Starsky & Hutch Advent Calendar 2015

Click here to read Part 1

Click here to read Part 2

Click here to read Part 3

1979 December, Starsky’s apartment.

Starsky.

I say I wanna jump, Hutch takes a leap of thousands of miles to the other end, without even considering it could be just one hurdle that I wanted to conquer, right in here. I only said moving, and Hutch turned as white as a streak of contrails the planes leave behind. If I didn’t say something, he’d vanish and disappear into the blue sky.

Hutch started watering the plants for the third time. Good thing I know how his mind works. I took the water can away from him. “You’re gonna drown Miss Maidenhair if you keep this up.”

“Huh?” Hutch turned around as if he’d seen a ghost. He was shaking, and it wasn’t the cold that did it to him.

“Let’s go inside.” I pushed him back into the apartment, made him sit at the table, and got my mug filled with more coffee. I pressed the cup between his palms and leaned against the table, beside him, facing him.

He took a couple of sips, but color wasn’t returning to his cheeks. And he wasn’t looking me in the eye.

“I didn’t mean moving away from Bay City, Hutch.”

Hutch tightened his fingers around the coffee mug.

Continue reading →

Starsky came in the door of their house with arms loaded with brightly wrapped presents. “Hutch, where are you?” Getting no reply, he walked to the small Christmas tree he had talked his lover into and carefully placed each present under it.

He stood for a few moments enjoying all the colorful lights and decorations on their first tree. Happiness filled his heart. THIS Christmas was going to be the best ever.

“Hutch?” He walked over to look in the bedroom, but didn’t find his blond partner there. As he walked toward the kitchen, he caught sight of him out in the greenhouse/patio attached to the back of their house.

The sun was shining brightly through the glass roof and seemed to spotlight his lover’s pale golden hair. The glow made it look like he had a halo. Hutch was bent over a small table with a look of total concentration on his face. As Starsky walked nearer the door to the greenhouse, he saw that Hutch was writing in a small notebook.

As he watched, Hutch lifted his pencil from the paper and looked out toward the ocean, which was almost their back yard. He could tell Hutch was thinking deeply. Even though his partner’s sky blue eyes were open, Starsky could tell he was looking inward. He knew every look his partner had, and this one was of deep introspection.

Starsky went back into the kitchen and grabbed two beers before heading out into the glassed in area where they spent a lot of their time. He pushed the door open and stepped out of the house. He let the door close on its own resulting in a bang. When the noise didn’t bring those blue eyes up to meet him, he walked over to the table and set one of the beers to the side of the papers in front of Hutch.

Bending down, he placed a quick kiss on Hutch’s cheek and tried to look at what he was working so hard on. The kiss jarred Hutch and he quickly closed the cover of the notebook he had been writing in, but Starsky had seen what looked like stanzas or poems.

“Whatcha’ doin’ Hutch?”

“Just writing… something, Starsk.”

“Yeah, like what?” Starsky sat down in the chair across from his partner.

“Just… writing.” Hutch replied.

“You looked like you were a long way away there, Hutch. What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing, Starsk. Just writing… stuff.” Hutch shrugged and picked up the beer for a sip.

“Yanno, Hutch, I know you pretty well by now. And you had that look on your face.”

“Look? What look?” Hutch glanced up quickly. Almost nervously.

Starsky took a sip of his own beer then looked up to see his lover’s eyes. “That look where you’re thinkin’ of what happened. When I was shot. You’re thinkin’ about ‘what if he’d died’… again.”

“Starsky…”

Starsky didn’t let him finish. “Hutch, you gotta let that go. It’s over and I did live. I am alive. Your love brought me back, kept me going through all the therapy. You brought me back. It’s over, it’s done. Let it stay in the past, ok? I swear, I’m here. I’m healthy. And, I love you.”

Hutch looked up at the sincere look on his partner’s face. “I know. It’s just that it was so close, too damn close.” Hutch reached out to caress the side of Starsky’s face. “I could have lost you. Lost us.”

“Yeah, well you didn’t. So whatcha’ writin’, huh?”

Hutch didn’t answer, but the light pink color that stained his cheeks, caught Starsky’s eyes. “Hutch? What are you writing?”

“Look, Starsk, it’s nothing, ok. Just writing some stuff.”

“Oh no. Not gonna’ be that easy.” Starsky reached out to grab the notebook from Hutch’s hands. Surprised when he was able to so easily capture his prize, he leafed to the page he had glimpsed before. He read what Hutch had written there.

“paradise almost
lost in a parking garage
saved by running feet”

“Hutch?? What… what is this?”

Hutch sighed. “That day, when Dobey told me I needed to hurry. I thought you would be dead by the time I got there, Starsk. He said ‘I think you better hurry’, and I ran through the hospital. They told me later, that when I burst through the doors at the end of the hallway…” Hutch had to stop for a minute, “th-th-they told me you had died. That when I ran through those doors… your heart started to beat again.”

“Ah, Buddy. I had no idea.” Starsky reached across the table and patted Hutch on the arm. “So what is this? Some kind of poem, or something?”

“It’s a haiku, Starsk. A form of poetry. It’s a very short form of Japanese poetry.”

“Wow!” Starsky re-read the Haiku. “This is what happened… when I died?”

“Yeah, Starsky. Thinking back. This is what happened. I guess I just…”

“So, that poetry workshop you went to last month taught you this?” Starsky looked up at Hutch’s face.

“I guess so. Haiku say so much in just 17 syllables, Starsk, so you have to condense all your feelings… everything you are feeling… into just those 17 syllables. That’s what I was trying to do… condense everything that was going through my mind when you… when I thought you… when Dobey said I needed to… Hurry…”

“Wow… so… 17 syllables, huh?”

“Yeah, mushbrain, but they have to have a pattern.”

“What kinda pattern?”

“You really want to know, Starsk?” At his partner’s nod Hutch went on to explain, “It’s five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, then five in the last line.”

“Man, Hutch. Tell a story in basically seventeen syllables?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I-I-I’ve been thinkin’ about that night recently… guess I was trying to work it out.” Hutch ducked his head.

“Hey! I wanna try this ‘highkuku’ out!”

“It’s ‘hai-ku’, Starsk.”

“Whatever. Tell me again how to do it?” Starsky ripped a piece of paper out of Hutch’s notebook, grabbed an extra pen from the table, and took up a position like he was going to pen the next great American novel.

“Starsk…” At Starsky’s serious look, Hutch stopped what he had been going to say. “Ok… it’s just five syllables in the first line, then seven in the second, and just five in the last line. Got it?”

Starsky put the end of the pen against his lips and closed his eyes to think. Hutch got his notebook back where he wanted it and began to write again, looking back at that horrible time when he thought he had lost his lover.

“Hey, Hutch?”

Hutch looked up. “What Starsk?”

“Do commas and stuff count?”

“No, Buddy. Just words. A lot of Haiku doesn’t use any punctuation.”

“Oh, ok. Thanks.” Hutch watched Starsky’s dark head of curls bend back over the paper in front of him.

Hutch wrote for a bit. Crossed a couple of words out, then wrote again. He looked over at Starsky who looked up then.

“You got another one done, Hutch?” Starsky nodded toward Hutch’s notebook. At Hutch’s affirmative nod he said, “Read it to me?”

“Aw, come on, Starsk… it’s just words…”

“Read it to me!”

Hutch picked up the notebook and read,

“crashing through the doors
heart and mind screaming “don’t go”
love binding you here”

Hutch put it down and looked away from his partner’s face. He wasn’t used to sharing such stuff with Starsky.

“Damn. Your love did pull me back. I could feel it. I was walkin’ towards this bright light, but something kept pulling me back. It was so strong, I couldn’t fight it. So… I turned around.” Hutch was looking more upset… almost fragile… he had to figure out how to pull him back. “So, let me finish my Highkuku, then I’ll read it to you, ‘kay?”

Hutch smiled at Starsky and went back to his own writing.

After a few more minutes, “So, what was the… cadence again, Hutch?”

“Meter, Starsk, meter. Five, seven, five.”

“Oh yeah. Sorry, forgot.”

Starsky waited a minute.

“That poetry thingy was pretty awesome, huh, partner?”

Hutch sighed and looked up from his page. “Yeah, Starsk, I learned a lot.”

Starsky let him look back down and saw him frown at his page.

“What other kind of poetry did they teach ya about? Huh, Hutch?”

“Starsk! I thought you were going to write a haiku. Not keep interrupting me writing mine?”

“Oh, sorry, yeah. Go ahead. I’ll just shut up and work on mine, while you do yours. Sorry.”

Again, Starsky waited a couple of minutes. He still saw the hurt on his lover’s face. “Hey, Hutch?”

“Yes, Starsky?”

“What did ya get me for Christmas?”

“What? Starsky, I am trying to work through these feelings here. Can we talk later?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry again.”

Another minute. “So five, seven, five? What if I need six or nine?”

“STARSKY!!”

“Sorry.” Starsky bent over the piece of paper in front of him on the table. He wrote a few words. Frowned. Then tapped his fingers on the table to count out the meter. He forgot where he was in the count, and started tapping on the table to count again.

“I swear, Starsk, you are trying to drive me out of my mind!”

“Wha?” Starsky looked at Hutch with the most innocent, wide-eyed look he could manage.

“Never mind. Just write.” Hutch tried to ignore his partner’s tapping fingers and concentrate on what he had been writing. But the quiet didn’t last long.

Starsky wrote furiously on his paper. He would stop and tap his fingers, then his pen when it seemed his fingers didn’t quite make the correct rhythm.

Hutch tossed his pen down, closed his notebook, and stood. Starsky looked up at him. “Where ya going, Blondie?”

Hutch sighed. “I can’t think with all the racket you’re making. Tapping. Muttering under your breath. I can’t concentrate on what I was feeling.”

Starsky bit back a grin. He hadn’t though it would be so quick or easy getting his partner to stop focusing on the past. Now he had to play this just right.

“Wait a sec, Hutch.” He quickly wrote something else on his paper. “Don’t you wanna hear my highkuku?”

Hutch gave him a surprised look. “You wrote one, buddy? Really? That quick?”

Starsky waved Hutch back to his seat, stood up and picked up his paper. He took a sip of beer, cleared his throat and read the first line of his haiku.

“I want to live Hutch…”

He stopped there and glanced at his lover who seemed frozen in place. He glanced back at what he had written and read the entire thing.

“I want to live Hutch
there’s pizzas to be eaten
bring me a burger?”

Hutch sat there, stunned for a few seconds as the last two lines registered in his brain. “Pizza… bring me a… STARSKY!”

A few seconds warning was all Starsky needed. He took off running for the beach with his big blond lover chasing after him.

Hutch’s laughter was the best early Christmas present ever.

An interminable stakeout and a dubious crossword puzzle.

Stakeouts always seem endless when there’s nothing happening. We’re in my car because Captain Dobey specifically vetoed the Torino. “Absolutely no place within sight to hide that carnival ride!” he’d roared. That was a given, of course, but hardly anybody ever verbalized it.

So here we are, half a block from Gene Carmody’s house, waiting to see if the known murderer would be stupid enough to return after he’d managed to elude the take down last night in the Sixth. Criminals are admittedly dumb at times, so no possibility could be overlooked. Starsky and I had drawn the next-to-shortest straw. We had the noon-to-eight shift. Babcock and Simmons got the eight-to-four. Night stakeouts are worse, in my opinion.

“What’s a nine-letter word for ‘two organisms that live off each other’?” Starsky asks into the silence.

I keep the binoculars to my eyes, while I think a moment. “Symbiosis,” I say.

Continue reading →