Fairground Attractions

Not all their encounters at the fairground revolved around abandoned bodies and kidnap threats. This time, after a squad room bet, the trip had involved Simmons and Babcock propping up the fairground bar, luxuriously unencumbered, while Starsky and Hutch wrangled Simmons’ three children who, though small, punched way above their weight in the mayhem stakes as they rampaged through the rides and stalls.

Now, the two exhausted men stood in the parking lot in the early evening light, long shadows stretching out behind them as they watched Simmons’ car drive away, his three kids still waving frantically out the back windshield as they disappeared from view. Hutch pulled open the door of his battered LTD and collapsed behind the wheel with an exaggerated sigh of relief.

In the passenger seat Starsky, hopped up on coffee and the pure sugar of cotton candy, slumped back and swung his aching, Adidas-clad feet up on the dash. He looked across and grinned. “You had enough there, partner?”

Hutch was stretching his arms as far above his head as the cramped confines of the car would allow, no doubt easing out kinks in his shoulders from carrying the littlest Simmons, small fists gripped in his hair for balance while the heels of miniature sneakers drummed against his chest. He shrugged ruefully and turned the key in the ignition.

“I thought we’d never get away.”

Starsky smirked as they eased out onto the highway. “You’re not yearning to be a family man then?”

“You kidding? I got my hands full enough with you, I don’t need any of that.”

There was a moment’s silence as Hutch’s eyes went wide and the subtext that Starsky had dismissed on autopilot came into focus, crystal clear.

Hutch looked away, studiously checking his side-view mirror. “Uh, I mean, that probably sounded…”

Starsky’s heart rate ramped up as Hutch’s voice trailed off. It felt like they’d been ambushed by a sea monster in the middle of the freeway. No, more as if the elephant that had been in the room so long they’d almost stopped noticed it sitting quietly there in the backseat had just leaned forward and tapped Starsky on the shoulder — hell, Hutch too, why not. An elephant had two hands. Well, front feet. Sea monsters too. More than two, probably.

Hutch looked like he was casting around for the right words to send mythical figurative beasts back where they came from, banish them to lie low alongside the monsters under the bed and the skeletons in the closet.

What he came up with really didn’t seem likely to do the job.

“Uh, don’t worry about it, Starsk.”

Starsky’s instincts had kicked in now, and apparently they were Team Sea Monster. He sucked in a deep breath and jumped in to the swirling waters.

“No, uh I mean, that’s fine, um, I’m happy for you to have your hands full… with me. I’d like that, actually. I mean… if that’s what you want.”

Hutch was looking completely flummoxed, and distinctly paler than usual.

“But Starsk, you want that stuff. Wife, kid, all of that. I mean, you talked about it.”

“Well yeah, guess I did. But these days… I mean I don’t want to have all that stuff and not have you. I could probably get used to the idea of having it with you, but we’re uh, missing a few of the component parts.”

Hutch’s expression was equal parts concerned and confused.

“Um, Starsky…”

Starsky’s ears caught up to his mouth as he heard the possible unintended meanings of his words echo in the car — some kind of unlikely platonic co-parenting arrangement, or Hutch as family-man Starsky’s bit on the side — and he plowed ahead in a desperate rush to clarify.

“Fuck, listen to me running my mouth. I’m gonna have you heading for the hills before I even got my hands in your pants.”

Color flooded back into Hutch’s face as he looked even more blindsided, if there was any more scope for that. It was a good look on him. Brought out the color of his eyes.

“Starsky—“ Hutch’s voice sounded rusted, his knuckles showing white where he gripped the steering wheel. Probably wanting to steer them back on course after this funfair detour into the tunnel of love, complete with jump-scares. Starsky felt his stomach drop as all the steps he’d skipped to leap to his conclusion revealed themselves to him — shit, what was he thinking? What the hell was he thinking? He moved his hand from its customary position along the seat back behind Hutch’s neck and sat up straight.

“Jesus, just please, do me a favor Blintz, forget I said anything. I think the kids just fried my brain.”

Hutch said nothing. He checked the rearview mirror and swerved.

Starsky was reminded of their earlier rollercoaster ride as he lurched back against his seat. He dared a look to his left. “Um, whatcha doing?”

Hutch’s reckless grin tilted their world back on its axis. “I need…” he paused as he overtook the car ahead “…to be somewhere alone with you. Right. Now. And not in a moving vehicle. You got a problem with that?”

Problem? They’d just knocked down all the coconuts, won every crazy stuffed animal in the place. Starsky held on tight.

“Um, no. Just— Hutch?”

“Yeah?”

“Drive fast, wouldya?”