Tincture of Time

“I’m sorry, Detective Hutchinson.  I understand you were close.”

“Thanks for the call.”

Hutch hung up the phone and stared at it for a while.  Images bubbled to the surface from long buried memories.  Buried not from necessity or desire, but simply from being crowded out over time.  Comparing those memories to recent events brought inevitable questions to mind.  Before he realized it was happening, he found himself playing one of Starsky’s favorite games.  What if.

What if his friend hadn’t given up on everything that was good and light?  What if his friend’s time in Vietnam hadn’t twisted him and driven him to his eventual downfall?  That was real.  If nothing else about the man had been, what happened to him in the war was real.  What if he hadn’t decided to use his deadlier acquired talents to make fast money?  What if Hutch hadn’t fallen for his lies and allowed himself to be suckered in honor of friendship?  What if he’d recognized the change in his friend before it was too late?

What if.

Hutch closed his eyes and sighed.  Despite the what ifs, he couldn’t muster any emotions he could easily identify.  He opened his eyes and reached for the phone.

            ~*~*~*~

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.  What’s up?  It’s after midnight.  Isn’t that kinda late for you on a work night, choir boy?” Starsky was still awake trying to finish reading the previous day’s newspaper.  He was too keyed up from work to sleep yet.  Hutch was so tired when he dropped him off at his place after their shift, he couldn’t imagine him being in the waking world three hours later.

Hutch laughed softly, the tension melting around him just a little.  Despite that, he had things to say.

“Do you suppose resignation is an emotion?” he asked.

“I guess.  What kinda question is that?  Did that knock on your noggin yesterday loosen your one remaining marble?”

“He’s dead, Starsk.”

Starsky didn’t need to ask, but he did anyway.  “I assume we’re talking about Colby, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“I got a call from the jail a few minutes ago.  He said they would have to wait for an autopsy, but it looked like a suicide from poison.”

Starsky whistled.  “How’d he get it past a strip search?  Wait…don’t answer that.”

“Maybe he just didn’t want to wait until they got to him,” Hutch said.  “He told me they’d kill him.  And I said….”

“Don’t, Hutch.  It’s not on you.  Colby was what he was.”

Another sigh drifted softly through the telephone line.  Starsky didn’t need to be able to see his partner to know he was silently nodding his acquiescence.  He knew some of what Hutch must be thinking, but something seemed off to him.  The vibe he was getting from his partner was distinctly not-Hutch.

“He had me fooled, too, buddy.  We had no reason to doubt him.  Karpel testified today.  We made that happen.  You did.”

John Colby had been close to both detectives.  His charm and believability would have caught anyone off guard.  Colby probably owed as much of his success as a hired assassin to his ability to win people’s trust as he did to his skill with a blade or a gun.  The revelation that their old buddy was a killer hadn’t hurt as much as Hutch thought it would.  That surprised him, and it had surprised Starsky when he and Hutch talked about it after the arrest.  Hutch was usually in tune with his emotions, but not this time. Maybe Colby’s decision not to kill Hutch while he lay defenseless after he’d attacked him in the parking lot had something to do with it.

Starsky had less trouble with this one.  He knew how he felt about it.  Colby had done some terrible things. That knowledge saddened Starsky.  Discovering his partner lying on the ground for God knows what reason sparked a different emotion.  When he’d roused Hutch and learned that Colby had attacked him, he was angry.  Incredulous and angry.

“I just can’t seem to feel anything I can put my finger on about it.  I don’t feel guilty.  I don’t feel angry.  Honestly, I don’t feel much of anything.  I guess I knew something like this would happen and I was resigned to it before I ever got that call.”

Starsky knew what a departure this was for Hutch. “Glass half empty isn’t you’re modus operandi.  Maybe that’s what feels funny.”

“Maybe.  The whole thing has me playing your ‘what if’ game.”

Starsky laughed.  “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my partner?”

“I’m serious, dirtball.  What if you hadn’t already done your time in Vietnam when we all graduated?  What if you’d gone and he’d stayed?  Maybe he’d be my partner by now.”

“And I’d be the hired gun?”

“Of course not.  That’s not what I meant.  You served your country and didn’t come back warped.”

That made Starsky laugh even harder.  “Not warped?  Now I know you’re on tilt.”

Hutch didn’t laugh.  He just got quiet.

“I’m sorry,” Starsky offered.  “I know this is bothering you.  I’m just trying to cheer you up some.”

“I know.  It’s just… I was wondering why.”

Again, Starsky knew what he meant.  He wasn’t sure why he did this time, but he did.  Hutch wanted to know how he’d come back whole.  How he’d come back with the desire to put his life on the line for others ever again.

“I have scars, buddy,” Starsky said.  “We all do.  I don’t know anyone who went to war that doesn’t have them.  Maybe Colby didn’t have anything to come back to or he couldn’t just shut off his training.  Maybe he fooled everyone on his psych evals.  I don’t know.  Some of us are able to put it in its own place, go on with our lives and all that.  I know some guys just can’t.  Maybe the killing made it so he didn’t think about ‘Nam every day.”

Hutch knew about some of Starsky’s scars.  He knew about the nightmares he frequently had, but he’d never really considered how much time his best friend spent thinking about his time at war.

“Do you think about it every day?”

Starsky sighed.  This conversation wasn’t going in a direction he wanted his partner to go when he was already sleepless and stewing about things.  He also knew Hutch wasn’t really feeling “nothing” like he thought he was.

“Yeah, every day.  You worried about me snapping someday and becoming a double-aught spy, licensed to kill or not?”

This time he got a laugh.

“Sure.  That’s it.”

“Don’t worry about it.  You can’t go through an experience that intense and not have it come to your mind a lot.  That doesn’t make a guy a killer, Hutch.  He must have had it in him all along.  The war was just one of the ingredients that made him turn out that way.  Does that make sense?”

“Scary as it is, yes.  That makes sense.”

“Good.  Now get some sleep.”

“Thanks.”

“No sweat. I’ll be there at seven-thirty.”

“Goodnight, Starsk.”

“‘Night.”

Starsky hung up the phone with a sigh.  Now it was his turn to stare at the phone for a few moments.  He hoped he’d helped some.  Hutch was a person whose emotions ran like an undercurrent.  Complicated and philosophical.  Starsky knew his friend would brood about it some more until he gave himself permission to feel what was running under the surface.  To add to Hutch’s existing ambiguous feelings, now he would be thinking about his partner’s time in Vietnam, too.  What started out being just about Colby and how he’d become the monster he was, had somehow changed direction.  Starsky’s time in Vietnam was a subject they rarely broached and discussed only briefly before the subject was purposely turned in another direction.  He picked the phone back up and dialed.

            ~*~*~*~

Hutch answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Tincture of time,” Starsky said.

“What?”

“Just something my bubbe used to say.”

Hutch laughed.  “Must be important if you’re slinging Yiddish around at this late hour.  Doesn’t that mean grandmother?”

“Two points for my partner. I just wanted to leave you with something more positive to think about tonight, since I know you won’t really sleep much.”

“You know me too well.  I probably won’t.  What is it?”

“When I was a kid and I’d come home hurt or unhappy about something or angry at the world, she’d tell me that it would all be okay in time.  Sort of the Jewish version of ‘time heals all wounds’.”

“And you’re trying to tell me that Colby ran out of time?”

“Exactly.  But I didn’t.  And I have someone who cares enough about me to see to it that I have lots more of it to come.  Maybe someday I won’t think about ‘Nam every day.  Capiche?”

“I do. Tincture of time?  I like that.”

“You’re welcome.  Goodnight.”

“See you in the morning.”

This time when Hutch hung up the phone, he stared at it with a small smile on his face.  His partner was a unique individual.  A good man and a loyal friend with intuitive skills not everyone recognized.  He patted the phone once with his hand before he turned off the light.

“I’ll keep trying, Starsk.  Goodnight.”

The End

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