Remembering A Cop

Starsky and Hutch find ways to cope after a visit to Brooklyn doesn’t go the way they expected.

This story originally appeared in the SHareCone 2004 Zine.

November, 1979

Side-by-side, the two men stood silently in front of the gravestone. The fall twilight was gathering swiftly in the cemetery, which had no visitors other than Starsky and Hutch. The early November air was cool, the sky overcast. Hutch was chilly.

“Glad we didn’t come a few days ago,” Starsky said, at last. “Couldn’t handle this place on Halloween.”

Hutch merely looked over at him compassionately.

“Yeah,” Starsky added after a pause, apparently reading Hutch as easily as he always did. “It’s hard, no matter when it is.”

“Yeah.”

Even though Starsky would have been the last to admit it, Hutch knew his partner was becoming more upset by the minute. He reached over and held Starsky’s hand. Hand in hand, they stood there quietly for a few more minutes.

“Do you mind?” Starsky finally asked.

“No, of course not.” Hutch moved off to the far side of the path, standing a respectful distance behind his partner.

Hutch watched Starsky bow his head. He was far enough away that he couldn’t hear the whispered words Starsky was saying. He suspected he wouldn’t understand them in any case. Hebrew was not a language with which Hutch had the least familiarity.

After a few moments, the other man straightened up and slowly turned around to face Hutch. His eyes were moist and bright in the gloom. “Okay. Thanks,” Starsky said. “I’m done.”

“Did you say the Kaddish?”

Starsky glanced down for a moment. “Only the first couple’a lines. I forgot the rest.”

Hutch grimaced in sympathy and moved back towards Starsky. “I’d like to say a few words myself before we go.”

Starsky’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “You do?”

Hutch nodded, with growing resolve. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Okay.”

Hutch looked his partner in the eye. “Was he religious, Starsk? Did he believe in God?”

Starsky nodded, with a rueful grin on his face. “It was a big deal for him. He did it all, the whole nine yards. What’s that say for me, that I never go to temple?”

Hutch smiled. “Well, I’m no great shakes in that department, myself. And my mother practically lives at our church. So I guess we’re the same there.”

Starsky inclined his head, clearly not disputing that in the least.

Hutch rested his hand on Starsky’s shoulder for a moment, then walked back over to the grave. Heedless of the damp ground, he knelt in front of the stone, letting his eyes drift across the inscription. Hebrew characters lined the top and the bottom of the stone, with a crown etched in the center above the name and dates.

Swallowing his unease, he clasped his hands together and bowed his head. His lips moved soundlessly as he recited the Lord’s Prayer, which was the one and only prayer he retained any memory of from his childhood Sundays.

…the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

The routine prayer out of the way, Hutch was momentarily at a loss. Then he closed his eyes firmly, and murmured words from his heart.

Hope you’re somewhere where you somehow can hear this, Joseph. I wanted to come by and introduce myself, but you probably already know all there is to know about me, about me and your son. I don’t know if you would approve of all that we are to each other, but I hope you approve of me, in some way. Hope that you know that I do my best to take care of him, to watch out for him, to support him and love him the best way I can.

I hope you’re proud of him, Joe. He never wanted to be anything but a cop, after growing up with you. He never wanted to be anything but a credit to your name, someone that you would be proud of for being a great cop, a good man, an honest man. He does his best. You have to see that, don’t you?

I’m not half the cop, half the man he is, but with him at my side, we can and do, do good things. We’ve made L.A. a better city to live in, I know that. Us being there, doing our job the best we can, has helped the city. We can be proud of that.

It probably killed you all over again when he was shot. I don’t know how he made it or how I survived it, but he did, I did, we did. And I’ll never let it happen again. You have my word on that. He tells me it wasn’t my fault, but I’m his partner and I let him down. I’m just so damn grateful that he pulled through. That I got a second chance. That we had the chance to finally figure it out and realize what we were heading towards.

I don’t know all that much about you, you know. I hope you had a good life, as short as it was. If I were a godly man, I’d pray for you. But I’m not, so all l can do to honor you is to love your son with every fiber of my being. And I do. And I will, always.

Take care, Joseph. Rest in peace.

As Hutch sensed Starsky coming back towards him, towards the grave, Hutch appended a quick prayer.

God, or Jesus, or Jehovah, whoever you really are, if you’re even out there anywhere…please give Joseph your blessing and your peace.

Hutch stood up just as Starsky reached for him.

“You okay, babe?”

Hutch nodded.

Starsky leaned over and put a pebble on the top of the gravestone. He straightened up and put a smile on his face. “Let’s go, then. It’s getting late.”

“Okay.” As they turned to walk down the path to the exit, Hutch stole one final look at the gravestone, the name and date of death of Starsky’s father imprinting themselves on Hutch’s soul.

“Man, I’m starved,” Starsky declared, as they got closer to the wrought iron gate of Washington Cemetery. “Why don’t we head down to Geno’s and grab a pizza?”

“Yeah, sure,” Hutch answered, distracted. Being at heart an agnostic, it bothered him that he’d appealed to a higher power at all. But it’d felt right. Felt like the right thing to do for Starsky’s dad. He felt–no, he knew–that things were okay with Joe now.

However, things weren’t okay with Starsky’s mother.

Starsky picked up on Hutch’s descent into his funk as effortlessly as Hutch had keyed in earlier on Starsky’s gathering sorrow. “Hey…what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

Starsky stopped walking and frowned at his partner. “This place get to you that badly?”

“No.” Hutch was being honest. “I’d glad we came.”

Starsky nodded. “Okay. Then what’s the deal?”

Likewise Hutch frowned, finding himself saying what he’d told himself he wouldn’t say. “Just wish we could get a hotel room for tonight. A place we could take it easy.”

Starsky cast an appraising look at him. “You mean, get away from Mom.”

Hutch managed to not say anything this time.

“I’m sorry, Hutch,” Starsky apologized. “I never thought she’d take it that badly. It’s wild, I gotta tell you.”

This Hutch knew to be true. Hence, Starsky’s suggestion of a trip to the cemetery in the late afternoon of a gloomy fall day. He knew Starsky was looking for approval of their love, of their commitment to each other. Approval he manifestly was not getting it at his mother’s apartment.

There’d been one huge fight since they’d flown in two days ago, with the resulting chill in the air not attributable to the weather. Rachel hadn’t missed a chance to non-verbally convey her total disapproval of Hutch’s presence in Starsky’s life– never mind his presence in her son’s bed.

“A hotel would be a load of money, Hutch,” Starsky continued, regretfully. “Just give her some time. She’ll come around. It’s not you, really.”

Whatever it was, really, it was causing problems. Hutch had always pictured Starsky’s home here in Brooklyn to be a warm, happy, loving place. Prior to this visit, his first to New York, he’d frequently contrasted that home most unfavorably with the tastefully decorated, utterly soulless house in which he’d endured his youth.

But Rachel, someone who’d unfailingly been pleasant and cheerful to him on the phone, was giving him in person unrelenting, poorly concealed passive aggression. She was giving his mother and father a run for their money in her ability to turn a cold shoulder to someone she didn’t like.

“She hates me, Starsky,” Hutch told him, sadly. “This was supposed to be such a great trip for you, and it’s not going smoothly. Maybe if I went home early–”

“No damn way,” Starsky responded at once. “We’re partners. She doesn’t want you around, means she doesn’t want me around.”

“I know she wants you around!” Hutch burst out. “But maybe that’s the problem. She’s probably been reliving your dad’s death for months now. Then us showing up and abruptly announcing that we’re sleeping together…”

“She had to know,” Starsky stated flatly. “It is what it is. She needed to know what the score was.”

“We told her, didn’t we?” Hutch reminded both of them, ruefully.

It had been short and sweet, and Hutch had had no earthly idea Starsky was going to be quite that candid. They’d landed at JFK, taken the bus to the Howard Beach station and then the subway over to Bensonhurst, the Brooklyn neighborhood Starsky had grown up in. After walking to the building, Starsky had marched upstairs into his old apartment, kissed his mother, and then sat her down right away.

“I’m not gonna beat around the bush,” he’d proclaimed, looking his mother in the eye. It wasn’t even one full minute after arriving there. “Hutch and I are in love, Ma, and we’re living together.”

It had taken a moment for it to sink in for Rachel, and in that moment, Hutch had seen the face of things to come. He’d never–ever–had anyone look at him with such instant malevolence. His heart had taken a swift ride to the bottom of his stomach.

The rest of the visit had sailed downhill from there.

“I guess you’re right, Starsk,” Hutch agreed. “We can’t afford a hotel room, and we’re only here for one more night. Maybe your mom just needs some time to get used to the idea of us.”

“That’s the spirit,” Starsky responded, clearly pleased. “You’ll see. It’ll all work out.”

Hutch tried to look back towards the grave as Starsky and he left the cemetery, but Joseph Starsky’s grave was back around a corner in the path. It was out of sight.

He sighed, but even as the sigh was escaping his lips, he realized that Starsky was right. It really would all work out. After all, Starsky was alive: living with him, working beside him, loving only him. It all could have gone down so much differently. It could have been Starsky’s grave he visited today, not Starsky’s father’s grave.

He was so lucky. So damn lucky. And the hell with what Rachel thought. Hutch had gotten whatever blessing he needed for his and Starsky’s partnership, and for their love, from this visit to Joseph’s grave.

As they passed out of the iron gates of the cemetery, Hutch felt his spirits lift. Throwing his arm over Starsky’s shoulder, he quickened his pace.

“Hey, Hutch…where’s the fire?”

“You said pizza, didn’t you? Pizza and beer? I’m ready! Hurry up!”

Obediently, Starsky walked faster, grinning over at his partner.

Behind them in the unlit graveyard, the last of the gray daylight surrendered to the dusk, obscuring the monuments in the gloom of the night.

Together, Starsky and Hutch hurried towards the lights of the shops, homes, and restaurants that populated the Brooklyn neighborhood.

THE END