Just Tell Me Why Chapter 2
It sounded all wrong. The guitar was tuned and I was picking the right notes, but it sound all wrong.
I strummed a few more chords but then just threw the instrument aside on the couch with a frustrated sigh. Even music was no solace for me right now. The sound of the guitar seemed jarring and out of place in the empty room. I looked at my beloved guitar again and then pushed it roughly with my foot further up to the other end of the couch.
"Fuck what a night!" I picked up the bottle of half drunk beer from the table and then banged it down again immediately with a grunt. The beer that I had been sitting on for over an hour now was warm and I'd long ago lost interest in it. Like I'd lost interest in the guitar and in the half eaten plate of food I had tried to push down simply for the sake of refueling my depleted energy levels.
I had lost interest in everything.
I had arrived home from the precinct hours ago now and still wired from the hellish night could not get into a stinging hot shower fast enough. It wasn't until the water ran cold that I realized that I'd been standing there for over half and hour. Just standing really, standing and letting the water wash down over me, too apathetic to put any effort into cleaning myself. I needed to wash off the stink and grit of the grenade's fallout. I might have accomplished that in the first five minutes, but no amount of water was going to wash away the emotional fallout of this job. It was going to take more than a shower to wash away the dirty feeling that life was not the same for me anymore. I felt just as dirty and just as jaded and just as sick of myself as I did when I got in.
As dirty and jaded and sick of myself as I had been feeling for over two weeks now. Two weeks and two days to be exact.
Since the day Starsky and I had fought over Kira in her apartment. The day that I did what I did…slept with Kira.
The day that I had well and truly fucked up Starsky's sense of himself and his trust in me.
The day that I ruined our friendship.
I cannot look at that yet.
Instead I looked hard at myself in the bathroom mirror as I finished toweling off. Was it just fatigue or did my face look harder? Did it have an edge to it that was not there a month ago? To me my face had the look of someone who was pissed off with something. Not surprising, as I was starting to get the very distinct feel that I was pissed off - with myself. I was looking at the face of a person who could be cruel and cutting. It was not the face that I was used to seeing in the mirror. In the past month or so I knew I had changed.
You asshole Hutchinson. You complete and utter asshole.
I threw the wet towel down in self-disgust and quickly dressed in some battered cargos and light sweater.
Now more than an hour later I had given up the pretense of trying to eat, drink or divert myself. I needed something but I couldn't find it here in this apartment. I was edgy and irritable and filled with the sense that I wanted something. It was not so much that I was hyped up from the crazy scene that had gone down with Joey in the dance hall. I wasn't wired anymore at all from that event and that was a bad thing because being high on adrenaline from the murder case was all that had kept me going these past two weeks.
The whole case had finally culminated tonight - with a bang. Huh! Would have been funny if it wasn't so tragic. Tragic for the victims who had been killed, and for Joey the killer, a victim himself in so many ways. But for me the real and very painful tragedy was for Kira, Starsky and me. The case had stuffed up our lives in more ways than one. The rest of the tragedy was at my own selfish hands. I had destroyed Starsky. My actions, my fucking conceited, one-sighted actions had done more to blow my life apart than a whole box of grenades could have ever accomplished. Well that is how it felt to me right now. I felt as ripped asunder as that dance hall. And I had done it to myself.
When Joey had totally dismantled in front of us and nearly took us all out with his grenade, his actions literally caused a blow up in my world. The reverberations from Joey's grenade were dramatic for me on a purely personal level. I don't for a minute wish that what happened did of course. But it did, and for the first time in weeks, I reconnected with parts of me that I had closed off completely. It was a terrifying moment when he brandished that grenade and swept all of us into the wake of his psychotic rage. To Joey we were all part of his 'Nam and hidden 'Gooks' delusions. I knew that the explosion had probably been what I needed to jolt me out of whatever quagmire I had been wading through in the past weeks.
I felt again the momentary flash of sheer terror when I first clipped the grenade out of Joey's grasp and it flew across the room. Starsky had fielded it deftly as I knew he probably would. Our tactics were always synced and needed no verbalizing. We frequently used our sixth senses of each other to out maneuver and outplay the bad boys in risky situation, often running close to the bone with danger, but always (so far cross fingers) pulling it off. Tonight though I couldn't be sure. The two of us had not talked or related in any form since the Kira debacle and to have gone that long (we never had before) without feeding off each other's psyches was a risk. A risk that we would have been off our game. Our game of synchronicity. Of one mindedness in two bodies.
We had not been a unit for weeks now.
Starsk had caught the grenade! I was relieved and filled with terror in the one instant. For immediately I saw it in his face. I looked him straight in the eyes. And he looked into mine. It had felt like years rather than weeks since we had given each other that compelling visual fix. It was second nature to us to look directly into each other's eyes to see what the other was saying or thinking. So at that moment when my eyes latched onto his I saw it straight away. I knew what I saw there in those dark blue eyes. Starsky's intent to self-harm. I knew what he was thinking. I knew what he was feeling.
Christ! I had made him feel like that! This bad, this damned. What had I done to him! He was not going to throw that grenade!
"NO!" I screamed at him, my eyes boring into his. It was only a second. He only had a second. I don't know if he heard my cry amongst all the other screaming and crashing of bodies fleeing from the room. Please God Starsk don't! Don't do this to yourself, to us! She is not worth it and I am not worth it. Throw the fucking grenade. Throw it …NOW!
My eyes were pleading with him and whether he listened to me or not, in the next moment he pulled back his arm and hurled the grenade as far off to the empty side of the dance floor as he could.
After the God almighty impact and blow out from the small hand held bomb, and after we were all able to realize we were still alive and in one piece, the dusty room danced in front of my eyes. I began to sense my surroundings and myself. I came fully to and tried to sit up and shake out the shock from the physical side of the explosion and its impact on every one of my senses. It was harder to shake out the mental kick the explosion had delivered me. I scanned the room for everyone who had been nearby at the time.
I was only really looking for one person. My eyes found him quickly.
Thank Christ you are ok! I could see him sitting up looking dazed and helping Kira to sit up too. He had obviously thrown himself over her at the point of impact. Once again as I was looking up I caught him watching me intently and then quickly he averted his eyes, his attention back to Kira. For as long as we had known each other I have never known us both to remain in our respective corners directly after we had suffered such a physical assault. Normally whoever found the physical strength to move first, would have been crawling toward the other to assess his damage. But now we both withheld ourselves from the other. And it felt different, it felt strange and I could not cope with it. It cut to the quick.
In the swirling haze and stink of the cordite I saw his face. He must have fallen hard as one side of his face was grazed badly and fresh blood was trickling from his brow. He was oblivious to it. I was not. But I did not go to him as I always had. Would not check for myself the extent of his injury. We were apart now since I had done what I had done to him. He was on his own now and it all felt so... wrong...so damn wrong.
Joey was near me and still down. Starsky was helping Kira. I was surprised that I didn't feel a stab of jealousy that he was the one to be near her to give her comfort. Bit I didn't - I didn't really think of her. In the past days I had re-evaluated my involvement with her. Why I had been involved with this woman? What had been her insatiable appeal? What powers did she hold that could cause me to risk my greatest friendship for a moment in her bed?
Kira spared me not even a cursory glance and she seemed not to notice Starsky's helping hands. As I watched I was shocked to see what she did. Shakily but with a steady determination she crawled and pulled herself across the now littered floor littered, making her way toward Joey. At his side now she wrapped her arms around him and gave in to his mewling cries and moans, comforting him and reassuring him like she would a child. The whole event was surreal. I felt two things then. Anger toward her for moving so quickly away from Starsky who had no doubt laid his life on the line for her just moments before and revelation that I had no real idea what truly motivated this woman. Three men in this room with her and she had played each of another or us in one form. Three men and we had all fallen prey to her wiles and her need to be wanted.
Three men and she had well and truly fucked us all up. I hated her in that moment. But I hated myself more so for having let her into my life.
My eyes went up again and this time Starsky was waiting for me with his. We gave each other a long look. A look of old.
What had we allowed this woman to do to us?
I strummed a few more chords but then just threw the instrument aside on the couch with a frustrated sigh. Even music was no solace for me right now. The sound of the guitar seemed jarring and out of place in the empty room. I looked at my beloved guitar again and then pushed it roughly with my foot further up to the other end of the couch.
"Fuck what a night!" I picked up the bottle of half drunk beer from the table and then banged it down again immediately with a grunt. The beer that I had been sitting on for over an hour now was warm and I'd long ago lost interest in it. Like I'd lost interest in the guitar and in the half eaten plate of food I had tried to push down simply for the sake of refueling my depleted energy levels.
I had lost interest in everything.
I had arrived home from the precinct hours ago now and still wired from the hellish night could not get into a stinging hot shower fast enough. It wasn't until the water ran cold that I realized that I'd been standing there for over half and hour. Just standing really, standing and letting the water wash down over me, too apathetic to put any effort into cleaning myself. I needed to wash off the stink and grit of the grenade's fallout. I might have accomplished that in the first five minutes, but no amount of water was going to wash away the emotional fallout of this job. It was going to take more than a shower to wash away the dirty feeling that life was not the same for me anymore. I felt just as dirty and just as jaded and just as sick of myself as I did when I got in.
As dirty and jaded and sick of myself as I had been feeling for over two weeks now. Two weeks and two days to be exact.
Since the day Starsky and I had fought over Kira in her apartment. The day that I did what I did…slept with Kira.
The day that I had well and truly fucked up Starsky's sense of himself and his trust in me.
The day that I ruined our friendship.
I cannot look at that yet.
Instead I looked hard at myself in the bathroom mirror as I finished toweling off. Was it just fatigue or did my face look harder? Did it have an edge to it that was not there a month ago? To me my face had the look of someone who was pissed off with something. Not surprising, as I was starting to get the very distinct feel that I was pissed off - with myself. I was looking at the face of a person who could be cruel and cutting. It was not the face that I was used to seeing in the mirror. In the past month or so I knew I had changed.
You asshole Hutchinson. You complete and utter asshole.
I threw the wet towel down in self-disgust and quickly dressed in some battered cargos and light sweater.
Now more than an hour later I had given up the pretense of trying to eat, drink or divert myself. I needed something but I couldn't find it here in this apartment. I was edgy and irritable and filled with the sense that I wanted something. It was not so much that I was hyped up from the crazy scene that had gone down with Joey in the dance hall. I wasn't wired anymore at all from that event and that was a bad thing because being high on adrenaline from the murder case was all that had kept me going these past two weeks.
The whole case had finally culminated tonight - with a bang. Huh! Would have been funny if it wasn't so tragic. Tragic for the victims who had been killed, and for Joey the killer, a victim himself in so many ways. But for me the real and very painful tragedy was for Kira, Starsky and me. The case had stuffed up our lives in more ways than one. The rest of the tragedy was at my own selfish hands. I had destroyed Starsky. My actions, my fucking conceited, one-sighted actions had done more to blow my life apart than a whole box of grenades could have ever accomplished. Well that is how it felt to me right now. I felt as ripped asunder as that dance hall. And I had done it to myself.
When Joey had totally dismantled in front of us and nearly took us all out with his grenade, his actions literally caused a blow up in my world. The reverberations from Joey's grenade were dramatic for me on a purely personal level. I don't for a minute wish that what happened did of course. But it did, and for the first time in weeks, I reconnected with parts of me that I had closed off completely. It was a terrifying moment when he brandished that grenade and swept all of us into the wake of his psychotic rage. To Joey we were all part of his 'Nam and hidden 'Gooks' delusions. I knew that the explosion had probably been what I needed to jolt me out of whatever quagmire I had been wading through in the past weeks.
I felt again the momentary flash of sheer terror when I first clipped the grenade out of Joey's grasp and it flew across the room. Starsky had fielded it deftly as I knew he probably would. Our tactics were always synced and needed no verbalizing. We frequently used our sixth senses of each other to out maneuver and outplay the bad boys in risky situation, often running close to the bone with danger, but always (so far cross fingers) pulling it off. Tonight though I couldn't be sure. The two of us had not talked or related in any form since the Kira debacle and to have gone that long (we never had before) without feeding off each other's psyches was a risk. A risk that we would have been off our game. Our game of synchronicity. Of one mindedness in two bodies.
We had not been a unit for weeks now.
Starsk had caught the grenade! I was relieved and filled with terror in the one instant. For immediately I saw it in his face. I looked him straight in the eyes. And he looked into mine. It had felt like years rather than weeks since we had given each other that compelling visual fix. It was second nature to us to look directly into each other's eyes to see what the other was saying or thinking. So at that moment when my eyes latched onto his I saw it straight away. I knew what I saw there in those dark blue eyes. Starsky's intent to self-harm. I knew what he was thinking. I knew what he was feeling.
Christ! I had made him feel like that! This bad, this damned. What had I done to him! He was not going to throw that grenade!
"NO!" I screamed at him, my eyes boring into his. It was only a second. He only had a second. I don't know if he heard my cry amongst all the other screaming and crashing of bodies fleeing from the room. Please God Starsk don't! Don't do this to yourself, to us! She is not worth it and I am not worth it. Throw the fucking grenade. Throw it …NOW!
My eyes were pleading with him and whether he listened to me or not, in the next moment he pulled back his arm and hurled the grenade as far off to the empty side of the dance floor as he could.
After the God almighty impact and blow out from the small hand held bomb, and after we were all able to realize we were still alive and in one piece, the dusty room danced in front of my eyes. I began to sense my surroundings and myself. I came fully to and tried to sit up and shake out the shock from the physical side of the explosion and its impact on every one of my senses. It was harder to shake out the mental kick the explosion had delivered me. I scanned the room for everyone who had been nearby at the time.
I was only really looking for one person. My eyes found him quickly.
Thank Christ you are ok! I could see him sitting up looking dazed and helping Kira to sit up too. He had obviously thrown himself over her at the point of impact. Once again as I was looking up I caught him watching me intently and then quickly he averted his eyes, his attention back to Kira. For as long as we had known each other I have never known us both to remain in our respective corners directly after we had suffered such a physical assault. Normally whoever found the physical strength to move first, would have been crawling toward the other to assess his damage. But now we both withheld ourselves from the other. And it felt different, it felt strange and I could not cope with it. It cut to the quick.
In the swirling haze and stink of the cordite I saw his face. He must have fallen hard as one side of his face was grazed badly and fresh blood was trickling from his brow. He was oblivious to it. I was not. But I did not go to him as I always had. Would not check for myself the extent of his injury. We were apart now since I had done what I had done to him. He was on his own now and it all felt so... wrong...so damn wrong.
Joey was near me and still down. Starsky was helping Kira. I was surprised that I didn't feel a stab of jealousy that he was the one to be near her to give her comfort. Bit I didn't - I didn't really think of her. In the past days I had re-evaluated my involvement with her. Why I had been involved with this woman? What had been her insatiable appeal? What powers did she hold that could cause me to risk my greatest friendship for a moment in her bed?
Kira spared me not even a cursory glance and she seemed not to notice Starsky's helping hands. As I watched I was shocked to see what she did. Shakily but with a steady determination she crawled and pulled herself across the now littered floor littered, making her way toward Joey. At his side now she wrapped her arms around him and gave in to his mewling cries and moans, comforting him and reassuring him like she would a child. The whole event was surreal. I felt two things then. Anger toward her for moving so quickly away from Starsky who had no doubt laid his life on the line for her just moments before and revelation that I had no real idea what truly motivated this woman. Three men in this room with her and she had played each of another or us in one form. Three men and we had all fallen prey to her wiles and her need to be wanted.
Three men and she had well and truly fucked us all up. I hated her in that moment. But I hated myself more so for having let her into my life.
My eyes went up again and this time Starsky was waiting for me with his. We gave each other a long look. A look of old.
What had we allowed this woman to do to us?