Circuit City Coupons
“Like a Book”
by Pepper Ckua
No exposition. No need. Not here.
Like a book, it’s customary to start at the beginning. If the book is non-fiction, then the table of contents will be some clues to its content.
Hutch is looking for the table of contents; he wants to know the outline of what will happen at the end. Starsky accuses him of being a control freak.
Hutch, as much as he hates the term, and the way it moves through his life, knows it’s true.
Starsky, on the other hand, is a man all about the index. “Gotta make sure it’s all there, Hutch. Ya don’t want to leave anything out.”
Hutch disagrees, but keeps quiet.
But the table of contents is only important if the book is non-fiction, like a textbook or a manual. And Starsky and Hutch’s book isn’t non-fiction.
But it’s not fiction either. It’s something completely different.
Back to chapter one.
Where that chapter really starts is up to interpretation. Hutch says it would probably be the day they were born.
Starsky knows better. “Your story happens long before then, long before your parents, long before their story.”
“So chapter one,” Starsky decides, “is the day I met you.”
Hutch just looks confused. “What, and leave your mom out? Your dad? Nick?”
Starsky nods and says, “Those could be chapter one. But so could my tour in Vietnam. I think I’ll make Vietnam a footnote, Hutch.”
Hutch decides Nancy and Vanessa will be footnotes too.
“Let’s make chapter one the Police Academy orientation, with all those boring speeches.” Starsky turns the book over in his hand, and then back again. “That’s when I first saw you. I sat behind you and kept bumpin’ your chair with my foot, hoping you’d turn around.”
Hutch narrows his eyes. “That was you? You were the idiot?”
Starsky grins. “Yeah.”
“Then that can’t be chapter one, as I didn’t realize that was you.”
Starsky’s face falls.
Hutch suggests that first party at John Colby’s place, the one that got raided by the cops. He remembers Starsky pulling him through a hedge to evade the fuzz.
It is settled then. That will be chapter one. And the pages start to turn.
By chapter four, they are spending their days in uniform, and apart. They see each other on the roster. Starsky sits behind Hutch in roll call. He kicks the back of Hutch’s chair. Hutch doesn’t turn around, but feels a warm place inside his chest.
Starsky’s partner is a redheaded, red-faced guy named Pat O’Brien, a name that Hutch can’t say with a straight face. Starsky can’t either, but for different reasons.
Thomas Dunkirk is Hutch’s partner, an old cop who has been happy all these years just walking a beat. Hutch learns a lot from him, about how to talk to people, when to lie low and do things the easy way. Hutch decides two out of three isn’t bad.
Chapter seven reveals an amazing plot twist. This is the chapter where Starsky and Hutch are paired together. “It would be a pretty short book if we weren’t,” points out Hutch. “And one I wouldn’t read. “
He looks at Starsky, sitting behind the wheel, watching the coffee shop where Fat Rolly is supposed to deliver a message. “You wouldn’t either, pal, if it didn’t have a lot of pictures.”
Starsky is silent.
Hutch tries again. “And really big print.”
Starsky, without turning, tells him, “Quit kickin’ my chair, Hutch.”
Hutch is impressed by Starsky’s use of metaphor.
By chapter ten, characterization is pretty well worked out. Starsky and Hutch have settled into a rhythm, Starsky low, Hutch high, Starsky to the front and Hutch to the back.
Starsky plays with alliteration, fixating on the “Blond Blintz” and “Buddy Boy.” He likes to say phrases like this over and over in his head, especially on long stakeouts. It helps keep him awake.
Both men are fully aware of symbolism in their story. The sharing and stealing of food, the baiting of Dobey, blowing in coffee cups and Starsky’s use of the single word, “Really,” when he wants to sum up his dissatisfaction and doesn’t the fuck feel like explaining why.
Conflicts rise and fall, strangely in forty-five minute segments. Starsky and Hutch sometimes wonder why there are lulls in their cases every fifteen minutes, but take this time to catch a breath or work on paperwork, rather than ponder too deeply.
They both agree these forty-five minute increments have something to do with fate and the way time passes. It is either that, or a union regulation. They don’t want to get into either of those subjects.
Chapter twelve has some high points. Some of those small climaxes are open to interpretation, of course. Starsky considers the purchase of the Torino to be one high point. Hutch considers the Torino an interesting plot development, but would call it something more along the line of an aggravation.
“That’s not a term in fiction, Hutch.” Starsky complains.
“Fine,” says Hutch. “The Torino is a symbol of conflict.” Starsky just shrugs, stares straight ahead and tries to keep from smiling.
The minor antagonists are many, Regan, Mickey, and certain individuals in Internal Affairs.
Unfortunately the major antagonists are many too. Starsky and Hutch both know them. If they had the power to read ahead in the book, they would perhaps be aware of the foreshadowing that was there, the dashes of light, objects out of place, sidelong looks and certain phrases that ran through their conversations.
“Terrific,” says Starsky.
Hutch doesn’t respond.
“Really,” Starsky says.
Hutch dry-rubs his face and sighs.
So, Starsky and Hutch move through the nightmare that is poison. Both have had it in their veins, in the form of heroin, plague, Kira, the street and Bellamy’s four-part harmony. Both have felt the slam of bullets in their soft flesh, holes made where someone certainly intended to make them.
So now we’re in our falling action. Does this mean the conclusion is soon?
We could ask Hannah Kanen, as she knew when the mower ran over Fred’s foot, how things would turn out. She certainly knew how it would end for Hector Salidas, when his bloody hand first touched the doorknob to her house.
But Hannah died long before chapter twenty-seven.
Huggy and Mrs. Greene were also a part of this book’s chorus. Mrs. Greene passed away about the same time did Hannah, so she is impossible to question.
“At least without a major plot device,” Starsky points out. “One with which I am not comfortable. The spotted dog was as much magical realism as I could take.”
This leaves Huggy, who has said it himself, and who certainly would echo Mrs. Greene in pronouncing, “It will be all right. It will be all right.”
There is no need for Starsky to peek at the last page for this bit of information, though Starsky has been tempted many times. Hutch keeps slapping Starsky’s hand away, knowing as he does, Hutch is really slapping his own hand as well.
See, Hutch is tempted too, especially in those long dark nights, when he has had too much to drink and hates himself.
Sometimes as the book sits on the table, in the dark, Hutch thinks, “All I have to do, is open it up. Just reach over and open it up.” He wants to know if his salvation is possible, and if yes, does it come in the form of Starsky.
But even Hutch has never been brave enough to take that final action.
Hutch thinks back to those first days in the academy, when he and Starsky first agreed on the origin of chapter one, when he had one chance to take a look at a table of contents, his only look. He remembers how he felt he needed a guide and thought that this would suffice.
Now he can only remember if “In Conclusion” was just that, or something more.
Who will deliver the denouement? Will it be Huggy? He has certainly seen it all, and then some. Huggy could wear that patchwork leather jacket in which he looks so fine and deliver some sweet lines of resolution.
Or perhaps it will be Sweet Alice, all wise and tragic, her face in the half-light, pulling her shoulder strap back up. She would turn towards the audience and begin her soliloquy.
Or will the denouement take a different turn? Perhaps it will be Starsky and Hutch themselves? And it will involve no words.
One hand would find the other’s hand in the dark, and they could turn the next page together.