Kathy had blown into town on an overnight, talking about making up for that last time when she and Starsky had arrived to find spaghetti all over Hutch’s floor and a high-strung nurse who had gone all wrong — and who was he to say no? He’d thought more than once about the lost possibilities of that particular evening, hoped maybe Kathy would drag Starsky to his door another night, and though she’d turned up alone it was better than nothing.
Which is how he came to be stumbling into the squad room on this sunny Tuesday morning, somewhat late and slightly hungover and a whole lot sleep-deprived and ready to bask in some comradely innuendo with a bright-eyed, fresh-pressed Starsky, which frankly had been the point of it all in the first place.
Starsky, who as ever seemed to be moving at a slightly faster speed than the rest of the universe, had poured coffee into a battered mug in time to hand it to Hutch as he slid gingerly into his chair. Starsky raised one eyebrow, saying nothing, eyes dancing.
Hutch took the mug gratefully, warming up to having tales of the night before wheedled out of him.
“Thanks Starsk, you’re a lifesaver.”
Starsky flashed a grin over his shoulder as he rifled through the filing cabinet.
“Yeah, I come in five different flavors.”
Hutch spat coffee all over the paperwork on the desk. Starsky smirked, threw him a napkin and sprinted off out the door, file in hand.
Hutch sat there dabbing ineffectually at the coffee on his shirtfront and felt all the heterosexuality points he had accumulated during the night drain away through his boots into the linoleum of the floor below. The piggy bank on his desk fixed him with a “who are you fooling” look.
Not for the first time Hutch considered growing a mustache. He was tired of his emotions (and his coffee) splashing themselves across his face at a moment’s notice. He craved protection, some kind of a mask. A mustache was looking more tempting every day. Taking a sip of his depleted coffee, Hutch hoped Dobey was busy in his office and allowed himself a moment of restorative daydreaming.
Starsky had likely gone to gossip down the hall with Minnie Kaplan, the new hire in R&I who seemed to have stepped right out of a fast-talking screwball comedy. Starsky’s inner Cary Grant had perked right up at the possibility of his very own feisty girl Friday, while Hutch had a sinking feeling he’d landed the role usually played by Ralph Bellamy, standing by haplessly as the sparks flew. He imagined asking the BCPD powers-that-be “If I can’t get the girl, at least give me more money.” But his heart knew it wasn’t the girl he wanted, however Howard-Hawks-fabulous Minnie might be.
Hutch stroked his upper lip. A mustache would take him closer to the Sundance Kid and his intermittent urge to hightail it to South America with Starsky and rob banks whenever things got tough. Give me your boots, Starsk, no need for a crisis, let’s just go. Starsky had the blue-eyed curly Jewish butch thing all wrapped up, but Hutch could do blond as well as Redford, and with possibly less peroxide. Maybe the mustache would be the missing piece, a magic sign that could break through their tantalizing status quo and pull Starsky with him into a bright Technicolor world of new horizons, no subtitles needed. Come back and be double-billed with me, Starsk. This time it would be better than their ill-fated reenactment of From Here To Eternity in the surf on that terrifying island with all of the waves and none of the kissing.
Hell, next time Starsk was off somewhere for a few days, Hutch would hide away in the company of his lushest, fastest-growing plants and go into mustache development mode. Starsky would return, recognize Hutch’s new mustache as the powerful new sign that it was and without a word being spoken they’d be instantly transported to their own little outlaw bubble… Hey, a boy could dream. In five different flavors, maybe.
Notes:
Starsky’s one line of dialogue is inspired by the lyrics to Here Comes a Soul Saver by the Charlatans.
His Girl Friday (1940) is a terrible phrase and a wonderful movie.
Hutch is dreaming of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), of course.
The Starsky & Hutch episodes referenced are: Fatal Charm, Shootout, Starsky’s Lady, A Coffin for Starsky, Starsky and Hutch on Playboy Island.
OMG, I adore this. Just… *flails wildly, throws a shoe*
And elves, the pic is perfection! 💖
Thanks for this lovely comment, HBB! Honoured to have caused you to throw a shoe 😉
I’ll let the elves know. They had a lot of fun with this one.
You almost reconciled a confirmed moustache hater to the horrible thing’s existence! And I love Hutch fantasising about being Redford because of course he would have. And “heterosexuality points” made me laugh out loud. Thank you.
Thank you, so good to hear which bits you enjoyed. I too am not a fan of the moustache (Hutch! It’s terrible!) but I wondered what had possessed him to grow it in the first place and this was the result.
The pic is genius, and their expressions are perfect! Many many thanks, elves.
From elves: you are very welcome. We had fun.
Oh wow, so much to love! You made me almost forgive the moustache. That is a glorious definition of Minnie. And I don’t know if ‘butch’ was meant to be rendered as ‘Butch’ but frankly I think both apply perfectly. Thank you for sharing.
Oh, thanks so much! Yes, Starsky is definitely both butch and Butch.
This was perfect to explain the appearance of the Mustache in later episodes. Thanks so much!
Thanks for reading! The mustache definitely has some explaining to do…
I really liked the idea that Starsky moves a bit faster than the rest of the universe, genius!
It’s so wonderful how after all these years and all the fiction which fans have written, that new insights still come along. Thanks for this fresh little piece.
Aww, thank you for your comment. I think Starsky can bend the rules of physics a little bit – it’s how he gets his jeans on in the morning.
Oh, that was priceless. The moustache musings! Thanks for a good read! Love it. Great photo, elves.
Thanks kat, really glad you enjoyed it. The photo is so good!
That was brilliant!
My favorite bit was this: “Hutch sat there dabbing ineffectually at the coffee on his shirtfront and felt all the heterosexuality points he had accumulated during the night drain away through his boots into the linoleum of the floor below.”
Good thing I wasn’t drinking coffee when I read it, or it would have ended up all over my keyboard.
Loved the bit about Starsky moving faster than the rest of the world. Such a clever observation.
Also love the explanation for the mustache. And there might be something to it, because in Season 4 Photo Finish (the first S4 ep that was filmed), there is a huge poster of Robert Redford with mustache in Starsky’s photographer girlfriend’s apartment, and my theory is the set decorator put it there purposely to reference Hutch’s new ‘stache.
Glad to hear your keyboard is unscathed! Thanks for your lovely comments. I love your idea that the Redford poster was a comment on Hutch’s ’stache.
So that makes two Redford in-jokes! (Counting Gillian’s line about seeing Robert Redford, given that Karen Carlson played his wife in ‘The Candidate’.)
“Yeah, I come in five different flavors.” Hilarious! ‘Inspired by’ or completely out of the blue, it’s brilliant.
So glad you enjoyed it!
I loved this! Such an original idea on where that mustache idea came from, and that Butch and Sundance thoughts…made me happy. Thank you!
Thanks so much for your comment, very good to hear the story made you happy.
I’ve read many a fic that has Hutch shaving his mustache, but very few that set him on the path to growing it. Love this peak inside his head, and the weird, wild hope that Starsky still wants to run away with him. My favorite paragraph was:
Hutch sat there dabbing ineffectually at the coffee on his shirtfront and felt all the heterosexuality points he had accumulated during the night drain away through his boots into the linoleum of the floor below. The piggy bank on his desk fixed him with a “who are you fooling” look.
Thanks! I had fun spending time in Hutch’s weird, wild thoughts. Glad you enjoyed the heterosexuality points and the piggy bank.
I love the idea of Hutch stewing over the (hoped for) change in their relationship and growing the mustache. That just seems like a very ‘Hutch’ line of thought.
And I agree with all the others about the lines on ‘heterosexuality points’ and ‘I come in five flavors’. Still making me laugh even as I type.
So glad those lines made you laugh! Mission accomplished. Many thanks for letting me know.
Great story filled with great lines. I especially liked this one:
“…felt all the heterosexuality points he had accumulated during the night drain away through his boots into the linoleum of the floor below”.
And I always appreciate movie references. I also have an old fic I wrote about why Hutch might have grown that mustache….🤔💜
Thanks for your comment, I’d love to read your fic! The mustache certainly needs some explanation.