Hutch’s Heartaches

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HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #1

(Starsky’s first doctor’s visit after being released from the hospital.)

We had to wait quite a while for the doctor, and I could see just how miserably uncomfortable it was for Starsky to sit in that chair in the waiting room. I had given him one of his pain pills just before we left the house because I was afraid that the trip to the doctor would be rough on him. At least the pain he still suffered from would be kept at bay for the time being. But it was making him sleepy.

I looked over at him. I could see he could barely keep his eyes open. I sat down on the arm of his chair and pulled him as close to me as I could so he could lean on me…his head was now resting heavily on my shoulder. God, he looked so miserable. I wanted to find a place for him to lie down and soon.

At about that time Dr. Kellerman’s nurse, Maryanne, who had been Starsky’s nurse during his hospital stay came over to us. She bent down in front of my partner. She could see he was almost asleep.

“Oh poor baby,” she said to him. “I’m going to have to find you a place to lie down until Dr. Kellerman is ready for you.” She ran a hand through his curls, which looked more like ringlets now. He needed a haircut badly but he couldn’t lean back in a barber’s chair just yet. (I made a mental note to talk to Samuel, Starsky’s barber, in the next few days and see if he’d come to the house and give my partner a haircut.)

Maryanne winked at me. She said, “Give me a few minutes, Ken, and I will make David more comfortable.”

I thanked her, and hugged Starsky close to me. His eyes were almost closed but he said, “Thank you, pretty lady. That would be nice.”

She kept her word and in a few minutes she had me take Starsk to a couch in the doctor’s office. We stayed there until the Dr. was ready for him. Starsky fell asleep almost instantly.

I just sat there and I watched my partner sleep…and my thoughts drifted to James Gunther. Even after all he’d done, he was not suffering the way my partner was.

Oh, yeah, he was incarcerated all right, waiting for the trial…there is no bail when the charge of “Conspiracy to Kill a Police Officer” was concerned. But his jail cell was more like a “suite.”

Some of Huggy’s contacts had told him that the old bastard wasn’t suffering much. Sometimes money does talk. One thing that I knew for sure, as God is my witness, I made a promise to myself and one to my partner that one way or the other James Gunther would pay.

I had to wake him up when the Dr. was ready for him….

Poor, Starsk, his body got pushed, pulled, poked, and prodded, and I knew the doctor was only doing what he absolutely needed to do, but still Starsky was turning paler by the minute. I knew that his sutures and wound sites were still very painful to the touch. His body was still a mass of bruises.

It nearly killed me to see my partner’s face coated with a thin sheen of sweat and he kept his eyes partially closed.

Starsky had needed me to help him off with his sweatshirt. He still couldn’t raise his arms above his head to do it himself. The sweat shirt and sweat pants had turned out to be the only clothes that were soft enough for him to wear. He couldn’t stand anything rubbing against his tender incisions and scars. His jeans were out of the question.

Some of the incisions went clear down into his abdomen.

Dr. Kellerman was pleased with how Starsky was doing. He told me, “Ken, he’s really coming along fine, but I can’t give you a time table on his healing, but I am confident now that he will get there.”

That was something I really needed to here right about now. I thanked the doctor.

We were ready to go home.

I helped Starsky get down off the examining table and helped him put his shirt back on. He looked whipped. All I wanted was to scoop my friend up in my arms and get him home. But my partner is a very proud man and I knew he wanted to walk out of that office under his own power.

He leaned heavily against me and walked very carefully and slowly, but he was determined to make it out to the car on his own two feet.

We got in the car. I wanted to tease him about his car. I wanted so much to hear my ‘Dirtball’ tell me the worse jokes imaginable…. God, I missed that. I wanted the old Starsky back, but we had a ways to go.

But at the moment what he needed now from me more than anything else was gentle love and caring…. These two things have always been a given and he’d have them always.

He reached out a shaky hand to me and I intertwined my fingers with his as we began to drive home. He needed the contact with me. I was his support system.

I said, “Buddy, it’s really going to be all right.”

He looked over at me and in a voice that was barely above a whisper… “I’m scared, Hutch, I’m so scared.”

“Starsk, it’s okay to be scared. You have every right to be, but I promise you, partner, we’ll get through this and it’ll be like always…Me and Thee.”

I stopped at ‘The Creamery’ on the way home. I ordered a vanilla health shake for myself and a root beer, strawberry, coconut, and peanut butter float for my partner.

(I had to repeat his order twice to the girl at the drive-thru, wonder why?)

Some things just never change.

 

HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #2

The last thing that I wanted to do was leave Starsky alone even if it was only for a couple of days. But the damn trial had been moved to San Diego and without my testimony, most likely this ‘piece of trash’ would probably walk out of the courtroom a free man. Starsky and I had worked very hard nailing this particular ‘piece of trash.’ My partner had halfway convinced me that I should go to San Diego and testify.

I knew that he would be all right for a couple of days without me, but I didn’t want to leave him to anyone else, even Huggy, who had offered to stay with Starsk. He was still terribly weak and at times his medications would make him sick. And even though Starsk didn’t complain he was still in a lot of pain.

I needed to be there for him.

Just this very morning was an example of something I could not have predicted. My partner wanted to get better so bad…he was tired of hurting…the constant nagging pain was dragging him down. I’d watch him. At times he couldn’t find a comfortable position even on the couch. Physical therapy was still a long way off. He wanted to go back to work.

“Hutch, I want to be your partner again.” He lowered his eyes and looked down at the floor. “Dammit Hutch, I’m not too good at lots of things but the one thing that I do best at is being your partner. I want that back. Ya know what I mean?”

“Yes, I do partner, yes I do.”

He reminded me of a little lost boy. It about broke my heart to see him this way.

“I’m really trying, Hutch, I really am.” He looked so sad.

And, God, I knew he was trying but his body was still telling him otherwise.

Man, I should have seen it coming.

He was so mad, so frustrated…he picked up the telephone book off the coffee table and before I could stop him he threw it across the room as hard as he could. It went crashing to the floor. So did Starsky.

His legs gave out on him and he curled up on the floor wrapping his arms around his middle. The pain in his chest, ribs, and stomach, must have been considerable. He was having trouble catching his breath and he was turning pale before my eyes.

I hurried over to him and helped him into a sitting position and let him lean back against me.

“Hey, Starsk, hey, try to take it easy. You gonna be okay?”

He wouldn’t look up at me. “Oh shit, oh shit,” was all he said between clenched teeth.

I sat on the floor with him and waited for him to make eye contact with me. “Well,” I said to him softly, “that make you feel any better, partner?”

“Shit no!” he said.

All of a sudden the fight seemed to drain out of him and he sort of melted against my shoulder and I wrapped my arms around him.

“Aw, Starsk, I wish that I could make all this right for you, make it all go away…but I can’t. We just have to work through this together and we will.”

I could tell he was trying to hold back the tears, but he was hurting and he said, “Hutch, I just want it all to stop.”

I pulled him closer to me, he was hurting from pain and frustration right now. He began to cry. He cried so hard.

“God, I hated this.”

Starsky is such a good person—he doesn’t deserve this—I ran my hand over his back rubbing it back and forth the way I knew it would comfort him and I just let him cry.

He clung to me and when he finally looked up at me I could see all the fears and doubts reflected in my partner’s very tired blue eyes.

My heart broke for him. For ‘Me and Thee.’

And he said, “Hutch, will you just hold me, make me believe it will be okay again?”

I felt that as long as I held him like this he would know that nothing would ever hurt him again and hopefully his pain would seem less, as long as I was here with him.

Oh, God, I thought to myself. How the hell can I leave you like this…so scared…so vulnerable?

I held him close against me and when his trembling hands sought out mine I knew that I couldn’t go to San Diego regardless of the circumstances. The BCPD would just have to do without me. For too long our jobs had dictated the priorities in our lives. No more. Never again.

The price is too high.

Starsky needed me to be here for him. Even though Huggy would have been more than happy to stay with my partner, I just could not go. For my one and only priority is this injured man clinging to me needing me to be his hope, his strength and his comfort…and we will survive this.

And it will be like always just Starsky and me.

 

HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #3

Kira—Afterburn

(Summary: Hutch’s POV, life after Gunther. Warnings: Lots of Love)

 

I hung up the phone, grateful that Starsky was still sound asleep on the couch, zonked out on his pain medication. That was one phone call that I did not want him to know about. Not just yet.

I went into my bedroom to use the phone there to call ‘The Pits.’ I asked Huggy if he could come over and stay with Starsky for a couple of hours while I went out. He came right over. I told him about the phone call that I’d had a little while ago. If Starsky woke up before I got back and wondered why he was there and not me, just to tell him that I had to get a couple of his prescriptions refilled and grab a few things at the grocery store. And under no circumstances was Starsk to know the real reason I had to go out.

A phone call from Kira…

I had agreed to meet with her.

I wanted her forever out of my life and out of my partner’s life and I intended to make that very clear to her.

She was sitting at a table at the far end of the ‘Starbucks’ coffee shop where we had agreed to meet. She had on a blue silk dress…she reminded me of the song, ‘The Devil With The Blue Dress On.’

I sat down opposite her, waved off the waiter when he came over to the table.

I wanted this over with.

She asked me how Starsky was doing…that set me off… She didn’t give a damn about him, all she had ever done was use us to play us…one against the other.

“Cut the crap, Kira, you don’t care about anyone except Kira. You played Starsky and me against each other, and we were so intent on outdoing each other that neither one of us could see you for what you are. And I was the worst. But never, ever again!”

What I had let happen between myself and Kira was the ugliest and lowest thing that I have ever done. It damn near destroyed the single most important thing in my life…my friendship with Starsky.

Talk about thinking with you ‘other’ head. Oh, was I ever guilty.

If Starsky hadn’t been so forgiving…but thank heaven he was.

“Look, lady,” I said, “if you were the last piece of ass in this city I wouldn’t want it. You turn my stomach. And why, after almost a year with no contact with either one of us did you call now? Just because he got shot?”

I didn’t give her a chance to answer.

“Now, I am not going to tell him about our little meeting until he is a lot better, and if you want to go on breathing you stay away from him…no phone calls…no nothing, you got that?”

I really think that I must have scared her, she just stared at me and said nothing. I hoped that I had gotten through to the cunning little bitch. That period of my life that had had her in it, however brief it had been, was dark and ugly. I had seen a side of myself that I loathed. Saw just how much of a SOB I could be. Thank God for my partner, he has the biggest heart in the world.

He forgave me, just said, “Hutch, we’ll work it out.”

But to this day I’ve never totally forgiven myself.

I got up from my seat at the restaurant and left. I never looked back. Suddenly I had an overwhelming need to get back to my friend and away from this woman who had almost cost me my best friend.

Aw, Starsk…after all we’ve been through…this thing with Kira…the shooting…I could never get the shooting out of my mind but I could cleanse myself of Kira.

I got back in the car and decided that since I was out I might as well go get the refills on the prescriptions and grab some groceries on my way home.

“The Creamery” was right across the street from the grocery store and when Starsk and I are anywhere near it, he makes a beeline for it. I decided a “treat” was in order for my partner so I bought ice cream for all three of us.

My blood pressure must have skyrocketed from my confrontation with Kira because my ears were still ringing when I put the key in the lock at home and let myself in.

Huggy met me at the door and questioned me with his eyes. I smiled at him and nodded. I looked over at the couch for my partner.

He was sitting up now, propped up with pillows and covered up with blankets and the afghan off the back of the couch. He looked a little better after some sleep.

At the sound of Starsky’s voice all my tensions began to melt away. “Hey, Hutch, What’d you get me?” He had spied “The Creamery” bag that I was holding.

I held up the bag. “Thought you might like a little treat.”

“Hutch, can I have it now?”

He sounded just like a little kid asking if he could eat some of his “Halloween candy.”

“Sure you can Partner. I bought some for me, too, and for Hug here for putting up with you.”

He gave me one of his 1000 watt smiles and all was right with the world again.

I brought the treats over to the couch, handed Starsky his, put Huggy’s and mine on the coffee table.

Huggy brought drinks for the three of us…beer for himself and me and a can of root beer for Starsky. Starsky looked at the can of root beer in front of him with a pained expression.

“You’re not old enough for beer yet, partner,” I said. He knew that I would not let him mix the “magic” pills he was taking with beer.

So I could sit on the couch, too, I lifted Starsky’s legs up just enough so I could sit on the end of the couch with his legs now resting on my lap. I needed to be close to my friend…to all the good things in my life.

Huggy sat on the floor between the coffee table and the couch.

I heard myself say, “Hey, let’s celebrate.”

Starsky looked over at me momentarily stopping his all out assault on his ice cream float. “Huh, Oh, okay, yeah, sure, but what for?” he asked me.

“Oh, I don’t know, dirtball, how about life, living, us, our past, the here and now, and our future.”

“Okay,” he said, smiling, and he resumed his assault on his ice cream float.

And to myself I said a litany of thanks for I felt that at last I was cleansing myself… Starsky was here with me, getting better…we had a future to look forward to.

…And before long, the ‘Me and Thee’ team would be back hitting the streets, running down a few alleys, busting down a few doors…

 

HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #4

The Jacket

(Hutch’s POV Life after Gunther)

Starsky had been unusually quiet today. He was lying on the couch. Something was obviously on his mind. I’d asked him if he felt okay. I wanted to know if there was anything physically wrong that I should be worried about. He didn’t seem to be in anymore pain than usual but I had to satisfy myself.

“Hey, buddy, you’re not in any pain, are you?”

“Oh, no, Hutch, those magic pills you gave me are doing their job just fine. I’m really okay. I was just thinking.”

I told him that there was a first time for everything and he made a face at me, and an obscene gesture with the middle finger of his left hand.

“Ha, ha. Very funny, Blondie. …Hutch, what happened to my jacket?”

“What? Oh, buddy, you mean the one that you were wearing when… It was taken to the Evidence Room. They had to cut it off of you in the Trauma Center’s ER. I didn’t think you needed to see it like that, not that way. I didn’t want you to, I still don’t. I promise you I’ll tell you anything you want to know, babe, but some things are better left unsaid, better left alone.”

“Okay.” He let out a sigh. He turned his head with his face to the pillow on the couch so it was hard to make out his next few words. He muttered something.

“Starsky, what is it? Come on now, something is still bothering you, now out with it. Talk to me.”

“I want my jacket back, Hutch.”

He looked at me and smiled that crooked smile of his and shrugged his shoulders.

Oh, Starsk, why didn’t you ask for the moon, that would be easier to get, I thought to myself. He’d had that old relic for ages and my chances of finding another one just like it were slim to none. “I’m sorry, Starsk, I really am, but it’s ruined, you know that.”

“Hey, blondie, forget it, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I’m just lucky to be alive.”

I squeezed his shoulder on my way to the bathroom.

“Hey, Hutch, I think we got company. Someone just drove up in the driveway and it looks like Dobey’s car.”

“Okay, I’ll be out in a sec…and you stay put, you don’t need to be moving around a whole lot.”

I opened the door to Captain Dobey, his wife Edith, and their little girl, Rosie.

Rosie sailed right past me to the couch where Starsky was.

“Hi, honey,” he said. “Whatcha got there?”

She had something behind her back, which she now proudly presented to my partner.

“What’s this?” he asked her.

“It’s a present for you from my Mom and me, and if you want you can share it with Uncle Hutch.”

She handed Starsky a plastic plate with colorful homemade cookies on it. The cookies had M & M’s on them, shaped into Smiley Faces.

Starsky took the Saran Wrap off the cookies, offered me one and started in on the plate of cookies. They didn’t have a chance with him.

“Hey, Hutch, these are really good.” I doubted I’d get more than one.

He motioned for Rosie to come closer to him and kissed her on her forehead. She snuggled closer to him and kissed him back.

“Thanks so much, honey.”

I know she expected him to hug her but he couldn’t move that freely yet, so she hugged him instead.

“I love you, Uncle Starsky, and I want you to get better soon so you can play trains with me again.”

My partner could go from tough street cop to little boy in a blink of an eye. He can be as tough as the job demanded or as tender as was needed. His heart is as big as the ocean. Matter of fact, until I met up with Starsky, I had never really known what being loved unconditionally meant.

The Dobeys stayed for a good while. My partner and Rosie ate cookies and drank milk and ignored the rest of us, they were in their own little world. When I did glance over at the couch much later what I saw melted my heart and made me smile. Rosie and Starsk were cuddled up together on the couch side-by-side.

They were fast asleep.

There was an empty plate on the coffee table where the cookies had been.

Captain Dobey picked up Rosie from the couch and with a silent, ‘See ya later,’ and left with his family.

I looked at Starsky…he was sound asleep. Normally I would have left him on the couch to wake up on his own, but because of his numerous injuries I really wanted to get him to bed where he would be more comfortable and warm.

I thought about waking him up but I didn’t have the heart too, so I hefted him up in my arms and carried him into his bedroom. I got him out of his shirt and jeans and into some pajamas without even waking him up. He was out for the count.

I was getting pretty good at taking care of him and it always gave me a good feeling knowing that I could help him. I covered him up, turned the light out and went to bed myself.

I wasn’t asleep long before I woke up in the middle of the night to hear Starsky yelling, pleading… “NO, NO, he can’t be dead! He can’t be dead!”

I shook him gently to wake him up—damn another nightmare about the shooting—but something was different this time. A lot different.

“Please, somebody help my daddy!”

Oh, God, he was having a nightmare about his dad being killed and to him this must have been far worse then him getting shot.

When he woke up he reached for me, grabbed me around the waist and held on. “Oh, Hutch, my dad, my dad.”

Why should this man, this incredibly gentle man with such a loving heart have to suffer like this?

“Hutch, stay with me, don’t go…please.”

“Aww, Starsk, I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here, right here.”

He was gulping for each breath.

“Hey, buddy, your lungs can’t take too much more of this, you have to try to relax. Come on, can you try to relax for me? Come on now.”

I felt him nod against my shoulder and I rubbed the back of his neck to try to calm him down some more. I had to settle his breathing down and soon. This was not good for him. His doctor had warned me about Starsky exerting himself too much, his left lung would take a long time to heal.

“Hutch, my dad got shot too, but he died. Why, why did God spare me? Why not him too?”

I had no answers to give him.

“I miss my dad, Hutch, after all these years I still miss him so much, it hurts.”

It was twenty years to the day that his father had been shot down in front of him. A sixteen-year-old boy had watched his father die right there on the streets in front of his house. It was always a hard day for Starsky.

He would always call his Mom and talk with her…he’d send her a pretty bouquet of flowers and she would keep some in her apartment and the others she would take to her husband’s grave as a gift from his son.

I would stick as close to my friend as possible on this day, make sure he knew that I was there for him.

I’d give Starsky anything, do anything for him. Anything that would help to fill the empty void that his dad’s death left him with, especially on this day. I couldn’t give him back all the fatherless years he’d lost but I could and would be here now for him. And to top it all off, this year, Starsky was the same age that his dad had been when he had been killed.

Starsky has been through so much in his life. The loss of his dad, getting shipped out to California to live with his aunt and uncle. His mom three thousand miles away.

Then the one lady that he really had a chance for happiness with…Terri had been cruelly taken from him. …And this past year, tossing out our badges, then taking them back…that whole ugly mess with Kira and then…the shooting.

They say God only gives you as much as you can handle, I sure hope that’s true because my friend has about reached his limits.

I stayed with Starsky that night because I didn’t have the heart to leave him alone right now. He finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

I looked at Starsky, he was still so pale looking, my heart went out to him. I wished there were something I could do for him. If I could only find him another jacket just like the old one. I sure as hell was going to give it a try. Huggy helped me out by staying with Starsky for a few hours each afternoon. As far as my partner knew I was running errands and checking in at the station during that time. He had no idea what I was up to.

One afternoon while walking Huggy out to his car after another one of my unsuccessful trips looking for ‘The Jacket,’ Huggy asked me if there was still a label in the jacket.

He knew that it hadn’t been destroyed, that it was part of the evidence package to be used in the Gunther trial. He said that the label might help, might give me a name or something.

“Damn, Hug, why didn’t I think of that?”

The following afternoon I checked the jacket out of the evidence room at Parker Center. I didn’t realize what it would do to me to see the jacket again…it brought back everything about that day.

The Ping Pong game.

The bet I lost.

Starsky beginning to unlock the car door…the screeching of tires…the grating sound of metal against metal…the black and white…

The AUTOMATIC WEAPON aimed at us…

“STARSKY, GET DOWN!!!”…Gunfire…

A strangled cry of “Hutch…”

…again, “STARSKY!!!” No answer.

My whole being going numb…tearing around to the other side of the car… Oh, my God, NO! NO!!!

The Magnum falling from my hand…

I knelt down beside Starsky seeing all the blood. Starsky’s blood.

Blood running out on to the parking garage floor. So much blood. Too much blood.

Oh, God, not this way.

“Someone get an ambulance!”

“I’m here, Starsk. Buddy, just hold on, keep on breathing, help’s coming…Hutch is here. Please, just hang on.”

I’m holding his limp hand in mine, my other hand cradling his head. He’s starting to choke on his own blood…

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I was in the Evidence Room at Parker Center. Minnie from the Traffic Division was standing next to me with a worried look on her face.

“Hutch, honey, are you all right? You’re shaking. You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” She looked at the jacket in my hands. “Oh, God, isn’t that Starsky’s? The one he…”

“Yeah, oh, Minnie. I didn’t think it could get to me like this. I mean, he’s at home, getting better, he is going to be okay. Minnie would you mind putting it back for me…I…I just…”

“Sure, honey, I’ll take care of it. Now you get out of here. You don’t look so good.”

“Wait, Minnie, is there a label still in it? I mean, besides the label with the size on it?”

She looked at me, but didn’t ask any questions.

“Yeah, you can barely see it but I think it says, ‘Pacific Ocean Leather Works,’ Santa Monica Boulevard.”

Yes.

I bent down and kissed Minnie. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

I went to my desk and looked up ‘Pacific Ocean Leather Works.’ I was in luck, they were still listed and they had a store a short ways from Parker Center. Within an hour I had ‘The Starsky Jacket.’

Since Starsky was kind of bummed about his old jacket and still had his dad on his mind I decided to give him the jacket now and not wait for his birthday.

“Hey, partner, I got something here for you.”

His eyes lit up. “You do?”

I handed him the box with the jacket in it. He lifted the lid of the box pulled off the tissue paper covering the jacket.

“It’s my jacket. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. It’s exactly like my old one. Hutch, how did you find one just like it?”

I thought about the flashback in the Evidence Room. “Dirtball, don’t ask so many questions. Why don’t you try it on.”

I helped Starsky up off the couch and into the jacket.

He tugged on my arm wanting me to come closer to him. He hugged me the best he could and leaned heavily against me for support.

“Hutch, I wish I could talk to my dad just one more time so I could tell him about you, about ‘Me and Thee.’

“I think he knows, Starsk. I think he knows.”

 

HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #5

Out of the Depths – Life after Gunther

 

Starsky still hadn’t remembered anything about the day he had gotten shot. I knew that eventually he would remember everything that had happened that day. He would need to talk about it and work through it…but to say that I was dreading that day would have been the understatement of the year. I really hoped that he would stay unaware of what had happened to him at least until he was feeling a whole lot better. Because with all the different medications he was on he sometimes had trouble absorbing everything that was going on around him. And he still got so sick at times from those pills.

He needed me to be there for him physically but just as important he needed me to be there for all the emotional highs and lows that he had to deal with each new day. One minute he would be climbing to the top of the world and the next…sinking down into the deepest depths of despair.

“Oh, Hutch, look at what’s left of me. I can’t even walk across the room or go to the bathroom without your help. My insides still feel like a tossed salad. God, if it weren’t for you keeping me here with you, I’d be in some Rehab Center Hospice…tucked away waiting for my body to decide whether it wanted to give up or if it wanted to get better.”

“Aww, buddy, that would have never happened to you. You know that I wouldn’t let it. My partner belongs here with me. You know that.”

The love and compassion that I felt for this man who had such a struggle ahead of him…truly only God himself could possibly know and understand.

“Hutch, what’s gonna happen to me now?”

He buried his head in my chest and his shaking hands sought out mine…needing to be held…needing me to hold onto him. To fight for his life with him and for him. Together we would fight off the demons of despair, pain and weariness.

But still, there was little that I could say to him, he knew the score as well as I did and in all the years that we’ve known each other we’ve always been honest with each other. I had no easy answers and no quick fixes this time to make this right.

I gave of myself hoping it would be enough.

I had been watering my plants in the greenhouse and was headed back inside for more water when out of habit I glanced over at the couch to check on Starsky.

His face looked paler than usual and his eyes were glued to the TV screen. There was such a look of horror on his face, that I but down the watering can and hurried over to him. I knelt down in front of him on the couch.

“Starsk, what’s wrong, what did you see? What are you watching?”

I glanced at the TV screen, but caught only the end of a video clip, but I recognized the TV reporter and too late, much too late, realized what the clip was about. The reporter was explaining to his TV audience that this show was called, ‘High Profile Crimes in Our City.’

Oh, God…Damn it to hell.

I caught the briefest glimpse of Parker Center’s underground police garage…yellow crime tape surrounded the Torino…dark stains were clearly visible covering the ground around and under the car. Starsky’s blood.

I turned my attention to my partner who was white as a sheet, his face still transfixed on the screen.

“Oh God, Hutch. Oh God, I do remember it now. I remember what happened that day. I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough…couldn’t draw my gun…I saw the gun they had…I heard you yell for me to GET DOWN! There was just no where to go. I knew I was hit…the bullets slammed into me…once…then again and again. My legs wouldn’t hold me up any longer. My chest was starting to burn and I couldn’t see too well, I couldn’t make my eyes focus on anything. All I knew was that something was pressing down hard on my chest, so hard that I couldn’t breathe…and my mouth tasted of blood.

“Oh, God Hutch, I knew that I had been shot, but everything was really getting dark and fuzzy around the edges. The pressure on my chest was crushing the life out of me. I was choking…and I couldn’t breathe anymore.

“I remember I thought about you, and I was so scared. ‘Be okay, Hutch…please be okay…and know that I love you…’ and I remember thinking that I didn’t mean to die on you like this cause there was so much more that we still wanted to do…

“The last thing that I remember was trying to call out to you but my voice didn’t work anymore.”

I knew that I had to let him talk, had to let him finish, but it was almost killing me to live this nightmare again and this time through Starsky’s eyes. He stopped talking and began to shake all over. I got him into a semi-sitting position on the couch and sat down beside him and gathered him up in my arms.

I began to rock him back and forth, back and forth, and at the same time groped around on the couch for the TV’s remote control. I found it and turned the damn thing off.

My arms were now full of a very frightened Starsky. He had his hands over his eyes. His heart was beating wildly in his chest.

I held him close to me…stroked back through his now sweaty curls.

The next thing I knew he was holding on to me for all he was worth.

“Hutch, don’t let go of me, not just yet.”

I touched my forehead against his. “Buddy, I’m here and I’m not letting go of you. God, I am so sorry, babe, so sorry. But it’s gonna be okay…you are going to get through. This…you need to believe that and I promise I will be with you every step of the way…”

“‘kay,” he said to me.

Suddenly he was struggling to sit up. “Hutch, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

I grabbed for the wastebasket beside the couch…just in time. He got sick over and over again until there was nothing left to come up. Each time he got sick his fingers would tighten around my arm. Finally, mercifully, it stopped.

He fell back against me again. He was trembling uncontrollably. I yanked the afghan off the back of the couch and wrapped him up in it.

I lost track of how long I held him like this. He was almost asleep. He needed to be in bed. He needed sleep. The trauma of recalling the shooting had taken its toll on him.

I wanted nothing more than to crush the life out of James Gunther with my bare hands.

I crawled into bed with Starsky…made him as comfortable as I possibly could with a pillow behind his back and one under his left side. He was starting to shake again.

I laid next to him using my own body to warm his cold one. His left hand reached for mine and I took hold of it. He was so cold. The blood thinner that he had to take to prevent post-operative blood clots caused him to have chills.

He looked up at me. “Hutch, I’m so cold and it hurts, it hurts all everywhere.”

He squeezed his eyes shut but not before a single tear slid down his face.

I brushed it away with my thumb and I felt my own eyes sting from the salt of my own tears. It hurt me so much to see him this way.

Please Starsky, don’t hurt so much…please…

I laid as close to him as I possibly could without hurting him more. I pulled up the blankets and comforter from the bottom of the bed to cover him up. I slowly and carefully stroked his shoulders, his neck, his back, his chest and stomach…and even through numerous layers of covers I could tell how thin he had gotten.

Finally the shaking stopped and his body was slowly warming up.

He desperately needed sleep and just as much needed some peace tonight.

And I needed some help….God’s help.

I prayed to God that night to deliver us out of these depths of despair. I asked Him to give me the strength that I needed to help my partner get his life back.

I think he must have felt safe here with me. His fingers tightened around my arm, which was laying across his chest. He looked up into my eyes and for the very first time in a very long time, I was rewarded with a weary smile from a very tired Starsky.

With the little strength that he had left in him before sleep was to claim him he said, “Thanks, blondie, thank you for loving me so much. I think I can go to sleep now.”

My friend and I are going to be okay, because we have help from a higher source than ourselves. The ‘Me and Thee’ team has a silent but all-powerful partner. We had God on our side and with that knowledge and our faith in him and in each other I fell into a peaceful sleep alongside my partner and best friend.

 

HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #6

Looking Toward The Light

 

Starsky had asked to come along with me to Parker Center this afternoon. I knew that he was tired of bring cooped up at home, day after day…now the days had turned into months…

Starsky’s healing process was so terribly slow. There had been so much damage and he was still in so much pain at times.

Starsky’s doctor had told us it would still be another couple of months before his wounds had healed up enough to even begin to think of starting physical therapy.

Since I was only going to be at Parker Center for a very short time, just long enough to sign some depositions that the District attorney needed for a court case, I couldn’t see any harm in letting Starsky come along with me.

I knew he hated bring stuck at home with just four walls to look at but he was still not well enough, healed up enough, or strong enough, to do much. His Doctor had warned us that if he pushed himself too hard too soon he would be risking a setback in his recovery. He still had a tremendous amount of healing to do.

I walked over to the couch where my partner was laying.

“All right, Starsk, I don’t see why you can’t come with me.”

His face lit up when I said this. “I’ll go get my shoes, Hutch.”

Starsky slowly made his way into his bedroom and came back out with his shoes and a pair of socks in his hands. He held them out to me. I knew he still needed me to put his shoes and socks on for him, he wasn’t able to bend over far enough to do it himself yet.

“You need some help with those, partner?”

Starsky nodded at me. It really made him mad that something as simple as putting on his shoes and socks was still beyond him. My partner is a very proud man, and I could see the hurt in his eyes, hurt that was more than just physical.

I talked to him as I tied his shoes… “Now look, Starsk, we will go to Metro and then we are coming straight back here and you are gonna get some rest.”

I got no response from him so I said to him. “Did you hear me, gordo?”

“Yea, blondie, I hear ya, did you know that you can really be mean sometimes?” Starsky was trying his best to look angry.

I knew Starsky wasn’t serious. I didn’t have a mean bone in my body when it came to Starsky. I loved him unconditionally and he knew that.

We drove to Parker Center and for a few brief moments with Starsky sitting beside me in the car…us on our way to the precinct…it seemed like the shooting hadn’t happened…if only…

I glanced over at my still all too pale and thin friend. There were new lines of pain that would be forever etched on his face, around his eyes and at the sides of his mouth, the lines on his forehead had deepened, all permanent reminders of the devastating after-effects from Gunther’s bullets.

“Hey, Hutch, blondie? Hey.”

I felt Starsky’s hand on my shoulder. The traffic light had turned green.

“Ain’t gonna get any greener.”

The sound of Starsky’s voice brought me back to the present.

As we got closer to Parker Center my heart about leapt out of my chest…this would be the first time Starsky had been to the precinct since he had been shot.

I had been there numerous times while Starsky was still in the hospital or like now while he was home recuperating.

I turned to look at my best friend.

“Oh, God, Starsk I don’t know if this is such a good idea. I mean you haven’t been here since…”

He finished my sentence for me. “…since I got shot, yeah I know. I thought about that, but I can’t avoid it forever, we both know that. I’ll be okay, just stick close to me, okay?”

“You got it, buddy. I don’t intend to let you out of my sight, you can believe that.”

We looked at each other, we had always been there for each other and we were here for each other now, no words had to be spoken between us. I reached over and squeezed Starsky’s shoulder, then ran my hand through my partner’s wild array of curls.

How I loved this man beside me, my best friend, my partner…the other half of myself, all rolled into one.

We rode the rest of the short distance in companionable silence.

Although Starsky wanted me to believe he was “okay” with this, I could not make myself park in the police parking garage where he had been shot. I parked on the street out front.

It felt good walking into the squad room with Starsky beside me. The room was nearly deserted at this hour, only two uniforms were still standing at the far end of the room. I didn’t know either one of them. They looked to be fresh out of the Academy.

Starsky always referred to rookies as ‘The Bubble Bum Brigade.’

(Had we ever really been that young?)

Starsky was practically out of breath from the short walk from the elevators down the hall to our desks in the squad room.

“Are you okay, babe?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just a little out of breath is all…I think I’ll sit at my desk and wait for you.”

“Starsk, are you sure you’re okay?”

My partner looked up at me from his chair. “Hutch, go do what you have to do. I ain’t going anywhere.”

“Okay,” I said, “it’ll only take me a few minutes…the papers are in the Captain’s office.”

He leaned back in his chair and pointed with his hand in the direction of Dobey’s office. “Hutch, the papers…go!”

I put my hands up in mock surrender.

“Okay, okay, I’ll be back in no time,” I said.

I signed the papers, left Dobey’s office, closing the door behind me. I only heard the tail end of the conversation between the two rookies as they walked out of the squad room, but what I did hear was more than enough.

I looked over at my partner.

“Oh, Starsky.”

What had been said was bound to take away what little confidence Starsky had in himself regarding his future as a police officer. Starsky’s head was bowed and he had slid down in his chair.

We were alone in the squad room. I kneeled down in front of him so I could see his face.

“Hey, buddy, Starsk? Those two don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know you and they don’t know me. They were just talking.”

Starsky looked up at me.

“Yeah, I know, Hutch, but what if they are right? What if I can’t cut it anymore? Maybe even when I get better it won’t be enough for the Review Board. Hutch, are you and I the only ones that feel I can make it back and be your partner? Maybe Dobey doesn’t believe it either, maybe he just doesn’t want to tell me. Even Dr. Kellerman says I have to take it one day at a time and he still can’t give me any guarantees.”

He looked so hurt. My heart ached for him.

“Listen to me, buddy. No one but the Man upstairs really has all the answers, but He’s been on our side so far and I believe He still is. Starsky, we’ll work this out, but we have to give it time and you know I am going to be with you every step of the way. No way you are in this alone…it’s ‘Me and Thee’…right?”

He slowly raised his head and looked at me.

“Okay,” he sighed. “But, Hutch, I just don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t be a cop anymore. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be, the only thing I know how to do. That scares the hell out of me. Hutch, I’m not gonna give up. I’m really not and besides, I have to come back to work…someone’s gotta watch your back, blondie.”

I pulled him close to me and we both took comfort in each other.

(I had Starsky with me and that’s all that would ever matter to me)…because…like always, it was just ‘Me and Thee.’

 

HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #7

Where the Heart Is

Captain Dobey’s office…

It was already past 10 a.m. and I had missed my usual morning visit with my partner. The Captain had asked me to sit in on a meeting with two visiting SFPD police lieutenants. Apparently they were seeking the BCPD’s help with one of their cases and Starsky and I had been the detectives working the case from this end.

But this wasn’t sitting well with me at all because I always made a point to be at the hospital in the morning when Starsky woke up and that’s where I should be now. Not here.

I didn’t even know what good I was doing anyway, because my mind and my heart was at Memorial Hospital and Room 519.

I tried to pay attention to the conversations going on around me but it was a losing battle. I knew how much Starsky looked forward to my morning visits with him, a hospital is a very lonely place to be when you are also in as much pain as I knew my partner was. And he was still so afraid. I had to get out of here.

I would try to time my visit so that I could help him with his breakfast. If I was there I could usually get him to eat most of it. He had lost so much weight that he could not afford to skip a meal.

I was about to ask just how much longer this meeting was going to take when the telephone on the Captain’s desk rang.

The Captain picked up the phone, listened for a few seconds and looked over at me to get my attention.

“Hutch, it’s for you. It’s Starsky’s doctor.”

My entire body went ice cold. I grabbed the phone from the Captain’s hands.

“Hutchinson here, Doctor Kellerman? What’s wrong? What’s happened? What’s wrong with Starsk!?” I heard myself snap out the questions one after the other.

Dr. Kellerman came on the line. “Ken, take it easy, David is going to be all right.”

“What do you mean he’s going to be ALL RIGHT!? What the hell happened?! What’s wrong!?”

Dr. Kellerman broke in. “You remember we started David on that new medicine last night, well I’m afraid he has had a really bad reaction to it. He started having trouble breathing a couple of hours ago so I’ve stopped the medicine. I have him on some oxygen so he can breathe easier until the drug is out of his system.”

I exploded…”A couple of HOURS and I am just NOW getting a phone call! Damn it!” I heard myself screaming into the phone.

“Ken, I promise you, it was not as bad as it sounds, not life threatening, and I suspect it scared him more than anything else. I assure you David is not in any danger and his breathing is almost back to normal…I’ve got him on the oxygen more or less as a precaution. I called you as soon as I was sure David was stable. But he was asking for you so I called you, but I had to take care of David first. I’m really sorry it took so long for me to call you.”

I needed to calm down, I was mad at the wrong person. (James Gunther, may you burn in Hell.)

(Oh, God, Starsk, the one visit I miss and this happens to you, I am so sorry, buddy, I should have been there for you, I should have been with you.)

“Ken.”

I heard the doctor’s voice speaking to me.

“Are you still there?”

Yeah, look Dr. Kellerman. I’m sorry I went off like that, it’s just that…”

“Ken, you have nothing to apologize for. But he’ll be fine.”

I knew then and there that this was the last time for a long time that the BCPD would take my focus away from Starsky when he needed me and while he was as hurt and sick as he was.

“Doc, please tell him I’ll be there as fast as I can, make sure he understands that. I’m leaving now.”

“Ken, I will tell him and I’ll be here when you get here.”

I hung up the phone. “I gotta get to the hospital.”

Captain Dobey nodded. “Hutch, is Starsky okay?”

“No, I mean yes, oh shit, I don’t know what I mean. He’s had a very bad reaction to some medicine and he was having trouble breathing. They’ve got him on oxygen until the drug wears off.”

I turned around to leave but one of the SFPD lieutenants blocked the doorway. “Sergeant Hutchinson, we’re not through here yet.”

Yes we are, I thought to myself. Out loud I said, “Oh, yes, we are, we’re through all right and either you get out of my way or I’ll go right through you, I really don’t care which. I am going to the hospital where I should have been all along. Nothing and no one had better try to stop me.”

The lieutenant moved away from the door. I’m sure he could read the barely controlled fury in my eyes.

“And just one more thing, I WON’T be back. I should have been at the hospital with my partner this morning.” I looked at Captain Dobey, “Captain, I…”

He nodded, “Hutch, I understand, go to the hospital, and call me later and tell me how he is.”

“Thanks, Captain,” I said.

I ran out of the building taking the steps two at a time racing to get to my car. I got behind the wheel. My hand was shaking as I jammed the key into the ignition.

Nothing happened.

START DAMN YOU! START! Don’t do this to me, NOT NOW!

I hit the steering wheel with the palm of my left hand in frustration.

The second time I tried the car started. I slammed the gearshift into ‘drive’ and pushed the accelerator to the floor.

Starsk, I’m coming, buddy I’m coming.

With one hand on the wheel I used my other hand to slap the red light on the roof of the car and activated the siren.

Suddenly a past memory flashed before my eyes.

Another day, another time, nearly two months ago now…

“Captain, how’s he doing?” I asked as I absently bounced a ping pong ball in my hands.

“Hutch, I think you better get down here.”

“Hutch?”

If I live to be a hundred I will never forget that frantic drive I made to this very same hospital. I shook my head to clear it. Take it easy Hutchinson, this is not two months ago. He’s gonna be all right, he just had a bad reaction to the drug…it’s not like the last time.

***

When I got to the hospital I didn’t take the time to look for a parking space, I stopped the car in front of the main entrance. I put the car in park, grabbed the keys out of the ignition and ran into the hospital and up the stairs to Room 519.

I almost ran into Dr. Kellerman who was standing just inside of my partner’s room.

“Whoa, Ken, slow down son,” his doctor said to me. “He’s doing okay, heart rate is good, blood pressure is just slightly elevated, I think he’s still more scared then anything.”

I walked past the doctor and over to my partner’s bed and lowered the safety rail.

He had an oxygen mask on and at first I thought that he was asleep, but at the sound of my voice his eyes blinked open searching for me.

He tried to lift his right hand to reach for mine but didn’t have the strength. I sat on the edge of the bed as close to him as I possibly could without disturbing all the tubes and IV’s that he was hooked up to.

I picked up his hand that was reaching for mine and held it so he had contact with me. I ran my other hand back through his hair. His curls were soaked in sweat. He tried to push the oxygen mask away from his face but Doctor Kellerman stopped him.

“David, you have to leave that on for now son, just for a little while longer.”

I could tell he wanted to talk to me.

“Starsk, don’t try to talk, just rest. I’m here now, right here. It’s gonna be okay.”

The fingers on his right hand weakly squeezed mine. His eyes were pleading with me for answers. Suddenly it occurred to me that he probably didn’t know what was happening to him. I turned my head to look at his doctor.

“Doc, does he understand what happened?”

Doctor Kellerman said, “Ken, I talked to him but because he is scared and pumped so full of pain killers, I’m not so sure he understands. He probably doesn’t.”

“Let me talk to him, Doc. Starsky, Starsk? Hey buddy, look at me…Starsk?”

I watched his face until I was sure that I had his attention or as much as he was capable of giving me with the many drugs he had running through his body.

He tried once again to push the oxygen mask away. I gently pushed his hand away from it.

“Starsk, don’t. You have to leave that on for a little while longer.”

His eyes were still searching for answers.

I decided to take it slow. “Buddy, you remember the new medicine the doctor started you on last night?”

I waited to see if he seemed to understand what I had just said. He slowly nodded his head.

“Well, babe, it seems like you had kind of a bad reaction to it. That’s why you were having trouble breathing, and that’s the reason for the oxygen mask. Doctor Kellerman has you on oxygen just until the drug wears off.” I ran my hand back through his sweat drenched curls pushing them away from his forehead. “And that won’t be for much longer. Right, Doc?”

“That’s right, David,” said Doctor Kellerman. “It won’t be much longer, you’re doing just fine.”

I watched Starsky closely and saw him begin to relax.

I stood up with the intention of getting a wet cloth to cool him down with, but I guess he thought I was leaving because he reached for me and a weak moan escaped his throat.

I quickly sat back down. “Starsk, I’m only going to go get a wet cloth to cool you down with. I am not going to leave you.”

Damn, you are still so scared, and I wasn’t here when you needed me.

I hurried to the bathroom and hastily wet a cloth bringing it back to his bed. I gently wiped his face and eyes, his forehead, and his neck, and pushed a sweaty curl away from his forehead.

His eyes never left my face.

“That feel better, partner?”

He nodded at me.

“Starsk, I am so sorry, I should have been here with you. But, I am here now and I’m not going back to the station. I think that this is as good a time as any for me to take that leave of absence. You just rest now, I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

He squeezed my hand and tears of gratitude and relief seeped out of his very tired blue eyes.

I sat with Starsky and stroked his hair with one hand and he held onto my other hand, he needed that constant contact with me. It wasn’t long before he was fast asleep and Doctor Kellerman removed the oxygen mask. Starsky’s breathing was back to normal and he was sleeping peacefully.

I reached for the phone on the table beside my partner’s bed and made the call to Captain Dobey as promised. He was relieved to hear that Starsky was all right. I told him that as of today, I was taking a leave of absence.

I am right here where I should be.

I am where my heart is…in Room 519.

 

HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #8

Hospital Days

 I nodded at the nurses at the fifth floor nurses’ station. They greeted me with smiles and waves as they did every day and night when I stepped off of the elevator on my way to my partner’s room. They never hassled me about visiting hours. I was allowed to come and go as I pleased. I had made it known from day one that I intended to spend as much time as was humanly possible with my partner.

As soon as Starsky’s doctor, Doctor Kellerman, realized how much Starsky meant to me and how much Starsky needed me to be there for him, his doctor had placed no restrictions on the times that I could visit. He said nothing when I spent many a night asleep in the chair in my partner’s room.

Some nights I just could not leave Starsky alone with his pain.

As soon as I would walk into my partner’s room and if he was awake he would try to reach for me with his right hand, trying to grab unto mine, but his right hand had IV’s attached to it and he couldn’t move it very far.

I had my doubts that he’d have the strength to lift it off the bed even if the IV’s weren’t there.

His left arm was still partially numb from the shock of the emergency surgeries that had been needed to save his life. So for all practical purposes he couldn’t use it.

Doctor Kellerman assured Starsky and me that the feeling in his arm would return gradually, but probably not for another month or so. The nerves would have to heal.

In the meantime, the doctor had started Starsky on semi-solid foods (or what the hospital tried to pass off as food), but since he was left-handed it was twice as hard for him to use the utensils with his right hand. That’s one of the reasons I tried my best to time my visits around the time Starsky had his meals. His regular nurses had told me that if I wasn’t there when his food came he just wouldn’t eat.

He was so damn stubborn and proud that he wouldn’t ask for their help, but he always welcomed mine.

That was when I decided I’d see about moving him into a private room. There he would get individual attention and the extra help he needed at times like these.

I walked into his room. He had his food tray in front of him.

“Hi, partner,” I said.

t the sound of my voice his face lit up and he gave me one of his lopsided grins.

“Hey Hutch, glad you’re here. I was getting kinda lonely.”

I looked at my partner’s food tray. If he had eaten any of it, it could not have been much. All of the mounds of various ‘foods’ looked suspiciously like they had been ‘rearranged.’ The mashed potatoes were ‘arranged’ to look like a mountain and the brown gravy was running down the sides of the freshly constructed ‘mountain.’ It looked like a mini St. Helen’s.

I shook my head and said, “What do you think you are doing? Starsky, you are not supposed to play with your food, you are supposed to eat it.”

“Food, what food? I don’t see any ‘food.’ I don’t want it, it’s gross.” Starsky stared at the tray in disgust and started to make another mountain out of the Jell-O cubes. “Everything looks and tastes the same …cept for the colors…”

“Starsk, it doesn’t look that bad to me and you have got to eat.”

He shoved the tray in my direction. “Okay, then, it’s for you, you eat it, Blondie.”

I was getting exasperated. “Starsky if you don’t eat, Doctor Kellerman is not gonna let you go home. He has told you that more than once.”

About that time Starsky spied the Creamery bag in my hand.

“Hey, you brought me ice cream. Yes! Yes!”

I looked at my partner.

“Well I don’t know, Gordo, ‘treats’ are only for good little boys.”

Aww, Hutch come on, I’m hungry, pleeasse.”

He looked up at me with those puppy dog eyes and once again my heart melted. If he could bottle that look he could make a fortune with it.

“After you eat what’s on your tray.” I pushed the tray back in front of Starsky. “Then…you get ‘this,'” and I held up the Creamery bag.

“But it’ll melt, Hutch, if I don’t eat it now.”

He grinned at me and I smiled back at him.

“I’ll just put it in the Nurses’ fridge.” I thought to myself, I think I won this round, dirtball.

“That’s blackmail, Hutch.”

I thought to myself, yeah, I suppose it is.

“You’re really proud of yourself, aren’t you Blondie?” Starsky said.

Starsky knew he had lost this round. He awkwardly picked up the fork in his right hand and began to eat. He managed to eat almost all of the food on his tray.

“Now can I have my ice cream?”

I smiled at him, got up and put the almost empty tray of food on the table by my partner’s bedside. “Yeah, you sure can partner.”

I had to admit to myself after almost losing Starsky I was going to enjoy spoiling him.

Starsky shifted uncomfortably.

“Hey, you okay partner?”

“I think I’d feel a little better if you could help me sit up some more. I need to change positions.”

“Sure, buddy, sure.”

I helped him into a more comfortable sitting position and propped him up with his pillows. A dark cloud descended over me when he winced and moaned in pain when he tried to help me settle him.

“Oh shit, oh shit, damn that hurts, oh Hutch, Hutch.” He squeezed his eyes shut waiting for the pain to subside.

“Starsk, easy…you just take it easy, don’t try to move, easy now.” I rubbed his shoulder gently. “Let me do all the work, you just try to relax.”

He leaned back against my arms and let me lift him up and back against the pillows.

“Hey, you okay, babe?” I asked him.

His eyes slowly opened. “Yeah, I’ll be okay in a minute. Just have to remember not to try to move too much.”

I got the Creamery bag from the freezer and took out the shake and gave it to Starsky.

He closed his eyes and sipped on the shake. “Thanks, blondie, now ‘this’ is food.”

He drank the shake and handed me the empty cup. A few minutes later I saw his eyes start to close. He tried to hold back a yawn but it escaped him.

“Hey Starsk, why don’t you take a nap for a while and I’ll come back later?”

“Okay Hutch, that sounds like a good idea. Suddenly I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

He was asleep before I had pulled his blanket up around his shoulders. I went home to sort through the mail and to water the plants. I knew that Starsky would probably sleep until evening. I’d go back to the hospital then.

***

As I got closer to his room I heard Starsky’s voice. He sounded distressed, so I instinctively stepped up my pace. When I walked into his room I saw his face light up at the sight of me and he let out a sigh of relief. I actually think I saw a spark of life returning to those deep blue eyes, I prayed that I was right.

“See, I TOLD you he’d be here…NOW will you go and leave me alone. Hutch can help me. He can do it.”

The nurse turned on her heels, shoved past me and mumbled something like…”He is impossible, he’s all yours…”

I watched her leave in a huff. I walked into the room and sat down on the edge of Starsky’s bed. I watched his face. He didn’t seem to be in any more pain than usual but he had the strangest look on his face.

“Hey, buddy, what’s up? What are you and that Amazon of a nurse disagreeing about this time?”

“She, do you know what she wanted to do?”

His voice was at least two octaves higher than usual.

“She wanted to give me a ‘bath,’ a bath!”

The expression on his face was priceless.

“Take it easy, buddy, she is just trying to do her job, that’s all. After all…once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

“That’s not funny, Hutch, not funny at all. Anyway, she can just go do her job somewhere else…and before you say it…I know that for the past month I couldn’t bathe myself and the nurses did it for me but at least at the time I didn’t KNOW about it. Aww, Hutch…” Starsky’s voice trailed off and he looked down at his blanket and away from me.

“What is it Starsk?”

“Please could you…I mean…would you…do you think you could?”

“Starsky,” I interrupted him, “you are making no sense at all.” Sometimes I think I need a degree in ‘Starsky’ism.’

“Hutch, I really do need that bath.” His eyes slowly looked up and met mine.

Oh, so that’s it, I thought to myself.

“No problem partner. I think we can handle that…piece of cake.”

It made me feel warm inside to know that Starsky felt so completely comfortable with me that he would let me help him.

“Hey, I almost forgot, Hutch. Doctor Kellerman said he wants me to get out of bed tomorrow and try to walk a little.”

“Hey, that sounds great partner.”

He lowered his head and stopped talking.

“Hey Starsk, you okay?”

“Hutch, do you think you could ask Dobey to let you be here then? I’m kinda scared, I know it’s silly to be, but I am…some big bad street cop…” He gave me one of his lopsided grins.

“Hey, babe, it’s not silly to be scared. I’d be surprised if you weren’t, and yes I will be here, wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

“Hutch, I want to get out of here so bad, I want to go home.”

When I looked at him his eyes were so sad.

“I know you do, Starsk, and you will, I want you out of here and home, too.”

***

“Oh, Starsk I almost forgot, I brought you a couple of books.”

I put them on his bed where he could reach them. He picked up the first one and flipped through the pages, glanced over at me with a quizzical look on his face.

“What’s the matter, don’t you like it?”

“Hutch, there aren’t any pictures in it.”

“Starsky, a book doesn’t have to have pictures.”

I looked at my partner. “You know Starsk, maybe I should have brought you a coloring book and crayons instead.”

“Very funny Blondie, very funny.”

 

HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #9

Driving out of the hospital parking lot after my visits with Starsky had always been depressing to me.

Each trip away from the hospital the last two months was hell for me. It meant I was leaving Starsky in there in that small hospital bed. All I could think of was how long it would be before I could get back to my friend.

I felt so alone. I’d find myself turning my head more than once to say something to my partner, but only an empty passenger seat greeted me each time. I always felt like half of my heart was missing; hell, it was missing…like the better part of myself wasn’t there.

But today was different. Today I was bringing Starsky home after those long and agonizing months of the pain, the fear, the desperation, and finally, thank God, hope for our future again. My partner had lived, so if I am ‘His Angel’ then he is ‘My Miracle.’

~~~~~~~~

Captain Dobey’s wife, Edith, had told me that was how she saw the two of us whenever she came to visit with Starsky while he was in the hospital.

I tried to pay special attention to my driving, avoiding the many potholes and bumps in the roadway as I possibly could. I knew how much my partner still hurt. Anytime I hit a bump that I couldn’t avoid I could see the waves of pain wash over him as the car jolted his stitched up body.

He would squeeze my hand a little bit harder and his eyes would close for a few seconds.

As careful as I was trying to be the short trip home was causing him additional pain.

The ride home was a quiet one.

I drove one-handed most of the way.

Starsky had reached out his hand to me and I had held that alive and warm hand in my own, reveling in the knowledge that I had Starsky back with me. But he was so pale, so tired looking, my heart ached for him.

We were about to begin what was surely to be a long and hard journey to recovery.

His doctor had made it very clear to us, the next few months and maybe even longer would be very, very hard ones. Starsky and I already had some long talks about this day. There had been another option. Although I knew only one option would work for me.

His health insurance would pay for a full-time nurse to stay with him until he was more mobile. No way would I trust Starsky to some stranger, not as long as I lived and breathed on this earth. But it had taken me a while to make Starsk understand that taking care of him was a privilege for me; that taking care of him could never be a burden. Love is never a burden.

Reminded me of a song I heard once, something about, ‘Love’s The Only House Big Enough For All The Pain In This World.’

I had come so close to losing Starsky that caring for him now was a blessing to me.

Memories of that fateful day still haunted my waking hours and gave me many sleepless nights. Taking care of Starsky was my way of thanking God for not taking him away from me—for giving my best friend back to me.

I don’t know how to explain it, but I am just where I want to be, with my partner, ‘Me and Thee.’

~~~~~~~~

We were home.

I pulled up to the house, turned off the engine and looked over at my partner. He already looked to be half-asleep. The short drive home from the hospital had tired him out.

I reached over the seat and gently rubbed my partner’s shoulder.

He slowly turned his head to look at me.

His eyes were wet with barely concealed tears, he looked so defeated and so weary.

“I made it, Hutch. I’m still alive. I’m really here.”

Then he looked away from me and ever so quietly said, “For what it’s worth anyway.”

Oh, God Buddy, are you questioning the fact that you are alive?

“Hey, hey buddy. Babe, listen to me. Starsky look at me, please, Starsk?”

He slowly lifted his head and turned to look at me.

“For what it’s worth,” I said to him. “I’ll tell you ‘what it is worth.’ It is worth the world to me. YOU are worth the world to me. Starsky ‘I’ need ‘you,’ need you so much that it scares the hell out of me sometimes. We’ve just been through the worst two months of our lives, gone through a living hell; you for all the obvious reasons and my reasons well, Starsk, you know what you mean to me. I just love you so much. I don’t know what I would have done if…”

I needed to get myself under control for the both of us.

“We need each other partner, so I don’t want to hear anymore talk like that from you.

Starsk….you listening to me? Me and Thee. That hasn’t changed, that never will.”

“Yeah I hear ya, Blondie. I didn’t mean to say I’m not glad I made it, but I am really scared Hutch. I am really scared and I’m just so damn tired.”

“Starsk, I know that you are scared and you have every reason to be. But together we will get through this just like we always have, I promise you that.”

I got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door for Starsky. I reached into the car to help Starsky out of the seat. It hurt him to just swing his legs out of the car and attempt to stand up.

I reached around the back of the seat and put my arm under his left arm and let him grip my right arm with his own and with my help he was able to get up out of the car. The look on his face told me the effort it took for him to do that and that ever-present look of pain in his eyes was back.

“Easy buddy, just stand right here for a minute and rest. You take all the time you need. I know it hurts, Babe.”

“Oh Hutch, it still feel like my insides are all rearranged. It hurts like hell. But I’m trying Hutch, I really am.”

“Partner, I know you are, and you are doing just fine.”

We made our way ever so slowly up the stairs to the apartment. I had to stop twice just to let Starsky catch his breath. That patched together lung of his was still giving him a fit and he seemed to always be battling for each new breath. Any kind of exertion put a tremendous strain on his respiration.

I opened the door to the apartment and I helped a grateful and very worn out partner to the couch.

“Don’t want to lay down in bed just yet, Hutch. That’s all I’ve been doing for the last two months, just want to lay here on the couch and look at things, things I never thought I would see again.”

His voice was shaking and I knew that his emotions were beginning to overwhelm him. Sometimes the mixture of the medications he was on and the reality of the shooting just got too much for him. In addition to that he looked awfully tired.

I would have preferred having him go straight to bed, but especially now after all he’d been through I could no more say ‘no’ to him then I could stop breathing.

I helped Starsky to get comfortable on the couch, taking off his shoes and helping getting his legs up on the couch. I put a pillow under his legs to take the strain off of his stomach and chest. The stitches wouldn’t pull as much with his legs elevated.

Placing a couple of pillows under his back and shoulders helped him to be as comfortable as possible. “Starsk, how’s that partner, feel okay?”

“Feels great, Hutch. I’m just fine. Please don’t worry so much. I’m not gonna break or something.”

“Babe, I know that, but please let me do this for you, please let me take care of you.”

“I love you Blondie. God how did I every get so lucky?”

“Starsk, I am the one that feels lucky.”

I ran a hand through his now too-long curls. I went to the refrigerator to get both of us a drink. Myself a Coke, and Starsky, a root beer.

He took the drink and sipped it slowly all the while looking around the room. “I guess those little plants I had in the little cups on the window sill are long gone by now.”

“Think again partner. Look out on the patio.”

I opened the door so he could get a clear view. Hanging from four separate pots were four thriving plants.

“Hey, you didn’t let them die.”

“Nope, figured you wouldn’t want Ignacius’s offspring to croak. They got too big for the cups you had them in so I put them in those pots.”

“Hutch, what would I do without you looking after me? You took care of everything.”

“It was my pleasure, Starsk. Taking care of this place made me feel a little closer to you when I couldn’t be with you at the hospital.”

“Hutch you talk anymore ‘mush talk’ like that and I am gonna bawl like a baby.”

I watched Starsky look around the room like this was the first time he had seen the place. I guess almost dying like he did makes you think about the little things that you didn’t see before.

~~~~~~~~

After eating a light lunch, I gave Starsky his dose of pain medication and talked him into getting out of his clothes and into his pajamas. We would wait for a bath until the morning. He was much too tired right now to do anything but sleep. He tried so hard to help me get him changed but finally gave up when the tiredness and the pain caught up with him all at once.

“Let me do that for you partner. You need to rest, it’s been a long day for you.”

I got no protest from my friend. He just smiled at me and said, “Thanks Blondie, for everything.”

I helped him get comfortable in his bed, covered him up and started to leave the room when a sleepy, drug slurred voice asked me, “My bed feels really good, doesn’t hurt my back at all. What did ya do to the mattress? It’s different somehow. Or am I just so drugged up I’m dreaming it feels so good?”

Sitting down on the side of the bed I looked down at this precious man. “Your doctor suggested I get one of those egg crate mattress things they use in the hospital, said it would make you more comfortable.”

“Thaatsss jussst terri…terrific.”

Starsky lost his battle to stay awake.

How long I just sat there watching him breathe, watching him sleep I don’t know, but I knew that for the first time in over two long and agonizing months that my heart was at home at last.

 

HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #10

It was taking all I had not to tell my partner about the surprise party that I was planning for him. I almost gave in yesterday evening.

After washing our dinner dishes I walked over to the couch where Starsky was stretched out watching TV. His eyes were on the TV screen but I could tell his mind was somewhere else.

“Boy that casserole dish Mrs. Dobey sent over for us was sure good.”

Starsky didn’t even look away from the TV screen.

“Yeah, it was good. That was really nice of her.”

That was all the response that I got from my partner and the words lacked any kind of enthusiasm.

I looked over at Starsky. “Starsk, you feeling all right?”

“I’m doing okay Hutch. It’s just that—never mind—I’m fine, really.”

He had wanted to say something more but stopped himself.

I stood in front of the couch so I could see his face.

“Something’s bothering you, Starsk, what is it? You hardly said two words during dinner. Hey, buddy what is it?”

I sat down on the edge of the coffee table facing Starsky.

“It’s silly Hutch…I…okay. It’s just that the last few days no one’s come over to see me or even called. I feel like I’ve been written off by most people.”

He sighed, then continued.

He was still staring at the TV screen and would not look up at me. “Dumb, huh?”

“No it’s not dumb.”

I almost told him then and there about the party that I had planned for him tomorrow evening. That sad, dejected look in his eyes was slicing right into my heart. Starsky had been through so much these last few months that I hated seeing him look as unhappy as he did right now.

“Babe, it’s only been a few days and it is the middle of the week. I’m sure someone will come by or call anytime now, you’ll see.”

Another sigh from the couch. “Well at least you haven’t forgotten me.”

“Starsk, I hate seeing you like this. There is no way that with as many friends as you have that anyone’s forgotten you, but things come up. You have an awful lot of people who care about you and who aren’t about to ‘write you off.'”

“Yeah, I know that Hutch. I guess I’m just tired. Tired of feeling so bad. Gets to me sometimes.”

“I know buddy. I know. Hey, I’d be surprised if you didn’t feel this way sometimes.”

I reached over him and squeezed his shoulder and ran my hand through his wild array of too long, curls.

Boy do you ever need a haircut, babe. Wish I had that much hair.

“Tell you what. You could probably use a nap right about now. Why don’t you close your eyes for a while. Get a little sleep, and when you wake up I’ll make us both the most sinfully decadent ice cream sundaes and we’ll watch the ‘Creature Feature,’ think it’s about that Rodan thing you like so much. What do you think about that?”

This got Starsky’s attention.

“Man my hearing must be going along with everything else. I thought I just heard you say that you are gonna actually eat an ice cream sundae, a real one…not one of those god-awful gross concoctions that you whip up in the blender.”

“That’s right, nothing wrong with your hearing partner. Tonight I’ll live dangerously…might even break out the double stuff Oreo cookies.”

Starsky looked at me and smiled. “Well Blondie, I knew if you stayed around me long enough you’d come around. Damn, but you are a slow learner.”

The smile that he gave me lit up the room and warmed my heart at the same time.

“Don’t go thinking you’re gonna turn me into a junk food junkie like you; my stomach would fall out in less than a month if I ate the way you do. Now that’s enough talk for now.”

I eased one of the pillows out from under Starsky’s shoulders so he could lie all the way down on the couch. I covered him up with the ever-present afghan off of the back of the couch.

“Thanks Hutch. A nap does sound kinda good right about now.”

He handed me the TV’s remote control. His eyes were already closed by the time I turned the volume on the TV down and changed the channel.

I winked at ‘Tom and Jerry’ on the TV screen and changed the channel to the local news broadcast.

“There was only a few minutes left of ‘Tom and Jerry.’ You could have waited till it was over you know. Sometimes you are not nice, Hutchinson.”

Starsky’s eyes were shut but he was smiling that crooked smile of his.

“You are supposed to be resting. Go…to…sleep…Starsk.”

~~~~~~~~

When I was certain Starsky was asleep I took the phone out onto the patio and started to make the necessary phone calls to pull off this surprise party. I sat in a deck chair where I could look back into the living room and see my partner on the couch. I didn’t want him overhearing my phone conversations and spoiling the surprise party.

I dialed Sam Jacobson, Starsky’s barber…I needed him to come out to the house and give my partner a haircut. Sam had been here a few times already to trim Starsky’s hair for him. Starsky could not lean back in a barber’s chair yet without pulling on his many stitches so Sam had come out here and together with my help he had given my partner his needed haircuts.

Everyone that I had invited to come tomorrow night had jumped at the chance to welcome my partner home.

The list included the Dobey’s. Maria, who is Kiko’s mom and Kiko’s adopted sister Molly/Pete. Maryanne, Starsky’s favorite nurse from his hospital stay, was also looking forward to surprising her former charge. Dr. Kellerman, the doctor instrumental in saving Starsky’s life, said he would not miss this for the world. What I owed this man I could never in a million years repay.

Of course Huggy would be here. He was bringing along Angie, his bartender…I think she still had a crush on my partner.

‘Merle the Earl, The Customizing Pearl,’ would be here, too. Merle wouldn’t take my money when I tried to pay him for the repairs to the ‘Tomato.’

‘I love the Starsker,’ is all he would say to me, ‘but don’t you tell him I said that,’ he told me.

Vinnie from the Gym was coming and with him an offer of free gym facilities as soon as Starsky was able to begin rehab. He extended the offer to me as well knowing full well that I intended to be with Starsky; helping him all the way.

As for the ladies, I only invited Minnie, from the Traffic Division because she considered herself a big sister to my partner.

I really think Minnie would have liked to be more to Starsk but he truly only saw her as a big sister.

I thought about inviting some of my partner’s lady friends but then I got to thinking, I didn’t know who knew who and maybe it would be better if I left well enough alone and let him take up where he left off when he was a whole lot better.

I glanced through the patio doors at my partner.

He was still out like a light.

I called Huggy checking with him to make sure that he was bringing the food and drinks and would also be picking up the special cake that I had ordered for the party.

After all the phone calls had been made I sat back in the deck chair and relaxed.

I smiled at myself at the present that I had gotten for my partner.

As much as Starsk loved a party he loved getting presents more.

I had told everyone invited that I did not want them bringing presents but that I had intended to give my partner something special just from me.

Really wanting to get him something extra special to officially welcome him home I laid in bed at night trying to figure out just what that should be.

What the hell could I get him that would be really special?

Then it hit me.

Shortly before the shooting we had been walking down the sidewalk in the Galleria one afternoon on a rare off duty day when Starsky grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into a fancy antique store.

He dragged me over to the window display and pointed at the object of his dreams.

“Look at the clipper ship, Hutch. It’s just beautiful.”

The clipper ship he was looking at was indeed beautiful. It had been handmade out of teakwood. Every detail was painstakingly done. You could see the hand carved details had taken someone a long time to do.

I saw the price tag at the same time Starsky did.

He sighed.

“Damn, I couldn’t afford that if I gave up food for the next year.”

“Maybe if they can’t sell it for that much they might lower the price.”

“Think they might, Hutch?”

My partner looked like a little boy who did not have enough money for an ice cream cone.

He was looking at me hopefully.

“Don’t know Starsk. Maybe.”

“Oh well,” he sighed.

I put my arm around his shoulder and we walked out of the antique shop; Starsky taking one more look over his shoulder at the ship.

“Come on partner, I’ll buy you a beer.”

He talked about the clipper ship a couple of times after that but the owner of the shop was not coming down on the price.

Starsky had tried to figure out a way he could still get the damn thing.

Then one day the ‘Tomato’ decided for him.

The car needed four new tires and a new alternator…bye bye…clipper ship…

~~~~~~~~

I smiled to myself. I couldn’t wait to see my partner’s face when he opened up the box and saw the ship.

You had better really LOVE this ship partner because it put a sizable dent in my already depleted savings account.

But if this made Starsky happy I would have paid ten times more for it.

~~~~~~~~

Twenty-four hours later, I looked over at my partner sitting on the couch with his feet on the coffee table, pillows behind his back and shoulders, a pillow under his feet.

He was surrounded by his guests.

The party was winding down and so was Starsky, his eyes were beginning to droop.

Minnie came over and sat down next to Starsky and handed him a package.

“Starsky Honey, this is from the guys back at Metro. Just a little something to let you know how they all feel.”

Starsky took the tee shirt out of the box it was in and held it up for all to see. The shirt was bright red with white lettering. It said…’The Pride of the B.C.P.D. David Starsky.’

“Hey look, Hutch. Look what it says.”

Starsky gave Minnie a kiss and I saw his Adam’s apple begin to shake.

“They didn’t forget me.”

“Told you they didn’t partner. Babe this one’s from me.”

I brought the package over to the coffee table and helped Starsky sit up straighter so he could open the package.

I sat a little bit behind him so he could lean into my shoulder for support.

“This for me?”

“Who else do you think it’s for, Dirtball?”

He ripped open the box and pulled the tissue paper out of the box.

Starsky just stared at the clipper ship, mouth wide open.

“You got me the ship, Hutch. Is it really mine?”

“Better be for what I had to pay for it.”

I saw Starsky swallow a few times and swipe at his eyes.

“You did this for me? Hutch this is just so beautiful. I love you partner.”

He leaned into me a little more.

“Hey everyone. I love this big Blonde beauty sitting next to me.”

~~~~~~~~

Starsky had enjoyed the welcome home party and so had I. We still had a long, and hard road ahead of us but the ‘Me and Thee’ would make it, I had no doubt about that.

As I watched my partner sleep I couldn’t help but smile. He made me put the clipper ship on the bedside table so he could see it when he woke up in the morning and instead of his usual blue pajama top he was wearing his new tee shirt.

 

HUTCH’S HEARTACHES #11

Hard to believe it is already October 31st. I find myself dividing this year into the time before Starsky got shot and the time after the shooting. Only, over the last few weeks, have I begun to think about including the rest of the world in my day to day life again. Even now, Starsky is my number one priority, his needs coming before anyone or anything else. I would not allow any invasion into our world. I had effectively built a wall of protection and comfort around Starsky, giving him a place to recover both emotionally and physically where only ‘me and thee’ were allowed. Gunther was in jail and wasn’t getting out in his lifetime and my partner was beginning to heal.

“Hey, Starsk, where are you?”

“Out here in the jungle, Hutch.”

I smiled to myself and walked out into the greenhouse to join my partner.

“Man, Franklin doesn’t look so good. Some of his leaves are yellow and have even fallen off.” Starsky opened up his hand and showed me a dozen or so dead leaves. Shaking his head, he chuckled softly, and with tired pain-wracked eyes, smiled at me. “Poor plant looks a lot like me.”

“Yeah, buddy, I know what you’re saying.” Starsky moved closer and leaned into me and I reached out gently, pulling him against me, his head almost instantly finding my shoulder and using it as a pillow.

“Speaking of which, you up to going out and getting a pumpkin for tonight?”

“Sure, I’m not going to feel a whole lot better anytime soon. I’ll be okay. Don’t worry so much.”

“Your jacket, Starsk?”

“Awe, Hutch, the sun is shining and it’s a beautiful warm southern California day out there…”

“Won’t work, partner. It’s not that warm, and if you get sick now along with everything else you’re dealing with, I’d never forgive myself. Put it on, babe, for me…please?”

Puppy dog eyes looked up at me briefly before looking down at the floor. “You’re right. Don’t need anymore problems to add to what I already have.”

Still needing help with the simplest of things, I bent down to tie the shoe strings on his Adidas, and then straightened back up to help him into his old leather bomber jacket. It was painful for me to watch how difficult it still was for him to reach back and put his arms into the sleeves of his jacket. An intake of breath told me Starsky was hurting plenty this morning.

“Hey, babe, pain pills haven’t kicked in at all yet?”

He looked down at his shoes and let out a sigh. “Not going out all doped up. I’ll take the damn things when we get back home. I’ll be all right.”

“How about taking a couple of aspirins, then?”

“Hutch, no. I’ll deal with it.”

“Okay, but you don’t mind if I take the pills with us, do you?”

“Nope, not if it’ll make you feel better. Can we go now, ‘Mom’?”

~~~~~~~~~~

The sign over the entrance to the pumpkin patch read:  Parents, let your children pick their own pumpkins.

Starsky’s eyes lit up when he saw the sign. “Hey, this is great. We really get to pick the one we want.” Such a simple and enthusiastic comment from my partner but it warmed my heart to hear it.

“Starsk, you mean, when you were a kid, you didn’t do this on Halloween?”

“Nope, a pumpkin just showed up on our kitchen table. Maw would clean it out for us ’cause I wouldn’t stick my hands in it. My Dad would hold this huge knife, his hands over mine, and we would make a jack-o-lantern out of it. Since my Maw always shopped at the A & P, I used to think that’s where all pumpkins came from.”

“Well, come on, city boy. This time you get to pick out the one you want and, I guarantee you, this one didn’t come from a grocery store.”

In his excitement over the prospect of finding that one special pumpkin, Starsky moved much too fast for his still healing body and fell back against the car seat with his head resting on the car’s headrest. A slow moan escaped, his face a mask of pain.

“Oh, man, that was dumb. Shit…it hurts.”

I quickly knelt down in front of the open car door of the Tomato and watched Starsky’s painful facial expressions, changing as one wave of pain after another clutched at his body.

“Hey, take it easy, buddy. Let’s wait till the pain eases up some and then please let me help you out of the car. You’ve got to take it slow.”

“Yeah, I forget sometimes just how messed up I still am inside.”

I slowly rubbed his arm up and down just the way I had done so many nights in the hospital when either the pain medication hadn’t kicked in yet or it wasn’t working at all.

“Did you really bring my pills?”

I patted my jacket pocket.

“Right here, anytime you want them, just say the word.”

“Not just yet. It’s okay, but I hate to admit it, I don’t think I can get out of this car by myself right now.”

“No problem there, partner, that’s what I’m here for.”

The pain Starsky was still in crushed his desire for independence and he let me help him out of the car.

With one arm around his waist, and my other arm supporting his left arm, we started walking through the pumpkin patch. After slowly walking down the first few rows, Starsky stopped.

“I want that one.”

“Could you narrow that down a little bit for me, partner? Which one is that one?”

“That one, the one at the end of the row.”

“You want that real fat and squatty looking one?”

I’d heard all about Charlie Brown Christmas trees so this pumpkin had to be a Charlie Brown pumpkin.

“Yeah, that’s the one. Ya know, it looks a lot like Dobey.”

We both laughed.

“I wouldn’t let the Captain hear you say that.”

I paid the lot boy to carry the ‘chosen one’ so I could walk with Starsky back to the car. He let out an audible sigh of relief as he sat down in the seat.

“Tired,” was all he said.

“Yeah, I know, babe.” And I also know that you’re in a lot of pain. I can hear it in your voice and I can see it in your eyes.

“Okay, we’ll stop by Cal Foods and I’ll run in to get some candy for tonight along with a soda for you so you can take your pills.”

~~~~~~~~~~

As I parked the car in the lot at the grocery store, Starsky turned to me.

“I’ll go in with you, Hutch.”

“No, partner, you stay in the car and wait for me, only be a few minutes.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, that’s probably a better idea. I don’t feel much like getting up and out of this car more than I have to right now.”

I headed for the grocery store.

“Hey, Hutch?”

I turned back towards Starsky.

“What, Starsk?”

“Be sure and get some candy apples for the kids too and don’t get any of that weird health food candy stuff they got. Don’t want to make any of the trick or treaters sick.”

I turned back around and continued into the store smiling to myself at Starsky’s comments.

~~~~~~~~~~

After getting home from the grocery store, my partner laid down on the couch and, within minutes, was deeply asleep, getting some much needed respite from the almost constant pain he was in during his waking hours. I pulled the ever-present afghan from the back of the couch, covered him with it and slipped a pillow under his head. I reached down and gently removed the Adidas, tossing them under the coffee table. I couldn’t resist running my hands through the thick brown curls that framed his face. I had told myself that I was checking him for a fever when I did this but I think I really just wanted to feel the warmth of life under my hands, reassuring me that he was still here. Starsky slept away most of the afternoon, the pain pills doing their job. I wanted him to sleep as long as he possibly could. Sleep meant his body was healing.

Almost three hours later, we were seated at the kitchen table with the pumpkin in the middle of it sitting on some old newspapers.

“Hey, Starsk, you gonna carve that thing or are you gonna…hey, what’s the matter? You seem like you’re a million miles away.”

He shrugged his shoulders and stared down at his hands in his lap.

“Last time I did this was with my Dad. You’d think after all these years, it wouldn’t bother me so much.” Another shrug. “But, it still does.”

“Well, what do you say to ‘Me and Thee’ starting our own tradition tonight?”

“Yeah, I think I’d like that. My Dad’s gone but I’ve got so much more ’cause you’re here now.”

Starsky picked up the knife and started to cut into the pumpkin, but had barely cut into it when his left hand started to tremble, and he put the knife back down on the table. Without any words being said between us, I reached for his hand and he picked up the knife. With my hand wrapped around his, we carved the pumpkin together. I let him guide the knife where he wanted to make the cuts and I exerted the pressure that was needed to cut into the thick skin of the pumpkin. He still had a lot of weakness in his upper body resulting from tendons and muscles and bones being shattered by Gunther’s bullets. Together, we made a jack-o-lantern much the same way that Starsky and his Dad had made one so many years ago.

“Hey, Hutch, what do we do with the stuff you scooped out of this thing?”

“We’ll just put the bowl in the fridge for now.”

After cleaning up the mess off of the kitchen table, I put our masterpiece on the windowsill. Later on, we would light it, as soon as we started seeing the trick or treaters.

~~~~~~~~~~

Starsky was definitely right at home sitting in a lawn chair in the doorway of the house handing out fistfuls of candy and candy apples to each trick or treater. It made my heart feel good to see him enjoying himself so much…until…two trick or treaters ran up the sidewalk towards us dressed up in dark blue soldier type uniforms, toy machine guns blazing white fire. The two play soldiers stopped in front of us holding out their bags and yelling ‘trick or treat.’ All my partner saw were the toy machine guns aimed right at us. His face had lost what little color it had in it and he dropped the bowl of candy to the ground. The noise of the bowl hitting the sidewalk brought Starsky back to the present and out of the police garage, back to the two innocent trick or treaters. One of the kids picked up the dropped bowl of candy and handed it back to Starsky.

“Sorry, mister, didn’t mean to scare you. Thanks.” And off they went to the next house.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Starsk, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

He shook his head and squeezed my hand that was still on his shoulder. “Talk about flashbacks.”

We handed out a few more treats to a couple of late trick or treaters and then called it a night.

Looking up and down the nearly deserted street, the only jack-o-lantern still burning brightly was the one in our window.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning:

Something was missing…I looked again at the bowl of pumpkin meat. No seeds…no seeds?…

“Starsky, where are all the seeds?”

“Seeds? I planted ‘um.”

“You ‘planted’ them? You planted them…where did you plant them?”

“In the dirt,” he replied, never looking away from the TV.

“What, where…what dirt? The only dirt I know of around here is in my greenhouse…Starsky!”