Secrets

On the drive home immediately after the events of Satan’s Witches, Starsky confesses to some secrets. Will Hutch?

Originally published in the mixed zine, The Fix #1, in 1987.

We couldn’t leave Pine Lake behind us fast enough. For Starsky’s sake, I tried not to snicker as he threw our stuff into the back of my car with remarkable speed for someone who’d been so nature-loving and laid-back just moments before; he was my best friend, after all, and I loved the guy.

Best friend. Best love…

I sighed, made sure the big lug was safely settled in before I took off—raising a dust-cloud that would have done David Michael Starsky proud. At least, I figured it should have, but the poor fool was still so preoccupied with escaping from grizzlies he apparently didn’t even notice my stylish driving. I grinned.

“Bears can’t run as fast as cars go, buddy.”

“Huh? Oh—right,” Starsky mumbled distantly. He wiggled around in his seat restlessly, fumbled with the seat-belt (it didn’t work anyway, and how often did he ever wear one?). He swore under his breath, then was silent. Almost a mile passed. Then…

“R-O-L-A-I-D-S,” Starsky said at last, now that the Dobey cabin was well behind. I blinked.

“Beg pardon, Starsk?”

“I’m spellin’ relief, Blondie,” Starsky told me, with weary patience, as though I should’ve caught on at once. I fought the urge to grin. “Sooner we’re outa that bear-bait trap, the better! Good riddance,” he went on, with feeling. “Won’t breathe free again till I’m inhalin’ some good ol’ LA smog.”

“That’s a contradiction in terms, you mush-brain,” I returned, smiling. Couldn’t help it; Starsky just looked so—well, so pitiful. “Besides, what’s all this?” I kept on, enjoying myself. “Whatever happened to the ‘new dimensions’ to yourself that country living has shown you, Starsk?”

“Got sucked up into the fourth dimension by a grizzly bear from The Twilight Zone,” my best friend said emphatically. “Remember that old episode of The Twilight Zone, Hutch? There was this house, and a little kid was missing, and the parents could hear the kid, but not see it, and it turned out there was this fourth dimension through the wall of the kid’s bedroom, and—”

“Starsk?”

“Yeah?”

“I saw it, okay?” I grinned. “In fact, I sort of envy those people,” I added, dryly. “Sounds like a great place to pack you off to, sometimes.”

“You just remember that the next time you drag me along on a so-called ‘vacation’ with you, ingrate,” Starsky snorted, but he was grinning too, so I wasn’t worried about having offended him; sometimes I put my mouth in gear without thinking first, and Starsky usually ends up taking the brunt of it. Which I hate, because the curly-haired bundle of trouble is not nearly as thick-skinned as he likes everyone to believe he is, so… my hurting him hurts me, too

Luckily, though, that didn’t seem to be a problem today, and I just chuckled and reached over, ruffled Starsky’s chocolate-brown curls, and savored the chance for us to be so close this way. Starsky had bitched and complained heartily about the length of this drive, all the way out to Pine Lake, but I’d loved it. Even with him in a ‘surly mood’, it was wonderful to just have him so near, to just have him all to myself, for a change.

To… have him…?

I sighed again, a little louder than I should have; hoped Starsky didn’t notice. After I’d driven at least another ten miles or so, I suddenly realized that Starsky was being unusually quiet. For my motor-mouthed partner, that was really odd; usually he drives me crazy when we’re stuck in the same car for any length of time at all, and it’s always worse when we’re driving. I think driving relaxes Starsky or something, because when he’s a passenger, he generally tries playing ‘word games’ with me till I could scream… or ‘guessing games’, or ‘card tricks’ to ‘amuse’ me. (Well, I never wanted to disillusion him, either.) Or he’ll read a book aloud to me, and regale me with such interesting facts as, ‘did you know that more people were killed in the United States last year by alligators than in car accidents?’ That sort of thing. Today, though, there was nothing…

“Starsk? Anything wrong?” I asked, softly. Where David Michael Starsky is concerned, I’ve always had a sort of a sixth sense about knowing when something was troubling him. Just little things that nobody else’d ever notice, not in a million years: little gestures of his, a certain kind of frown, a certain look in those midnight-blue eyes of his… certain silences that tended to stretch out a little too long. Like now.

“You’re car-sick,” I decided, trying to draw him out with lightness. “Okay, buddy, just for you I’ll pull over,” I said, very generously. “Wouldn’t want you ruining my upholstery, after all—”

“With this upholstery, it’d be an improvement,” Starsky grumbled, then sighed explosively. “‘S really nothin’, Hutch. Just—remember when I told you before how I didn’t have any nightmares last night?”

I frowned. “Yeah?”

Starsky sort of snorted again.

“Well, I lied,” he said bluntly. “I did! Have nightmares, I mean.”

“So, that’s what’s been bothering you?” I almost laughed in my relief. “The fact that you had nightmares, or the fact that you lied to me?” I teased, glancing over at his stony profile, but he only smiled weakly. I was starting to feel a little worried.

“Starsk, there’s no shame in having nightmares, for God’s sake,” I scolded gently. “I told you, so did I! After what those hooded creeps put us through last night—”

“But I didn’t have nightmares about them, Hutch, I had nightmares—about snakes,” Starsky finally confessed, in such a small voice I could barely hear him. “Snakes, damnitall!” He said that a lot more loudly, as if he were angry. With himself? Why the hell—?

“Thought I’d finished with that, years ago.” Starsky was mumbling again, head down. “But then, after those bastards put that rattler in the fridge—”

“That was enough to give anybody nightmares,” I scolded him again, trying to reason with him, trying to understand him. “Starsk, why’re you being so hard on yourself?”

No reply. Maybe I was treading on dangerous ground here, but Starsky was hurting so I had to risk it. I tried again.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” I coaxed, “but I’m trying to understand, babe. You’ve had nightmares about snakes before?”

“Since ‘Nam. But I haven’t had any in years.” He sounded sort of hollow. “All goes back to the time I got wounded, left behind by my outfit—I told you about that, remember? Well, what I never told you about was the snakes, all around me in that fuckin’ jungle.” Starsky was noticeably breathing harder. I thought I could almost feel him shaking a little, too. “T’ this day, I don’t know how the hell I didn’t get bit… lost count o’ how many I killed with my knife ’cause I didn’t dare use my gun, too afraid the VC’d hear me, an’ I had t’ find my way back to my outfit…” Starsky told it all in a rush. “I did, but let’s just say I was never too fonda snakes afterwards.”

“Oh, Starsk.”

I felt worse than helpless—felt useless. I wanted to pull over, stop the car, just take Starsky in my arms and comfort him; but somehow I had the feeling that wouldn’t be welcomed just then. I settled for reaching over with one hand as I drove, squeezing his shoulder tightly, hoping I could comfort him that way. Not for the first time I found myself wishing I could’ve been there for him, that maybe we could’ve been the team we’d become as cops… that maybe, I could’ve kept his nightmares away.

Too late now.

“Starsk, I couldn’t sleep last night, anyway, you should’ve… come and told me, we could have talked,” I said, uncertainly. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, babe. There’s no need for you to feel you ever have to keep secrets from me,” I told him quietly, squeezed his shoulder again. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Hutch, you don’t understand. It wasn’t just the damned nightmare,” Starsky groaned, “it was—all I could keep thinking was—all right, so I guess maybe it’s stupid, but—Hutch—when I saw that lousy snake, I was so scared shitless, I couldn’t even move, not even t’ save my own ass.” His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. “Don’t you see what I’m gettin’ at? Hutch, if we ever run into anything like that again, and I maybe gotta get a snake away from you, I couldn’t—I just—”

“You were actually worried about that, Starsk?” I could barely get the words out. The road stretching out in front of me had suddenly gone sort of blurry, too. “Christ, what the hell am I gonna do with you?” I breathed. “So you’re afraid of snakes, you big cloth-head, so what? So that automatically means you’re no good to me as a partner, is that it?”

Again, I had to fight to keep myself from grabbing him into my arms, crushing him to me, just wrapping him up in me and protecting him, keeping him safe, taking his hurt away. But somehow, I contented myself with squeezing the nape of his neck, then ruffling his curls. In a very platonic, brotherly way.

“Just thought you had a right t’ know,” Starsky replied, sort of dully. “You’re my partner, for Christ’s sake! I’m s’posed t’ be able t’ protect you—”

“And if I know you—and I think I know you better than you know yourself, incidentally—you do protect me, and you would, even if it meant getting yourself killed,” I answered, just as quietly, but firmly. “Look,” I sighed, exasperated, “let’s just forget about me ever being threatened by a snake, okay?” I begged. “How the hell likely is that to ever happen?”

“How the hell likely was it for me to find one in the fridge!” Starsky shouted back, his eyes flashing. I sighed again, continued kneading his tense shoulder, the back of his neck. He didn’t shrug me off, so I kept it up.

“Okay, all right,” I soothed, “look, Starsk, let’s just say—if anything ever did happen and you couldn’t save me, I’d know it’d never be because you didn’t try your damnedest,” I smiled, “so you can just keep that in mind for me, all right? In case you’re ever threatened by rats.” I shuddered, and it was not an act. “If there’s one thing in this world that just about paralyzes me, buddy, it’s rats.”

Starsky turned to look me in the face, then wide-eyed. “Really? Hutch, you never told me! All those jokes I was makin’ just laast week, when we were goin’ down that dark alley—”

“Idiot! Don’t blame yourself for that, either; you couldn’t have known.” I playfully cuffed his ear, smiled. “I hate rats, Starsk, always have, ever since one almost bit me in my grandfather’s barn when I was only a kid,” I told him. “I probably feel the same way about them as you do about snakes! That doesn’t mean we’re ever gonna let each other down someday, babe, just means we can only do our best. Right?”

“Yeah—I guess so—hey, Hutch? Thanks, partner.” Starsk smiled at last, a genuine, light-up-the-eyes smile. He reached up to his shoulder, curled his fingers through mine, squeezed me tight as I drove. “I feel better already! Nice t’ know I’m not the only one with scary skeletons in the closet.”

In the closet? Oh, Christ!

Somehow, I managed a smile. With Starsky smiling at me that way, though, it really wasn’t hard. It would’ve been like being unmoved by a child’s smile on Christmas morning, in fact.

“Yeah, well—from now on, we don’t keep secrets from each other, okay?” I soothed. “Something scares one of us, or bothers us — we tell each other, right? Only way to get along, buddy.”

“Right,” Starsky agreed, smiling, released my hand, reached down to squeeze my knee instead. All very innocently, very contentedly, very brotherly.

And I felt like a damned hypocrite, figured I always would. Scolding Starsky for keeping secrets—from me.

I had a few secrets that’d blow his socks off. If I ever told him. Which I never would. What the hell could ever be worth risking the loss of all this? The best friend I’d ever had—the only brother I’d ever had… We each had different nightmares, yeah, each had different dreams, too.

Damned if I could tell right now which was worse.