June 16th- Dive by Fresh Candy

So much for that musical weekend in the woods.

Hutch rested his arms on the Formica tabletop and stared at his black coffee. The afternoon sun lit its oily surface. It was that sort of place––a little cigarette ash on your eggs, a little jam on your seat.

He was debating what to do with the rest of the day. He didn’t want to show up back in Bay City early. He was supposed to be sitting on a lake shore in his handmade sandals (he took a class), playing his guitar (macramé strap), with Daisy (he met her at the car wash, yeah).

The waiter brought his food. Pancakes for the emotionally fatigued. No syrup, extra butter.

Hutch asked if they had anything on tap.

The waiter shook his head. “Across the street.”

Hutch looked out the window. Lyle’s Liquor Lounge—maybe the answer to how to spend this crummy Saturday.

Friday had been nice, sort of. Daisy’d brought her mandolin and they’d strummed beside the campfire. Hutch had wanted to sleep on the grass but she’d insisted on a cabin. So he’d slept on the floor. “For my back,” he’d insisted.

“You’re a real head case,” Daisy had said in the morning, slamming the car door and peeling out.

He always let Starsky take the bed when he slept over. And Starsky always said “sweet dreams” while strolling towards the bedroom, unbuckling his belt. Hutch thought you only said that to kids.

“It’s just a thing you say,” Starsky shrugged.

You might, considering the dreams Starsky had.

Hutch would hear him rummaging around in the fridge in the middle of the night. Typical enough. But then Starsky would pause with a sigh. He could never suppress a sigh, whether for hunger or boredom or stress or…or pleasure, Hutch supposed. They’d talk a little while in the dark.

“Bad dream?” Hutch would ask.

Nothing much. Malevolent black veins shooting up through palms, immobilized legs, unable to run. Bullets.

Starsky would brush off any concern, saying it was sleeping on his stomach that gave him these sweat-soaked dreams. Hutch knew it was wading through rice paddies strapped with 40 pounds of ammo. Not to mention wading through the human junkyard of Bay City. Hutch had his own bad dreams.

The man in the next booth got up to leave. He picked up his loaf of a bulldog, carried him out, and heaved him into the front seat of his truck. Hutch could see him talking to the dog as he pulled out.

Hutch had good dreams too, which he also kept secret.

He lifted the top pancake and began to spoon butter between each stack. He’d perfected the method—a couple minutes, a couple rotations. Butter in every molecule.

Starsky would say his Virgo was showing. During his flash flood interest in astrology, he’d checked out a library book (with Hutch’s card—the library practically had a warrant out for Starsky’s arrest). He’d read relevant bits out loud from the passenger seat.

Would you say you have a deep fear of the unknown?

Your lucky day is Wednesday.

Would you say you’re a ‘tactical and methodical lover’?

Hutch shifted silently, expecting him to move on to the next question.

“Well, are ya?”

Daisy thought he was a tactical and methodical jerk. Something about telling her she was meditating the wrong way. “You try to control everything.” Pin that one on the stars.

He’d mostly gotten over trying to control Starsky. Not because it wasn’t possible – actually, Starsky was quite willing to be led. But Hutch found the reward was better when he went with Starsky, in tandem. When Starsky looked at him across the front seat and asked what they should do, it felt clean. He wanted to be clean right back, and sometimes he was.

Would you say cleanliness is important to you?

He wanted a clean mind and body and world. He wanted to be cool marble under a veil of fast, spring water. Bugs in a toilet bowl, Starsky said. Or a horse.

Starsky had sent him a postcard when he went to visit his mother out east: a cream-colored horse pulling a carriage in Central Park.

Looks like you! Ma says hi. She loves your picture and says she’s keeping it. I told her your bad habits but she just said “what a stunner”. I’m having a good time—why can’t they make real bagels out there? Stay out of the woods and out of trouble, don’t forget to feed my car. XO STARSK

XO?

“It’s just a thing you say.”

There was a thought so constant and basic to Hutch that he hardly ever noticed it anymore.

What’s Starsky doing?

Sometimes he was aware of it when he went to the pool early in the morning and did laps, backstroke. Even when he noticed, it didn’t need answering. But the question left a tiny glow.

Often it came up when he was with Starsky in the form of What the hell is Starsky doing?

Some trick with a plastic straw wrapper, a Bogey impression, going full-on Costello. A long, honest stare. So long it gave Hutch time to wonder.

He wondered what Starsky’s good dreams were like.

It was 3 p.m. on a Saturday.

Starsky’s washing his car, he thought.

He swirled the pancake on the plate.

He’s got his orange transistor radio on in the driveway.

He flipped it over.

He’s wearing the white shorts I left at his house last weekend.

He took a bite.