We’ve waited long enough. I wanna make it ring.”

“Put us out of our misery, huh?”

“Yes,” Hutch said. “Please, God.”

“It might not go our way,” Starsky said carefully. “We might be looking at a whole different kind of misery.”

“It’ll go our way.”

“It might not.”

“It will! I swear it will.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“We’ll handle it,” Hutch said. “We’ll deal with it like we always deal with shit that gets thrown at us. Together. We’ll take care of it. We’ll win.”

“If it doesn’t go our way, the odds aren’t-”

Starsky’s words were cut off by the phone ringing in the other room, startling them both into gasps. Hutch ran for it, while Starsky walked behind him. They both stared at it when it rang a third time.

“Answer it,” Hutch said, his voice deep and husky. “Answer it.”

Starsky nodded and picked up the receiver. “Hello. Hi Doc.” He listened and nodded and captured Hutch’s eyes. “Okay, thanks, Doc. Thanks for calling…yeah, I’ll make that appointment.”

Hutch grabbed his arm just when he was hanging up the phone. “What? What did he say? What was the result?”

Starsky closed his eyes for a second, grateful beyond belief that he could finally take Hutch out of his anguish. “It went our way, babe. I’m okay. The biopsy was benign. It’s not melanoma…it was just a wacky mole.”

The grip on his arm tightened and then went limp. “Oh, thank God. Thank God…but you said you have to make an appointment. Why do you have to go back if it’s benign?”

“Doc just wants to check the stitches; you know they took a pretty good chunk out of my thigh to run the biopsy.”

“Oh, thank God,” Hutch repeated.

“You’re not even a religious man,” Starsky said with a grin.

“I am this morning.”

Starsky gathered him up in a full body hug, and whispered in his ear, “So am I.”

They stood there together for long seconds, letting it sink in, and Starsky knew they were feeling the same relief; the same gratitude that their world was intact.

“I was so scared,” Hutch said. “So scared that this time we might not get lucky.”

“You were? I would’ve never known that if you hadn’t told me.”

They both laughed, and still held on tight while they sobered again. “I’m sorry, Hutch,” Starsky said. “I keep doing this to you… I’m really sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything, or have anything, to be sorry for.”

“I’ve given you more than a few scares over the years.”

“I’ve done the same to you,” Hutch said. “You’ve just bunched yours closer together these last few… you can stop now, okay”?

“Okay,” Starsky said, and hugged Hutch even closer. “Okay. You know, every time I hug you it’s like dancing.”

“Except there’s no music, and I can’t dance for shit,” Hutch said, and then sniffled loudly.

“I don’t know,” Starsky said, starting to move his feet and taking Hutch with him. “I think when I’ve got you in my arms… or in our bed… you dance beautifully.”

Hutch moved his hands up and down Starsky’s back. “Bed. That’s what we should do. Go to bed and stay there all day. Celebrate.”

“You’ve got water ready to start boiling in the kitchen, remember? And an Italian breakfast to make.”

“I’ll turn off the stove while you get into bed.”

“So, no breakfast?” Starsky asked.

“No, but I promise to make you starved for dinner,” Hutch said, kissed him deeply, then left to turn off the boil.

 

The end