Cheap Sunglasses

Hutch closed his eyes. “It’s a fucked up world, Starsk, when you can’t even put the name to a different kind of love.”

This story was written for the Cheap Sunglasses Karaoke Writing Challenge on the S_n_H Slashfest on LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/slashfest_s_n_h/

ZZ Top’s Cheap Sunglasses was released on their first album in 1979 and became a single hit in 1980. However . . . this story takes place in 1978. This is why we call it fiction.

“What about these?” Starsky handed Hutch yet another pair of aviator shades.

They were shopping in Hutch’s neighborhood, Venice, at sidewalk vendor’s booth not far from Hutch’s apartment building. They’d stopped on their way to get lunch so Starsky could shop for sunglasses. Typically, Starsky had to try on every pair to see which looked best on him. If Hutch heard the words, “How do I look?” one more time, he might have to draw his gun. He was beyond bored. To make matters worse, the vendor had a boom box under his table with a tape playing ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses” over and over, no doubt as an economical advertising ploy. It was grating on Hutch’s last nerve.

Distracted by a middle-aged couple arguing across the street, Hutch took the latest pair of wire-rimmed shades Starsky held out to him without looking at them, and said, “Yeah, sure. They’re fine.” It was the same thing he’d said about all the previous pairs Starsky had shown him.

There was a slight pause as Starsky took the wire rims back and said, “I think I like these better.” He dropped a different pair in Hutch’s hand.

“They’re good, yeah, fine . . . ” Hutch snapped impatiently.

The body language of the man quarreling with a woman Hutch presumed was his wife had grown increasingly aggressive. At the same time, the woman had grown more submissive and was acting more fearful. It was a pattern Hutch was all too used to, and he was concerned about where it might lead.

“Well, try ’em on, will ya?” Starsky insisted.

His attention wavering slightly from the quarrelling couple, Hutch asked, annoyed, “Why do I have to try them on? You’re the one who wants new sunglasses!”

“You’ve got to try ’em on to make sure they fit,” Starsky said patiently. “You always end up wearing mine and you bitch if they don’t sit right. So go on, try ’em on.”

Well, there was no arguing with that logic, Hutch had to admit. The shades currently hanging from the V of his shirt front had originally been Starsky’s until last week when Hutch had taken them off his partner’s face just before Hutch was scheduled to rendezvous with Professor Gage, a professional hit man. Hutch would be totally exposed, out in the open next to the scheming Gage, a perfect target for Gage’s young female partner.

Hutch had taken Starsky’s sunglasses to shield his vision from the bright light reflected off the beach sand and surf. That left Starsky scanning the sunlit area for a glimpse of a single dark rifle barrel camouflaged in the dense cliffside vegetation. At the time, it hadn’t occurred to Hutch that Starsky might have needed the shades more than he did. Starsky hadn’t said a word, just let him take the glasses and go.

Hutch had to force himself to stop thinking of what-ifs.

He slid the new glasses on to oblige his partner; then caught a glimpse of himself in the vendor’s small mirror. The glasses were oversized, pink-rimmed rose-colored tourist glasses, framed with plastic flamingos and the words “Venice Beach” spelled out in rhinestones along the wide earpieces. The image of his own face framed by the ridiculous sunglasses was so surreal, that at first he couldn’t react.

“So, are they comfortable?” Starsky asked blandly.

Hutch turned to glare at his partner, but before he could come up with an appropriate response, he spotted two young girls snickering behind their palms as they pointed to him. Before he could pull the outrageous shades from his face there was the unmistakable crack of a fist on flesh from across the street.

Hutch forgot everything else as Starsky bolted across the street, weaving in and out of traffic like the broken-field football player he’d once been. Hutch was barely three steps behind him, but had to struggle to keep up.

The couple across the street was huddled together, but as Hutch drew closer he could see the man was holding the woman up by her hair as he pounded her face repeatedly with his fist.

Starsky got there first, grabbing the man’s fist before it could connect one last time. Twisting the fist with a savage torque, Starsky flipped the man off his feet. The man shrieked as the tender bones of his wrist turned in a direction they were never meant to accommodate.

Hutch reached the woman just as the man released his grip, and caught her before she landed on the sidewalk like a sack of flour. She was bleeding freely from the nose and mouth. Checking to make sure she was alive and conscious, Hutch eased her gently to the ground as he shouted his partner’s name.

He didn’t have to see Starsky to know what could happen.

“So you like to hit women, do you?” Hutch heard Starsky snarl and looked over in time to see Starsky land a strong right to the man’s nose.

“Starsky!” Hutch bellowed. “Starsky!” He tried to pull away from the bloody woman, but she’d gripped his shirtsleeve with surprising strength, holding him back.

“Don’t hurt him!” she begged, clutching Hutch’s arm desperately. “Please!”

“That the way you like it?” Starsky asked agreeably, and hit the man again.

Hutch managed to wrestle his arm away from the sobbing woman as he heard Starsky say, “You wanna hit somebody, come on then, hit me!” Starsky had released the man to encourage him to take a swing. The man obliged, swinging wildly. Starsky leaned in and caught a glancing blow on the side of his face.

“Now you’ve gone and done it,” Starsky said almost gleefully. “Striking an officer of the law. That’s six months of keeping company with a ward full of shining examples of manhood just like yourself!”

“You’re a fucking cop!” the man said, enraged, and swung again.

Starsky avoided the blow easily and knocked the man down with a powerful left. “That’s another six,” he announced, as he pulled his fist back again.

But Hutch snagged Starsky’s arm and held on. “Starsky, enough!”

“You never let me have any fun,” Starsky complained, but didn’t follow through on the punch.

Hutch squeezed his arm sympathetically, feeling the muscles under his hand quiver from the adrenaline rush flushing through Starsky’s body. They leaned in toward each other, needing the connection after the brief bout of violence.

Pulling away reluctantly, Hutch reached for his handcuffs and bent over the kneeling man to put them on. “You’re under arrest for-” He barely started reciting the charges and the Miranda warning when the man wrenched away from him.

“Get offa me, you fuckin’ faggot!”

Before Hutch could even react to the bizarre non sequitur, Starsky had the man by the collar, shaking him so hard, Hutch heard his teeth clack.

“That’s resisting arrest,” Starsky said as he grabbed the man’s arm, and wrenched it behind his back roughly, making the man yelp.

Hutch snapped the cuffs on, still nonplussed by the man’s insult.

“Hey, uh, Hutch,” Starsky said as he walked over to the injured woman sitting on the sidewalk, “why don’t you go call this in? And while we’re waiting for the black-and-whites and an ambulance you, uh, could maybe pay for the sunglasses you’re wearing. But, I’d stow those in the glove compartment before the uniforms get here.”

Frowning in confusion, Hutch reached up and suddenly remembered the silly souvenir sunglasses still on his face. He yanked them off, finally understanding the man’s reaction to his appearance. He knew what it looked like-a good looking blond guy in t-shirt and jeans with outrageously fey sunglasses here in Venice could only mean one thing. Someday he’d kill his partner.

The sunglasses were now speckled with blood, no doubt from when the woman spoke to him.

Jogging across the street, he paid for the glasses and used the Torino’s radio to call in the arrest. The street vendor was hard-pressed to keep a straight face as Hutch slapped a few bills in his palm. As he tossed the sunglasses in the Torino’s glove compartment, Hutch briefly considered wringing Starsky’s neck, and wondered why he ever put up with his insane partner. As he hung the mike up after reporting the incident, he had a sudden flashback of walking along the beach with Gage, scanning the area from behind Starsky’s sunglasses and seeing nothing. Yet, he had complete faith that somehow Starsky would see what he couldn’t and save him from becoming yet another of Gage’s victims. Which, of course, he did. Which, of course, Hutch knew he would.

He stared at the silly sunglasses and wondered, not for the first time, how “faggot” could be so much worse an epithet than “wife beater.” He wondered if Starsky knew.

~~~

“I mean, think about it, Starsk,” Hutch said as his partner applied himself to the Huggy Super Spectacular Bonus Special, which was nothing more than Huggy’s regular cheeseburger with fries and an additional side of coleslaw. “Here’s this . . . this animal, who has beaten his wife into total submission. It was obvious to both of us that this was a regular scene between them, and they have a history of domestics going back years. Yet, just the thought of being touched by a man in women’s sunglasses repulsed this guy so much he was willing to take a rap of resisting arrest to avoid me.”

“Well,” Starsky said thoughtfully around a mouthful of burger, “you gotta admit, they were pretty weird glasses.”

Hutch sat back, exasperated. In the background, he could hear ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses” playing. He felt like that song had been following him all day. Or maybe it was this whole issue. It had been haunting Hutch ever since they’d lost Johnny Blaine so needlessly just a few months ago. “I’m serious, Starsk.” He said it quietly. “I just . . . don’t understand. Why should anybody care . . . if some guys-” Remembering where they were and how crowded the bar was, Hutch suddenly found himself at a loss for words.

“-Wear cheap sunglasses?” Starsky offered at almost the same time ZZ Top said the same thing.

Knowing Starsky was using the phrase as a discreet code, Hutch nodded gratefully. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Why should anybody care who . . . anybody else . . . loves?”

Starsky put down his burger, indicating his intention to get serious. Hutch felt guilty about that, too. Johnny’s death had been harder on Starsky than anyone. The senior detective had been like a father to young Dave Starsky, after his own father had been killed. Hutch wasn’t sure Starsky had ever adjusted to the fact that Johnny had been a closeted gay. “I’m not sure we’re just talking about ‘love’, are we? I mean, I’m not exactly in love every time I take a pretty miss on home with me. I suspect most of those-guys in cheap sunglasses-aren’t in love either.” Starsky gave a little shrug.

“But no one freaks out when you take a pretty miss home,” Hutch reminded him. “It’d be a whole different story if you were taking home someone-in cheap sunglasses. But why should it matter? Why should anyone care?”

Starsky peered at him thoughtfully. “That guy really got to you today.”

Hutch sat back and tried to appear unaffected, then remembered who he was with and gave up. “Yeah, I guess he did. He was such a lowlife. Yet his battered, bleeding wife still loved him, and both of them, as pathetic as they were, clearly felt superior to anyone-”

“In cheap sunglasses,” Starsky interrupted.

Hutch closed his eyes. “It’s a fucked up world, Starsk, when you can’t even put the name to a different kind of love.”

“I think you just answered your own question, Hutch,” Starsky said, standing up and digging in his pocket.

“Where are you going?” Hutch asked as Starsky started to walk away. Starsky didn’t answer, but as he approached Huggy’s juke box, Hutch suddenly realized who’d been playing the ZZ Top song over and over.

~~~

What was the big deal anyway, Hutch found himself wondering. It was late in the day. He was leaning on the Torino while Starsky talked to a 50-ish Korean matron at a small grocery story not far from Hutch’s apartment. The store owner reportedly had witnessed previous altercations between the battling spouses, and the partners wanted to use that information to shore up their case against the husband. Of the two of them, Starsky was better at charming information out of reluctant female witnesses.

The store was only half a block or so away from the sunglass vendor and ZZ Top continued to drift in and out of his awareness. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see two Venice pretty boys modeling some of the more outrageous pairs of glasses for each other’s amusement. They were clearly having a good time and the vendor was also. Just as Hutch heard the refrain, ” . . . Rhinestone shades . . . cheap sunglasses . . . ” one of the boys donned an Elton John special-huge glasses glittering with rhinestones. Hutch could see them sparkle in the afternoon sun.

Their infectious good humor tugged a reluctant smile from him. But when one of the boys leaned over to get a quick kiss from the other, Hutch felt an ache of longing lodge deep in his chest-even though he didn’t know why.

How much courage did it take to show someone you loved them in a public place, he wondered. In the line of duty, Hutch had gone into burning buildings to rescue trapped victims, engaged in fire fights, and walked into any number of dangerous situations, like the one with Gage.

But would he have the courage to display a passion for a lover if that lover was, like him, a man?

How much courage would that take? More courage than Johnny had, and Johnny had been a man of formidable courage.

Just then, Starsky closed the cover of his note book and said something to the Korean shopkeeper that made her giggle and blush. Grinning, he winked at her and sauntered toward Hutch. He must’ve been feeling pretty good about the information, because his walk had more than its usual bounce, and Hutch couldn’t help notice that the shopkeeper was watching Starsky with the kind of admiring gaze he’d seen on many a woman who’d fallen victim to his partner’s charms.

In the background, ZZ Top sang, “-She’s got a west coast strut just as sweet as molasses-”

Starsky caught his eye just then and gave Hutch one of his disarming crooked smiles. And that suddenly, the ache under Hutch’s breastbone had a name and a focus. And Hutch knew he didn’t have nearly enough courage.

~~~

“I heard your domestic got pretty rowdy in booking,” Babcock said to Starsky while Hutch was hammering out the report.

Hutch looked up to see Starsky pause as he filled two mugs with the black sludge that passed for coffee in the squadroom.

“He flipped out while the charges were being read,” Babcock continued, seeming amused, “and started screaming about how no faggot cops were gonna lock him up to be fresh meat. He was convinced the only reason we were arresting him was so he could be gang raped in holding. It took three of us to restrain him for fingerprints. What the hell did you two do to him anyway?” Babcock was smiling, but he clearly was curious.

Starsky glanced at Hutch with a look that presaged trouble. “Oh, he just didn’t like Hutch’s sunglasses,” he told Babcock. Then added, “And he wasn’t too crazy about the sloppy kiss Hutch laid on him, either.”

The entire squadroom erupted in laughter. But in spite of the naughty twinkle in Starsky’s eye, Hutch couldn’t find any humor in it.

“Very funny,” he grumbled, typing away. He didn’t know why, but the whole thing still disturbed him.

“His old lady refuses to press charges,” Babcock told them when the laughter died down. “But we’ve got Starsky’s charges and he landed a few lucky shots down in booking, so she doesn’t have to. A few months in stir should give him something to think about. Starsky, in the future just let Hutch wear your sunglasses like you usually do. Maybe it’ll keep him out of trouble.”

Did everyone at the police station notice that? Hutch wondered, his face flaming. Was it that strange, for a man to borrow his friend’s sunglasses?

Who was he kidding? You don’t borrow, you take. His sunglasses. His clothes. His food. His drink. His chair. His space . . . He realized suddenly that he had never seen Simmons, Babcock’s partner, drink from Babcock’s bottle, or sit on the arm of his chair, or- Wear his sunglasses.

Hutch suddenly bolted out of his chair, grabbed the form he’d been working on and ripped it out of the typewriter. Mumbling something about finding a quieter place to work, he was out of the squadroom before anyone could react. But he felt Starsky’s puzzled gaze all the way down the hall.

Finding an empty interrogation room, he shut the door and leaned against it. Was he going crazy? Since when did typical squadroom baiting get on his nerves this bad? He glanced at the form in his hand. Why had he brought that anyway? It wasn’t like there were any typewriters in these rooms. He was stalling, plain and simple.

He dropped the form on the table and plopped into one of the chairs. The room smelled of stale smoke and stuffy air. How many suspects had he interrogated here? Wasn’t this the room where Starsky threw Hutch against the wall in a pretend fit of rage as he tried to break down the fake swami? He remembered the surprising power in his partner’s lithe form as he propelled Hutch against the wall with far more force than Hutch had expected. The memory of that contact was having a far different reaction on him now, and if he could figure out why, maybe he could handle it like an adult, and deal with it calmly, dispassionately.

That made him laugh in spite of his confusion. The one thing he’d never be able to feel about his partner was dis-passion. Starsky would never allow it. Starsky was passion. And feelings. All of them, especially the messy ones: love, hate, happiness, anger. Starsky never shied away from any of them. Not like Hutch, who’d learned early on that showing your feelings gave people power over you, a power they could use to their advantage, not yours.

He ran a hand through his hair and shut his eyes. Pull yourself together, Hutchinson. Stop acting like-

He couldn’t put a name to what he was acting like. Didn’t want to. Didn’t dare to.

The door to the interrogation room opened. He didn’t have to look to know who it was. Just like he didn’t have to look to see the slightly bemused, slightly puzzled look on Starsky’s face.

“You’re such a sentimentalist,” Starsky said quietly, and that did surprise him. “Hiding out in the swami’s confessional. Y’know, they never replaced that chair I broke.”

Hutch found himself smiling in spite of himself. “I think they’re waiting for you to replace it.”

“Then they’re gonna get pretty good at waiting.” Starsky shut the door. Walking over to the table, he looked down at the form Hutch had left there. He didn’t say anything about Hutch’s lack of progress, or the absence of a typewriter that could help him complete the form. “Just got a call from downstairs. He made bail.”

Hutch blinked in dismay, then pointed to the form. “This guy-? But-”

“His wife put up their house. Sang the blues to the judge. He’ll never do it again. He’s really sorry. You know the routine. Anyway, he’s out, at least till his hearing.”

Hutch stood, grinding his teeth in frustration.

Starsky moved to stand closer to him. “I figure we could ride through his neighborhood. Coast around ’til we see him. You could wear your new sunglasses and scare him into better behavior-or worse.”

Starsky was nearly on top of him, standing so close Hutch could smell his sandlewood aftershave. That scent was as much a part of Starsky as his ratty jeans and the casual slouch he affected that managed to catch every woman’s eye. But he wasn’t slouching now. He was tense, his attention fully focused on Hutch. Starsky might not know exactly what it was that was bugging Hutch, but he didn’t need to. He only needed to know that something was going on, and he was there, ready to give Hutch whatever he needed to get through it. Even, if necessary, some of those very messy emotions.

For some reason, that thought unnerved Hutch more than anything else.

Would he really? Give Hutch whatever he needed-?

“How come I get all the tough jobs in this partnership?” Hutch asked, his voice nearly cracking.

Starsky grinned. “Cause you’re the tough cop,” he said, chucking Hutch under his chin. “This week. C’mon. You can finish that report later. We got work t’do.”

Starsky strolled out of the room a few steps ahead of him. Just far enough ahead to trigger from Hutch’s memory-” . . . he’s got a west coast strut just as sweet as molasses-”

~~~

The rest of the day was pretty average, for which Hutch was extremely grateful. They ran down some leads Huggy had turned up on a cold case, which started to look really warm again. It was the kind of satisfying leg work that helped Hutch make sense of a senseless world. Examine the evidence, go through the process, match it with a lead, follow it through, and make an arrest that would stick. It was starting to look like they might not be that far from actually making an arrest on a case the rest of the department had long given up on. It reminded him of finally nailing Striker for killing Dobey’s old partner, Jackson. It was times like these when being a cop seemed like the best thing in the world. It was times like these that Hutch’s world made the most sense. He stopped worrying about cheap sunglasses and confrontations in interrogation rooms. Instead, he just fell into the comforting pattern of working with his partner, the one stable thing in a totally unstable world.

It was close to quitting time when Starsky began worrying about what they could have for dinner and they started the familiar back-and-forth debate of nutrition versus convenience. Hutch was about to concede that Huggy’s made the most sense since they had to report back to him about their progress on his lead, when the call came in. The address didn’t mean anything to them, even though it was in Hutch’s neighborhood. They got enough calls in that district for them to not to make the connection right away.

They were surprised, too, to see Simmons’ car in front of the apartment house. If Simmons and Babcock were on the scene, why were they being called in? How many detectives did they need on one crime scene anyway?

Simmons stopped them in the hallway. The crime lab guys were already on site, and there was the usual hustle and bustle going on around them. Simmons took Hutch by the arm and pulled him down the hall away from it. Starsky followed close.

“What’s going on?” Starsky asked impatiently.

“We thought you should know,” Simmons said, referring to himself and his partner Babcock. He glanced back and forth between Hutch and Starsky. “It’s your domestic from earlier today. They guy you busted on the street? The one who went bananas when he was getting booked?”

Hutch felt his stomach clutch. He wasn’t going to like this. There was too much activity in that apartment. But he couldn’t make himself ask.

Simmons never let go of his arm. “I’m sorry, Hutch. He . . . was released and . . . ”

Hutch nodded. “Starsky told me-”

“They must’ve got into it again when he got home,” Simmons said. “He killed her.”

At first the words didn’t make any sense to Hutch. And then Babcock was leading the handcuffed husband out of the apartment, and the pattern of blood spatters on the man’s clothes told Hutch more than Simmons’ words could.

Hutch didn’t remember exactly what happened next, except that he had his hands around the cuffed man’s throat and was yelling, “She loved you, you stupid bastard! She loved you!” while Simmons and Starsky struggled to wrestle him away. Finally, Starsky had him in a full body tackle dragging him bodily down the hallway and around a corner so they were out of sight of the apartment full of cops and lab guys, and the stupid bastard of a husband was in the back of Simmons’ car safely out of Hutch’s sight.

Distantly, Hutch was aware that he was in danger of losing it, really losing it, but another part of him realized it was okay because now it was just him and Starsky, and Starsky was never afraid of all those messy emotions no matter what he might say about soapy scenes. Starsky was holding him tight, really tight, tighter than when he’d had to struggle with Hutch in Cabrillo State when Hutch had been drugged nearly unconscious and couldn’t keep his feet, tighter than when Starsky had grabbed him in a near panic over the pentagram painted on Dobey’s cabin’s door while they were on the vacation from hell, and a lot tighter than when they’d hugged each other that really bad night after Johnny Blaine’s funeral-a funeral that had damn few cops in attendance. Did love always have to end in death and loneliness? Did Starsky know?

“Easy, Hutch, easy . . . ” Starsky murmured as he pressed them both against the darkened hallway wall. “Come on, boy, take it easy.”

Starsky was wearing a really dark pair of sunglasses, but Hutch needed to see his eyes, his blue, blue eyes, the eyes that couldn’t lie to him, not ever, the eyes that looked at him and saw all the honesty in him, the honesty he couldn’t hide.

He reached up impulsively and pulled the sunglasses off, letting them clatter to the ground. “Starsk-?”

“Shh, easy, buddy, take it easy.”

“But she loved him! How could he just take her love and throw it away like that? How could he kill her love-?” He stared into Starsky’s eyes, looking for answers there, for understanding, for clarity.

Starsky looked just as stricken as he felt, and Hutch realized that’s why he’d left his sunglasses on.

So, he didn’t know either.

Hutch felt himself lose the little hope he had left. He shook his head wearily. “What kind of a fucked up world is this, Starsk? Where people have to hide love? Where people kill love?”

“It’s not our world, Hutch,” Starsky said.

Hutch turned away. He didn’t want to see false promises in those honest eyes. “It’s everybody’s world-”

Starsky gave him a sudden shake. “Not ours, Hutch. ‘Cause we’re our world. No one else. Just you and me. All we’ve ever needed.”

Hutch held his breath, wanting, needing to believe that. Neither of them moved for a long moment, then finally Hutch reached up and touched Starsky’s cheek with his fingertips. “You promise?” he whispered.

In answer, Starsky kissed him, which took him by such surprise, he gasped, opening his mouth in shock. And Starsky moved right in as if he owned it, sliding his tongue between Hutch’s lips as if they’d been doing this for years. Hutch’s mouth molded itself around Starsky’s lips and tongue as if he’d been waiting for this moment his whole life. Hutch had the sudden thought that this was really the first real kiss he’d ever had, a kiss of equals, no shy tenuous touch, no hesitation, no awkward probing. Just the soft confident melding of lips and tongue with the hard edge of teeth behind it, and a flavor and scent he’d always known, the feeling of home, the taste of real love.

Starsky stepped back and broke the kiss gently, gripping Hutch’s chin as if to catch his attention. “You okay?” he whispered.

Hutch was surprised to realize that he was. He was aching inside, still reeling from the murder he couldn’t help regret, couldn’t help wonder how he might have prevented, but he was comforted in knowing it wasn’t something he had to bear alone.

He nodded, then, as Starsky released him, remembered the glasses he’d tossed away. Scooping them up, he realized one of the earpieces was hopelessly bent. He handed them to Starsky sheepishly.

His partner rolled his eyes. “Good thing we’ve got a spare set in the glove compartment,” he grumbled, grabbing Hutch by the elbow and towing him back down the hallway to the exit.

~~~FIN…for now~~~

The sequel to this story is Trick or Treat.