Build Your House Upon a Rock

Hutch stared down at the newspaper in his lap.

He’d said it once, in partial jest.

“Starsk, are you asking me to move in with you?”

It seemed a long time ago that he fell through that door, perched as a bridge against the edge of the rotting porch.

In truth, pulling up in front of the shack he’d bought with Starsky had felt oddly right. Their place.

He thought of the drunken, yet sincere, four a.m. plea Starsky had made.

San Francisco.

And again after Starsky had wakened from his coma: “I dreamt of San Francisco. And you were there.” He hadn’t meant Hutch’s trip there to arrest Gunther.

And he remembered how he himself hadn’t been willing to step out from behind the lie they’d been perpetuating.

Hutch allowed himself to dream just a bit about what it would be like to openly live with Starsky. To hold his hand while walking down the street. To share bills addressed to both of them and argue over whose turn it was to take out the trash. To know that every night, he’d be able to crawl into bed with Starsky and not worry about which of them should answer the phone if it rang.

To simply love each other, surrounded by far more people with an understanding of how that happened than Bay City could ever hope to draw.

A half-remembered lesson from a long ago catechism class floated into his mind. Something about a foolish man building his house upon sand, where the waves and wind would easily dash it down, but the wise man built his house upon rock, where it would be safe.

The idea of living in San Francisco now felt like a rock to him, whereas Bay City felt like sand. Sand that shifted beneath the relentless waves of prejudice and his own anxieties. His doubts had dashed against their fragile house, which was built from their hearts but shrouded by fear of discovery.

During breaks from working the files on his desk, classified ads found their covert way into his hands, ballpoint ink circling homes and jobs. The possible homes outnumbered the probable jobs for a couple of tired detectives, one of whom was neither physically nor emotionally ready to return to the daily grind. But Hutch wasn’t giving up.

His fingers dialed the number he’d scrawled across the top margin of the paper.

“Detective Linda Williams, please.”

Hutch twisted the phone cord around his fingers, glancing at the bedroom door, behind which a cranky Starsky had retired to nap. It had been a particularly rough, setback-inducing sort of day.

“Williams.”

“Hey, Linda. This is Ken Hutchinson, Bay City PD? Remember me?”

“Hutch? How could I forget?” They both laughed as Hutch recalled sitting with her in the back of that hot, seatless van, all three of them covered in dust and sweat as Starsky drove them wildly down the road, tossing his passengers around in the empty back.

Nearly four years ago.

“How are you? How’s David? After your arrest of James Gunther up here, the rest of the news came pretty quickly.”

“Yeah. He’s – uh – well, better. We’re home now, at any rate.”

“We? Hutch? Are you okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine,” Hutch hurried to reassure her. “We’re living together right now, though, so I can take care of him. When I’m not riding my desk, that is.”

“Wow. That’s a lot to ask of a partner, Hutch.”

Hutch took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, and adjusted his voice to what he hoped sounded matter-of-fact.

“Yeah. Well… we’re used to it. It’s not like we have any immediate family here, really – just each other.”

“Like I said, a lot to ask of a partner. So, what can I help you with, Hutch?”

“Well, I was kind of hoping to feel you out a bit about any work available up there.”

“Up here? You want to move? But didn’t you just tell me you were taking care of David?”

“Yeah. It’d be me working… he’d come, too, and… live… with me. Work, too, once he’s cleared by a doctor. I-If he’s cleared.”

He could hear the clock ticking as the silence from the phone spoke volumes.

“W-we’ve talked about moving up there for some time now.” The phone cord was cutting off the circulation in his fingers. Somewhere in the background on her line, he heard a door close. “Linda?”

“It’s like that, is it?”

He could hear the smile in her voice, and slumped in his chair. “Yeah. It’s like that. Been like that for some time, but we haven’t exactly told everyone, you know?”

“I suspected as much.”

“Y-you did?”

“Hutch, in the single day I spent with you, I watched you eat from his plate, practically grope each other behind the gas station when you were working out how to get away from those guys, and what really clinched it was how you both could bicker like a married couple. And in the truck, how you pulled the hat down over his eyes. Taking care of him as much as you were taking care of me.”

Hutch felt himself flush. “We weren’t even together then. You’re quite perceptive.”

“I’m a detective from San Francisco,” she replied brightly, making him chuckle. “And I told you both that you were wonderful together.”

“So, uh… do you think you could help us out? I really need to get him away from here. A change in scenery is about my last resort.”

“What’s your number?”

He gave her both his desk and the apartment’s. “Hey, Linda, don’t say anything to Starsk about moving if you catch him on the phone. I-I kind of want to wait until I know for sure something’s going to pan out.”

“Sure. I’ll call you in a few days. Hey, uh…” He waited, suddenly knowing what she was going to ask. “Were you two planning on being ‘out’ up here? Because our force really isn’t any more progressive than yours is down there.”

His bright hopes of walking hand in hand with Starsky flickered darkly past, in danger of fading altogether, and he glanced once again at the bedroom door. “That’s something to consider. Thanks.”

“Hang in there, then, both of you.”

“We will. And… thanks.”

He held the phone for a moment longer after her end clicked, listening to the silence of the line before cradling the receiver.

Linda’s words looped through his mind. If either of them were looking to work on the force, they might well be swapping one set of restrictions for another, in a place where they wouldn’t even have their friends around to support them.

What would be best for them both?

“Hutch… ?”

He turned instinctively. The voice sounded shadowed by pain, and faint, filtering softly through the closed door. Numb fingers fumbled the bottle of pills he snagged on the way.

“I’m here, buddy. I’m right here.”

~end
November 14, 2007