A bouquet of roses and lots of thanks to Solo and SHaron for all their help scanning and proofing these classic stories of Constance Collins! This story originally appeared in the zine Nightlight 2, which can still be obtained from In Person Press.

Comments about this story can be sent to: VenicePlaceAngel@aol.com

Life in a Different Place
by
Constance Collins

(Editor's note: In the first "Clandestine Report"-- "Sunshine Dream ", which appeared in The FIX #6, Starsky and Hutch, fresh from the John Colby case, went undercover at a posh beach club, Starsky behind the grill, Hutch as a lifeguard. Seeing his blond partner in his skimpy black trunks and tank top caused Starsky to feel a sudden and intense attraction for Hutch. He wrote about his feelings in one of his personal, "clandestine" reports. Unbeknownst to Starsky, Hutch had known about the reports and at the end of "Sunshine Dream", it was revealed to the reader that Hutch, wondering about the effect of the Colby case on Starsky, read this latest report, too. Hutch was surprised to learn of Starsky's new feelings for him, but decided to say nothing.)

Clandestine Report #103
Det. Sgt. David Starsky

I don't know how long I've been sleeping with the TV on -- or rather, not sleeping with the TV on: insomnia-filled nights of late and late-late movies, sermonettes and the national anthem behind Mt. Rushmore and the stars and stripes flapping, and eventually a test pattern or static. I can remember the first night the first local station went all-night -- what they showed for the first 3 nights and why I was awake watching. Well, listening anyhow. Believe it or not, it was Gary Prudholm's death. Three full nights where I slept only a couple hours, H covering for me while I cat-napped in the men's room, doing all the driving 'cause I was too groggy. How I never got us killed after one of those bouts I'll never know: guess I was just younger then -- an' luckier.

I keep thinking about Razzamatazz, John and Maggie's cat. That silly cat's been dead a good 14 years now, but along with memories of John, Razz's prowling through my mind.

Razz liked peanut butter; he'd lick it off my fingers. And I'd share glasses of milk with him sometimes, and he'd rev his engine up as loud as he could. I think he loved me: he stuck around even when I didn't have food for him, and sometimes he'd leave his toys on our front porch. Then one day his body showed up a few houses down, all the life gone from it. The car must've just glanced him, because he wasn't squashed or mangled -- just dead-stiff.

I know I didn't sleep with the TV on after that, 'cause Aunt Rosie wouldn't've let me -- but I did keep my radio on, under my pillow. And I didn't sleep.

Now that I'm a grown up I can keep the TV on as late as I want -- but I still get insomnia when somebody dies. H doesn't know how bad it is -- or that I love monster movies 'cause they're like bedtime stories to me. Anyhow, if I'm not gonna sleep, I might as well spend my time writing this.

~~~

Swear this goddamned heatwave's not gonna break till November. So my car's been temperamental -- hell, everybody's been temperamental -- and when it breaks down H boils over right along with it. The third day I had to stop in the middle of traffic, I thought H was going to shoot out my tires, he was so pissed off.

The rest of the day we barely talked -- our communication lines were on the fritz, just like the air conditioning in three-quarters of the city. I think that's what caused the fuck-up in the alley. Anyhow, there was Johnny, showing up like the whole entire cavalry, demonstrating what being a good cop is all about and saving both our asses. It was embarrassing, since if there was anybody I didn't want to screw-up in front of, it was John. Made me feel about 15 again. So I made myself do the adult thing and stopped by his office to thank him. Taking H along was a mistake -- naturally he used it as an opportunity to ridicule my car some more -- with an audience. (I told him later he was beating a dead horse, and he said a dead horse would get him to work faster'n my Coke-can of a car. I told him that I've got a partner and a car that both break down in the heat, but you never hear my car scream at my partner -- so if I did have to make a choice, I knew which one had the better disposition.)

When John turned me down on the drink offer, H and me decided to go our separate ways: the way we'd been sniping at each other, it seemed the safest course of action. So I gave Maria a call and spent the night there. Besides gorgeous brown eyes, the lady has an apartment with an air conditioner that works. She set the thermostat down to 65 and snuggled all night.

I thought I'd keel over when I walked out into the sizzling air the next a.m. -- and it was only 7:30. I remember getting to work early and trying to get my eyes to focus on a report, but my brain wasn't absorbing much. Then H came in and sat down, made some snide remarks about where I'd been the night before. I ignored him and he dropped it.

We were both puzzled when Cap'n came out of his office and sat down next to me; since when did he come out to talk to us instead of calling us into his office? And the look on his face said the end of the world had come.

"Blaine's dead." I couldn't believe what I thought I'd heard him say. "John Blaine. Dead."

I was 15 again, only this time I was losing the same man I'd loved and respected so: someplace deep inside me I'd depended on him just to be there so I wouldn't have to grow up completely. Now I was being forced to -- John wasn't there for me to lean against. If I was going to reconcile this loss with myself, I had to find out what happened.

H -- well, H was hurting, too: he'd lost a good friend. And everything in him wanted an explanation.

When we got to the St. Francis I headed straight upstairs without a word. H and I both knew I wasn't up to talking to civilians. Even the M.E.'s brusque, oblique comfort made me wanna bawl.

They'd just taken John's body out when H came in to compare notes. I sat down on the bed. "His money was missing. They're looking for prints. They don't know the cause of death. Possibly suffocation. Wha'd you get?"

H's voice was very businesslike. "Well, one of the ladies downstairs said that she saw Blaine come into the hotel late. Staggering drunk. With a trick."

Yeah, well, you get drunk enough, you'll let anybody pick you up. I wasn't too upset. "You get a description?"

"Yeah. Not much to go on. Medium height, Caucasian, black hair -- male." He stopped and I just stared at him. What? "John was in this hotel last night with a nickel and dime hustler named Nick -- " He turned his back to me, walked to the window, staring out like he wished he was out there.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait a second. What're you talking about? John Blaine was -- " I couldn't say it. " -- hey! Hey! I grew up next to his family! What're you -- you must be suffering from heat prostration if you -- " Our pain and confusion had us each trapped in our own separate cages of suffering unable to see each other's pain, unable to touch each other for comfort -- unable to stop the hurtful words we flung at each other.

"The manager of this hotel says Blaine has had a room here for over a year." He smacked the window frame with the heel of his hand.

There had to be some other meaning; I had to find some other meaning. "Well, probably he was undercover." It wasn't much, but it was all I could come up with.

"Until 6 months ago he was in this room with the same guy. Recently, there've been others."

I clung to the only life raft I had. "He could've been undercover."

"Dobey says no."

"Well, I don't buy that."

"Well, buy it or not, Blaine's dead. And he was here with another man."

I had no response to that, and if I had, I'd've been afraid to voice it -- H would no doubt torpedo anything else I had to say. Silently I followed him to the car.

He'd been driving almost 10 minutes before it occurred to me to ask where the hell we were going.

"To John -- and Maggie's."

I was nowhere near ready to make a sympathy call. "Right now?"

"We need to talk to her, see what she knows."

Then it hit me what he meant. "You mean tell her?" He glanced over, giving me A Look. "There's no reason to tell her." "

"You talking as a cop, or a friend of the family?"

He sounded like Cap'n: I wanted to slug him. I sighed. "'Maggie, we're real sorry to inform you that John is dead and we hate to inform you also that he was gay.' I can't do that."

He called my bluff. "Well, then I'll do it."

"What good would it do?"

"Starsky, you know as well as I do we're floundering around. We gotta get it out on the street. We need information: maybe Maggie can tell us something."'

"Maybe she can't." My reasons were becoming lamer and lamer. "I mean, do you have any idea what this could do to her?" Look what it's doing to me; what it's doing to us.

"Well, then, let's turn around." It was a challenge; if we turned around it would be up to me to come up with someplace for us to go -- and I couldn't. I was empty.

Maggie didn't say much when we got there: she hugged both of us and asked us in. H stood looking at all John's trophies -- all the souvenirs of a life spent protecting and serving. I don't remember what kind of conversation he was making -- I was looking at the framed photos of myself, trying to reconcile what I had just learned about John with the man I'd tried so hard to be like. I'd become a cop more because of Johnny than any other single reason. Now I didn't know what the hell to think. And somehow I had to tell Maggie -- break her heart, too, sure, why not?

"I want to thank you both for coming. Can I get you something to drink? Some coffee?" We were refusing before she'd finished the offer. We weren't either of us saying any of the regular condolence-type things -- so what were we doing there? "What is it, David?"

So I had to sit down and tell her. I couldn't believe she knew, couldn't believe she could stay with him -- how she could stay with him, in that partial marriage. I still can't fathom that.

Why did I feel like talking to H was like arguing with the wind? He seemed determined not to understand, to make me feel bad about the betrayal I was feeling.

My first reaction to Peter Whitelaw was geeze, what a prick. But I guess he's got his right to be nasty -- must be hell loving somebody who thinks what you share hasta be hidden not just 'cause other people won't approve, but because you don't approve yourself. Can't imagine being somebody's dirty little secret. So if he's pissed off, he's got a right to be.

But what he said about seeing two men together and thinking; "how ugly," well, he got that all wrong. I see two men together and wonder how they got to that point -- is it some overwhelming thing, like being pulled away by an ebb-tide... or didn't anybody tell them they shouldn't, so they're free to make up their own rules... or is it like whatchacallits, sociopaths, who don't feel any difference between right and wrong?

H says comparing being gay to some kinda disease is insulting, but that's not what I mean. It's not a matter of thinking gay is bad or sick or anything like that... I wanted to ask him if the hunger got so overwhelming that even when you think you're wrong (the way John did) and you gotta hide out from the whole world, you still gotta find a guy? I knew what John had with Peter was a relationship -- love and everything, not just sex -- so what was he doing taking those other guys to his room? Was it just for the sex (is it that different?) Or did he, I dunno, wanna pretend they were Peter? Is it that if you let your demons outa the box, you can't push 'em back in ever? Like there's something in H that'll always be susceptible to heroin -- does it mean if I let myself stroke that soft blond hair, besides whatever might happen to the partnership, I'd be getting myself hooked? That we'd hafta live in the shadows, and be afraid of who thinks what and blush whenever any moron makes a stupid joke? Sometimes I don't think I can stand living like that anymore, pretending in fronta my dearest friend -- but could we live like that? It seems so sordid.

And I wanted to ask if he and Johnny broke up because of all the publicity when he got fired, or was it more mundane stuff like -- I dunno, the stuff marriages break up over?

For me, the most significant piece of information gleaned from our conversation with Whitelaw was that H wasn't really mad at me: if he had been, he wouldn'ta deflected the heat off me the way he did. Which I guess makes the way I enjoyed Sugar's teasing him kinda shitty. Not much defense to say I knew he could hold his own.

It looked so clean, so cut and dried -- Nick Hunter rolled John, then killed him. Except he didn't. And then Cap'n hits us with that crap about the department wanting to hide Johnny Blaine under a ton of red tape and no comments. Heaven forbid anyone should know John was gay -- why, then they might have to let other gays on the force, and then -- dunno, we might end up with a whole force full of gay cops. Can't say the prospect thrills me either, but --

But that's beside the point. John Blaine was killed because he was a good cop -- and because Corday knew he was, knew that even plastered his mind was sharp as a scalpel. And that he wouldn't be blackmailed into overlooking Corday's sleazy drug deals.

I sit here missing him and worrying about myself. I wish John was here so he could explain it to me, for Christsakes! I think about H, that delicate line from his ear down to his shoulder, and I get a crazy feeling and I wanna chew my way down it, leave that fair skin covered with hickeys... And when I think about the silken skin on his inner thighs, I wanna stroke him and feel that softness... sometimes when he's talking to me and I have no idea what he's talking about, I find myself just getting lost in the rhythm and cadence of his voice.

Sounds like I'm in love with him, right? I mean, it sounds pretty mushy and romantic and just typing this here alone by the light of the TV, I'm all turned on.

And that's where everything shuts down. 'Cause I'm real aroused by thinking about making out with him, but the idea of -- consummation -- I can't deal with that.

And why? I've been wanting him like this for two years now -- so why does the thought terrify me so?

Dammit, John, do you know how fucking stupid this all was? Do you? I watched H through this whole investigation, wearing his glib, pseudointellectual front, playing cop and I kept wondering, what's he really thinking. Maybe nothing. Sometimes I think he plays games to hide his own confusion. Seventy-five percent of our time we spend together, he says, and I'm not even a good kisser. Says who, I'd like to know? And what's that supposed to mean, anyhow? Just more mind-games, or was there some, I dunno, challenge behind it? And why do we hafta play these stupid games, anyhow? And dammit, John, how dare you bail out on me, leaving nothing behind but that fake perfect-girl-and-the-house-with-the-white-picket-fence story you handed me when I was 16?

And H. He'd been giving me that pop-psych crap ever since I first found out, and I was getting tired of it. So when he pulled that "seventy-five percent of our time together and I'm not even a good kisser" bullshit, I decided to call his bluff. I didn't exactly mean it to sound like a dare -- it was more to shut him up, but the next thing I knew he was pulling the rustbucket over to the side of the road. "You're right, I don't know what kind of kisser you are, but if we're going to be spending all this time together, maybe I should." And he gets outa the car.

I just sat in the back seat, till finally he opens the door. "Are you getting out?" '

"Hell, no, I'm not getting out. You expect me to just kiss you on the street in broad daylight in fronta who-knows-who -- "

"And since when do you care so much what a lot of strangers think?"

Up the ante. Fine. So I gave him a push, got outa the car, and stood as nose-to-nose as I could get him. "So what kinda kiss you want?"

That took him by surprise. "What?"

"First-date, wanna-come-back-to-my-place? Or, that-was-terrific,-I'll-make-you-breakfast-in-the-morning?"

H was getting flustered. Backing away, he tried for glibness. "Well, this is hardly our first date -- "

I followed, backing him against the car. "Yeah, an' we haven't just fucked -- " Pink touched his cheeks. " -- so I guess that leaves -- " I put one arm around him and kinda leaned forward.

I liked it. The feel of his mouth against mine (responding!), the way he held on tight, the smell of him --

And I let go, fast. I didn't wanna do it like that, pouncing on him all unawares, him thinking it was a game and me knowing it was for real.

"What was that, osculateous interruptus?"

Some fancy word for kissing. I wanted to treat it lightly, but my heart was heavy. "I don't wanna kiss you. Let's go." I got back in the car, in the back seat again, and slammed the door. 

H got back in the driver's seat, turned around to look at me. "You still want that drink?"'

I shook my head, my hands starting to tremble. "I just wanna go home."

It should've been that easy to end it, let it seem like a stupid joke I was tired of, but H's eyes held mine and he stroked his index finger from my bottom lip down my chin, then two fingers down my throat.

Sweat trickled down my back and I shivered, incoherent thoughts spinning through my brain: people in hell want ice water -- but do you gotta go there to get it?

"Are you trying to tell me something?" Jesus Christ, he was trying to seduce it outa me. I'd seen him pull that before, only never on me. And I wanted to say it to him, wanted it really bad.

Sitting there in the back seat of his car, I said, "I wish to hell John had told me back then -- when I needed to know -- "

The light changed in his eyes and I saw him mouth the word damn.

"Look what I could really use right now is a cool shower and a long nap." 

H gave me a long, speculative look. "All right," he agreed finally. "You want me to pick you up for the funeral tomorrow?"

"Are you kiddin'? This monstrosity in Johnny's funeral procession? No way. Along with the tune-up; I had the Torino washed. I'll pick you up?"

H was nodding, smiling, but still with that brooding look in his eyes. "Okay, fine, you drive."

"Damn right." I felt a little more in control than I had a moment ago.

I took the cool shower, and I tried for the nap, but my eyes wouldn't stay closed and I couldn't seem to down-shift my brain: it wanted to go 70, and if I kept myself horizontal I had the feeling I was going to strip my gears.

So I turned on the TV and tried to drown out the confusion in my head. Before, I thought these feelings I have for H were mavericks -- some kind of mutation of our friendship. I knew what gay was, and I knew I wasn't.

Except now I don't know what gay is: I just had all my preconceptions kicked out from under me. Gay can be the best cop the LAPD has ever seen... The mysteries of orchestrating a romantic relationship with H have me bewildered. The whole physical aspect gives me the shakes. I mean, God knows our partnership has always been some kind of contact sport -- and I like the way he touches me. And I'd trust him with my soul -- but not my body? But, I worry -- if H gave himself to me, would I think less of him as a man? Would I feel less of a man if he penetrated me? Other-than-myself somehow? And what would it do to us, the partnership?

So I've come to a conclusion: if there's gonna be a partnership, we can't go around making unilateral decisions: I'm gonna hafta tell H about this. He has a say too, even if it turns out his say is get lost, or see a shrink. If it's no-go, it's no-go -- there's nobody else I want, no way can I imagine wanting another man the way I want H (or loving anybody Iike I love him).

I know that's assuming a lot, like that H would wanna do it with me, but that kiss-- well, it was something else, and even with all that cool blond rationalizing, I could see it cut right through to someplace deeper. If I asked, he'd go with me. But do I wanna ask? And now that I've tasted his mouth, do I have a choice?

I can see him right now in my mind: the air conditioner in his apartment isn't worth mentioning when the heat's this bad, so he's got a couple fans set up in his bedroom, aimed at the bed. He's taken a cool shower and stretched out on the rumpled sheets without bothering to dry off.

He sprawls all over the bed, letting the fans dry him, and his hair is all tangled gold in his face.

Any minute now I' m gonna pick up the phone and call him, ask him if I can come over.

 

(The sequel to "Life in a Different Place," Constance Collins's "Fever Pitch," can be found in her zine, IT'S LOVE, CAP'N, scheduled for October, '91)

end