December 23rd- Christmas Present by Spencer

It is common knowledge around the Bay City Police Department that Sergeant Detective Ken Hutchinson isn’t a big fan of Christmas. He starts grumbling about commercialism and hollow sentimentalism the moment the first tinsel garland is strung. What everyone doesn’t know however, with the exception of his partner, David Starsky, is why December doesn’t bring on a rush of good cheer for tall, blond detective.

Holidays in Hutch’s childhood home, even with all of its expensive trappings, had been as cold as the Minnesota winter. Years later, his wife, Vanessa, had chosen Christmas Eve to be the night she left. Hutch hasn’t put up a Christmas tree since.

So when Hutch volunteers to take Officer Ambrose’s Christmas Eve shift staking out a house in the valley where there was suspected child trafficking activity, the new father isn’t particularly surprised. Only supremely grateful.

“Enjoy your first holiday with your new son,” Hutch told him with a pat on the shoulder.

“I will!” Ambrose had exclaimed before adding an awkward, “Merry Christmas!”

That Starsky volunteers to join Hutch for the long, lonely assignment isn’t surprising to anyone either.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Hutch reminds Starsky for the fifth time as they huddle in the front seat of Hutch’s nondescript Galaxie sedan a few doors down from the suspect house, which happened to be a large, well-kept residence in an upscale neighborhood.

“What else does a Jew got ta do at a time like this?”

“Don’t give me that line. Your family celebrates Christmas. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there’s a holiday you Starkys don’t celebrate — St. Patrick’s Day included.”

“How can ya not celebrate a day they turn the water green? We celebrate life, buddy. L’chaim!” Starsky’s crooked grin glows through the darkness as he raises his thermos of lukewarm coffee in a salute.

Hutch taps his own thermos to Starsky’s. If all his time spent on stakeouts over the years had taught him anything, it was that there was no one with whom he’d rather spend the dragging hours than the mop-headed New Yorker.

On this night of all nights while the rest of the world celebrates, they sit side by side watching the large wood and stone Colonial from a discrete distance. Despite its lack of holiday lights like most of the other houses on the street, it might easily have belonged to a banker or doctor or some other community leader. But Hutch knows well that even the best of appearances could be deceiving. Anything could be happening behind those doors. He shivers involuntarily, but not just from the night air.

Beside him, Starsky takes a cue from his partner’s slight movement. “Hey, Hutch,” he asks. “What’s the best Christmas present you ever got?” Without waiting for a response, he continues on with a brightness someone else might mistake for innocence. “The baseball glove I got when I was nine had to be the best. I swear my pop and I used ta play catch for hours.” His eyes close and he breathes in deeply, as if remembering the scent of worn leather. “I thought that thing had magic powers that would turn me into Mickey Mantle.”

Hutch recognizes the trajectory the conversation is on. Starsky means to drag him into a vortex of outlandish, improbable ideas like the feasibility of life on Mars or the benefits of chinchilla farming. Discussions that only Starsky can make sound reasonable. Whether it is a trick Starsky uses to keep their minds sharp or to prevent Hutch’s thoughts from drifting away, Hutch is never quite sure. Although he suspects it’s a little of both.

Hutch doesn’t answer right away. Starsky’s investigation into wonderful, even life-changing, gifts takes Hutch back to his childhood, not always the most comfortable place for him to be. His mind’s eye sees another big house in a similarly nice neighborhood, now a lifetime away. He thinks again of how looks can be misleading.

“Come on, Hutch,” Starsky nudges him. “I’m sure you got all kinds of terrific stuff as a kid.”

Okay, I’ll play along, Hutch tells himself at last. It’s just harmless banter. Besides, if it’ll make Starsk happy…

“I got a science kit one year. It was the year my biology teacher, Mr. Sims, told my folks I might have potential for medical school.”

Starsky’s eyes widen. “Wow. That sounds great. Nicky and I never got nuthin’ like that.”

Hutch hates to bring up the fact that he’s received hundreds of gifts, many more expensive than a dime store baseball glove. There was the big-eyed pony who’d followed Hutch around his granddad’s farm when he was five, the shiny Schwinn bicycle at the age of ten that gave him his first taste of freedom, a custom-tailored suit when he turned 21 that had turned so many heads, including Vanessa’s, his future bride. Yet he’d have traded all of them just to play catch with his old man. For the stern and exacting Judge Hutchinson to have shown him some measure of affection, to have Kenny imagine he was worth a little of his busy father’s valuable time, would have been beyond price.

Out of the darkness, a sedan’s headlights suddenly light up the street as it heads towards them. Hutch slides low in his seat and Starsky mirrors the movement. They watch the car slow and pull into the driveway of the big house. Hutch’s heart thumps in his chest and he is instinctively aware of Starsky’s pounding in unison. A middle-aged man, dressed in a business jacket and carrying a briefcase, emerges from the car and walks toward the house, a hat pulled low on his head against the night air. But he is alone. No teenagers, willingly or otherwise, accompany him.

A collective sigh of relief — or perhaps frustration — echoes in the front seat of the Galaxie. In spite of the vice team’s certainty that their information on a child trafficking operation in the area was solid when they had proposed the stakeout, it has so far proven to be a dead end.

Starsky and Hutch continue to watch as inside the house a series of interior lights flicker on, then off again. Hutch squints to read the license plate on the back of the sedan but it is too dark to make out any figures, even with binoculars. He makes a mental note to take a closer look before they leave. In any event, there is nothing illegal about coming home after a late day at the office or otherwise. Even on Christmas Eve. But he isn’t willing to give up on the stakeout just yet. Anything can happen between now and Christmas morning.

They wait in the cold and the darkness but nothing more happens. “So was that it?” Starsky asks after a while.

“What was what?” At first Hutch thinks Starsky is referring to the businessman they’d watched go into the house.

“Your favorite present.” Starsky’s tone borders on impatience that Hutch needs to be brought back to their conversation.

Hutch sighs. Starsky’s mind works like quicksilver. His train of thought is ever changing and nearly impossible to pin down. His determination is dogged. It makes the man irritating, fascinating, and the best damn detective Hutch had ever known.

“My favorite present,” Hutch repeats as he tries to refocus away from the man and the house and lost, frightened children on a Christmas Eve.

“That’s what I said,” Starsky repeats. “Wait — don’t tell me. It’s that National Geographic subscription I got you a coupla years ago. That came in handy once or twice. Thoughtful and practical.”

Hutch has to admit it was. Considerate, yes, but not exactly transformative. His thoughts move back in time to his early twenties when he was in love and thought his life, entwined then with Vanessa’s, held infinite possibilities. Back then, Vanessa had gifted him with a watch engraved with “All my love forever and always.” To Hutch, the elegant timepiece was nothing in comparison to the words. Unfortunately, the possibility he hadn’t foreseen was the one in which the scrolled words faded into meaninglessness; the watch became a useless chunk of metal.

When Hutch still doesn’t answer several minutes later, Starsky shrugs, then twists and reaches into the lunchbox stowed behind his seat. “Bologna sandwich?” he asks as he pulls out a wrapped package.

Hutch looks at it and wrinkles his nose.

“Figured as much,” Starsky replies before reaching once again into the lunchbox and pulling out an apple. “Here,” Starsky offers.

Hutch takes it and bites into it with a satisfying crunch. It won’t entirely sooth the grumbling that has started in his belly but would be a good start.

Starsky manages to wriggle his body enough to put one tennis shoe-clad foot on the dusty dashboard. Hutch notices how Starsky munches his sandwich contentedly, as if there is no place else he’d rather spend his Christmas Eve. As if he hasn’t turned down at least one invitation of a roast beef dinner and bottle of vino at some friend or other’s cozy, festive home.

“Don’t worry about it, Hutch. We’ll take care of it,” Hutch hears Starsky say quietly between bites from his side of the bench seat.

Worry about… what? A childhood lost, a love destroyed, or a gang of thugs — however well-heeled — taking advantage of runaway kids on the most celebrated night of the year? Somehow Hutch gets the distinct impression that Starsky means all of it. Christmases past, Christmases present. Christmases yet to come. And with a gush of certainty, he knows.

Hutch feels himself smile. It is dark and cold, and Hutch is tired and hungry and frustrated that their night’s work hasn’t been more successful. But as miraculously as an electric current causes a Christmas tree to suddenly erupt in light, he understands that at this exact moment he is doing what he was born to do, with the person he is meant to do it with.

Hutch takes his thermos and fills a Styrofoam cup with the lukewarm coffee. “I know what it is, Starsk,” he states with certainty.

“What?” Starsky asks. He swallows down the last bite of sandwich and unceremoniously licks any remaining crumbs from his fingers.

“My favorite present. You wanted to know, didn’t you?” Hutch reminds Starsky as he hands him the coffee. Their fingers touched briefly in the handoff.

“It’s you. You’re my all-time favorite gift.” Hutch pauses and waits for the dozen teasing comments he anticipates will come. But they don’t. The following silence is comfortable, pleasant. In the darkness, Hutch sees the blush on Starsky’s cheeks.