Back Seat Driver

Starsky cleans out the back seat of Hutch’s car and finds something he doesn’t expect.

Starsky breathed a sigh of relief as Hutch left the house. Not that he didn’t appreciate everything his partner had done for him over the past months, but there were times that he needed to breathe, to be alone without Hutch hovering over him, without seeing Hutch on edge every time he coughed or winced or groaned.

It was time he did something for Hutch and knowing that Hutch would number one be gone for the rest of the day and number two had been picked up by Dobey and not used his car was perfect for the plan he had in mind.

He made his way outside, relieved that it was warm and sunny and the breeze coming off the ocean made the air fresh. Hutch’s car was parked on the gravel near the back. Starsky felt a pang of loss when he thought of the Torino. He still missed her but it wasn’t like he had the clearance to drive yet anyway. At least Hutch had gotten a better car than the beat up LTD—the Chevy Nova was not only a new model but it had come direct from a Chevrolet dealer. When Starsky questioned the red paint job, Hutch only replied that it was the only color on the lot. It was comfortable enough to ride in to the doctor’s and physical therapy appointments. But the back seat…

For a man who had a mind like a steel trap, who fussed incessantly when Starsky’s files hadn’t been in order, and heaven forbid, didn’t organize his receipts, Hutch was a slob with his car.

“Your back seat isn’t a garbage can.” Starsky had reminded him of that way more than one time. He supposed he should be grateful that Hutch didn’t dump food back there because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Hutch actually clean it. In fact, the back seat had been covered with Hutch’s stuff (junk, Starsky preferred to call it) when he’d driven home with it from the lot. He had this vague image in his mind of Hutch wagging a finger at the salesman and saying no, I can’t take it until I transfer all the junk on the back seat over to this new back seat.

Pack rat didn’t begin to cover it. Starsky still remembered that wagon wheel he’d found once. He never had found out what Hutch did with that. Well, enough was enough and he was going to clean out that back seat today no matter what the consequences. If he had to sit in the car, it was going to be clean and tidy.

He was grateful for the breeze as he started. He took out the newspapers—honestly why did Hutch keep all the papers? Was he going to cut out recipes or something? He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped at that image. He didn’t bother looking at the dates, sure that none of them were even from the last week. Despite the overwhelming urge to just throw them all away, he knew what his partner’s reaction would be if he did. And besides, it wasn’t like he would have liked Hutch to throw away his things without permission.

So he gathered up a pile of them and took them into the house, stacked them on the coffee table that he’d cleared off earlier. It took him multiple trips just for the papers and by the time he finished with those, his arms hurt and his breathing was harder than it should have been.

Correction, he thought, as he sat down. His breathing was normal for where he was in his recovery—at least that’s what the doctor would say if he called. So he did what he’d learned to do over the past months and took a break. He drank two glasses of water and sat while he sorted the papers by date and put them in neat piles by month. By the time he finished that, he was actually hungry.

“You’d be so proud, Hutch,” Starsky said as he ate the soup that Hutch had made a few nights ago. He even dutifully ate some salad although he wasn’t ever going to admit that to Hutch when he came home from the conference.

By the time he went back outside, it was much warmer than it had been and even the breeze didn’t do much to make him cool off.

What on earth did Hutch need with six boxes of paperclips and ten notebooks? Why were there broken ballpoint pens and those little pencils you got from the miniature golf course?

“I’m not gonna ever let you complain about expense reports again,” Starsky said as he found a paper bag stuffed full of receipts.

He carried the stuff in the house and sat down again with a groan. He rubbed at his chest and stomach and then tensed waiting for someone to ask him what was wrong and did he need a pain pill.

He relaxed into the sofa, tilted his head back and closed his eyes. Just a short break, he thought into the silence.

Starsky woke with a start. He straightened, not surprised at the kink in his neck, the tightness in his shoulders, the low dull ache in muscles still healing.

He went back out to the car and inspected his work. Good job, he told himself. He wanted more than anything to drag out the vacuum and actually vacuum the back seat, but even he wasn’t fool enough to think he’d actually be able to do it.

“Now this is what a back seat should look like, Hutchinson,” he said aloud. He noticed a box protruding from under the driver’s seat and bent down to retrieve it. It was an Adidas box—kind of beat up but still holding together. It certainly wasn’t heavy enough to have shoes inside. Despite his overwhelming curiosity, Starsky didn’t open it but took it with him into the house.

Glad the worst part of the task was over, Starsky started going through the pile of things he’d brought inside. The broken pens were tossed—there was no way Hutch could ever make an argument for keeping them.

Starsky took the paper bag of receipts to the small dining table and spilled them out next to the cigar box. He started sorting without really looking until the dates began to register. He put them in neat little piles by date—all of them from May to August of this year. He’d been in the hospital and then the short term rehab center time. Receipts for parking, receipts for food, receipts for clothing that he suspected had all been for him since he’d lost so much weight.

He swallowed hard at the realization of all the time Hutch had spent with him and doing his job. No wonder Hutch had looked so drawn so many evenings when he’d come to visit after the first weeks. He felt tears in his eyes. Damn medicines that brought his emotions so close to the surface.

He stood up to get himself a glass of water, to get a damp cloth to place over his eyes when he heard the door open. Was Hutch home already? Where had all the day gone?

“Hey, Starsk, I’m…” Hutch’s voice trailed off.

Starsky looked at him, his partner’s, his lover’s face gone paler than usual, his body strung tight.

“What did you…what’s all this?” Hutch dropped the books from the conference on the floor as he advanced into the living room and towards the dining area. “What..”

Starsky saw Hutch’s eyes go to the shoe box and he swore he saw panic there. He glanced down and then back at Hutch. “I didn’t open anything. I thought I’d…”

It happened in a split second, one of those moments that in a movie would be shown in slow motion. Starsky stepped away, Hutch stepped forward and the box, close to the edge of the table got caught by Starsky’s hand and fell to the floor, its contents spilling onto the polished wood.

Starsky watched as Hutch went to the floor in a vain attempt to gather everything before Starsky figured out what it was. But Starsky had been a cop too long and he’d been observant even as a child.

A button, a bent and stained leather case similar to the one he’d used for his ID and badge, a ping pong ball that bounced and landed against the toe of Starsky’s right shoe, newspaper clippings, reddish brown shoelaces, a strip of paper with squiggles of lines along its length.

“Hutch?” Starsky said when Hutch stuffed everything back in the box and sat still and silent on the floor, one finger tracing the outline of the leather case.

“Hutch?” he said again when there was no answer. He put one hand on the closest chair and lowered himself carefully to the floor. He was already going to be hurting tomorrow, it wasn’t like this was going to make much difference.

He closed his eyes, listened to Hutch breathe, to the way there was a little hitch every now and again as if Hutch was fighting for control.

“Oh babe,” he said finally. “It’s okay to let go.” He reached out, placed his hand over Hutch’s, stilled the incessant tracing, not surprised to feel the tremble in those beautiful, strong fingers.

“Look at me,” Starsky said and tightened his hold just a bit. “Hutch. Look at me.”

He wasn’t quite prepared for the utter devastation in Hutch’s eyes and for a brief moment, he found himself looking away down at their joined hands, at the shoe box, and realizing it was his. His shoe box that had been in his apartment before…before Gunther, before both their lives had changed so completely.

“I thought.” Hutch pulled his hand away and stared down at the contents of the box. “I thought this was a…all I was g…going to have left of you.”

Starsky tried to smile, was pretty sure he failed. “You’ve got me now, babe.”

Hutch took a slow, deep breath and his whole body shuddered. “I didn’t want you to know. You weren’t ever supposed to know.”

Those tears he’d held at bay when he’d gone through the receipts couldn’t be contained any longer as Hutch went on.

“I didn’t…your clothes. They cut everything off and bagged it and the only thing I had was the button that I pulled off your shirt when you were s…shot.”

Starsky watched as Hutch turned the button over and over in his fingers, as he moved from the button to the shoelace.

“I don’t even know how I got this. I don’t remember.” He took out the leather case and Starsky knew it was his—the one he’d had the day of the shooting.

“They gave me this. At the hosp,” Hutch’s voice broke. “Hospital. His personal effects they said. Like when we give them to…” The words were left unsaid. His voice grew softer. “We were playing ping pong. Do you remember, Starsk? And we were talking about you picking the meal I owed you. Remember?”

“I remember,” Starsky said even though it was more of a hazy dreamlike memory than he was sure Hutch’s technicolor recording was. He wondered briefly if his was the easier recovery from Gunther’s assassination attempt.

He could guess at the newspaper clippings—cop shot in police garage, Gunther arrested, Gunther dies from massive stroke one day into trial and as Hutch curled the strip of paper around his hand, he recognized as one of the many EKGs he’d had both during his hospitalization and since.

“I’m alive, Hutch,” he said.

Hutch nodded, hunched his shoulders nearly to his ears, and shuddered again. “You’re always with me. When I…I’m out, you’re always with me.”

Starsky put his hands around Hutch’s wrists, felt resistance when he tugged, and then finally Hutch melted into him, sank into Starsky’s embrace.

Starsky felt hot tears on his hand, said nothing because he had no words, but he held on. Held on tight so Hutch knew he was there. He pressed a kiss to Hutch’s hair, to his neck, tasted the salt of Hutch’s sweat.

He felt the ache in his back, the strain of muscles still healing, and the grit in his eyes because he had done too much this day, but it was all worth it. It was and it would be. Outside the sun set and the waves rolled in and out just as they had for millennia and would for millennia to come.

“I love you,” Starsky finally whispered into Hutch’s ear. “I’m here now.”

Hutch pulled back, wiped his face, and when he looked at Starsky, he was finally smiling. “I know.”

Starsky breathed deep and grinned. “Wanna me to show you just how here I am?”

Hutch’s laughter was all the answer he needed.