Table of Contents
I tried to remember the first time I met Kira.
What if I’d known at that meeting that she would be the catalyst for everything that was to turn sour in my life since that day? Surely a person must get some sense, some undercurrent that the person who they are meeting for the first time, getting to know, is inherently all wrong for them.
……This person is going to rip your life to shreds…if you let her. And I had let her. I had let her into my life willingly. I was a happy participant of my own downfall.
Written in alternating First Person perspective.
An earlier piece of work.
Chapter One
Two weeks and two days
Two weeks and two days…that’s how long I had been feeling like this. That’s how long since my world had been rocked and hadn’t righted itself.
That’s how long since I had lost my best friend.
I had been standing in the center of my bathroom with this one constant thought going around and around in my throbbing head. My body had been shell-shocked, literally just hours before, but it was the figurative shell shock that was killing me slowly here.
One hour ago I had still been feeling like death, standing dazedly in the center of the bathroom, towel wrapped around my waist, still dripping from a shower that had begun a long time ago and finished God knows how long after it started. All I know is that the water had turned from hot to lukewarm to freaking freezing cold and I had still been standing under its stream. The cold water was not the problem; I almost welcomed the ferocity of the sensation. I had stood transfixed with my face turned up to the frigid sting of the spray, letting it bite into my flesh and numb whatever part of me that was not already numb. After a while even that sensation was not abrasive enough, not harsh enough to do the trick.
I knew what the next trick would be and I needed to climb out of the shower to get it.
The acrid smell of the smoke from the blast of the grenade still permeated my nostrils and I could not hear anything much but a buzzing drone. Specks of white plaster were still falling from my hair as I toweled it off. In the mirror I caught sight of the fresh graze on the side of my face and noticed just how deep was the cut near my eyebrow. I fingered it gingerly and remembered that it was courtesy of a flying shard of plaster or glass. My right elbow was throbbing and the bruising was already coloring up under the swollen and torn flesh.
“T’riffic…just t’riffic…shit!”
Could have been much worse. I consoled myself. Far, far worse.
But it was worse. Far, far worse. Never have I felt this ripped up inside. Never.
In the seconds that I held that grenade in my hand, I knew that it would be one sure and certain way out of this terrible pain. It would release me from my own hell.
Tonight had put a stop to Joey’s sick delusions…no more women would die at the legacy of this man’s post traumatic stress psychosis. Vietnam had fucked him up well and truly and there was a big part of me that felt for this sicko. I knew what a tour of duty could do to even the toughest guy, let alone someone who was emotionally fragile. I could not feel anything but pity for him. Yes tonight might have been the end of Joey and his murderous delusions, and the hell he had bestowed on the dead women and their grieving families may have been given some closure. But tonight brought no closure for my own private hell.
Joey and his victims were not on my mind now. Once we cleared the dance room some hours ago and checked back in at the precinct for the basic necessary paperwork, I had effectively shelved the assignment. Christ, I just had to let go sometime and close the door on this shit or I could not continue to function. I had really reached the end of my stamina with this one.
Now that the case was over, now that I had nothing to divert myself from the extent of my own grief, I did not know where to take my mind to escape the blackness that had descended on my every waking moment.
This case had cost me enormously in emotional currency and I had no idea who was going to be able to wipe the ledger clean.
What price do you put on a friendship? A friendship of a lifetime?
Who can replace the loss of a best friend?
I rummaged around in my bedroom and found a well-worn soft t-shirt and pulled it over my still damp body. Not bothering to do up my jeans I padded out to the kitchen.
I threw open the lower kitchen cupboard and found my next trick. Yep. This should do it. I pulled out the unopened bottle of tequila and as I went to pluck a glass from the drainer, gave a shrug… “Fuck it” and took the bottle sans glass into my small living room.
The lamp was on and that was all the light I wanted. I gave a momentary thought to food, as I could not remember when I had in fact last eaten. I had the distinct feeling that I should be hungry and should eat, but the momentary thought was just that. “Fuck it” seemed to be the phrase that fit me best tonight and I spat it out into the empty room again.
Bottle in one hand and cushion in the other I let my sore and aching body collapse onto the sofa.
The cut on my eyebrow was stinging like a bitch but I was down now and too exhausted to return to the kitchen to retrieve some ice to soothe the swelling. No doubt the medicine in my hand would help with the pulsing pain in my head and the throb from the deep cut. Should have listened to the medics who responded to the scene tonight and got a butterfly suture or two to seal it up. As always though all I wanted was to clear out and get home as soon as the business side of the operation was done.
I could hear Hutch’s jibes and mother hen voice from so many times over the years. “Starsk. Just let them look at you for God’s sake. It won’t take a minute. You might need a stitch or two.” How many times had he nagged me with that same phrase over the years? Always fussing for Christ sake.
Not tonight though. Tonight we had been matter of fact and officious with each other. Clearing the scene, securing the offender, detailing the events as they went down. If either of us had concerns for the other’s well being as a result of the fallout of the explosion we did not address them. Well at least not to each other.
Kira did not seem perturbed about Hutch or myself and as soon as the dust had settled from the grenade’s fallout she had taken no time in pulling herself out from under me to crawl over to fawn over Joey’s emotionally broken body.
Splayed out now I looked at the tequila bottle. “Well hello friend.” and unscrewing the cap, threw it across the room and took my first long swig. The burn was as hot and caustic in my throat as the freezing needles of the shower water had been on my face. I let the trail of its fire meander down into my stomach and the sensation was a pure rush. Right now I needed extremes. Extremes of every sensation to ward off the other extremes of gut wrenching emotion that had been plaguing me for ….well probably for more than, two weeks and two days.
As I molded my aching head and sore body deeper into my sofa I ran over the events of this case as they had unfolded over the past month or more. Hutch and I had been brought in to investigate murders on women who had been working in an outdated dance hall. Somewhere in the mix Kira had been brought into the investigation too and somewhere in the mix, everything turned to shit.
Hutch and I had gone into this case like we always did, but we had come out like we have never been before.
Enemies.
Another long pull of tequila had been gagging and spluttering, but I kept it down and closed my eyes waiting for the kick of the almost pure alcohol to pull my mind into another realm. I did not want to keep thinking this same stuff over and over again and if inebriation was the answer then I was more than happy to let the tequila to take me there. The spirit was starting to do its job and in the lightheaded haziness that started to take me over, I contemplated the murders of the case and the collateral damage along the way. Yep, there sure was a lot of collateral damage – and casualties that Joey’s sick actions had inadvertently set in place.
However the disturbed behavior of this emotionally deranged poor son of a bitch could not account for at least two of the casualties in this case.
Hutch and I were solely responsible for the damage we had incurred ourselves and for the absolute grief we had bestowed on each other during this investigation. I shifted my body and groaned at my stiff muscles that had been slammed during the fall.
It would be easy to blame Hutch entirely, or Kira and Hutch but I knew that I was also to blame. I had trusted them both. Kira! What a loser to have been taken in by her manipulative game.
Stupid ass Starsky! You stupid fucking idiot!
I grimaced at the tequila back taste or was it the back taste of pain?
Two weeks and two days.
“Fuck you, Hutch! Fuck you!”
By now I was well and truly feeling the effects of my own prescribed medication. It seemed that there was a hell of a lot to be said for this idea of healing thyself.
Cop, Heal thyself. Yeah!
I was doing a damn good job of it and with each slug I felt better and better. Maybe not completely better but hell, at least I was feeling less and less in touch with myself. That had to be good didn’t it? That had to be a healthy thing surely, because over the past weeks I had been positively self-destructive. God I was so damn self destructive I needed to take a hit out against me before I caused myself any further harm. I was a mean, lean, lethal machine against one David Starsky.
Now that was good...I smirked and snorted at my own side joke and alliteration… take a hit out on myself. That’s damn good Starsky! And yeah, I am – “self destructive”. I should have a warning brandished on my forehead. ‘This cop is highly dangerous to himself!’
God I was freaking hilarious. Shame then that I was playing to an audience of one. I had better listen to myself because it was damn clear no body else was paying me any attention right at this moment.
But then I had not acted on the classic opportunity to put a finish to all the inner shit that would not leave me in peace over the past weeks. I admonished my own failure to put my money where my mouth was.
Hah! Had the perfect opportunity to self-destruct tonight buddy and you just threw it away! Had that bloody grenade in your hot little hand and all you had to do was hold it a little while longer and all of your worries would have been over. Boom! Blown away on the wind.
Should have just done it Starsk…just a few seconds more and…And there would have been no more Starsk. No more feeling like hell every minute of every day. Hey…no more Kira either, coz she was right near me and she would have gone too.
“Hear that Kira? You wouldn’t be able to hurt me anymore and you would have paid for what you did to me!” I yelled out loud into the empty dimly lit room. But even in my semi drunken state, just half touching on this sore point and verbalizing my anger at this woman, did not sit too comfortably with me just yet. My lingering affection for her had not dulled enough yet to allow this vengeful fantasy to give me any great satisfaction or relief. But I would get there eventually. If not by the end of this bottle…well then there were plenty of other days and plenty of other bottles that would come to my aid. I would reach the point where I could put her down – down where she belonged. Out of my mind, out of my life.
Where she could never cause me hurt ever again.
“Yesss sireee Kira, You will be long gone baby. Long gone”
As my brain started to fog up my clarity in judgment was reaching new heights.
I was determined to quash out all feelings for this woman and what she done to me. What she had done to us. I thought she and I had shared something special. Obviously I was way off the mark here. Hutch always did say that I was a poor judge of character. Too trusting.
Well you sure are right on that score buddy. I am a very poor judge of character. Look at what she did! Look at what she has done to you and me.
The shuddering thought ran through my head for the millionth time in the past few days. Hutch was right. I had been far too trusting.
What have you done to you and me Hutch? I have always trusted you. Always. And you did this to us!
Why?
I revisited my fantasy of the grenade in my hand, with me masterfully ordaining the destiny of those around me.
“No more Joey, it would have put you out of your misery too you poor bastard, God knows you would probably be better off than where you will eventually end up… No more Kira…no more …..No more.” the demise of the last person on my personal hit list was harder to fit into my destructive fantasy. No more…Hutch.
I tried to keep the tirade going, the anger fuelled. I saw again the scene of a few hours ago. The room shattered around us, dust circling in the air, plaster still dropping down in pieces following the blast, and the sight of the bodies on the floor. I had slowly pulled myself up to a sitting position from where I had thrown myself down hard, diving over the top of Kira and doing my best to shield her body under mine. The explosion had ripped across the room just seconds after I had managed to hurl the small bomb as far away as possible. Luckily it had landed in the vacant area across from where we had all been standing when Joey had erupted. There had been no one there as everyone had scattered, sad dark dance hall largely empty, the patrons having run screaming as Joey’s maniacal ranting escalated.
If the grenade had gone off nearer us ….If Hutch hadn’t been able to wrestle it away from Joey and swing it up in the air ……and I hadn’t fielded it and thrown it…all of us would be gone…all gone…no more…Joey, Kira, me and.
Hutch.
I could still see him lying there amongst the debris, remaining motionless for longer than either Kira or me. He had fallen down right next to Joey and his white hair was covered in even whiter powder and broken plaster. My partner instincts had kicked in instantly. Within moments after the explosion I was seeking him out, searching for his blond head, on the alert for him.
Hutch! Did I shout his name out loud? As I always did when I needed to reassure myself of his safety. I pushed up quickly into a shaky crouch ready to crawl to his side; so reflexive and attuned was my protective response where he was concerned. A reciprocated role we had mastered over the years. First law of crisis. First law of friendship. Ensure each other’s well being before anything else. Instinctive, automatic, and a given between the two of us.
I saw him begin to slowly move and groan as like me he struggled upright, pushing himself up from the floor with effort, shaking his head to clear the deafening blow that was no doubt still filling his head like it was mine. He was ok after all. I relaxed down again and turned from him toward Kira. I would spare him no concern even if my now almost innate conditioned response was to go to him immediately, to attend to his needs and safety before anything else. To reassure myself that Hutch was unharmed and whole.
As we always had done when either of us was hurt or threatened. We had always, always reacted to each other that way. Reached out to each other when threatened.
Until two weeks and two days ago.
When everything had changed.
I was winding down now from my ramped up fantasy of dying at the hands of the grenade and thereby effectively cutting off the burning pain that had not left my side in the past weeks.
The pain of betrayal and confusion.
I looked down at the bottle in my hand. The potency of the spirit was definitely burning down into my guts now and its medicinal effects were making it harder to feel where my own numbness ended and the numbness from the liquor started. Didn’t matter…all good because I did not want to feel anything, anymore. I sure as hell did not want to think anymore. The way this stuff was working I guessed I was well on track to arriving at that point.
A welcomed, calm mellowness was warring with the knot of constant hurt that had been at my core for days. This lovely clear liquid was taking care of me. I wrapped my hands tighter around the bottle – God I really felt I needed something to take care of me.
Two weeks and two days since we had really talked.
That is if you could count what had passed between us as talking. More like slanting looks and furtive assessments of each other. Making sure that our eyes never met. That our gazes never lingered enough to communicate anything but the pragmatics of the case or the job at hand.
How many years had we never stopped seeking out each other eyes and locking our gazes. Two sets of blue eyes always in silent communication.
Our entire repertoire in the past weeks had come down to short, clipped statements relating to the assignment. When we walked near each other or were in the same room the physical distance between us was enough to have everyone in the precinct talking. Wondering. Speculating. The two partners who were constantly joined at the hip had never been so apart.
Two weeks and two days…
A long time in the scheme of most relationships.
An eternity in the scheme of our relationship.
I rubbed my hand through my curly thick hair and was surprised to feel that it was still slightly damp. Had it just been one hour ago that I had been standing in my bathroom? Christ this stuff really worked fast. I should do some testimonials…the healing powers of tequila.
Hutch.
Why? Why? Why did you do this to me? To us? To our friendship?
Two weeks and two days and not a single decent interaction had passed between the two of us apart from the necessity of staying in our undercover roles and acting out our scripts.
Two weeks and two days ago I had walked into Kira’s apartment and found them.
What I couldn’t believe I would find.
What I had wanted not to find.
What I had been expecting to find.
Hutch.
With Kira.
Hutch with Kira and Hutch had been prepared to allow me to find them. He must have known that I would have come to her place, looking for her, looking for him. The realization that he had done this act in the knowledge that I would discover it was unbearable.
For the first time in my life with Hutch, there had been a monumental shift.
Hutch had betrayed me.
This betrayal had been clearly defined the day he walked out of Kira’s bedroom. When he stood shocked at my presence in the doorway. When I stood shocked and dismayed at his presence in Kira’s doorway.
The ultimate betrayal of the ultimate friendship.
We had fought, met head on like two wild animals, locking horns, testosterone and pheromones filling the air as we waged battle over the coveted female mate. The aggressive male on male outburst and fight for supremacy had achieved nothing except leaving us both feeling confused and even more angry and frustrated with each other.
We had achieved nothing except bringing to the forefront the rot that had set into our relationship ever since Kira had been on the scene. Our punches and shoves at each other had confirmed it. It was official. Hutch and I were over.
There was the job to do and a murderer to uncover. I couldn’t afford to take my mind off what was important, even though I knew that the ever since that day I had taken my mind off everything but what had happened that day.
I could not go there. Could not let my self see the two of them as I had found them that day. I had managed so far to do a pretty good job of pushing it all away and shutting it all into a tight box.
Come on tequila, your trick is not working too well anymore! I slugged more of the liquid fire back and some of it ran down my chin. Using the back of my hand to wipe it off I effectively ended up sluicing it over most of my face and up into the open fresh cut near my eye.
‘Jesssssuuuuuuussssssss!”
I let out the oath and hissed as the alcohol bit into the raw wound. My hand came away bloody and I figured I had opened up the tender gaping cut again. I jerked at the pain and the bottle dropped from my other hand and rolled away on the carpet mat.
“T’riffficccccc” realizing that I was struggling with even my most repeated and favorite word, I was able to gauge that my level of drunkenness was now quickly deepening.
I lurched forward and made a clumsy bum assed grab for the bottle. Next thing I knew I had crashed forward onto my face, my arms just giving out and refusing to balance my crouched body. Oh shit! The pain of the burn of the carpet on my already raw face had me yelping. Somehow I managed to right myself having fumbled around enough to get a purchase on the bottle.
“Gotcha!” I fell more than sat back against the sofa, figuring it was safer to stay on the ground than to try to get up on my legs. I was obviously wrong and had badly underestimated the tequila’s potency and prowess in blanking out my mind. Just didn’t think it would be so effective in blanking out how my muscles worked too. ‘Whoa! Some rush in that! I held the bottle up in the half light, peering now to see how much of my magic tonic had spilled and wasted onto the floor. I was pleased to see there was still an inch or more left in the bottle. Huh! Enough to sip on for a little while longer.
While I sat here in my darkened room alone and in pain.
Chapter Two
It sounded all wrong. The guitar was tuned and I was picking the right notes, but it sound all wrong.
I strummed a few more chords but then just threw the instrument aside on the couch with a frustrated sigh. Even music was no solace for me right now. The sound of the guitar seemed jarring and out of place in the empty room. I looked at my beloved guitar again and then pushed it roughly with my foot further up to the other end of the couch.
“Fuck, what a night!” I picked up the bottle of half drunk beer from the table and then banged it down again immediately with a grunt. The beer that I had been sitting on for over an hour now was warm and I’d long ago lost interest in it. Like I’d lost interest in the guitar and in the half eaten plate of food I had tried to push down simply for the sake of refueling my depleted energy levels.
I had lost interest in everything.
I had arrived home from the precinct hours ago now and still wired from the hellish night could not get into a stinging hot shower fast enough. It wasn’t until the water ran cold that I realized that I’d been standing there for over half and hour. Just standing really, standing and letting the water wash down over me, too apathetic to put any effort into cleaning myself. I needed to wash off the stink and grit of the grenade’s fallout. I might have accomplished that in the first five minutes, but no amount of water was going to wash away the emotional fallout of this job. It was going to take more than a shower to wash away the dirty feeling that life was not the same for me anymore. I felt just as dirty and just as jaded and just as sick of myself as I did when I got in.
As dirty and jaded and sick of myself as I had been feeling for over two weeks now. Two weeks and two days to be exact.
Since the day Starsky and I had fought over Kira in her apartment. The day that I did what I did…slept with Kira.
The day that I had well and truly fucked up Starsky’s sense of himself and his trust in me.
The day that I ruined our friendship.
I cannot look at that yet.
Instead I looked hard at myself in the bathroom mirror as I finished toweling off. Was it just fatigue or did my face look harder? Did it have an edge to it that was not there a month ago? To me my face had the look of someone who was pissed off with something. Not surprising, as I was starting to get the very distinct feeling that I was pissed off – with myself. I was looking at the face of a person who could be cruel and cutting. It was not the face that I was used to seeing in the mirror. In the past month or so I knew I had changed.
You asshole, Hutchinson. You complete and utter asshole.
I threw the wet towel down in self-disgust and quickly dressed in some battered cargos and light sweater.
Now more than an hour later I had given up the pretense of trying to eat, drink or divert myself. I needed something but I couldn’t find it here in this apartment. I was edgy and irritable and filled with the sense that I wanted something. It was not so much that I was hyped up from the crazy scene that had gone down with Joey in the dance hall. I wasn’t wired anymore at all from that event and that was a bad thing because being high on adrenaline from the murder case was all that had kept me going these past two weeks.
The whole case had finally culminated tonight – with a bang. Huh! Would have been funny if it wasn’t so tragic. Tragic for the victims who had been killed, and for Joey the killer, a victim himself in so many ways. But for me the real and very painful tragedy was for Kira, Starsky and me. The case had stuffed up our lives in more ways than one. The rest of the tragedy was at my own selfish hands. I had destroyed Starsky. My actions, my fucking conceited, one-sighted actions had done more to blow my life apart than a whole box of grenades could have ever accomplished. Well that is how it felt to me right now. I felt as ripped asunder as that dance hall. And I had done it to myself.
When Joey had totally dismantled in front of us and nearly took us all out with his grenade, his actions literally caused a blow up in my world. The reverberations from Joey’s grenade were dramatic for me on a purely personal level. I don’t for a minute wish that what happened did of course. But it did, and for the first time in weeks, I reconnected with parts of me that I had closed off completely. It was a terrifying moment when he brandished that grenade and swept all of us into the wake of his psychotic rage. To Joey we were all part of his ‘Nam and hidden ‘Gooks’ delusions. I knew that the explosion had probably been what I needed to jolt me out of whatever quagmire I had been wading through in the past weeks.
I felt again the momentary flash of sheer terror when I first clipped the grenade out of Joey’s grasp and it flew across the room. Starsky had fielded it deftly as I knew he probably would. Our tactics were always synced and needed no verbalizing. We frequently used our sixth senses of each other to out maneuver and outplay the bad boys in risky situation, often running close to the bone with danger, but always (so far cross fingers) pulling it off. Tonight though I couldn’t be sure. The two of us had not talked or related in any form since the Kira debacle and to have gone that long (we never had before) without feeding off each other’s psyches was a risk. A risk that we would have been off our game. Our game of synchronicity. Of one mindedness in two bodies.
We had not been a unit for weeks now.
Starsk had caught the grenade! I was relieved and filled with terror in the one instant. For immediately I saw it in his face. I looked him straight in the eyes. And he looked into mine. It had felt like years rather than weeks since we had given each other that compelling visual fix. It was second nature to us to look directly into each other’s eyes to see what the other was saying or thinking. So at that moment when my eyes latched onto his I saw it straight away. I knew what I saw there in those dark blue eyes. Starsky’s intent to self-harm. I knew what he was thinking. I knew what he was feeling.
Christ! I had made him feel like that! This bad, this damned. What had I done to him! He was not going to throw that grenade!
“NO!” I screamed at him, my eyes boring into his. It was only a second. He only had a second. I don’t know if he heard my cry amongst all the other screaming and crashing of bodies fleeing from the room. Please God Starsk don’t! Don’t do this to yourself, to us! She is not worth it and I am not worth it. Throw the fucking grenade. Throw it …NOW!
My eyes were pleading with him and whether he listened to me or not, in the next moment he pulled back his arm and hurled the grenade as far off to the empty side of the dance floor as he could.
After the God almighty impact and blow out from the small hand held bomb, and after we were all able to realize we were still alive and in one piece, the dusty room danced in front of my eyes. I began to sense my surroundings and myself. I came fully to and tried to sit up and shake out the shock from the physical side of the explosion and its impact on every one of my senses. It was harder to shake out the mental kick the explosion had delivered me. I scanned the room for everyone who had been nearby at the time.
I was only really looking for one person. My eyes found him quickly.
Thank Christ you are ok! I could see him sitting up looking dazed and helping Kira to sit up too. He had obviously thrown himself over her at the point of impact. Once again as I was looking up I caught him watching me intently and then quickly he averted his eyes, his attention back to Kira. For as long as we had known each other I have never known us both to remain in our respective corners directly after we had suffered such a physical assault. Normally whoever found the physical strength to move first, would have been crawling toward the other to assess his damage. But now we both withheld ourselves from the other. And it felt different, it felt strange and I could not cope with it. It cut to the quick.
In the swirling haze and stink of the cordite I saw his face. He must have fallen hard as one side of his face was grazed badly and fresh blood was trickling from his brow. He was oblivious to it. I was not. But I did not go to him as I always had. Would not check for myself the extent of his injury. We were apart now since I had done what I had done to him. He was on his own now and it all felt so… wrong…so damn wrong.
Joey was near me and still down. Starsky was helping Kira. I was surprised that I didn’t feel a stab of jealousy that he was the one to be near her to give her comfort. Bit I didn’t – I didn’t really think of her. In the past days I had re-evaluated my involvement with her. Why I had been involved with this woman? What had been her insatiable appeal? What powers did she hold that could cause me to risk my greatest friendship for a moment in her bed?
Kira spared me not even a cursory glance and she seemed not to notice Starsky’s helping hands. As I watched I was shocked to see what she did. Shakily but with a steady determination she crawled and pulled herself across the now littered floor littered, making her way toward Joey. At his side now she wrapped her arms around him and gave in to his mewling cries and moans, comforting him and reassuring him like she would a child. The whole event was surreal. I felt two things then. Anger toward her for moving so quickly away from Starsky who had no doubt laid his life on the line for her just moments before and revelation that I had no real idea what truly motivated this woman. Three men in this room with her and she had played each of another or us in one form. Three men and we had all fallen prey to her wiles and her need to be wanted.
Three men and she had well and truly fucked us all up. I hated her in that moment. But I hated myself more so for having let her into my life.
My eyes went up again and this time Starsky was waiting for me with his. We gave each other a long look. A look of old.
What had we allowed this woman to do to us?
Chapter Three
I tried to remember the first time I met Kira.
What if I’d known at that meeting that she would be the catalyst for everything that was to turn sour in my life since that day? Surely a person must get some sense, some undercurrent that the person whom they are meeting for the first time, getting to know, is inherently all wrong for them.
Why didn’t I feel some energy or vibe that would warn me of what would lie ahead if I got involved with her?
I don’t recall any alarms going off. There should have been.
Great clanging alarms. Screaming sirens.
This person is going to rip your life to shreds…if you let her. And I had let her. I had let her into my life willingly. I was a happy participant of my own downfall.
I had to stop blaming all of this on Kira.
Blame yourself you lowlife! You fucked it up all by yourself!
Face up to what you did, Hutchinson. You have been a prize prick. Stop denying it.
She had been with Starsky to begin with of course. Kira had been his woman first. I never let him have that, never conceded it when he challenged me with it that day in the kitchen. The day he had stood there looking perplexed and hurt, wondering what the fuck I was doing to him, as I coldly presented him with the face of indifference. I didn’t even let him have that Kira was his first. And I had taken her away from him. Never once did I admit that I had intercepted a relationship he had established.
Bullshit! Of course I had! I had ridden rough shod over his and Kira’s relationship. I just didn’t want to give that to Starsky.
She’d been brought into the precinct to work the case as bait in the dance hall murders we were covering. I know that Starsky had been seeing her before that time. It had been casual thing between them but I think it was going somewhere. At least from his perspective it was. Once the case rolled out and the three of us were all undercover I considered that Sargent Kira was mine too. I thought that I had equal rights to her. It was not just a question of who saw or had her first.
How bloody arrogant was that?
I made Starsky think that I had an argument on that point, that it came down to best man wins sort of game. But that is just crap. In any one’s book of fairness, prior relationship should have supremacy. In the real world it really means nothing of course – there will always be affairs and infidelity. The real world where loyalty and trust is not easy to find and deceit is so easily excused and explained away. But what I had done with Kira was more than that. I had not only taken my best friend’s girl, I had betrayed our relationship.
His and mine.
A relationship which I know we both believed was unbreakable.
I had destroyed sacred ground.
Kira, however, had a way about her that made normal social rules and mores mean nothing. She trampled heedlessly all over Starsky’s and my sacred ground and I just let her do it. I allowed myself to get caught up in her twisted logic. She offered stupid shallow rationalizations for screwing around with me while she had Starsky on the line. I suppose I gladly locked onto to her thin logic. It meant I denied my responsibility in doing something intrinsically wrong. She wanted two men and she had the right to her own choices.
But I left Starsky out of equation. He didn’t get a say in what Kira and I did.
We discounted him as if he meant nothing.
I discounted him. I had chosen Kira over him. My friend. For Kira.
In short, Kira wanted Starsky, she wanted me, and she wanted herself. She was the sort of woman who wanted it all and men like me were lining up to give it to her. The sex and attention she craved to take and to give.
Starsky was different. Men like Starsky were lining up to give her commitment and caring. Kira didn’t need or want that. I doubt that she would even know what to do with caring and commitment. Kira just screwed people over.
Tonight at the dance hall was the turning point for me.
It was more than two weeks since Starsky had found Kira and I together. But it was way longer than two weeks ago that I started to lose the plot. “Normal Hutch like behavior” was coming off the rails a fair time before that. For months now I had been disappearing into a dark shell.
That day at Kira’s was really just the day that the shit really hit the fan. That is the day when I hit my lowest ebb did the lowest most despicable thing I have ever done.
But I had been running in overdrive, acting out, with no thought to where my actions would lead or how they would affect others for some time. High on something, buzzing with a need to reach out and grab whatever was around me. Rejecting and discarding people and concepts that I had normally valued or nurtured.
I was using people up, using things up and pushing myself to get maximum gain.
I was reaching to climb out of what for me had become a life of tedium.
Tedium of dealing with filth of the streets, tedium of following protocol that stunk, tedium of working by the book for the most part when I knew damn well half of the judicial system was doing anything but that.
There was also the tedium of living each day on the edge, in constant gnawing fear. People in safe jobs, in stable lives with predicable daily grinds probably can’t understand that hyper vigilance in a cop’s life can be tedious. But hyper vigilance can sure wear a man down and it can get bloody tedious like any other job.
Waking every morning and not knowing whether I would be alive at the end of it. Not knowing if I would have my head blown off when I ran down that alley where the perp had just fled down or be left in a wheelchair because of getting my brains punched out when I went into a fight.
Not knowing whether my partner was going to be gunned down in front of my eyes. But mostly it was a constant tedious grind in my guts not knowing if I had what it took, every day of every week to protect him. To have his back for all the times he was a target simply because he and I were cops.
My weariness at dealing with these constant fears was by no means an excuse for turning bad. I have heard that ruse too many times from dirty cops who are looking for a way to explain their own greed and corruption. But, Christ yeah, that sort of protracted, never ending stress takes it toll.
And if over the years I had thought I was strong enough to deal with it, I had been kidding myself. I wasn’t strong. I was weak. And I let it all weigh down on me.
In my weariness I began to show new colors. Dark and sinister colors.
Maybe the outside layers of me were just so worn down, flayed off me by the grimy, dangerous life I had led for the past ten years or more. Maybe my good guy outer packaging was worn so thin by reality that the hard inside core of me was all that was left. It was this inside hardness, this really pissed off and jaded Hutch who came out to play. I began in earnest to display some new and not very attractive behaviors.
I cringed now thinking of the way I had treated everyone recently. Smartass, cocky, “who gives a flying fuck?” sort of bravado. It started slowly, steadily grew and soon my irritable moods and impatient nastiness became virulent. I was contemptuous of everything and everyone and took a high brow superior view of my own needs and wants.
The ruthlessness inside of me had surprised others.
Christ it had even surprised me.
It’s not like I just woke up one morning a couple of months ago and said to myself, “Well Hutch, buddy boy, life is pretty damn humdrum right now, how about the bad part of you and me have some fun hey?’
No it wasn’t like that and maybe nothing more would have become of it. This inner burn might just have died out. I might have started to share it all with Starsk even though I know that would have been difficult. How would I say it?
“Starsky, we need to talk. I am at the end with this lifestyle of risk and fear. I am worried it is going to my undoing?”
I am so shit scared that you are going to die one day when I fail to protect you.
Starsky’s support and strong friendship might have been enough to pull me through this rough patch.
If Kira hadn’t come into our lives.
She was the match that ignited what was already smoldering in me.
Kira saw in me the same inner badness, riskiness, edgy needs that she herself harbored. I knew that now and I wish I’d known it weeks ago. She identified with parts of me and she latched on to that. Hell she had taken us both for some ride! The two of us in some way, brought it all to life. My truly aberrant self shone in her presence. I bought all of her “get what you need now, take what you want and damn everyone else” crap.
“Hutch, it is possible to love two people at the same time“…. And I greedily bought her shit. Let her rationalize the really dangerous game we were playing with Starsky’s life. Let her make me so hungry for what she was offering that I lost sight of anything else but her and me. Lust and greed that is what was feeding us both. Manipulative, self-centered and totally self-gratifying.
But in the end, once the sex was over, the cruel game we had played served no purpose whatsoever for me. What I had with Kira did not satisfy or fill up my unmet needs at all. All it did was cause hurt and untold pain. All it did was erode trust and hope.
All it did was to destroy Starsky.
And me.
Us.
This woman was in the wrong place at the wrong time for me. For Starsky and me.
Starsky, why did you ever let her into your life?
It is not Starsky’s fault for God’s sake. All he ever did was trust this woman to love and care for him as much as did for her.
Years and years of solid friendship, soul mate ship, brotherly love.
Then I went and took it all away.
Why wasn’t it enough for me?
Why did I put what we have….had….on the line?
I can still remember the look in Starsky’s eyes as he watched me walk out of Kira’s room. Trying to comprehend what he was looking at. Trying to comprehend me. Disbelief, anger and hurt.
I never slept with her again after that. Even my job in her surveillance and protection was done from a physical and emotional distance. Everything to do with her became too raw for me. If Kira felt it, she showed little care about it.
She really was a piece of work.
I had realigned. Stepped off the fast track I had been on with her and just stood to the side. Not back in my old life either, just standing, trying to readjust and make sense of what I had done. I was on the outside of the old me, looking in at what I had, seeing what I had turned my back on.
Ashamed and appalled by the destruction my actions had caused. Everything that had been solid and good in my life had been undermined, lifted, cracked wide open. The mother of all earthquakes had hit us. Kira it would seem had fled the scene of the disaster. Starsky ended up on one side of the divide and me on the other. A divide that just seemed way too wide to cross.
Right now I felt strung tight with agitation and restlessness.
Tonight was the first real time in a while that that I had the space and the mindset to really think about what had happened.
No, that wasn’t really true. I could have looked at all of this shit a lot sooner. But the case was my focal point and it filled my days and night. Endless long hours of undercover work and the exasperation of dead leads and witness interviews, all the trappings that go hand in hand with a big case. I welcomed the fatigue. I had nothing left over to spare and this made it easier not to notice how much my life had changed.
But now the case was closed. Tonight was different. There was this big void now that must be filled.
I don’t want to have to look at all of this. At me. At what I have done.
And all of these thoughts are just so painful.
One A.M.
It was one am after the close of a long hard case and I am sitting here with myself.
It wasn’t usually like this for me after putting a big case to bed.
I looked around my home.
I could see him now sitting in my well-worn kitchen chair, sharing some beers and a late night pizza. The case would be behind us and we were coming down from its high. For Starsky and me, chill out time was always a blast.
Over the next few days we would do the usual things we always did when winding down from a case. Typical things that all cops do. Lots of sleep, debriefings over beers, all night movie marathons, a few hot dates and time to chill out with good buddies whose company had been sorely missed while work took precedent. Cops probably more than other men really needed male company. We as a group are into male bonding time, and brotherhood relationships. The nature of our work meant that we depend on others, usually men, to keep us alive. Fraternity was big for us.
In my case the “good buddies” was one buddy, and the one buddy was my best friend. Ironically he was also the one person I would have seen more of during the length of the case. That it is to say that my best friend was also my partner.
It was the same for both of us and always had been ever since we had met in the academy.
No one could understand it…. we were a constant enigma to the other guys in the precinct. Working side by side all day, all night sometimes, for weeks and weeks on end, in each other’s faces, as cops tend to be when on undercover assignments. Case in the can, the bad guys locked up and the paperwork filed, everyone else went home to their families or circle of friends.
Starsky and I just went home to each other so to speak.
For a moment I let all the memories flood in, and felt the first smile on my face in weeks. Starsky’s antics were colorful and always original and I would find myself getting roped along with him as we both let go and blew off steam.
Crazy Gordo.
The mental pictures of him and his stupid ass schemes and child like behavior had me feeling almost human again for the first time in weeks.
Yep no one got us. No one understood what we had together. I stopped myself.
What we used to have together.
Shit! The smile fell from my face and the quick flicker of joy that had been there fell away too.
I looked despairingly around my familiar apartment at Venice Place. It was my home, my sanctuary, and after a job was done, it was the place I most loved to come back to, to be at…second only to one other. Starsky’s place.
This home, the physical comfort and solid familiarity of its walls were only half of the equation. The other half of it was not here. The other half was missing.
I looked over at the empty sofa seat where he so often sprawled, legs stretched out, and beer in hand talking incessantly about any crap that came to his mind. Never drawing breath.
“Starsk, please shut up. You can see I am trying to read. Why don’t you read something huh? Just read and be quiet.”
“Don’t wanna read some borin’ book. I’m bored here and all ya’ do is keep ya’ nose in that damned book of yours.”
Half and hour later we would be doing what he wanted. This usually equated to watching some crap western or grabbing our jackets and heading out for food, Starsky number one passion after bugging me senseless.
I looked at the couch and saw him lying there, head propped up on cushions his body hogging the length of the couch with no regard to me at the other end.
“Will you….will you… get those stinking feet out from under my nose! Can’t you see I am trying to get these chords right? No…Starsky! NO! Get your feet off my guitar, I’m warning you …”
Inevitably I would throw down my guitar and it would end in an all out wrestling match.
I turned now and saw his curly head bobbing up and down near the fridge door as he systematically ate his way through every left over he could lay his hands on. Of course as long as the left overs were not of the healthy variety.
“Hutch! There is nothin’ in here to eat. Whad’ the hell do you live on when I am not here huh?”
“Well you know Starsky I live on a hell of a lot more than I do after you’ve been here! That was supposed to be dinner and you are now shoving it down your face.”
Rummaging about in my bedroom yelling out and annoying me while I was trying to cook.
“Hey Hutch! Hutch! Where’s that t-shirt of yours, that blue one …you know the one I like to put on while I watch TV. Huh? Hutch?”
He was in the kitchen at my side while I was stirring a casserole I had been laboring over.
“Yuck! Don’t tell me you are actually goin’ to eat that.”
“Yes Starsk, I am actually going to eat this. And, by the way, so are you. This is dinner because you just ate what I had planned for dinner when you raided the fridge.”
After dinner it would be more of what Starsky wanted to see on TV.
“Oh come on Starsk, I am so sick of spaghetti westerns. Lets watch the baseball”…. and then me relenting and giving in to him when he put on his best kicked in the teeth act. I would wake up hours later, the TV still blaring, when something would be tickling my nose. More times than I could remember it would be Starsky’s curls in my face, his snoring head pressed up against me. Fallen asleep again as we both often did, exhausted and worn out from the hours we put in.
Starsky was everywhere I looked.
He was in was in the fabric of this apartment, this home. Every memory and every good feeling I had about this place involved him. Sitting here now alone without him, my home was no longer a sanctuary, it was just an apartment.
I knew then what the restless agitation was …the feeling that I could not settle.
I may have taken Kira away from Starsky. But in doing that I had allowed her to take Starsky away from me.
I missed him. Missed my best friend. I had driven him away.
And now I could face it.
I hated myself for what I had done to him and to the both of us.
“That’s it! Enough!”
Enough of my spiteful behavior and myself. Enough of this recent lifestyle, which seemed edgy and exciting for a while and now just, felt cold and shallow.
Enough of the division between my best friend and me.
It was time to stop looking in at my old life from the outside. I wanted back in. There was only one way I could get there and only one person who could let me in.
Keys, gun, badge and jacket.
I slammed the door behind me and took the stairs down to my car at a jog.
As I revved my LTD into life, as much life as she had in her, I sat for a moment, car idling.
Are we too far gone to get back?
Only one way to find out and nothing was going to stop me from trying. Not even the very real fear that I might not be able to salvage our friendship.
I had done massive damage and what I was going to do could end in more pain.
But I had to try.
Chapter Four
It took less time than usual to get to his partner’s home at this time of night but the drive was still endless. As each mile passed he was under siege by two distinct forces. One the fear that somehow he would not get there on time because now there was definitely a sense of urgency about what he was planning to do. Two, he was equally torn with the force of anxiety that he had no real idea what he was in fact planning to do.
All he knew for certain was that his recent actions had caused massive damage in his and Starsky’s relationship. He might be about to wreak even more pain and havoc on the situation, but he could no longer do nothing. His body was registering a very familiar and unpleasant feeling. A well accustomed sensation. It was not unlike the feeling that threatened to overwhelm him when he could not get a good sighting of Starsky during a shootout or an ambush. Those moments of absolute black terror when he thought that the last crack of gunfire had caught his partner. When he couldn’t see him or him yell to confirm that he was still ok. The feeling like his stomach was falling away.
This dread had him in its grip as he pulled the car in quietly to the driveway of Starsky’s place.
He was scared shitless.
So it did not surprise him to realize that his hands were shaking as he turned off the ignition.
As he stepped out of the car he sensed it. He was back on home ground. Starsky’s place. Starsky’s presence was second nature to him and yet as he walked toward his partner’s door he felt like a foreigner. Likewise Starsky’s front door was as familiar to him as his own front door but now it confronted him, dared him.
It was an impenetrable barrier. To step beyond it now would be a huge step in attempting to reinstate himself with his closest friend. He had a lot to lose.
He hoped he hadn’t already lost it.
The Torino was in its usual parking spot so he had no reason to think that his partner wasn’t home. Where else would be after such a night and after closing such a long and tiring case?
Kira flashed through his mind but he just as quickly discounted her, as he knew of course that she and Starsky would not be together. The three of them had barely communicated back at the precinct when the case was being wrapped up earlier tonight.
The door stared back at him, goading him to make his move. To do what every other day in his life had just been an easy casual habit. To walk into his friend’s house. But not now. Not after what he had done. This was not easy.
Oh fuck, this is so hard!
He brought his knuckles up to tap out his familiar light knock. A signature knock, one he used only with Starsky. Another one of there many Morse codes.
No response.
He made the tap harder.
Nothing.
He was damned if he was going to walk away now with this unfinished. …ever widening divide between them. He was going in and he was prepared to wake Starsky if need be and to have this whole shit mess laid out between them.
He could not go one more hour like this, with these knots of anguish and guilt ripping his insides up.
Please let me do this, Starsky.
I cannot take anymore.
He pulled out the key he kept in his wallet for Starsky’s place and inserted into the lock. A quick sigh of relief.
Thank God he hasn’t changed the lock.
Thank God he hasn’t decided to shut me out from his life because of the way I have treated him.
Inside there was silence and muted darkness. His eyes adjusted to see a dim lamp glowing near the couch and no other lights on in the apartment.
And there was his partner.
In the semi dark.
On the floor, slumped and defeated.
Bleeding and….. raw. Hurting.
Starsky was staring straight at him. Not reacting, not speaking. Just waiting and looking. Watching him as he walked into the room.
Hutch drew in a stunned breath.
There was what looked to be an empty liquor bottle lying discarded beside him on the floor. His partner’s face was bloody and his eyes, although difficult to see clearly in the poor light had a glazed distant look to them. But those same eyes were still managing to stare fixedly at him. With scrutiny. With perplexity?
Neither of them said a word but stayed quiet taking each other’s measure.
Hutch’s first words were an automatic reflex to the appearance of his partner.
“You’re bleeding.”
Starsky gave no response but he kept his eyes trained on his partner.
“Starsky, you’re bleeding, your face…what have you done to it?”
He moved a little further into the room, closer to his uncommunicative partner.
“Let me turn on the light and have a look at it”.
A discernible but weak shrug was all he received. He closed the space between them tentatively and moved over to crouch next to his friend.
Even this action felt foreign and surreal to him. So out of character to his normal behavior in a situation like this. He would never have been tentative with his friend before. But then again, Starsky would never have been sitting like he was now, just staring at him with lifeless eyes and fresh blood on his face. In the past he would have welcomed his appearance and have some wisecrack ready to make about him finally showing up to save the day.
But he wasn’t saving any day now.
This time it was he himself who had caused the pain and the hurt for Starsky.
This time he had been the danger to his friend.
This time he was the violator against his partner.
Sensing that his friend did not want any bright light, he pulled the small lamp off the table and held it up to Starsky’s face. He lifted his hand up to gently probe the deep cut on the corner of Starsky’s brow and lightly feathered his finger down the graze. His soft voice matched the feather touch. He felt that every move to intercept his partner now should be slow and gentle.
He had bulldozed and rampaged over Starsky enough in the past weeks.
“Hey Starsky, I think that this needs a suture or two. It’s deep and still oozing. Why didn’t you let the medics help you? Why do you always refuse to let them do their job?”
The tone of his voice conveyed resignation at his friend’s self neglect toward his own health rather than criticism.
He put his hand on his partner’s shoulder, as he looked him in the eyes for the first time since the frightening moment in the dance hall when Starsky held the grenade. When he held it for just that split second too long.
Starsky turned and looked at his partner’s big hand on his shoulder and then turned back to question him with both his eyes and his words.
“Why ya’ here?”
It was a labored croak and even just those few words were difficult for Starsky to articulate. He was more than on the way to drunk.
Hutch chose not to answer and instead picked up the empty spirit bottle, giving it a cursory glance.
“Having your own little private party down here on the floor? You’re head must be feeling worse than your face about now, hey?”
Starsky repeated it. It was sloppy and slurred but it came out.
“Why ya here, ‘Utch?”
Again he chose to ignore the question and simply let his hands fall down from where they had been examining his partner’s face. He stood up and went into the kitchen, turning on the light as he entered. He knew its layout as well as his own and opened cupboard doors pulling out a bowl and turning on the kettle to boil some water. Starsky’s wound needed bathing and it gave him something to do right now so that he didn’t need to look his friend in the eyes and deal with his very drunk, but very valid question.
One he couldn’t answer yet.
He was here now and that was enough for him.
He was with Starsky and Starsky had not sent him away.
In the bathroom he gathered a few necessary medical items that he knew would be stored there. They always kept emergency supplies on hand for self-treatment. Many a night they would clean each other’s wounds, bind each other’s ribs or dispense pain relief for any number of injuries they would incur on the job.
Second nature stuff.
Just not lately.
Returning to his partner with everything he needed he felt a pang of sadness that Starsky had not even bothered to wipe the blood off his face, let alone tend to the cut. Starsky hadn’t cared enough to look after himself.
And I wasn’t here to take care of him.
Like I always do.
He sat beside him and set the hot water on the coffee table and the other items near by.
“Well, its too late to go into the hospital now and I’d say you’re not going to be able to make it anyway. So let’s just do our best here for tonight.”
Starsky said nothing just kept up that long look straight at his partner. He did not resist his friend’s intentions to patch up his face and sat still under his touch. His eyes were unwavering with their intent, even under the veil of a drunken haze.
Starsky’s eyes on him unnerved him and as he gently started to bathe the oozing cut he noted again that his normally steady hands were shaking. He gently went about his ministrations of cleaning the wound and applying some antiseptic cream to the graze. He had to make do with pulling the edges of the cut together as much as he could, opposing the edges by pulling a small sticking plaster across it and then placing a larger one over the top to protect it from rubbing on Starsky’s pillow or sheets.
The whole while that he carried out these simple medical tasks Starsky said nothing. Just watched him intently. With each minute he could see that his partner was sinking deeper into a drunken half sleep. He too was silent apart from a few “Sorry Starsky’s” whenever he thought he had applied too much pressure to the cut.
Finished with his work, he took everything into the kitchen and returned with some water and aspirins.
“Here Bud…..Starsk.” He was dismayed that he baulked at the familiar “buddy” that so easily rolled off his tongue when addressing his friend. They had a repertoire of names that they used for each other in many different situations, many of the names reflecting the depth of their relationship. But at that moment even using their favored “buddy” with his partner no longer felt right.
And how damn sad it that? Does Starsky still consider me his buddy?
How did it get to this point with us? How did I let this happen to us?
” Ah…. See if you can swallow these for me will you? And have as much water as you can manage because you are going to have one hell of a headache, starting pretty soon.”
He had no doubt that the cut must be throbbing badly too. He gently pulled his partner’s head upright and held the glass up as Starsky obediently but unsteadily pushed the tablets into his mouth. There was no resistance when he brought the glass to his friend’s mouth and guided him as he drank the water. Half of it ran down Starsky’s chin. Even his swallowing was uncoordinated as a result of the large amount of alcohol he had consumed.
Starsky coughed and spluttered, choking on the water. Quickly he sat him up as straight as he could, bracing him so that the water found its way down. He looked with concern at Starsky.
“OK? Can you breathe? Starsk?”
But now Starsky was struggling to push himself up, a look of acute discomfort on his face and his lips tight and bloodless. His face paled to white.
” ‘Utch, ‘Utch ! ” Starsky grabbed convulsively at his friend with a pained look on his features. “Help me up will ya? Huh? Gonna be sick…ahh ….Oh God.”
Hutch could tell by the color of Starsky’s face and the sweat on his brow that there was no way in hell he was going to get him to the bathroom on time. He put his arms around his friend’s shoulders and got ready to help him through what was invariably on its way. With a strangled groan Starsky twisted to the side and vomited violently.
He held Starsky’s arm steady and supported his head while his whole body was wracked by wave after wave of forceful contractions of his stomach. The floor was awash with sour smelling clear fluid and Hutch guessed that it amounted to most of the bottle of tequila. All he could do was to continue to hold him, making sure he didn’t fall face first in his own mess. He could feel the power leeching out of his friend, his body becoming worn out by the relentless contractions.
Finally it subsided and Starsky inhaled and gasped, letting his head fall back weakly against the couch.
This time the familiar words came out of him as he looked upon his friend with sympathy and concern.
“Hey buddy, that was one mean round you just went with yourself. No, no just stay still, put your head back. Ok? How is it now? Does it feel better now you’ve got rid of it?”
He was stroking the wet hair back from his face and pulling Starsky’s sodden t-shirt out of the waistband of his jeans.
“Feel terrible…. Terr….ible.”
“Yeah I ‘m sure you do buddy. But you’ll be better soon now it’s out of your system”
“Never ….did ….like tequila”
“Yeah, I know that, Starsk. Perhaps you just felt you needed it tonight, huh?”
He was using his own clean dry hand to wipe the residual moisture off Starsky’s face, uncaring of the mess he himself was also in.
“Yeah…needed it tonight, ‘utch. Needed somethin'”
He looked like he was struggling to say more but then just closed his eyes and inhaled deeply again.
“Listen, we need to get you into the shower and cleaned up. Do you think you get up soon with my help or do you need to stay flat for longer? You can just sit till you feel better.”
“No, wanna get this stink off me and some clean clothes. Might feel better then.”
He was relieved to hear that his partner sounded a lot clearer and more coherent now. He had been worried about the sheer volume of spirit that Starsky had put away in the last three or so hours. If the bottle had been unopened or full then Starsky had consumed a dangerous amount of alcohol in a short period of time. He was starting to think that he might have had to take him to the emergency department anyway in case he had adverse effects. Either way he would need observation tonight for precaution.
Over the next half hour he found himself back on old ground with his best friend, doing what the two of them had done for each other so many times in their relationship.
Tending and caring for each other.
He walked Starsky to the shower, held him upright with one strong arm, letting his partner lean into him for support while he helped him to divest of his soiled clothes. He carried out a similar maneuver to support him in the shower while he used his free hand to wash his partner’s hair and body.
The two of them were immune to modesty with each other, having gone through so much together over the years.
Nonetheless Hutch couldn’t but help think that even two hours ago he would have not imagined they would be back on this level again for a long while. He did not kid himself. He realized that once Starsky recovered enough from the nausea, weakness and alcohol overload, they might be back on either side of the divide.
But for now he was here for his partner and his friend. No questions asked, no boundaries that could not be crossed when either one needed the other.
The way it had always been till he had done what he did.
After the shower Starsky was more alert and was able to dry himself and wrap the towel around his waist. He gargled and cleaned his teeth while Hutch got some fresh dry dressings for his eye.
At the end of it all he could easily tell that Starsky was wiped out and for that matter he could feel his own lethargy creeping in. The past ten hours had been crazy on so many levels for him and now that the anxious feelings he had been having about his and Starsky’s friendship had subsided even a little, he too was starting to flag.
“Ok, we need to try again with a bit of water Starsk and then bed. Hopefully you can sleep the rest of this off.”
He looked wearily at the clock in the kitchen as he walked beside Starsky to his bedroom making sure he was steady enough on his feet.
“Sleep is what we both need. Come on I ‘ll help you in and then I need to clean up the living room and get showered myself.”
After he levered Starsky down onto the bed he hoped that they were back on enough solid ground to sift through his partner’s wardrobe for some spare clothes for himself. But Starsky’s eyes were already closed as he pulled open the drawers where he knew t-shirts would be neatly folded. Starsky style. Neat and orderly. He smiled softly at his partner’s regimented house keeping habits.
Another half hour passed before he got the mess cleaned up – good enough for tonight anyway and got himself showered. Changing into fresh clothes, he smiled when he realized that they were in fact his own clothes, probably left here by him or worn home from his place by Starsky.
Life with a best friend. Merging and overlapping. Blurring at the edges into one.
He walked softly toward Starsky’s bedroom. One last check on him before he went to sleep. He stood again for a little while just watching him.
The almost constant ache he had been having behind his eyes had alleviated and he could feel lessening of the tension in his forehead. Just standing here looking down at his partner made him feel calm and serene – safe and certain.
As he put his hand up to turn the lamp off next to the bed, he was surprised to see that Starsky’s eyes were again watching him in the steady steely way he had been doing earlier.
“Hey buddy. Still awake? Thought you’d have crashed as soon as I went into the shower. How are you feeling? Not sick anymore are you?”
Starsky ignored the question.
“Ya didn’t answer me, Hutch. I wanna know. Why are ya here now?”
He was transfixed by the repeated question. Starsky’s insistent need to know … to know what?
Everything or just something?
Answers.
Starsky wanted answers.
He had a right to answers.
He tried to think of the right words, the right response to give Starsky now. He deserved it but somehow the words were all too hard to express and he could feels tension rising again in his chest. God he had barely been able to start to make sense of it all himself.
Make sense of what he had done.
“Starsk….it’s…”
“Hey. No matter Hutch. I know. Ya’ here coz ya think that I need ya’. Don’t ya Hutch, ya think that I can’t cope without ya’ and that I need you? That’s why ya here now, tonight, isn’t that right Hutch? And looked you proved it…sick, hopeless. I’m fuckin’ hopeless. Fuckin’ hopeless, Hutch.”
The look in Starsky eyes ripped right through him.
He could not have been less prepared to hear that. Appalled at what his friend was thinking about himself.
Look what I have done to him. I have beaten him down to think this of himself.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder. Both men knew it as a familiar touch between the two of them. It spoke support, love and compassion. But tonight he wanted it to also speak as a request for forgiveness. The start of forgiveness at least . There was a lot that the two of them needed to sort out, beginning in the new day when this terrible night was behind them.
Now was not the time to get into what had come between them in the past couple of months.
“No Starsky. You are so very wrong. I don’t want to hear you say that about yourself. Yes of course I am here for you, whenever you need me, for whatever reason you need me – like tonight when you’ve made yourself sick and need support. I haven’t been here for you buddy, not lately. But I am here now and that is all that matters for now. ”
As he said these last words he was looking directly at his friend. He wanted these last words to be the ones Starsky took out of this long, wretched day.
He could see that his partner was struggling now to stay with him – sleep was finally coming to claim him. He was still looking silently at his partner but his lids were losing the war against fatigue. He saw that the familiar deep blue eyes were clearer now and much of the dull glaze had lifted.
Though the eyes were tired and dispirited. The deep blue nowhere near its usual full intensity.
I did that.
I took the life out of them.
As he stood there watching him the blue eyes wavered, flickered, gradually closed. Dark lashes finally came down to rest on the raw, grazed cheekbone.
He felt the clutch that he hadn’t felt in many weeks. The clutch of warmth and fondness whenever he watched his friend sleep, be at peace just for a little while.
Theirs was such a tumultuous life. Filled with violence, pain and death. It was not easy to rest and to be at peace with the realities that they lived through each and every day. So he was always glad to see his partner finally close his eyes and rest. Let the world look after itself for a while so his partner could sleep.
He stood for a few more moments just watching him in the soft light. When he was sure that his partner was asleep he allowed himself to stroke the grazed cheek gently. He could not be certain that they were back at a place yet where Starsky would welcome his touch.
He closed his eyes as the memory and feel of the last time he had touched his partner came to him. It had been in violence. Their contact had been one fueled by hurt and disbelief. He had absorbed the blow delivered by Starsky when his treachery with Kira had been uncovered. The two of them pushing, shoving and hurting one another. That was the last physical contact he had with Starsky.
As he held his palm against Starsky’s raw cheek he understood now why he needed this gentle contact. He needed to do this, to reach out and touch the part of him that he had denied himself for weeks if not months. The soft part of him.
The caring side.
All that was good and kind about him and not hard and cruel.
Not the hard core of him that had dominated his behavior for the last months.
He was so tired of being hard and cruel.
This was more than he had hoped for and he would take it with now as he lay his weary head down. These last, hopeful images of this fading night.
“Now go to sleep and rest that head of yours. I will be here for you when you wake up, Gordo. I am back now.” He spoke softly to him as he carefully pulled the sheet away from his grazed face, and smoothing the damp curls away from the cut on his eye.
He snagged a pillow and a light throw from the chair, quietly turned the bedside light off and walked out of the room.
He eyed the couch with a sigh.
The couch and he were on very familiar terms. They shared a long term relationship. His back was testament to that relationship.
Well you are certainly home again, Pal! Back to the couch for you.
He lay his long form down on it and jostled for a comfortable position. He closed his eyes, prepared for sleep more than he had been in weeks.
He felt he was getting closer to being back inside his old life. No longer feeling as he had in the past two weeks…no longer just looking in from outside.
Drifting now he could feel the familiar contours and bumps of the couch. This well worn, bloody couch of Starsky’s.
A representation of what they shared as closest friends.
Time, possessions, caring and companionship.
This couch and his place on it was part of all that he had with Starsky. For good or bad it was a part of Starsky and him.
That had to be good .
Yeah that has to be good.
As sleep gradually crept in, his last thought had him grimacing.
Oh shit this couch stinks of Starsky’s vomit…
And then with a small smile on his lips, he sank into nothingness.
Chapter Five
I watched him sleeping. His long body curled up, his mussed up blond hair bright against the dark fabric of the cushions. It was a common sight in my place. Hutch on my couch.
Just not one I had seen in weeks.
It was so uncommon of late that I found myself just sitting there for over half an hour or more, watching him and thinking.
He was still well and truly asleep when I had awoken over an hour ago. It was unusual for Hutch to out sleep me. He was normally the early riser; up to greet the day and all that shit. Probably started the habit when he used to run in the mornings – though I can’t remember him having run in the mornings for a while now.
Lots of things about Hutch had been different lately.
It was early afternoon after one hell of a night. As is normally the case with alcohol overload, I woke earlier than I normally would after having crashed so late. Alcohol is one bitchy bed mate. Go to bed clutching her in your system and she kicks your ass out of that bed well and truly before your head is ready to join its lower half.
I should have felt a whole lot worse given my recollection of how much of the contents of the tequila bottle went down between just me and myself last night. It was probably a good thing , though it didn’t seem so at the time – that most of the contents of that bottle came back up. I stared down now at the tequila’s last stand…. the living room floor and the couch. Despite the fact that I know that Hutch did his best job in cleaning it all up as best he could, it still stank. The rancid smell of my own stale vomit assailed my nostrils – it would take days to get the smell out of the place.
Christ how the hell did you sleep with that Hutch?
I bet your back is killing you by now too.
I had made us both coffees and was steadily sipping mine while I sat deep in thought.
It’s been a while pal since you’ve been here. Been on that lousy couch that you hate so much.
I fingered my brow where the cut was still dressed and felt the slightly sticky residue of the salve on my grazed cheek.
I smiled to myself. Mother hen had not been around for a while either and although I never stopped whining about Hutch’s over attentive smothering of me whenever I was hurt, I must admit that I was pleased that he had stopped the cut from bleeding and likely had saved me from yet another nasty scar.
Had enough of them already that was for sure. My life was all about collecting scars. So was Hutch’s.
I remembered (as best I could) him sitting in my puke along with me, holding me up and wiping my face. With his hands for God’s sake.
I rubbed my aching brow where the cut was really starting to throb now. It was actually taking precedent over my dull hangover. Hutch was right of course. Should have let the damn medics take a look last night.
As I touched it now I remembered the feel of Hutch’s hand on my face as he cleaned and dressed my wound. The sensation and memory were made more real when I looked down at that same big hand caught tucked under a head of tousled blond hair.
There was a vague memory of us talking a little in the bedroom after he had helped me shower. I could not put it all together as bits of it were disjointed but I know that I had kept insisting that he tell me why he had come here ….now….after all this time…and after what had happened with Kira – and with us.
But he wouldn’t tell me. I was not so drunk that I cannot remember that point.
But I think I know why he came here anyway.
I probably tried to tell him that too.
Freaking pity that is why.
In the end, even Hutch in his bastard guise could not resist the need to act like the White Knight yet again with me.
He and Kira probably had it all shorn up. Hutch would have said that he needed to check on me now that the case was finally closed and the three of us were no longer working together.
Guilt, pity.
Maybe he wanted to put me in the picture about the shape of his and Kira’s ongoing relationship now the awkwardness of us all being pushed together every night was over.
But even as I tested out the likelihood of this last theory about he and Kira, I knew that deep down I did not believe it. I knew that it was not true.
It was not hard to see that not only were Kira and I finished, but that Hutch too had distanced himself from her after the day I found the two of them together.
No I think that Kira was not part of the picture with either of us anymore.
The question is what is the picture with the two of us now she has gone?
My eye caught the empty tequila bottle still on the coffee table from last night.
The true villain of the piece.
God help me but I will never touch that shit again.
It had distorted a lot of what I could recall about last night.
But there was also a lot I did recall.
He had come in through the door, just walked in, appearing from nowhere. When I had heard his knock I admit to being shocked and confused. My brain was already so befuddled with the tequila I could not formulate an action in response.
Did I want to see him? Now like this?
I half thought that he might just give up and go away. He had his own key of course but I did not think he would use it given what had gone down between us recently.
I just sat there semi incoherent and surmised that he was here to extend a half-hearted peace-offering.
Why else?
Matter of fact and clean-cut.
We had wrapped the case up now so we really had to move on from all of its fallout. Hutch and I were part of its fallout. So perhaps he was here to tidy us the mess with us a bit so that we could close the “case” in more ways than just solving the crime.
Knowing the way Hutch had been acting and behaving in recent weeks, longer perhaps, I did not imagine his attitude would be much different.
He was probably here to “check on his friend” so that he could move on with his life.
Free up some of that Hutchinson guilt that he was so very good at carrying around.
I didn’t answer the door because I just could not face anymore of this Hutch. I was finished with his cold indifference and disregard for our friendship.
Best friends for years and he was prepared to just piss it all away.
Best friend I would ever have, just gone. I was done in by it all.
I was done with feeling like shit because I was missing the old Hutch.
But then I had heard the key in the lock and I realized that he was not going to walk away this time…like he had so many times in the squad room, in the dance hall, in Dobey’s office…walked away and turned his back on me like we were over, finished as friends.
So I just sat. I had nowhere to go. Well lets face it, I would have found it a challenge to get up but…
This was after all my place. I would just sit there, being quietly drunk thank you. I would let him do his little patronizing act, paying lip service to the old Hutch and our friendship.
I was ready for a fight. The alcohol had fueled me up enough and I was still just sober enough to pull it all together. I may not have been able to throw a punch but by God I had a mouth that still worked. Well I could not be sure of that as I did feel pretty numb everywhere….but….
Even my first blurry glance at him and the vibe of his mood as he walked in, surprised me. His presence spoke of something different, different in him, different in how he had been for months now.
The face, the expression, the stance of the man standing almost anxiously at the doorway, reminded me so much of the old Hutch. Only this Hutch seemed awkward and hesitant. He had never been like that. Not with me.
But I stayed on guard with him. It was damn hard because he was acting the part well. I was getting lulled into false hope here. Bloody tequila did not help either.
But I was not stupid, even when I was three-quarters drunk. No false hope for Starsky, I had proudly thought.
But then….
When he nagged at me about the cut and the medics,
I really started to wonder.
When he cleaned my cut up and laid those gentle big hands on my banged up face, as only he seems able to do,
I wondered more.
When he held me up while I vomited and stayed with me, getting covered in more of it than I did,
I started to know.
When he showered and dressed me like we each have done for each other over the years,
I knew.
And when he thought that I was asleep and he stayed with me and reached out for me for a touch we have not shared in so very long…
I had no doubt.
No doubt at all now.
The old Hutch was back.
But this was only half of the story. The realization that Hutch had begun to free himself of the inner demons that had dominated him was not enough for me.
Don’t get me wrong. I was more than happy that he had found himself again, for whatever reason, and in whatever way. No one would be happier than me at that change in him.
No one.
But I know I asked him last night, several times. He would not answer me.
I didn’t want Hutch back here, making amends and putting pieces back in place just because he thinks that it is something he needs to do in order to move on.
I am not his responsibility. I am not his duty.
I will not have him feeling sorry for me!
Maybe some of the old partner telepathy was firing up again. I don’t know… but as I could feel myself getting more and more agitated, Hutch started to wake.
As I watched he started pushing his hands through his mussed white blond hair and began stretching out his long body. It was a familiar habit of his that I knew well. He would always push and rub at his hair when he was in the throes of trying to wake up. I also knew that the next stage of awakening would be the look of pain on his face as his brain registered the stiffness in his back. For years that back had given him grief and I knew it was getting worse.
Soon the couch would no longer be a practical place for him to crash for the night…but hey we had to put up with so much worse in stakeouts in our cars. Our lives as cops.
I should have walked away then. Not been there when he awoke fully. I really had not meant to stay watching him sleeping for so long. In fact I had really just intended to put his coffee down and go back to bed…
But…
I seemed frozen, caught. It had been so long since we had shared a time like this where the two of us were in the same room with no crackling hostility filling the void between us.
Such a long time.
For the first time since the terrible day when I saw Hutch walk out of Kira’s bedroom, I felt some peace and some of the burning pain was receding. For the first time since that day I was able to look at the man in front of me now and see what I had always seen….Hutch. Not some fueled up smartass with a “who gives a shit about you” persona.
The Hutch from last night and the Hutch now slowing coming awake in front of me seemed a far closer representation to my old friend than the cold-hearted bastard he had become of late.
I felt compelled to stay, just waiting. Waiting for him, like I did last night.
At the same time I did not know how this was going to go down between us.
How will I deal with this now that I am no longer drunk?
How will he deal with me now that I don’t need him to look after me like last night?
As if on cue, he began to grimace and move his back gingerly about on the couch. I was expecting the groan when it came and also the usual expletive that always accompanied it.
“Oh …..Shit….fucking back.”
I watched him struggle into awareness, looking at the ceiling, trying to assimilate the surroundings.
I knew the second he figured it out.
Figured out that he was here in my place, on my couch. He was remembering last night. I could tell. Remembering everything …not just last night, but everything else too.
I knew because it was how it had been for me every time I woke up these past weeks. I would open my eyes and remember. The same shit reality would hit me and the same shit memories flooded in.
Nothing was the same anymore. Hutch and I weren’t the same anymore.
God I hated mornings since two weeks and two days ago. Every new day bringing more pain.
He sensed me then, as I knew he would. He turned his blond head slowly and caught me in his gaze. Light blue eyes looking right at me.
Here we were.
Here we are, Hutch. Now what?
What to do with each other?
It seemed that Hutch was to be the icebreaker last night and now.
“Starsky… ah, how are you feeling? How is your cut? Your head? Not sick ?”
Of course. First question to me just had to be one straight out of Hutch’s Mother Hen repertoire.
I wasn’t going to let him do to this to me. He was not going to make this all about ” How is Starsky coping?”
Point one to me…I will not answer that question.
“Coffee will be cold by now, sorry. Made it ages ago. There’s some fresh still in the pot.”
He was sitting up now, pushing through the stiffness in his back, pushing down the pain. It was just something he had learned to live with but I always felt bad when I saw him like this. Nothing much I could do to help.
We were so used to helping each other, trying to make it all better, that was our problem.
That is why he was here now.
“Nah…I don’t care if it’s cold. Hey, its coffee.” he smiled a little half-smile, like he was uncomfortable with me. “I’ll get another later. Thanks” he took the mug from me and sipped at it almost self-consciously.
I couldn’t help think that he was looking a little lost.
Not sure how to deal with my evasiveness.
Not sure where he stands with me.
Not sure what to say to me when he can’t say the things he wants to say like “how are you Starsky.”
I could not take the lost light blue eyes any longer.
“Ah… thanks for being here for me last night, Hutch. Sorry you had to deal with all of my shit and errr…..” I cast a look at the floor and couch. “and…well…you know, when I was sick and all.”
He seemed almost ridiculously relieved that I had strung a couple of sentences together for him.
“Hey Starsk….you know …it’s what fr ….frie…..it’s just what we do. You know help each other out, when…..”
He was really struggling now and I could hear the beginnings of the stutter that he so despised in himself whenever he was under pressure. But something just snapped in me then and I had to say it, had to lash out and hurt him.
Just a little of what I had endured the past long weeks.
“What, can’t ya’ say it, Hutch? Can’t bring yourself to say the word “Friends”. Is that your stutter getting in the way or your attitude to me?”
I knew at once that was a low hit and totally uncalled for in the context of the moment. Hutch’s face blanched and I heard him draw in a quick breath. What was worse, he didn’t even make a comeback.
Just looked at me sadly with those bloody blue eyes of his.
He tried but again he stuttered…”Star…Starsk.”
He just gave up and looked down at his cold coffee.
This was getting us nowhere except making me feel like a prize heel.
I stood up and his eyes followed me as I paced across the room and turned back to throw at him.
“I asked you last night, Hutch. I asked you and you didn’t tell me. ”
“Tell you what, Starsky?”
“Just tell me why.”
I pinned him with my eyes not allowing his gaze to waver from mine and repeated it.
“Just….tell me why, for God’s Sake.”
I heard his deep jagged sigh. He shook his head and looked even more defeated.
“Don’t you think …..if I understood it all myself I would? Starsk, I have no real idea of why I did any of those things to you or acted the way I did with Kira, myself yet. I have been trying and trying to work it all out. My head is just a mess, I have been a mess…I have caused so much…”
He was shaking now and pushing his head into his hands, ripping at his fine blond hair, pleading with his eyes for me to understand something he couldn’t himself.
Totally tormented.
I could see now why we were not getting anywhere with this. We were coming at this whole thing from different directions.
I returned to my seat opposite him but leaned in closer and grabbed his forearm.
“Hey wait. Wait Hutch. Just stop.”
He was looking bewildered now.
“I didn’t ask you why you did what you did. Only you will know that and its up to you to work it all out with yourself. You’re ya own boss with that stuff, Hutch. Only you can sort it for ya’ self and that will take time I know. Ya’ haven’t been ya’ self now for a long time, Hutch and now I think ya’ want some answers for that.”
I squeezed his forearm to emphasize the next point.
“If ya’ ever do find it out…well then its up to ya’ to let me in on it if ya’ want.”
His face was at once more relaxed but still confused.
“But Starsk…”
“No, listen will ya’ Hutch? So ya’ see when I asked ya why you came here last night, it wasn’t coz I want ya to tell me all that personal stuff inside ya’. Ya must had a reason for doin’ what ya’ did and actin’ like ya’ did, just like ya got a reason for stoppin’ it which I guess ya’ have decided to do now.”
I took a deep breath.
“I asked ya’ why ya came here. To my place? I want ya’ to tell me why, ya’ came to see me…. …like old times I guess? I think that is important.”
Ok this is getting hard now….get it out Starsky, put it on the line.
“Coz Hutch if you’re here coz ya feeling sorry for me or think that I need ya….Well then that’s no good for me, Hutch. I don’t want you back in my life coz you think I need ya’.”
I fell silent now. I had disclosed my fear that I was merely an unfinished box that needed to be ticked for Hutch. That he was making sure I was ok because he really did bum up my life and he was feeling sorry about what he had done to me.
Is it just that he wanted to move on with his life and he needed to feel that he had cleared some of that guilt by picking me back up off the ground?
He had stood up now and was taking the few steps over to the coffee table where I was sitting.
When he crouched beside me and spoke I saw the tears in his eyes.
“I have two things to say to you, Starsky. Two things, and I want you to believe them both. They are the truth and I have realized now that truth between friends is the most important part of friendship.”
He sought my eyes and I did not look away.
“I have wronged you, Starsky. I have betrayed your trust and taken the truth away from our relationship. I am only half way to understanding why I did that. I am going to understand it all and when I do I will share all of that with you. Total truth between us from now on.
The second thing you must hear is an answer to your question, well only part of it really…but when you ask me to tell you why I am here, came back here last night… I came back, not because you need me Starsk, but because I need you. ”
His blue eyes were awash with tears now, but I remained still listening to him, as he seemed so determined to get this all out.
“So no I am not here because I feel sorry for you or that I have a misguided idea that you need me… My life is about you and me, our partnership and our friendship. In the past weeks I have not been living in my life, Starsk…. You have not been there and so it has not been my life.”
A sad smile crossed his face.
“One thing I can tell you buddy, is that – that life is pretty fucking empty.
I need you yeah, and you need me too….that is the….. whole point, Starsky. That’s not a bad thing to admit to needing someone. My life without you in it has worn thin real quick and….I am so bloody scared that you will not let me back in….I came here last night because I can’t stand being outside anymore, Starsky. I know I don’t deserve it, but I want my life back.”
Had I ever seen him so anguished and frightened looking at the same time?
He looked exhausted from his speech to me and was struggling to stop more tears filling his eyes.
In contrast I am sure my face showed relief and lightness. I know I could feel it creeping in and pushing out the dark.
“Enough with the words ok? I’m gettin’ a headache here Hutch.”
I opened my arms to him then. He hesitated and looked almost unsure, uncertain.
I moved across and pulled him into an embrace that spoke more than any response I could give with words. Hutch, after all, was always the wordsmith. I liked to think I talked with my body and I was determined to not let him one-up me here.
We stayed holding one another for a long while, my own tears flowing freely now and we laughed and choked softly on the weeks of our pent up emotions.
Hutch eventually pulled back, looked closely at me and then gently grabbed my face, twisting it to the side in the afternoon light.
“Don’t think you are going to get away with getting this looked at either. It still needs suturing.”
Oh Christ! He’s back, Mother Hen to the fore.
I cuffed him lightly on the side of his tousled blond head.
“Welcome back, Hutch. I sure have missed ya'”
The End
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