Maintaining a Fiscally Sound Life–On A Hope and Two Pennies

Starsky’s got money troubles–but Hutch has his back.

For Babs Bee.

After Starsky put a down payment on the brand spanking new candy apple red, custom painted Torino with a bold white stripe on both sides, and paid the license, registration, and car insurance fees, he had five dollars in the bank. That was only because the bank required something to keep the account open until his next influx of cash: his paycheck in fourteen days time.

Until then, he had two pennies to rub together. Which was fine. He’d anticipated that—there was some food in his kitchen. Maybe not enough to last two weeks, but there was almost always donuts or muffins in the morning in the squad room, next to the trusty coffee machine.

Breakfast was taken care of, as long as he was working. Which he definitely had to do to pay off his car loan.

Huggy generally let him keep a tab at the bar—which would cover the occasional beer and burger. Lunch and or dinner.

Hutch could be counted on to order take-out on a night when they hung out at his place to watch a movie on the TV or listen to records. Better yet—listen to Hutch sing. Just the two of them because Starsky couldn’t afford to take one of the pretty girls from booking on a date any time soon.

He preferred spending time with Hutch. That was nicer in so many ways.

Then there was the authentic New York rye bread his mother had sent him for his birthday, telling him to freeze it in the ice box—and who said ice box any more except Ethel Starsky? To take out a slice, defrost and eat with roast beef or salami, to remind him of home.

Which it did. Every time.

So, he really wasn’t all that worried about food for the next two weeks.

That was, until five days in to his carefully crafted plan of budgetary diet restrictions, his nose began to clog up, his body ached and his head pounded. Particularly when he bent over in the parking lot of the courthouse to pick up the dime and penny he saw winking at him on the tarmac.

Luck! He stuffed the coins into his jeans pocket along with the original two pennies. He knew that bananas cost eleven cents at the shop up the road from his place. Breakfast for his day off!

His vision swam when he straightened, a cough barreling out of his throat, and he had to grab the door of the car or fall to the ground.

“Starsk?” Hutch asked worriedly.

“M’okay,” Starsky lied, because in reality, he felt like crap. The little aches and pains had accumulated all day long, and now that the damned trial where he’d had to testify that Markie MacDhoughall had robbed the Switzer Street Jewelry store of more than two thousand in uncut gems was over, all he wanted to do was lie down and die.

“You look terrible,” Hutch crooned, touching the back of his hand to Starsky’s forehead. “Your eyes are glassy and you have a fever.”

Starsky nodded miserably, unable to refute the basic facts.

“Why don’t I drive you home and you can climb into bed?” Hutch suggested, those big hands so gentle on Starsky’s aching body as he guided Starsky into the passenger seat.

Except, Starsky had never let anyone else drive the Torino. His baby. His love. Although…he loved Hutch, just not the same way he loved the car.

“Be careful!” he warned, leaning back against the comfy seats.

“Starsky, it’s a car,” Hutch said in that slightly incensed but amused tone of his. “I know how to drive.”

Sprawled in the seat with the heater on, soothed by the wheels rumbling along the roadway, Starsky fell asleep.

He didn’t waken until the car pulled up in front of his house, next to Hutch’s beater that he’d left there twelve hours before.

“Go get some rest,” Hutch encouraged, helping him out.

Starsky turned his head, sneezed twice in the opposite direction from Hutch, and began the long, wearying climb up to his door. Why did his place have so many steps?

“Oh, I forgot—” Hutch carried a grocery bag up the stairs and opened Starsky’s door for him. “Noticed this morning that your cupboards looked a little bare. Down to the last crystals of coffee in the jar. So I picked up some stuff just now—aspirin, cough medicine, orange juice, and Seven-up, plus chicken soup, to tide you over until you recover.”

Starsky wanted to kiss him. There at the top of the stairs. But he didn’t. He took the grocery bag with a grateful heart. “You’re my pal, Hutch,” he said, avoiding breathing on his favorite person.

Hutch gave him a beautiful smile, a little wave, and walked to his car, singing softly.

Starsky went inside, put the bag on the coffee table and lay down on the couch. And went to sleep.

He dreamed of Hutch. Which made him feel so much better.

That and the hot bowl of chicken soup he ate while watching the Johnny Carson show.

FIN