An Unwritten Love Story

A reporter is let in on the Starsky and Hutch story.

I am a writer. Okay, a reporter, but I have been working on a book for about a year now about real crime and it’s impact on society. Every reporters dream, except it was far more complicated than I had imagined. Researching and tracking down the participants was far more time consuming and required more finesse than anything I had done as a reporter. Being on a story as a reporter was in the here and now, but researching this book meant dredging up painful memories that most had long buried and learned to live with. It was not always a pleasant task to ask them to let me into their private hell.

My emphasis was on important crimes that had taken place over the past twenty to thirty years, kind of “where are they now” type of thing, and how had their involvement changed their lives.

My research and interviews had led me to two men, former officers of the law with the Bay City Police Department, David Starsky and Kenneth Hutchinson, the Gunther case figuring most prominently. But aside from this case, which has been reported and dredged up again more than enough, I was intrigued to find that their names were often involved in other high profile cases and their impact with both the criminal element and the victims was creating an impulse to dig deeper into their careers. It was almost becoming a compulsion, the more I found out, the more I needed to go direct to the horses mouth so to speak.

I tracked them down but my repeated requests for an interview were politely refused, until I read of the death of one of the famous partners.

A week after the death I was surprised to get a call agreeing to an interview the following day. I naturally dropped everything and made the trip to Bay City.

I approached the front door of the small house with nervousness. I wasn’t sure of exactly why I was here after the previous refusals for an interview. The grounds surrounding the house where meticulously kept although beginning to show signs of neglect.

Before I could knock a tall slender black man, showing signs of age, opened the front door. His expression was not welcoming; in fact he appeared to be holding his emotions in strong control and was barely civil as he accepted my name and handshake.

“Come in,” he said, closing the door quietly behind me. I followed him to the comfortable living room where he turned slowly and coldly looked me straight in the eye.

“Let me make something very clear. He is very tired, sometimes very close to losing it. If you do anything at all to upset him further, or push him too far you are out of here. Is that clear?”

Before I could offer my assurance, a soft quiet voice interrupted.

“Huggy! It’s O.K., we agreed remember.”

I turned towards the voice. In the doorway leading to what appeared to be a deck was the subject of my interview Kenneth Hutchinson. He was pale, fragile looking, as if he would collapse at the mere whisper of a breeze. He held himself erect at great cost to his emotional and physical condition. His watery blue eyes acknowledged me briefly and returned to Huggy.

“Please Huggy, bring out the drinks and join us.”

He glanced back at me and with a slight indication, motioned me to follow him. He turned and slowly made his way back out the door.

When I stepped out on the deck he was settling wearily into a comfortable lounge chair. Huggy stepped around me with a tray of drinks, hurriedly setting it on the table before approaching Hutchinson and gently raising his legs onto the chair.

I turned from this display of concern and love for his friend and walked to the edge of the deck. The view was spectacular in the twilight. The lights from the city below where beginning to twinkle in the approaching darkness. The quiet serenity was soothing and momentarily I forgot why I was there.

“He loved the view from here.” Hutchinson said. “Even when the thunder and lightning were threatening to shake the foundations loose.”

His voice was wistful and with a trace of sadness and fond memories. I turned back to find him watching me. Huggy had settled him in the chair with a colourful blanket over his legs, a steaming fragrant cup on the table at his side. He rested in apparent comfort in the chair, the only indication of his personal turmoil the slight tremor in his hands as he reached for the cup. Huggy watched him closely from a nearby chair as he raised the cup to his lips.

“Help yourself to a drink” he continued. “I have trouble sleeping lately, so I hope you didn’t mind coming at this hour?”

I thanked him and made myself a mild drink, selecting a chair opposite him. I carefully studied the man before me.

Stories approximating legend had surrounded this man and his partner David Starsky all of their professional lives. What I saw now was a man nearing old age with all the telltale signs of a life lived in the eye of the hurricane.

But the eyes and face were most telling. His face bore his age well, but was now lax and emotionless, the heavy pouches under the eyes and the downward slack of the mouth indicating his sleepless state.

At the same time there was a restlessness about him that implied that if he were in better health he would be pacing urgently, muttering incessantly and perhaps even violently responding to his current sorrow.

Looking into his eyes though was to see it all. Those blue watery eyes reflected back the man and his life. The pain there made me want to weep and wrap my arms around him in comfort.

Behind that laid the strength of the man that acknowledged the pain and let it be, and continued to assess his world and sanity.

Over it all there dwelt on aura of knowing something the rest of us had missed. But buried there as well, although well hidden, was a calm acceptance of what his life had been and somehow I knew that he had known a sense of completeness that eluded the rest of us.

He lay there quietly waiting. Now that I was actually here, my confidence deserted me, and I questioned my right to intrude on his sorrow and obvious despair. I couldn’t seem to bring myself to the purpose of my visit.

“Mr. Hutchinson…”

“Ken, please.”

“Ken, I want to thank you for agreeing to see me, especially now. I can only imagine what the loss of Mr. Starsky…”

He seemed to slump slightly at the mention of his partner.

“You have no idea of the loss I have suffered. Please don’t be a hypocrite and presume to know something that is beyond your understanding.”

He had spoken clearly and softly but most emphatically. I was momentarily speechless. He sighed faintly and once again the pain and sorrow threatened to overwhelm him. Huggy made as if to comment but he waved him to silence.

“Let me tell you a story” he said.

Throughout the night and into the next day I listened as a life unfolded. There were frequent breaks as he rested quietly but never slept. Huggy would occasionally stop him to tend to his needs, seeming to know when memory was opening painful doors, allowing him to recover enough to go on.

His story started with his days at the police academy when David Starsky entered his life.

I heard the inside story on the major cases that had brought them renown. From my research I knew the official version of these cases, but his first hand, first person accounts demonstrated the personal sacrifices, the losses and the pain.

And slowly I began to see emerging the story of two men fated to be bonded for life. As he continued, the twining of these two souls took precedence in the telling.

I began to see and feel the exquisite relationship these two had had. How their successful careers had depended not only on their knowledge, experience and dedication to the job, but more importantly on their knowledge, understanding, trust and love for each other. They had supported each other with a unique strength and courage that almost defied understanding.

They had dealt with the ugly side of their job by turning to each other, by recognizing their strengths and weaknesses and balancing what the other lacked. They had done this openly and with honesty between them that had allowed each to draw what he needed from the other.

I recognized that I was hearing a love story, and he openly admitted that they had been lovers but that the physical love they shared was overshadowed by their intense soul-deep devotion to each other. One was not complete without the other.

“My David was a realist. He could never knowingly cause pain to others, especially me. He knew he was dying and that it would be a painful drawn out death. He did not want that for me or himself.”

He was sobbing painfully now, and seemed unable to continue. My heart knew what was coming and I doubted I wanted to hear it spoken.

Huggy spoke up.

“Hutch let me.”

Ken nodded slightly.

“For three weeks Starsky argued, cajoled, threatened, pleaded and begged Hutch to consider what he was asking. It was the only time I have ever seen them totally at odds.”

Ken added.

“How could I ignore what he was asking me out of love. I finally came to realize that it was his unconditional love for me, his fear of what was coming, and his desire to say goodbye on his own terms that decided me. We spent our last days in peace and contentment knowing that we would be together again.”

He had spoken almost in awe of his partner’s unfailing belief in what they shared and in the promise of eternal life. His next words where said with such devastation that they could only have come from his soul.

“But I could not have envisioned what being without him would be like.”

It took a few minutes before he could continue.

“I wanted to acknowledge his life and the good he had done for so many people with the truth, that is why I agreed to see you.”

I knew the interview was over and quietly took my leave. I left the house in turmoil. I had thought I knew the story I wanted when I arrived, but now I was doubtful I could even begin to tell it.

Three days later I still wasn’t sure. I sat in my den playing with my notes. That day I had attended Ken Hutchinson’s funeral. Huggy told me that after I left Ken had relaxed back in the lounge chair seemingly at peace, had opened his eyes, smiled and simply said “Starsk” and died.

Will I ever write this story? I don’t know. I don’t know if I have the words or the desire, maybe, some day, when I understand a lot more.