Second Sight

After a traumatic experience, teenage Hutch finds comfort in an unexpected place. But can he believe its message?

Originally published in the Starsky and Hutch mixed anthology zine, The Fix #2 in 1988.

I was running so hard I thought my lungs would burst, but I didn’t care. Running was the one thing I was really good at. Nobody could top me at track meets. Not that they really cared; ‘they’ being my parents. Sometimes I was sure I must’ve been a biological accident on their part. If they ever felt proud of me at all, I never knew about it. Couldn’t ever remember any words of praise coming from either of them. But I guess it didn’t matter anymore, anyway. They were sending me off to that boarding school as fast as the place would take me… considering my father’s money and clout, that wouldn’t take very long. I was a Hutchinson, after all, and in this town, that was a name to be reckoned with, or so they’d pounded into my head repeatedly.

Too bad the brainwashing had never taken. Sometimes I thought it’d be better if it had, if I was just like them. Well, after today, there wouldn’t be any more secrets to hide from them, would there?

The early autumn air was stabbing my lungs, and my eyes were prickly, stinging, and still I kept running, trying to run away from that scene that kept playing over and over in my head. I still couldn’t believe it’d really happened. Willie and I had just been stupid, and damned careless. We never should’ve met in my grandfather’s barn, but I’d thought we’d be safe there. Nobody would find us there, right? Yeah, sure.

All right, so I’d disgraced my parents forever, but if I had to live with that, I figured they could, too. I just turned fifteen, but I’ve known for over three years now that I preferred boys over girls. Discovering that about myself had made me feel like a freak, an alien… sometimes even now, I still did, but I wasn’t going to try lying to myself about it any longer, either. Girls were okay; hell, didn’t I have Mary Lou McAllister a few times this past summer in the blueberry bushes behind our house? Funny—if I’d gotten her pregnant, there would’ve been a big, dramatic scene over that, too, but it would’ve blown over just as fast, I was sure. Daddy Hutchinson would’ve paid off Mary Lou’s folks, given me a slap across the wrist, then probably dismissed the whole thing with a ‘boys will be boys’ shrug. Knocking up a girl would’ve been no big deal to my loving father.

Finding his only son in the arms of another guy—and giving him head—was unforgivable. In his eyes, and in Mother’s, too. So now, I was being banished. Well, good riddance. Who the hell needed them, anyway? They sure as hell didn’t need me…

I was gasping, a stitch in my side. Tears that had nothing to do with muscle spasms were running down my cheeks. I fell to my knees, pressed a hand to my side, stared blindly into the stream that ran around the edge of our property. I was in the woods, alone, as far away from everybody as I could get… oh, shit! I wasn’t really gonna cry, was I? Were they really worth it? I’d had fifteen years to get used to their coldness, their sneering disapproval, of so much I said and did, of my friends… ‘friends?’ Now, that was really a laugh, wasn’t it? When the hell had I ever had any real friends? All my life I’d had to hang around kids that my parents approved of, kids whose parents were in our same financial and social bracket. Whenever I actually did happen to find somebody I could really like as a friend, either my parents would find something unacceptable about him or her, or I’d find out my friend was only using me to try to get closer to the Hutchinson name and wealth.

I’d thought Willie was different, though. Should’ve known better. Finding out he was like me had seemed like too good a thing to be true… Christ, when would I ever learn? When they walked in on us, Willie just took off running like a scalded cat through the broken slats at the back wall of the barn. He didn’t even have the balls—or enough feeling for me—to stay with me, stand up for me the way I’d’ve done for him, give me some support, at least!

Instead—nothing. I’d never see him again, I was sure, but what hurt most was that I’d thought he cared about me, was my friend, for the first time in my life… But now I knew he was like all the others, even worse than all the others; I’d let him use me in every way there was. How could I have been so damned stupid!

“…don’t feel so bad, Hutchinson. We all do stupid things from time to time.”

A gruff, deep sort of booming voice suddenly startled me, making me jump.

“And stop feeling so damned sorry for yourself! Sometimes you just have to wait for the things—or people—you want and need the most. Your turn’ll come eventually, you’ll see. But you need to be patient, that’s all.”

“What the hell—”

I whirled around, but there was nobody there, only trees, with the wind sighing through them. Was there somebody hiding in the trees? Or was I just going nuts? hearing voices where there were only trees, and birds, and…

“You’re not going crazy, Hutch.”

The voice softened, and I froze. My heart was trying to hammer its way out of my chest. Whoever this was must’ve been reading my mind, too. And he’d called me Hutch, and I was still scared, but I sort of like the sound of that name, too. Nobody’d ever called me that before.

“Look in the water,” the voice ordered, so I dropped to my knees again at once, figuring I had nothing to lose. I was dreaming, or maybe I’d run too hard, run into a tree and knocked myself out or killed myself or something… anyway, I stared into the water, blinking in surprise. I saw a round-faced, hefty, authoritative-looking black man. I shook my head, amazed to find someone living under the water. Couldn’t be!

“Don’t be too hard on your parents, son they’re only doing their best,” the black man’s image told me kindly but firmly, while I just gaped. I snuck a quick look behind me, but there was still nobody there, not that I’d expected…

“And just remember, Hutch, if you want a real friend, you’ve got to be prepared to give just as much of yourself. I know you’re looking for someone to love, someone who’ll love you just as much in return. It will happen, but there’ll be a price to pay, of course. Nothing that won’t be more than worth what you’ll get in return…”

“Who are you?” I whispered. Somehow, I knew then, deep down, that this was no dream, and that I wasn’t suddenly going crazy, either. So, what? “How do you know so much about me, and what’ll happen to me years from now?” I swallowed. “How can—?”

“Just think of me as a shadowing of someone who’ll be important later on in your life.” The man shook his head, refusing to answer more fully. “Not nearly as important as this one, though. Keep watching, Hutch, and remember this face.”

The water suddenly shifted—rippled, I guess—no, that’s not right; the water itself was smooth and quiet right then. But the image went all cloudy, wavy, and then it cleared again, and the black man’s face was gone. In his place I saw another image, but only for a few seconds. Dark, curly hair, laughing blue eyes, a crooked grin that made me feel good just to look at him. A long, straight nose, heavy black eyebrows…

And then, the image was gone. No mysterious stranger, no all-knowing black man, either…

“Wait!” I yelled. Frustrated, I slapped at the water, but that didn’t help. All I did was soak myself. “Come back. Who are you? What ‘price’ will I…?”

I was sputtering, not making any sense, and the water remained just that—water. All I could see below the surface were pebbles, small fish, water plants… but no faces. Maybe I was going crazy after all.

I moaned, flopped down on the stream bank, let the wind ruffle over my wet clothes. Maybe, if I was lucky, I’d catch pneumonia and die. Maybe, yeah.

Except that I didn’t. And it took years, but I finally found out I wasn’t crazy, either.

Well, there are days when I still wonder…

***

“Hutch?”

“Hmmm?”

Starsky leaned his head back on my chest to look up at me. I smiled, hugged my arms tighter around his chest, nosed kisses through his curls. I always loved playing with those curls of his.

“What, babe?”

“Collandra,” Starsky said promptly, which didn’t surprise me. I knew my partner was still more than a little upset by our latest case. “Can you believe that guy? I mean, all right, so he did tell us where to find the Haymes girl, but I still can’t believe he really—”

“Christ, but you’re stubborn.” I sighed, but kissed his nose anyway. He craned his neck, nibbled on my chin. “Starsk, what more proof do you need? If the guy wasn’t really psychic, or had ESP, or whatever, how could he have possibly known?”

“Who knows?” Starsky shrugged stubbornly, but I could see the doubts in his eyes, too, and I smiled. That’s just my partner, my lover. He’s so ready and willing to believe in so many off-beat things, but when something like this comes up, he feels out of control, maybe not quite so sure of himself… well, he tends to reject it. Makes him feel threatened, I guess. And didn’t I know just how that felt?

“Okay,” Starsky sighed with a long-suffering air. “I’ll admit, Blondie, maybe there’s some folks who’ve got special gifts.” He shrugged again, turned in my arms so we were facing each other. “Second Sight, my Gramma used to call it.”

“Well, your grannie was right.” I grinned, stuck my tongue in his ear. I felt him shivering, then he quickly returned the favor and I was shivering, too. “You wouldn’t listen to me, though, would you? I kept telling you and telling you that—”

“Yeah, how come you were so sure of Collandra right from the start, anyway?” Starsky asked accusingly, but his eyes were twinkling. ‘”S not like you, Hutch. Hell,” he snorted, “you wouldn’t even believe me when I told you how alligators kill more people than car accidents in this country!”

“Starsk—”

“Yet you were so hot to believe all this mumbo-jumbo about visions.” Starsky frowned at me, genuinely curious and puzzled. “Why, Hutch?” He wiggled an eyebrow at me wickedly. I kissed it. “Something I don’t know about you, Blintz?”

My heart jumped in my chest. For a second—just a second—I seriously considered telling him just what had happened to me when I was fifteen, but then… no. I didn’t tell him, don’t think I ever could. Especially not now, anyway. He’d only be sure I was royally pulling his leg about it, after all this stuff with Collandra. Besides, even after all these years, that little incident still makes me feel sort of like a freak. Things like that, after all, just don’t happen to normal people—look at Collandra. I’ve never had a vision since then, but I’m not even sure how I feel about that.

Sometimes, I think it’d be a blessing to be able to see into the future; or more importantly, to see any trouble on the job before it happened. Could keep us both alive and well for a long time. That was the way I felt about it sometimes, anyway. Most other times, I’m terrified at the idea of being able to see into the future. What if I could, and I found out Starsky died before I do…?

No, I couldn’t tell him about it. Ever. I tried not to even think too much about it, but there were times I was horrified it’d happen again, someday. It was nothing I could control, after all. Yeah, I’d understood Joe Collandra. Too well.

“Why?” I finally answered Starsky’s question, with great thoughtfulness. “Well, actually my whole family is fey,” I told him at last, very seriously. “Bunch of fey Vikings, that’s us.”

“Fairy Vikings?” Starsky squeaked, his eyes dancing. “Oh, Hutch! You never told me! I never guessed—”

“David Michael Starsky!”

And we laughed and tickled each other, and got into a nice little tumble on the rug… well, if I had to distract Starsky from asking sensitive questions, I couldn’t think of a better way. Christ, but I love him. And I know he loves me. And the Dobey-vision of all those years ago had come true: I’d finally found the best friend I’d ever had—and someone who really loved me—in Starsky.

And now, I thought I knew what the vision had meant when he’d told me I’d have a price to pay for what I got in return. Couldn’t that be the daily worry I felt for Starsky, wondering whether he’d get unlucky on the streets? Or what about the pain I felt whenever Starsky was with one of his women? I had plenty of my own, too, but I didn’t want it that way; all I ever wanted now was Starsky. But even though I know he loves me, I’m not sure he feels the same way I do. He never said, after all. He only wrinkles his nose at me, tells me I’m the only one he’d ever really love, but after all, if we want to keep our jobs on the force, we can’t exactly set up housekeeping, could we?

“Think of the girls as a smokescreen, Hutch,” he’d soothe me, hug me.

And so, we did.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, I figured I knew all about the price I had to pay. Maybe someday, though… someday…

If I had the Second Sight, I’d know what would happen, wouldn’t I? Instead, I decided I’d rather concentrate on the very vital body in my arms.

Crystal balls weren’t the type I was interested in just then!