Defining a Subculture

Starsky squinted at the nearly blank piece of paper in the typewriter, then flipped on the desk lamp. Sometime during the last hour he’d been trying to work on their report, someone had turned off some of the overhead fluorescent lights leaving him in dimness.

With the lamp now providing adequate illumination, Starsky tried again to get at least a chunk of the report done before Hutch got back. With a determined sigh he began:

Me and Hutch had once again figured out how to get twenty-five hours out of a twenty-four hour day in which we’re only supposed to work ten of them.

Starsky stared at what he had just typed and instantly knew that Dobey would chew his ass to pieces if he began the report in that tone. He was just so pissed and so tired, and damn it all to hell, they had worked practically around the clock. Again. And where the hell was Hutch? Just how long did it take to book a bruised-up scumbag these days?

With a fresh piece of paper inserted, he tried again:

Detective Hutchinson and I arrived on the scene at… Damn it, what time did we get there? Come on, Hutch, hurry up. I need some details.

Thankfully, Hutch showed up before Starsky was able to get more frustrated. “Took you long enough.”

“Sorry,” Hutch murmured and plopped into his desk chair. “They were backed up downstairs, then Harris started groaning for real–”

“For real?” Starsky cut in. “He wasn’t bleeding or anything when I cuffed him.” Starsky took no pleasure in the fact they’d had to use unconventional means to subdue Harris, but he wasn’t going to shed any crocodile tears over the man’s bumps and bruises, either. He was pure evil scum and he was damn lucky to still be alive.

“Yeah, it was for real,” Hutch said. “I called the nurse in to look at him and she said he probably has a busted rib.”

“That’s great, more paperwork for us.” Starsky started digging in the pile of blank forms they kept in the middle of their desk. “So, what happened, medical transfer?”

“You guessed it, he’s on his way to Memorial with a couple of uniforms.”

Starsky nodded an acknowledgement and decided to put Hutch to work. “Do you want the incident with a suspect form, or do you wanna finish the main report? Which we’ll then have to staple to the incident form.” Starsky put his arms on the desk and laid his head on them. “I hate this part of the job.”

“I hated the whole day,” Hutch said, and the sadness in his voice made Starsky raise his head. “Rape, murder…Zach. And we were moving so fast we let the captain steamroll us on releasing Chaco. Now he’s dead, too.”

“We didn’t tell him everything,” Starsky said. “He didn’t know Chaco had pulled a knife on that lady before we arrested him.”

“Because we were moving too fast,” Hutch said, his frustration clear in his voice. “We thought we had him on rape and murder and could fill everyone in on that pesky little hostage offence when we had him in booking and could actually sit down and do the reports.” Hutch made a sound between a laugh and a hiccup and Starsky sat up in his chair.

“We didn’t know Zach was going to pull that shit, partner. We had the right guy. We had the toe tip,” Starsky said softly. “We thought Zach’s ID would be solid.”

“Yeah, well he fooled us, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, he did,” Starsky agreed. He knew that he and Hutch had a lot to privately debrief about Zach. About the whole damn case, but now wasn’t the time. He rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. “Okay, lets get this paperwork organized and finished or we’re never going home tonight.”

Hutch nodded and left his chair to peer over Starsky’s shoulder. “Is that page two of the report in the typewriter? And please know I’m asking hopefully.”

“Nope,” Starsky said. “Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s the first and only page.”

“Starsk….”

He tried to defend himself against Hutch’s tone. “I had a hard time gettin’ started. I kept thinking about Zach, and then I thought about the other report that the captain was criticizing earlier.” Starsky narrowed his eyes at Hutch’s raised eyebrow. “I did! I couldn’t think of a single adjective, and I couldn’t remember what time we got on scene.”

“I don’t think it was your adjectives that Dobey was criticizing, “Hutch said, using his hip to bump Starsky’s shoulder. “I think it was your adverbs. Now get up and let me take a shot at it.”

Starsky remained seated. “Maybe you should dictate and I’ll type. Start with the time.”

Hutch looked at the clock. “It’s nearly midnight.”

“Not the time,” Starsky said loudly, “I need the time!”

“I just told you the time!”

“I need the time for the report, dummy. I don’t want to know what time it is now. I don’t want to know that we’re never gonna get any sleep tonight.” Starsky tapped all his fingers on the keys and took a deep breath. “I just need to know the time we got on scene.”

“We didn’t write it down?” Hutch asked.

“No, we didn’t write it down!” Starsky yelled, then with an effort lowered his voice. “Pick a time, pick any time for me to type on this stupid report.” Starsky looked at Hutch hopefully. Once the time was down, the rest might get written more easily.

“Okay, I pick seven a.m.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Hutch, it wasn’t seven a.m.!”

“I know that,” Hutch said. “I mean I pick seven a.m. tomorrow morning, for me to come back and finish the reports before Dobey gets in. We’re both fried right now and it’s going to take us hours to do what I can do in no time after a little sleep.”

“Do I have to come in at seven a.m., too?” Starsky asked, feeling like he was about to get a reprieve. “I mean, we’re supposed to be off tomorrow and I was gonna take the Torino over to that great place on Marsh and get her detailed.”

“No, you don’t have to come in but you’ll owe me one,” Hutch said, waving his finger in emphasis. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Partner, did I ever tell you that you’re the best? I’ll buy you a beer at Huggy’s tomorrow after I get my baby washed up.” Starsky happily grabbed his jacket and turned off the desk lamp. “I mean it, the absolute best!”

“Right,” Hutch said. “I’ll remind you of that the next time you’re pissed at me.” Hutch stood up and nodded at Starsky. “I hope I don’t regret this in a few hours.”

“Not a chance,” Starsky said, and grabbed Hutch by the elbow before he could think any more about his choices. “You’re the Morning Magic Man! You’ll have run a mile and knocked these reports out before the sun’s all the way up.”

“Oh, boy.” Hutch sounded sad again.

“Come on, let’s go.” With a final tug at Hutch’s elbow, Starsky moved them both out of the squad room.

~*~*~

“Did we eat today?” Starsky asked. “My stomach is growling and I swear I can’t remember eating.”

Hutch had been resting his head against the Torino’s passenger window, but he roused himself enough to respond. “I don’t know, Starsk, I leave remembering when we’ve eaten, or when we should eat, up to you.”

“Well, then, I blew that responsibility because I know we didn’t eat.” Starsky’s stomach rumbled as if on cue. “Hear that?”

“Yes, I hear that, Starsk, you’re very musical,” Hutch said wryly. “And it’s hard to find a sandwich when you’re chasing a murderer.”

“Truer words, partner, truer words…aren’t you hungry?”

“I’m too tired to know.”

“I know,” Starsky said. “You’re hungry. And I’m hungry. I’m gonna stop at that Jack in the Box near your place. We’ll go through the drive thru and get hamburgers.”

“I don’t want a hamburger at this time of night!” Hutch protested. “I’ll never fall asleep.”

“Fine, I’ll get a hamburger and you’ll get a milkshake.”

“All that sugar?”

“Shut up, Hutch.”

“Fine,” Hutch said calmly. “But I don’t want chocolate.”

“‘Course not, this time of night you want strawberry.”

“Right.”

“Right.” Starsky grinned but didn’t say anything else until he reached the drive thru and placed their orders. Within minutes he was taking one warm bag and two milkshakes from the cashier.

“Here, take the bag and the shakes,” Starsky said, shoving the food at Hutch. “I’m gonna pull into a parking space.”

“We’re eating in the car?” Hutch asked. “Aren’t you afraid I’m going to dribble or something on your precious seat?”

“Dribble away, I’m gettin’ her detailed tomorrow, remember?” Starsky pulled into a space behind the restaurant and took the bag back from Hutch. He gratefully unwrapped his burger and stuck a fry in his mouth.

“Yeah, I do. God, what a day,” Hutch said, sounding sad again as well as exhausted. “We were so close to stopping him…what a waste.”

Starsky could take a lot in life and on the job, more than most, but he had a few weaknesses and one of them was an inability to protect himself from the pain of knowing that Hutch was hurting.  Whether it was physical, mental, or emotional, Hutch in pain caused Starsky to ache all over. It messed with him, because someone who was a born idealist, who truly wanted to help those in need, bled a little harder when everything went to shit. And Starsky wished he could spare Hutch that and do the bleeding for him.

“But you know we did everything we could, right?” Starsky asked quietly. “We followed every lead at about a hundred miles an hour. Zach was just a determined man.” Starsky took his shake from Hutch and nodded at the one Hutch was holding in encouragement for him to start drinking.

“Determined to get revenge, or determined to commit suicide?” Hutch asked. “Or was it both?”

“Probably a little of both,” Starsky said. “He was in mourning and angry and covering it up with that good old boy routine of his.” Starsky took a large bite of his burger and handed Hutch a fry. For a minute the only sound in the car was chewing.

“You know,” Starsky continued after he’d swallowed. “The hospital shouldn’t have released Zach. He had a good conk on the head; he might have had a concussion.”

“That’s true,” Hutch agreed, reaching for the bag on Starsky’s lap. He helped himself to another fry. “And if he had a concussion causing confusion on top of the grief and anger–”

“–like I said, a determined man,” Starsky repeated.

“He never said if they had kids, right?” Hutch asked, and then went on before Starsky could answer. “No, I don’t think they did, because that might have stopped him. No matter how much he was grieving he wouldn’t have wanted to leave kids alone in the world with no parents.”

Starsky knew Hutch was just going through the process he always did after a difficult case, trying to find a shred of decency, trying to make some sense of it in his head while his heart was still hurting. This wasn’t the time to remind Hutch of what he already knew too well: that people made stupid, selfish decisions every day and most of those times it didn’t matter if kids were in their life or not.

“Maybe,” Starsky said gently, “or maybe not.” He took another bite of his burger to give himself a second to say the next thing. “Remember what Zach said about his wife just before he died? Sounded to me like Emma Lou was not just his one and only, but his all and everything. He had a business, employees, a home, hopefully some friends…but she was it for him; the reason he got out of bed every morning.”

The parking lot was dimly lit, but Starsky could see Hutch’s expression clearly enough and knew his words had had an impact.

“You know something, Starsk? I don’t know what this says about me, but if something horrific like that had happened to Vanessa–even during the brief time of our marriage when we were happy–I wouldn’t have done what Zach did. I wouldn’t have tried to get revenge.” Hutch looked at Starsky hard, as if he were willing him to understand. “I wouldn’t have killed for her or committed suicide.”

Talking about Hutch’s ex-wife was sometimes a landmine so Starsky chose his words carefully. “I know that, buddy, that’s not the way you’re wired. It’s not in you to commit murder, no matter how much the bad guy might deserve it.” Starsky broke off a chunk of his burger and handed it to Hutch.

“No, not for Vanessa I couldn’t,” Hutch said, and then took a bite and a sip of his shake.

Something about Hutch’s tone made Starsky stifle a shiver. “You couldn’t do that no matter what the circumstances were. No way, no how.”

“Probably not,” Hutch said. “Hopefully not. Wiring right? And speaking of wiring, what the hell was Fat Rolly talking about?”

Starsky wished he wasn’t so tired and that this day hadn’t been so fucked up, because Hutch’s clumsy change of subject was making his head spin. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You don’t remember what Rolly said about his subculture?”

Starsky thought back, but nothing sprang to mind. “At the hospital?”

“No, Starsk, earlier,” Hutch said. “At his…place of business, so to speak. You don’t remember? You were trying to get the coffee machine to work.”

“I remember that,” Starsky answered. “Damn machine released the coffee without dropping a cup down first.”

“Right, and we were leaning on Rolly to cough up anything we could use and he said he had a subculture.”

The sarcastic words Rolly had used came back to Starsky then and he nodded. “Yeah, I remember. He said he had a code, right? Something about the code of the subculture.”

“That was it,” Hutch said. “The code of the subculture. What do you think he meant by that?”

“You know what he meant as well as I do, he was talkin’ about all the slime he runs with.”

“Sure, I know who he was referring to and of course I know what the code is,” Hutch said. “Honor amongst thieves, but Rolly has no honor to thieves or anyone else, so was it just a bullshit line or does Rolly really think he’s part of a culture, sub or otherwise? And was he devoted to it?”

“The criminal culture,” Starsky said with a snort. “Sure, he’s in the thick of it, or was. I don’t know about devoted. That sounds like he’d have to be capable of a real emotion, and there’s no way in hell that Rolly knows what a real emotion–outside of greed–even is.”

“He’ll find it harder to be greedy in prison. At least he’ll be off the streets for a while no matter what kind of deal the D.A. offers him,” Hutch said. “There’s no way he won’t do at least a little time in San Quentin.”

That reminded Starsky of something else. “We can’t forget to type that up tomorrow. The captain will have to initial it before we send our recommendations to the D.A.  Rolly is a piece of shit, but he did cooperate.”

“You mean I can’t forget to type that up,” Hutch said.

“We, I, what’s the difference?” Starsky crammed the last bite of his hamburger in his mouth and crumpled up the wrapper.

“There’s usually no difference,” Hutch said, “but I have a feeling I’m going to be noticing a difference tomorrow morning at seven a.m.”

“It’s this morning, now, partner, not tomorrow morning. We lost tomorrow about a half hour ago and headed full speed into today.”

“Damn. I’m not even tired anymore,” Hutch said, sounding surprised. “Weird, huh, I was practically falling asleep when we pulled in here, and now I’m wide awake.”

Starsky shook the bag and then reached inside for the last handful of fries. “You’re very weird, always have been, and you’re also exhausted.”

“I didn’t say I was weird,” Hutch said, grabbing a few of the fries out of Starsky’s hand. “I said it was weird. That I’m not tired anymore.”

Starsky hurried to put the last two fries in his mouth before Hutch liberated them, too. “I know what you said, and what I said was that you’re weird. Are we clear?”

Hutch gave Starsky a smile. “Very. I’m still curious about Rolly, though. Not sure why, but I am.”

“That’s because you’re exhausted and not thinking straight.” Starsky started the engine. “Let’s get you home and then get me home. Unlike you I’m smart enough to know when I’m exhausted.”

“We’re kind of a subculture,” Hutch said, laying his hand on Starsky’s knee and keeping it there. Starsky didn’t know if Hutch was silently asking him to stay parked, or if he just wanted to touch, but whichever it was Starsky didn’t pull the car out.

“You mean because we’re cops?” Starsky asked. “I suppose the police force has a culture. I’m not sure the two of us are charter members of that culture, but, yeah, we’re part of it.”

“I said subculture, Starsk. You know, something underneath the big thing it’s part of.”

Starsky shook his head and picked up the hand resting on his knee. He laced their fingers together and gently squeezed. “Do you know you stop making any kind of sense when you’re whipped? It’s like you start speaking in a foreign language or something. What the hell did you just say?” Starsky turned his body slightly so he could look at Hutch. “Strike that, I know what you said, but what the hell does it mean?”

Hutch laughed and returned the squeeze to Starsky’s hand. “I was clarifying what you said.”

“I know what I said, and it didn’t need clarifying. What you said needs clarifying.”

“Okay, it’s like this,” Hutch said. “We’re cops, but we’re not like other cops. We’re on the periphery–”

“Periphery? You know what time it is, and you’re throwin’ around words like periphery?”

“Do you want me to continue or not?”

Starsky took a moment to answer. “I think so.”

“Like I was saying,” Hutch continued. “We’re part of the police culture, but more on the periphery, or fringe if you’d prefer? Do you?”

“Do I what?” Starsky asked, regretting his decision to get them food before sleep now.

“Prefer the word ‘fringe’?”

“I’d prefer to be sleeping instead of talkin’ in the Jack in the Box parking lot in the middle of the night, but it doesn’t look like that’s in the cards I’ve been dealt tonight.”

Hutch nodded and went on, unruffled. “I thought you’d like fringe better. Okay, so we’re on the fringe of police culture, but we have our own vibrant–”

“Vibrant, now, Hutch? You walk around talking like this all the time and Dobey pounds on me for a few colorful adjectives.” Starsky unlaced their hands so he could put his on Hutch’s thigh. “Life is not fair.”

“It’s your adverbs that need work,” Hutch said, and scooted a little closer to Starsky. “So, as I was saying, we have our own vibrant culture within the main culture of the police department. It’s our culture. Or, more specifically our subculture. It belongs to us, to you and me. No one else is part of it; no one else would ever understand it. The way we work, the way we talk, the way we live.”

Starsky thought about that and knew Hutch was right. Other partners on the force were friends, some good friends, and some were barely friendly at all but still worked well together. Police officers had a brotherhood, one Starsky was proud to be part of, but that was not what Hutch was talking about. Starsky knew they were different, and while he seldom questioned it, or even thought about it too much, he was always grateful it was there. That secret special something that made them, them. Solid, unshakeable, steel in his spine and in Hutch’s. It propped him up and pushed him forward. And he never had to work at it, not once. Their partnership had been born on the day they met, before they knew each other’s last names. It was pure and beautiful and the best part of his life. But there was something that needed clarifying.

He stroked Hutch’s thigh and tried to verbalize what was bothering him while he was still trying to figure it out in his head. “You know we’d still have our subculture… we’d still be us–work the way we work, talk the way we talk, feel the way we feel even if we never got it on, right?” There, he’d said it and it was somehow very important to him that Hutch agreed with him, that Hutch knew the love, the partnership, was different from the sex.

“I know that, babe,” Hutch said, and Starsky wanted to hug him close even in the tight quarters of the Torino’s bench seat. “Even if we never got it on again–”

“We’ll get it on again,” Starsky said firmly.

“But even if we didn’t, nothing would change about us. We’d still be the partners we’ve always been.” Hutch laid his head against Starsky’s shoulder. “Wanna know why?”

“Yes, and then I wanna get us out of this parking lot.”

“Because we have devotion between us,” Hutch said. “I don’t see that ever changing.”

The sound of the word the way Hutch said it put peace in Starsky’s heart, and he pulled the Torino out of the parking space and headed toward Hutch’s cottage. “Me, either, partner.”

The End