Beginner’s Luck

153

Written for the Panfandom Hanukkah Bingo on AO3 and Tumblr.

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Hutch was driving back to the precinct after questioning a witness when he spotted the sign. It proudly proclaimed BAY CITY CLAY in large capital letters above the door. Underneath in a decorative, rounded script, it said “Create and paint your own pottery.”

He parked in front of the establishment and stepped out into the glaring sunlight. Despite the cheery California sunshine, the air was cool and crisp; a harbinger that winter would soon visit their sunny enclave, accompanied by the usual miserable cold December rains.

He shivered as he entered the store, but warmed up as he surveyed the large, brightly lit room inhabited by long white tables and wooden stools lined up beside them. A variety of clay pottery of all shapes and sizes adorned the shelves along the side walls.

A somewhat frumpled older woman approached him, smiling pleasantly. “How y’all doin’ today?” She asked, looking him up and down. “May I help you with something, sugar?”

He guessed she wasn’t a native Californian, but from somewhere in the South.

“Hi, I’m a… I’m looking to make something for a friend of mine. As a gift.”

He saw her glance down at his ring-less left hand before making eye contact again.

“Girlfriend?”

“Uh, no. Just a friend.”

“Well, that’s very thoughtful. Did you want to throw a bowl or vase with the pottery wheel?”

“I was hoping to make a dreidel, actually. It’s for Hanukkah.”

The woman stared blankly at him for a moment before she spoke. “What’s a dreidel?” Her Southern drawl sounded even more pronounced to his Midwestern ears.

“It’s a… well, it’s like a top that you spin, but it’s square and each side has a Hebrew letter.”

“I see. Well… you could probably throw one on the wheel. Have you ever used a pottery wheel before?”

“No. Is it hard to learn?”

“There is a bit of a learning curve, I’m afraid. Maybe y’all should start by hand-building one. We can consider using the wheel if we don’t like how it comes out.”

“Great, but I’ll need to come back another time. I’m on duty this afternoon. I was just driving by when I saw your sign.”

“On duty?” she asked. Her eyes lit up, and she leaned in uncomfortably close as she spoke. “Are you a doctor?”

“No, ma’am, I’m a police officer.”

“Oh.”

He thought he detected a note of disappointment in her voice.

“When would you like to come in?”

“This weekend, if possible.”

“I can put you in for Sunday at 10am if that works for you, sugar-pie.”

“That’s terrific.”

“Name?”

“Hutchinson. Ken Hutchinson.”

“Alright, Mr. Hutchinson, you’re all set. We’ll see you this Sunday. Y’all take care, now.” She flashed a flirtatious smile.

###

Hutch woke early on Sunday for his usual morning run, and when he returned home, he chitchatted with his plants as he watered them. Periodically, he’d glance over at the alarm clock on his bedside table to check the time.

At 9:30, he grabbed his jacket and keys and jogged down the stairs. He pulled up to the pottery studio just before 10am. The woman he’d met earlier in the week was busily trying to open the door while juggling a keyring full of jangling keys, a cup of coffee, her purse, and a tote bag stuffed full of who knew what.

“Here, let me help you with that,” Hutch offered, grabbing the coffee cup and tote bag before their contents spilled all over the sidewalk.

“Thank you kindly, Mr. Hutchinson,” she blushed. “Or should I call you Officer?”

“Ken is fine, uh….” Hutch realized he didn’t know her name.

“Deanna.”

“So, Deanna, how does this whole pottery thing work?”

“It’s very easy. I’ll give you some clay and you can sculpt or mold it into the shape you want, then after it dries, we fire it in the kiln. We call that bisque firing. After that’s done, you’ll come back to paint it with a glaze, and then we fire it once more to set the glaze. I can help if you need. Especially if you want your top, err, what did you call it?”

“A dreidel.”

“Especially if you want your dreidel to spin and not just keel over. Does it have a handle like a regular spinning top?”

“Yeah. Just like a regular top. But the dreidel needs to be square, so it has four sides.”

“Oh yes, you mentioned the Hebrew letters. Do you have a picture of one?”

“Even better than a picture. I brought one with me.” Hutch pulled out a small wooden dreidel from his pocket that he’d secretly pilfered from Starsky’s apartment the day before. It was approximately two inches high. Starsky kept it in the drawer of his living room desk, the one on which sat the menorah that had belonged to Starsky’s grandmother. But while his partner displayed the menorah year-round, he only brought out the dreidel during the eight days of Hanukkah.

Before Starsky had moved into his current wood-clad house surrounded by trees and a babbling brook, he’d lived in several apartments since their academy days, including a modern high-rise downtown and a white, aluminum-sided house up in the Hollywood Hills. That house’s decorating scheme—which was a bit on the cluttered side for Hutch’s sensibilities, to be honest—boasted an incessantly blinking traffic light, an inexplicable saddle even though Starsky had never ridden a horse in his life and had never expressed a desire to, barber poles mounted to the walls, and many knick-knacks and tchotchkes.

Hutch smiled at the memory of the first time he heard Starsky use the word.

“Tchotchkes?”

“It’s Yiddish,” Starsky had replied. “It’s like knickknacks or trinkets.”

“So… a bunch of junk?”

“Yeah, somethin’ like that.”

Hutch preferred Starsky’s current abode to the others, with its neat, well-ordered arrangement done up in soothing navy blues, warm wood tones, and cheerful pops of red.

Come to think of it, Starsky had never displayed Jewish memorabilia in his previous apartments, preferring the jumbled aesthetic of random automobile parts, wagon wheels, and hobbyhorses, but his current place was filled with it, if one was inclined to notice. Hung above the menorah was a poster of a swimmer painted by Jewish-American artist R. B. Kitaj for the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Starsky had explained the poster’s provenance to Hutch one night not long after he’d moved in. The ’72 Olympics had shocked the world when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped, held hostage, and brutally murdered eleven members of the Israeli delegation, including athletes, coaches, and judges, as they demanded the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

The night before the massacre, the Israelis had attended a local production of the play, Fiddler on the Roof. Starsky had never seen the play on stage, but he’d seen the 1971 movie, which his mother back home in New York considered one of her favorite films. Hutch supposed it was the favorite film of many Jewish mothers, but he wondered what they thought about the traditional old-world marriage by matchmaker, which as the film portrayed, often comprised marrying off teenage girls to men as old as their fathers.

What would those 19th century citizens have thought about one David Michael Starsky? he wondered. The girls would undoubtedly love him, but their fathers would likely only approve of marriage if he were a successful merchant. Well, too bad for all those girls, Hutch thought, because he’s mine. He grinned, but his grin turned to a frown as he remembered where his random train of thought had started.

The terrorist attacks in Munich had prompted American gold-medalist swimmer Mark Spitz, himself Jewish, to leave the games early for fear of being the next target.

An image of Mark Spitz suddenly appeared in front of Hutch’s eyes, the swimmer clad in nothing but a pair of tight-fitting, tiny Speedos. Starsky had a Speedo poster in his house on Ridgeway, but it somehow didn’t make the move to Starsky’s latest house. Which reminded him, somewhere in his partner’s house was the mezuzah Starsky had picked up from Huggy some months ago, which was lost during the move. Periodically, his partner would turn the apartment upside-down looking for it.

“Starsk, why don’t you just buy another one? It’s obvious you’re never gonna find it.”

“Hutch, you don’t understand. It’s the principle of the thing. I want that mezuzah.”

“Why? Because you got it for free after stealing it off Huggy?”

“I didn’t steal it. I took it. There’s a difference. If Huggy’d wanted me to pay for it, he’d have said so.”

“Is that right?” Hutch had rolled his eyes before the conversation turned elsewhere.

“Officer Hutchinson? I mean, Ken?”

“Sorry, Deanna. I’m afraid my mind was wandering.”

“I asked how big you wanted your dreidel to be. This one’s rather small, don’t you think?”

“Definitely bigger,” Hutch proclaimed. “Something more substantial.”

“Here you go.” Deanna plopped a pile of wet clay on the table in front of Hutch. “Let’s see how you do with this. I’ll stop by in a few minutes to check on your progress.”

As Deanna stepped away to assist another customer, Hutch picked up the clay and began kneading it into a shape that vaguely resembled a dreidel, smooshing one end between his fingers to make a pyramid shape and pulling up some clay on the other end to form the handle. He turned it over in his hands, frowning.

It looked like something a child had crafted out of Play-Doh. Not that he was expecting it to be on par with a Michelangelo, but he was hoping to at least achieve a quality somewhere between the two.

Deanna spied him from across the room and hurried over, standing behind him and placing a hand on his shoulder. “Here, darlin’, let me show you a better way to do that.” She sat down on the stool beside him and grabbed a fresh mound of clay.

“What you want to do is gather it together like this and roughly form a rectangle. Then take this wooden paddle and pound it against the sides until they’re nice and smooth. Flatten one end real good. That’ll be where we attach the handle. Then take the paddle and work it against the other end until you have something like a pyramid. You want to make sure that it’s even all around so it’ll spin nicely. There. See how I did that?”

“That’s terrific, Deanna, but I think it’s a bit too tall.”

“Oh, that’s alright, sweet-pea. We’ll just use this X-Acto knife to cut the top off nice and even. Now just keep paddlin’ it all around until it’s as smooth as a baby’s bottom.”

Hutch followed Deanna’s lead, paddling the clay until the top and sides were smooth and even. “What about the handle?”

“Watch what we’re gonna do for that. You can use a pencil, or you can turn the X-Acto knife around and use the non-lethal end…” Deanna pushed the bottom of the X-Acto into the top of the dreidel, creating a small divot… “and just keep twisting it in there until you get a hole big enough to fit the handle. Then take some clay and roll it out into a snake until it’s the width you want. That will be our handle.”

“Isn’t it too long?” Hutch asked.

“Well, don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, sugar-pie. We’re gonna cut off the ends nice and straight with the blade. Now, you just wiggle it in there and press all around until it’s secure. See, wasn’t that easy?”

Hutch watched intently as Deanna showed him her technique.

“Deanna, you’re a genius! Why didn’t I think of that?” He grabbed her shoulders and planted a kiss on her cheek, making her blush.

“Ooh, don’t you worry, sugar-pie,” Deanna giggled, “by the time you finish here, you’ll be an expert sculptor. All it takes is some practice.”

“Thanks. Um, what about the letters?”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about that part. You have several choices. You can paint them on with a brush, inscribe them into the clay using one of these…” Deanna picked up a stylus and showed it to Hutch, “or you can carve them out with this sgraffito tool. I suppose if you wanted, you could hand form them out of a separate piece of clay and attach them to the sides. You know… engraved or embossed. Your choice.”

“I like the embossed look, but I think it might be easier if I engraved them.”

“You might be right. Try that and see how you do. I’ll be right over there. I have some customers coming in a few minutes, but if you need me, just holler.”

Hutch set to work, determinedly shaping his clay until it formed an elongated cube, paddling the bottom until it resembled a pyramid, and creating the handle just like Deanna had shown him. When he was satisfied with his creation, he engraved the letters with the sgraffito. He turned it over, admiring his handiwork. “Not bad, Hutchinson,” he said to himself as Deanna approached.

“Oh, that’s lovely, isn’t it?” Deanna exclaimed. “We’ll need to let it dry for at least 24 hours. I’m planning on firing the kiln on Tuesday, but it’ll need most of Wednesday to cool off. So ya’ll can come back any day after that. Once it’s bisque fired, it’ll be nice and ready for you to glaze it.”

“If I come back on Thursday, when will it be ready for me to take home?”

“Well, it has to be fired again, but I’ll probably do that on Saturday or Sunday. When do you need it by?”

“The 18th.”

“Oh, that’s no problem at all. See you soon, sugar-pie.”

Hutch thought she winked at him as she waved goodbye.

###

Thursday afternoon was thankfully slow, so Hutch decided that was his best chance. He lied and told Starsky he was going to the doctor to check out what might be an ear infection, and was out the squad room door before Starsky could inquire further.

He parked his car outside the pottery studio and strolled breezily inside, excited to see his bisque-fired dreidel. Deanna pulled it down from the shelf and brought it over.

“Try it out. It spins like a dream,” she told him.

He did. It spun for several seconds before toppling over. When it fell, the letter facing up was ה.

“If I remember correctly, that’s a hei,” Hutch explained.

“What does it mean?”

“I think it means half.”

“Half of what?” she asked.

“It’s a gambling game. When you spin the dreidel, if the side facing up is hei, you get to take half the pot.”

“Oh, I see. What are the other letters for?”

“One of them is nothing, which means the player who spins it doesn’t get to take money from the pot, but they also don’t have to put anything in. You know, that kind of thing.”

“So it’s sort of like dice, then? But instead of rolling it, you spin it?”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Let me set y’all up with some paint. Which colors would you like? We’ve got every color you can imagine.”

“Maybe blue with yellow letters? What do you think?”

“I don’t know what color dreidels are supposed to be, but those colors sound just right.” She rummaged through the jars of paint and brought over several shades of blue and yellow. “This is a lovely blue. It’s a cross between royal blue and turquoise, and it’s got a nice speckling to it. And this yellow here will be nice and bright to complement it.”

“Great.” Hutch set to work, picking out just the right size brushes that he’d need for the job. Once the dreidel was fully glazed, Deanna carefully picked it up and placed it on a clean plate, which she carried over to the counter.

“I’ll call when it’s ready for pick up, sweet-pea. Y’all have a good day, now!”

###

Hutch trotted out of the studio and drove back to the precinct. As he walked through the squad room doors, he spotted Starsky sitting at their shared desk, his head bent over as he busily typed up a report. He lifted his head as Hutch sat down opposite him.

“So what’d he say?”

“Who?”

“The doctor. About your ear?”

“Oh, that. He said I… uh… I have an ear infection. Just as I suspected.” Hutch coughed a few times for good measure. “He gave me some antibiotics. Said it should clear up in no time.”

Hutch wasn’t sure if Starsky believed him, but his partner’s face remained neutral, belying any sign of suspicion.

###

The first night of the festival of lights was December 18th. They were supposed to be on shift until 5pm, but unbeknownst to his partner, Hutch had arranged to leave early. At 4pm sharp, he put down the folders he was rifling through, picked up his jacket and stood up to leave.

“Hey, where ya going? We still got another hour.”

“Oh, yeah, I know, Starsk, but I gotta get an oil and filter change before they close. Dinner later?”

“I hope so. I wasn’t planning on starving tonight.”

“Great. I’ll stop by your place when my car’s done. Don’t eat anything before I get there.”

Starsky started to say something, but before he could get a word out, Hutch was out the door.

###

Grocery bag in one hand, Hutch turned the knob and pushed open Starsky’s front door, surprised to see a mezuzah attached to the inside of the door frame.

“Hey, you found it!”

“Not exactly. The one from Huggy is still missing. This one came in the mail today from my Ma. She sent one for you, too.” He handed Hutch a small object wrapped in tissue paper.

“Oh, that was sweet of her. Here.” Hutch removed a casserole dish from the grocery bag and placed it on Starsky’s kitchen counter. “It’ll take about an hour to cook,” he said, turning on the oven to preheat it.

Starsky lifted the top to peek inside. “What is it?”

“Brisket. I got the recipe from your mother.” He pulled out a foil-wrapped package from the bag. “I also made latkes.”

“You bring any applesauce?”

“Of course. I might be a goy, but I know you can’t have latkes without applesauce.” Hutch pulled out the jar of applesauce along with a white cardboard bakery box which Starsky immediately opened.

“Mmm, jelly doughnuts.” Starsky swiped some jelly on his finger to sample it.

“Just like the ones the Israelites ate in the desert thousands of years ago, along with Manischewitz wine and matzoh ball soup,” Hutch smirked.

“In Israel, they call them sufganiyot.”

“Matzoh balls?”

“No, jelly doughnuts. You didn’t make matzoh ball soup too, did ya? It’s the wrong holiday.”

“Nope, no matzoh ball soup tonight. But I did bring a bottle of wine.”

“You thought of everything, huh?”

“Almost.” Hutch smiled. “It seems I forgot one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“This.” Hutch leaned over and pulled Starsky close, pressing his mouth against his partner’s as he slipped his tongue inside. “Happy Hanukkah, Starsk.”

“It sure is, babe.” Starsky stole another swipe of red jelly while Hutch put the casserole in the oven. “How long did you say that would take?”

“About an hour.”

“Gee, I wonder what we’ll do while it cooks?” Starsky smiled mischievously.

“Light the menorah?”

“That can wait.” As Starsky took Hutch’s hand and pulled him towards the bedroom, Hutch forgot all about the gift in his jacket pocket.

They made love leisurely, savoring every moment of their free hour while the timer in the kitchen ticked off the minutes until dinner was ready. Drowsing contentedly in each other’s arms, the sound of the oven timer going off discourteously roused them.

Hutch pressed light kisses to Starsky’s forehead, the bridge of his nose, and his moist, parted lips. “Dinner’s ready, Starsk.”

Starsky responded by nuzzling his face into his partner’s neck, kissing the soft skin behind Hutch’s ear.

“Come on, we gotta get up.”

Reluctantly, Starsky pulled away and climbed out of bed. “I’ll get up, but only because there’s food involved and I’m starving.”

They dressed quickly and headed to the kitchen. Hutch stood next to Starsky and watched solemnly as Starsky lit the Shamash with a match and used it to light the first of eight candles as he recited the Hanukkah blessing.

“Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b-mitzvotav, v-tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.”

Starsky had memorized the blessing in his childhood, but despite only saying it once a year, the words came easily, although he had once told Hutch that he no longer remembered exactly what they meant.

Soon dinner was on the table, and the earlier sounds of satisfied grunts, moans, oohs and ahhs were replaced by the pleasant tinkling of wine glasses and shiny silverware clinking against fine porcelain plates.

After the dinner dishes were washed, dried, and put away, Starsky inquired about dessert.

“Can we hold off on that for a few minutes? I’m stuffed. Besides, I have something for you.” Hutch pulled the wrapped box out of his jacket and handed it to Starsky.

“What’s this? You didn’t get me a mezuzah, did you?”

“Why would I?”

Starsky tore open the brown paper wrapping that was neatly tied with silver ribbon. He held the cardboard box in his hands, trying to guess what was inside.

“Is it a baseball?”

“Nope.”

“I know! A new watch.”

“Not even close.”

“Well, it’s definitely not a sweater.”

“How do you know? Maybe I got you the world’s smallest sweater. Ever think of that, mushbrain?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, go ahead. Open it.”

Starsky pulled up the cardboard flap and reached into the box, pulling out the handmade ceramic dreidel. He carefully turned it over in his hand as he announced the names of each of the four letters.

“It’s for your collection.”

“I don’t have a dreidel collection. Just that small, wooden one.”

“Well, now you have two, so that officially makes it a collection.” Hutch looked over at the menorah on the desk. He’d secretly put the small wooden dreidel back in the drawer a few days earlier, but now it sat prominently displayed next to the menorah.

Suddenly, Starsky’s eyes lit up. “You made this, Hutch?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“You weren’t at the doctor the other day.”

“Afraid not.”

“I knew you were lyin’ about having an ear infection. You’re not a very good liar, ya know.”

“I try my best.”

“So what’d you do? Paint it yourself?”

“I made it from scratch, starting with a mound of wet clay. And a very helpful lady named Deanna who owns the place. I think she has a crush on me.”

“Should I be worried?” Starsky laughed, but he was only half-kidding.

“Not at all. She isn’t exactly my type. Besides, she could be the most beautiful woman in the world and it wouldn’t matter a damn bit, because I only have eyes for you.”

“I love it, babe. And I love you.” Starsky’s eyes looked misty as he placed the dreidel on the desk next to its wooden brethren and spun it. When it stopped, the letter facing up was ג.

“Which one is that?” Hutch asked.

“It’s a gimel.”

“What’s it mean?”

“It means,” Starsky smiled, wrapping his arms around Hutch and pulling him close, “I won the whole pot.”