Retrospective

Hutch’s thoughts on the events from the episode, “A Coffin for Starsky.”

Story Notes: Originally published in the mixed Star Trek/Starsky and Hutch zine, “Half You, Half Me 2” in 1987, then published in the Starsky and Hutch convention zine, ”Memories” in 1990.

“…Hutch…help…”

That middle-of-the-night phone call yanked me unprepared from sleep into a twenty-four hour waking nightmare. Twenty-four hours to run a damned maze, with your life as the prize– determination fighting to co-exist with panic, fear increasing geometrically at each dead end. Twenty-four hours to feel your pain as if it were my own… wishing to God it was.

The events of that period defy my efforts at rational analysis. Everything was happening so fast that all I have now is a chaos of disjointed scenes and unexplored emotions that flash by like gymnasts under a strobe light. There was no time then to stop and sort it all out. But now that it’s all over and you’re safe one more time, I sit here in the dark with a half-empty bottle-of Scotch.

Calm
cool
quietly
falling apart
looking for
order…meanings…truths…
in the images
that
ricochet around
my memory.

Coming back to one scene.

Vic Bellamy was our answer! My brain couldn’t believe it when my eyes told me you’d killed him. My life secure at the cost of his… and yours! Ah, Starsk… And all you could say was, “Just seemed to be a good idea at the time.”

Five seconds later your legs gave out and you and you were collapsing into my arms. I’ll never forget the way you looked at me then. It’s burned into my brain forever, that look. Glassy-eyed from the poison but so intense… As if I was the most important thing in the world — some sort of talisman against all the evils that threatened you. Eyes so full of need…. Did you think I was going to be your last sight?

It cut right through me, buddy.

“It’s always toughest on the ones left behind.” I said it as a joke, to break the tension of our first failed lead. And there you were, right there with a snappy comeback. But when the time came to make a choice, it was easy for you. Not even a decision, I know. A reflex. Or an instinct. There was no time to think. But even if you’d had time — a minute, an hour, a year — it wouldn’t have been any different, would it? But there’s another side to that coin, partner. “It’s always toughest on the ones left behind.” Joking aside, I think we both know the truth behind that particular cliché.

So we take care of each other. My brother’s keeper. And that’s what it’s all about, really. When Death came calling my name, you threw yourself at its throat. And thank God, in the end I was able to balance the debt.

Yeah, we take care of each other. Because neither of us wants to be the one left behind.