The Elusive Muse

Starsky’s Muse returns from a road trip with an unusual plot for their next story.

This is the third story in a trilogy. The first story is If You Can’t Beat ‘Em. The second story is Hi, Ho, Torino!

“She’s gone, Hutch. Didn’t even say goodbye. Just got on the Greyhound and left.” Starsky made a swooshing motion with his hand, which Hutch recognized as the gesture for an airplane, not a bus, but decided not to say anything.

“Probably went to Miami. Found some Hemingway wannabe living in a shack on the beach and is whispering in his ear.”

Hutch knew it was futile to point out Hemingway had lived in Key West and not Miami.

“Probably giving the guy all kinds of plot ideas and character motivations.” Starsky slouched even deeper into the couch cushions. “Why’d she leave, huh? We got sand and an ocean here. She didn’t have to go clear across the country.”

Hutch stopped himself from pointing out it had been a wet spring and maybe she wanted to escape the rain.

“I just wish I knew what I did wrong. You got any ideas?”

Starsky poked him in the ribs and Hutch realized he was expected to come up with an explanation.

“You don’t know for sure you did anything to make her leave like that. Maybe she went to a convention and just forgot to tell you.”

Starsky stared at him with that make-me-believe look that always made him feel like a parent explaining to a child why it really wasn’t a good idea to stick a fork in the toaster.

“I’m sure she’s visiting with her friends, eating too much and staying up all night. You know… doing the bump and tickle with the boys.”

“Hutch! She wouldn’t! I mean they’re… they’re … literary!”

“How do you think baby Muses get born?”

“What?”

“There has to be babies, Starsky, to inspire all those children’s stories.”

Obviously, his partner couldn’t think of a comeback to Hutch’s flawless logic. Muttering under his breath, he got up and stalked into the kitchen. Grateful for the silence, Hutch leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Over the years they’d had a lot of weird conversations. Like the time Starsky had gotten a hold of a trivia book and they’d argued for days about geeks and whether crocodiles really were responsible for killing more people every year than any other cause. But this one was truly bizarre.

Through the ages, poets and writers believed in the Muse, an elusive entity who inspired their sonnets and books. Starsky, of course, loved the idea of his own personal spirit guide to the halls of great literature even if all he ever wrote were fanfic stories. His Muse was a fairy-like creature with a magical wand and gossamer wings. Hutch imagined she must look like Tinkerbell, which made sense since Starsky, with his boyish enthusiasms, often reminded him of Peter Pan.

Anyway, Starsky was convinced the Muse was responsible for their two award winning fanfic stories. And since he couldn’t come up with an idea for a third story, he was also convinced she was mad at him and had caught the first bus going east. Miami was just the latest stop in an itinerary which had included Dallas, New Orleans, Chicago and New York. Why Tinkerbell was traveling the dusty back roads of America in a bus instead of fluttering to and fro on her magic wings was a question Hutch was afraid to ask.

After their second venture into fanfic — an alternate universe epic set during the French Revolution — swept the Torino Awards, he had naively hoped Starsky would be content to sit back on their laurels and move on to something else. At first Hutch had been relieved when Starsky hadn’t been able to come up with a plot for a new story.

Though, if truth be told, he had also been a little disappointed. While he would never admit it, especially not to Starsky, he had rather enjoyed the Comte de Hutchinson.

He’d gotten to wear silk waistcoats and velvet knee breeches, pinch snuff and say a few French words like bonjour and parlez-vous. He’d ridden horses and had sword fights in the best Errol Flynn/Basil Rathbone tradition. By day, with their band of merry men, they’d romped in the Gallic version of Sherwood Forest. At night, dressed in black cloaks and sequined masks, they’d played highwaymen, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Together he and Count Starsky had rescued not one, but two, fair haired damsels in distress — a young innocent lass from religious fanatics about to burn her as a witch and the other a beautiful kidnapped English princess.

It had all been a lot of fun.

But they hadn’t forgotten the bedrock of fanfic. There had been lots of hurt/comfort. Hutch caught the bubonic plague. The Black Death. Drawing on his previous experience, he’d moaned, groaned and writhed on a straw pallet in an abandoned goat-herder’s hut. Despite the risk of infection and Hutch’s pleas to save himself, Starsky had refused to leave. He’d held his trembling hand, bathed his face with a lace handkerchief and cradled him in his arms when the pain got too bad. Only Starsky’s devotion and an all natural herbal potion provided by a kindly monk saved his life.

Hutch was barely back on his feet when Starsky was captured by the evil Robespierre and thrown into a cold damp dungeon. The rusty manacles bloodied his wrists and rats nibbled at his toes. He’d been tied to the rack and stretched a few inches before Hutch, in a daring raid on the Bastille, rescued him. Still, his shoulders had been dislocated and he’d developed a fever from the thin gruel and other miscellaneous tortures. Hutch had stayed with him, holding his hand, bathing his face with the lace handkerchief and cradling him when the pain got too bad. And because Hutch was better at foreign languages, he’d called Starsky ba’be two dozen times.

According to the LOC’s, many readers wept at these tender scenes.

But the ending… ah, that was the piece de resistance. On a ship bound for the West Indies, they not only foiled the Spanish Armada but, standing back to back on the burning deck, repelled a horde of bloodthirsty pirates with sword and grapeshot. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t historically accurate, but it had been a rollicking good time and Hutch had gotten to throw in some nautical terms from his days in the Sea Scouts.

Once again their story was nominated for the Torino Awards and once again they won first place honors in all categories except poetry, beta reader and something called drabbles. Prepared this time with two six packs of beer chilling in the icebox, Hutch had braced himself for Starsky’s suggestion for the next story.

But something odd happened. There was no frantic rush for pen and paper. No mad scribbling. No babbling of a hare brained plot. Starsky smiled his lopsided grin and toasted their victory but the next day he was quiet and withdrawn. And things only got worse.

Starsky stopped eating cold pizza and burritos. Stopped insulting Hutch’s car. There was no bounce in his step. No swagger, strut or swish of his derriere. He even… gasp!… stopped playing Monopoly.

Hutch begged and pleaded but Starsky refused to tell him what the problem was. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Hutch broke down and cried. Starsky, distressed at Hutch’s distress, finally admitted his despair. The Muse was gone!

Starsky’s obsession with his missing Muse might have been funny if he wasn’t making Hutch’s life miserable.

He and Starsky were two halves of a whole. Twins separated at birth. Yin and yang. They could read each other like books. They carried on entire conversations with a look, a tilt of an eyebrow or a gesture of the hand.

Hundreds of writers had written thousands of stories about the bond between them but had barely scratched the surface. Me and thee were not words but the creed by which they lived. So when Starsky mourned, even about something as silly as a runaway Muse, Hutch felt it in his solar plexus.

Which reminded him. Where was Gordo?

Hutch rose from the couch and made his way to the kitchen where he promptly stopped dead in his tracks.

“Starsk, what are you doing?” he asked in his calm soft soothing gentle voice.

“Nothin’.”

“You’re obviously doing something.”

“Cleanin’.”

It looked more like he was playin’ … ah, playing. If the sight of his partner sitting in the middle of the floor building what appeared to be a castle out of dozens of cans, jars and boxes wasn’t enough to make a grown man weep, than the fact Starsky was reverting to his fanfic character and dropping his g’s certainly was.

Careful not to knock anything over, Hutch moved into the kitchen. Sliding behind Starsky, he stopped to squeeze his shoulder before he took up a position by the counter.

He watched in silence as Starsky tried unsuccessfully to balance a roll of aluminum foil between a can of green beans on the right and a jar of gravy on the left. Before he could tell Starsky he would have better luck if he used two cans or two jars instead of one of each, there was a tapping on the window above the sink.

As Hutch turned to see what was making the noise, a small white light zipped past his face.

“Penny Loaf!” Starsky exclaimed as the light danced around his mane of unruly tousled curls.

“Penelope,” Hutch corrected automatically as his brain tried to assimilate what he was seeing.

The light stopped whirling around Starsky’s head and was now hovering an inch from his nose. Starsky mumbled something Hutch couldn’t decipher when suddenly there was a shower of shimmering stars that hung in the air for a minute before fading.

“Penny, that tickles,” Starsky laughed as the light circled once more before coming to rest in the palm of his hand.

Hutch craned his head to try and see what Starsky has holding. It had to be a firefly or… or… Hutch couldn’t think of what else it could be but it certainly wasn’t a Muse. There was no such thing.

Speechless, he watched the light rise from Starsky’s hand and dart into the living room.

“She’s back, Hutch.” Starsky smiled at him with the thousand watt smile that had been missing for so long and Hutch didn’t have the heart to do more than give him a goofy grin in return.

“Get the beer, will ya?” Starsky asked as he rose in one graceful motion and went into the other room.

Hutch grabbed a couple of beers from the refrigerator and turned to follow, knocking over several cans precariously stacked on top of each other. Dodging out of their way, he hurried after his partner.

Starsky was sitting in the peacock chair with a faraway look in his eyes, which was always a portent that he was about to drag Hutch into something he’d rather not get dragged into. Hutch handed him a beer and sat down on the couch waiting for the ax to fall.

He didn’t have long to wait.

“You know, Hutch, we have a reputation to uphold.”

“Uh, huh.”

“The readers expect really terrific stories from us.”

“Uh, huh.”

“We have to push the envelope. Raise the bar. Storm the heights. Boldly go where no fanfic writer has gone before.”

“Please, Starsk, not a crossover with Star Trek.” Starsky had explained to him the crossover of characters from one fandom with another and Hutch thought the concept was a little weird. Besides they had enough trouble with the humans on earth without cavorting with Vulcans and Klingons.

“Nope, it’s been done before.”

Hutch sighed in relief and silently sipped his beer as Starsky drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.

As he waited, his eyes roamed the room looking for the white light. Not finding anything unusual, he had almost convinced himself it had been a figment of his imagination when it flew out of the bedroom and landed on the coffee table.

Hutch blinked. Rubbed a hand over his eyes. Blinked again.

It was still there.

Sitting on the edge of the table was a tiny sugar plum fairy dressed in a pink tutu, one dainty ankle crossed over the other, swinging her legs in time to the wings fluttering at her back. In one hand she held a wand with a silver star at the tip while the other pushed at a pink peaked cap which had slid over one eye. Righting the cap, she turned to him with what Hutch could only describe as a saucy look. With a nod and a wink, she tapped Starsky on the knee with the wand. There was another brief shower of stars and then…

“I’ve got it!” Starsky shouted, leaning forward and grabbing Hutch’s arm. “A musical comedy!”

Hutch dragged his eyes away from the apparition on the table and stared at his friend.

“Starsk, we write fanfic stories, not Broadway plays. Neither one of us are actors. Remember the time we went undercover on that movie set and what a disaster that was.”

“You’re still upset because they cut your line.”

Hutch had to admit there was a grain of truth in that. He’d bragged to everyone, including his mother, about his “starring role”, and even after all these years it still hurt that his big scene had ended up on the cutting room floor.

“We’ll write a story, but this one will have singing and dancing. In the middle of the action we’ll break away and you grab your guitar and sing a song and I can dance with a bevy of lovely ladies.”

The thought of performing in front of a group of people — even if it was make-believe and would be done on paper — made Hutch break out in a cold sweat and bring back the stutter.

“You… you… know how tongue tied I… I… get in front of an audience.”

“I’ll coach you. You’ll do fine.”

Starsky got up from the chair and, practicing for his big dance number, tangoed his way over to the desk.

Miffed at the cavalier way Starsky dismissed his stage fright, Hutch turned on Penelope.

“This is all your fault,” he hissed at the Muse who didn’t seem at all intimidated by the finger he wagged at her.

Further comment was halted as Starsky plopped down next to him.

“I got the title!” Starsky said excitedly. “Starsky and Hutch: The Musical.” He drew a line through the air as if he could already see the words on a marquee.

“Starsk, you said it was going to be a comedy.”

“Yeah, and I’ve got an idea for that too. Remember when we went undercover as fey hairdressers? You wore the tacky wig and I lugged around the ladder? Still don’t know why I did that but it was funny. In fact the whole episode was a hoot. Hilda and the blind cigar clerk. Buddy, the dumb security guy. The Baron and his strange cohorts.

“We can use them as window dressing for the big song and dance numbers. We already know the dialogue, so all we have to do is add a few hurt/comfort scenes.”

It took a minute before Hutch could articulate a response. His mind was still trying to come to terms with Starsky’s description of them as fey.

“More hurt/comfort? Why? We already have the explosion in the basement where I crawl over to you on my hands and knees. I would say that was pretty damn comforting. Still can’t believe I did that.”

“I know, babe.” Starsky reached over and ruffled his silky champagne blond hair. “Did I ever tell you how much I appreciated your selfless abandonment of your dignity? But the readers will want more and I’ve thought of a few things.”

Hutch was afraid to ask. So he kept quiet, knowing Starsky would tell him.

“You can have a severe allergic reaction to the chemicals in the hair dyes. The Baron will tie me to a chair and turn on all the dryers. Before you find me I’ll suffer a heat stroke. And instead of the long boring ride in the glass elevator we can have a gun battle with the goons and you can be wounded. Nothing serious, just something simple so you can remain conscious and sing. A ballad maybe. Yeah, that would be good.”

Hutch glared at the Muse who paid no attention to him as she tapped Starsky on the knee with her wand.

“Wait! Wait!” Starsky snapped his fingers in excitement. “I’m getting a lyric.” Eyes closed, he rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Don’t Cry For Me, Partner, It’s Only a Scratch.”

He leaned back, obviously pleased with himself. “Thanks, schweetheart,” he said in his bad Bogie impression, “that’s brilliant.”

Penny blushed at the compliment and blew him a kiss.

“I got to write this down before I forget.”

Starsky scribbled while Hutch went into his Zen mode, drawing in deep breaths and exhaling slowly.

During all the weeks when Starsky had turned into a pod person, he had told himself that he would be willing to accept any outlandish plot bunny as long as his Starsky was returned — the boisterous, mischievous partner with the sparkling eyes and impish smile who he loved dearly. The man who he’d run into a burning building to save. Jump off a bridge, stand in front of a speeding train, take a bullet for. If he was willing to die for him, surely the loss of his pride and a little humiliation weren’t any great sacrifices.

But that was before Starsky and that… that… damn Muse had come up with this absurd idea of a dancing singing rip-off of an episode, which had been fun to film but wasn’t on many fans’ top ten list. They’d be the laughing stock of fanfic readers everywhere if he didn’t find a way to nip this in the bud.

Yes, before the night was over he may have to kill Starsky. But he would make sure it was quick and painless.

Unless…

Covertly, through half slitted eyes, Hutch watched Penelope. She was lying on her stomach, wings lazily floating from side to side, chin on folded arms, looking at Starsky with absolute adoration. If he moved fast he might be able to grab her in one of his large hands, wrap his long tapered fingers around her neck and toss her back out the window.

He’d have to avoid tripping over the stuff on the kitchen floor, but if he was careful…

His fantasy was interrupted by a sharp jab in his side. Starsky, looking way too pleased with himself, shoved a sheaf of papers into his hands.

His mother said he looked like Paul Muni but today he felt like Cary Grant. Cool. Sophisticated. Debonair with the red scarf hanging loose around his neck and the white hat with the black band tilted at a jaunty angle on his mane of chocolate curls. The women couldn’t keep their eyes off him and one dark haired beauty in particular couldn’t keep her hands off him. She’d pounced on him as he sauntered through the lobby on his way to his undercover op in the beauty salon and obviously found his patented lopsided grin and French accent irresistible.

David Michael Starsky wasn’t a man to turn down the attentions of a lovely lady, but he was forty minutes late and Hilda Zuckerman was probably having a fit.

Hilda, the salon owner, was an older plumper version of Alice Kramden, the wife in the old The Honeymooners’ series. She had a sharp tongue and an inflated sense of her importance in their latest assignment. She was always carrying on about a citizen’s duty and law and order and co-operating with the police until he wanted to stick a towel in her mouth. Poor Hutch was likely pulling out the synthetic hairs from his cheap platinum wig.

“I hav to goooo to wok.” He struggled to say around the lock the mademoiselle had on his lips.

“What?” she asked as they shifted position and Starsky lifted his head to take a much needed breath of air.

That’s when he saw the crook. The guy wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. There he was sitting in the middle of the lobby, cigarette dangling from his lips, shifty eyes darting around nervously as he pulled a gun from his jacket pocket.

This was trouble with a capital T.

Disentangling from the female vampire, Starsky crawled over to the house phone and punched in the number for the salon.

“Mr. Marlene, please,” he said in his normal voice but quickly reverted to his French voice when Hutch answered.

“Say no more,” Hutch instructed in his normal voice before reverting to his fussy hairdresser voice.

“Tyrone, you naughty naughty boy, where have you been hiding yourself? Ms. Zuckerman is just sick and tired and I don’t blame her one single little bit.”

Starsky stuck his tongue out at the receiver when Hutch put him on hold but was back in his Tyrone persona by the time Hutch picked up again.

“Put your act in ze closet.”

“Wha’? What?” Hutch stuttered.

“I said, put your act in ze closet. There is a guy out here with huge weapons in his belt and very darkened eyes. And even as we speak he’s moving towards the cashier’s office.”

“Yeah, I’m on my way.”

Starsky tried to keep the evildoer in sight but the femme fatale was persistent. Every time he sneaked a peek around a corner, a hand would come out and pull him back into a clinch. Starsky knew only one way to send her packing — he handed her his room key.

The crook, carrying a brown paper bag full of his ill-gotten loot, headed for the escalator. But the intrepid detectives were there to head him off at the pass and chase him back into the lobby.

Having no place else to go, the criminal jumped on the ledge of the pool. Without hesitation, Starsky joined him on his left and Hutch on his right. Mindful of the gun in his pocket, the two police officers moved slowly towards the perp. But just as they were about to grab him, the strains of Scott Joplin’s Entertainer rag from the movie, The Sting, wafted out of the piano bar.

Tap. Tap. Heel, toe. Heel, toe. It was as if an invisible puppeteer was pulling on invisible strings. The crook’s feet began to dance. Starsky copied his moves and added a few flourishes of his own. It went on like that for a few minutes — each trying to outdo the other with elaborate footwork, but soon they fell into a rhythm and were tap dancing their way around the marble ledge to the delight of the ohhing and ahhing bystanders.

It was well known the Blond Blitz had a voice that could charm the birds from the trees but was all flailing knees and elbows on a dance floor. So while all this was going on, Hutch had stood his ground. Unfortunately, the crook hadn’t been paying attention and in the middle of a complicated step, bumped into the tall man. He teetered back and forth and, in a vain attempt to catch his balance, grabbed hold of Starsky and Hutch.

As the music came to its end, the three men fell into the pool. The wet paper bag split open and the money floated upon the artificially blue water.

“It’s okay, buddy, you don’t have to tell me how great it is.” Starsky beamed as the papers slipped through Hutch’s numb fingers and dropped to the floor.

“Starsk…”

“We’ll have to do some research on this one. I have to find the tape so we can rewatch the episode. There are parts I don’t remember too well. And whose music should we use for the big disco number? Donna Summer? The BeeGees? Maybe KC and the Sunshine Band?”

“Starsky…”

“And you have to write some songs. Tomorrow night when you come over, be sure to bring your guitar. I should find the tape recorder. And the script. Yeah, we need that.”

Checking off things on his fingers, Starsky got up and headed for the bedroom.

“I’m going to get you for this.” Hutch pointed at the Muse, giving her the venomous look he usually reserved for the worst criminals.

Once again Penny wasn’t paying any attention to him. Her work done, she was fast asleep.

End

Chapter End Notes:

Readers were divided on The Musical. Some loved it and not realizing it was only fiction, wrote asking where they could buy the soundtrack album. A few wrote saying they didn’t understand it. But mostly the story was greeted with silence. Still, it was nominated in several categories of the 2004 Torino Awards, this time coming in second place. Starsky, of course, had to have the last word. “Too avant-garde,” he explained, mercifully bringing an end to their use of the French language.