Night Classes

830

Starsky and Hutch find themselves seriously re-thinking their goal of making ‘personal improvements’ via night classes at the local college.

 

Okay. First of all, you have to understand that this story was born in the wee hours of the morning, a product of Otter’s story challenge combined with an allergy med that refused to let me sleep. Further, I haven’t had any sleep yet. If this is a little sillier than my norm, you’ll understand why.

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“Come on. Just a peek.”

“Forget it, Starsky.”

“Aww. If you can’t show it to me, who can you show it to?”

“No one. Ever. I should’ve just –”

Whatever else he might have said was lost as Hutch found himself playfully tackled and flattened against the wall, engaged in a spirited wrestling match with his partner the moment the apartment door closed. Fully expecting the onslaught, Hutch managed to keep the prize of the game out of reach as both men jockeyed for position amidst a tangle of limbs, but the advantage didn’t last for long. Strength and height were definite assets, but Starsky was by far the quicker of the two.

“Gimme,” Starsky demanded, tugging at the deceptively innocent-looking brown paper bag Hutch still clung to so tenaciously. “Just…let…go!” With a final yank, the bag was his. “There.” He squared his shoulders and made a half-hearted attempt to straighten his shirt, an obvious casualty of the tousle.

“Starsk –”

Starsky twisted protectively away from the hands that came reaching for the bag. “Ah — ah. I just wanna look. Let’s do the Great Unveiling at the table, shall we?”

Hutch slumped against the wall in mock dejection. “You’ll laugh.”

“I won’t. Told you that.”

“Yeah, but you haven’t seen it yet. It’s bad.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Hutch leaned against a wall closer to the action as Starsky, with an almost ceremonial dramatic flourish, removed the pitifully misshapen object from the bag and regarded it with all due solemnity. At first. Then his lips quivered slightly and he had to press them together tightly in a supreme effort to hold onto his carefully guarded composure.

“You’re laughing!” Hutch accused, unable to keep from chuckling a little himself.

“‘M not,” he protested, covering his mouth and avoiding eye-contact at all cost. Starsky cleared his throat, lost the battle to keep the smile from his face, and added, “I like it.” A snuffling sound escaped his lips but, to his credit, nothing more.

Hutch sighed, strode into the kitchen, and returned with two beers. “Do you know what it is?”

“No.”

“It’s an ashtray. At least it’s trying to be.”

“We don’t smoke,” Starsky pointed out helpfully, his gaze never lifting from the orange lump on the table.

“Well, thanks for the news flash.” Hutch stared at his creation with thinly-veiled contempt, sank down into a chair and rested his chin on a hand. Chuckling softly, he admitted, “It’s the only thing in the entire pottery class I thought stood a chance of being recognizable when I got through.”

“You’re not very good at this, are you?” Starsky asked fondly.

“No. Nothing seems to stay on the wheel long enough for me to shape it.” He dropped his head into his hands as both finally succumbed to the laughter that had threatened to erupt all evening. “Mrs. Collingate has to be tired of scraping my clay off of the walls… I’m surprised she hasn’t kicked me out of the class yet.”

“Well, I like it,” Starsky said firmly, wiping his eyes. “I do. Hey! We could give it to Henry.”

“You expecting the pothos to take up smoking?”

“As a coaster, dummy.” He made to set Henry on its new custom-made dish, then paused, plant in hand. “It is waterproof, isn’t it?”

“Who knows?”

Starsky shrugged, completed the motion, and returned to the table. “I’m guessing you’re not considering giving up your day job any time soon, huh?”

“I wouldn’t laugh if I were you.” Hutch wagged an index finger at him in warning. “Your French hasn’t exactly been an unqualified success, if I recall.”

“That wasn’t my fault.” Starsky pondered the comment for a moment. “Y’ think it was because he was French Canadian?”

“No. I think it was because you called him pregnant.”

“I did not! I just asked if the kid was with him.”

“You asked if he was with child, Starsk. Of course, it didn’t help any that he weighed over three hundred pounds.” Hutch leaned forward and tilted Starsky’s chin up slightly. “How’s that healing, anyway?” The cut left by the ring as it connected with flesh had all but disappeared now.

“Only hurts when I shave.” He sighed, then brightened. “Well, at least we’re doing okay with the roofing and remodeling classes. That was the original motivation, remember?”

“Mmm. Provided it doesn’t blow down in the next windstorm, there’s actually a chance we’ll get the place renovated, after all,” Hutch agreed. Grinning, he added, “It’s not the home improvements we’re having problems with — it’s the personal ones.”

“It was your idea, ‘mister we-need-to-expand-our-horizons’. Anyway–” he stopped mid-sentence as a second thought roughly tossed the first aside. “Y’know what we could do? We could swap.”

“You mean I take French, you take pottery?” Hutch shook his head. “You were the one who thought speaking the ‘language of love’ would transform you from Paul Muni into Louis Jourdan. And I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’ve seen your attempts at sculpture and…”

“Okay, okay. Point taken.” Starsky absently drummed his fingers on the table, presumably lost in contemplation. “We agree that we’re not cut out for the classes we’ve chosen, so maybe –” he reached for the night school catalogue and began to thumb through it. “– we can find something better.”

Hutch moved his chair closer to better assist in the search. “Well, we can’t do much worse, can we?”

“Hey! Here we go–how about Outdoor Photography?”

“Oh, come on. You could teach that class.”

“Yeah?” Starsky’s cheeks flushed slightly with pride. Few things meant more to him than a sincere compliment from his partner.

“Weaving could be interesting.”

“Are you kidding? I did enough of that in rehab. Or are you forgetting the rug?”

Hutch frowned. “Oh, you mean the one where you got caught and they had to cut you out of?”

“That’s the one.”

“Enough said. Soap?”

“Too sudsy. Cooking?”

“Too expensive,” Hutch declared, gasping a little at the sixty-five dollar price tag. “Marine Biology?”

Starsky didn’t even bother responding to that one. “Foreign Film Appreciation?”

“You don’t like foreign films.”

“Right. What about Woodcarving?”

“Too dangerous! If I’m having a hard time with hand-eye coordination in pottery, do you really want to see me next to a lathe?”

Starsky shivered. “How about ‘Useful Caulking with Ted’?”

“Works for me,” Hutch agreed with a sigh.

finis