This was originally part of a Five Times thing on the theme of “What if Starsky and Hutch had never gotten to know each other?” While each piece can be completely read on its own, they do fit together.

 

The order of this Five Times, called “Between Strangers” is:

1. “Shipping Out”

2. “Better Late”

3. “Bedford Falls All Over Again”

4. “Than Never”

5. “The Journey Itself Is Home”

 

“The Journey Itself Is Home”

By Pepper Ckua

Starsky didn’t like the way the sun shined all the time. And he didn’t like a city that was all about sprawl; New York was a city of height. Bay City was all attitude and no altitude.

Or maybe it wasn’t the height of the buildings there, but the seemingly lack of cohesiveness. Bay City felt like one hot, scratchy blanket of four-story buildings, warehouses and seedy bars, all too new, and yet not nearly new enough.

He was sitting in one of those bars now, peeling the label off a bottle of Coors and poking at the remains of an unremarkable burger. He’d rebuffed the company of two women and one man, each offering to “keep him company.” Starsky wasn’t sure what vibe he was putting out, but to all three hopefuls, it must have been one of loneliness, with a dash of desperation thrown in. Add it to the fact he’d put a twenty on the bar, and he supposed he was like a roast pig on a platter. Considering what he was going to be starting next week, combined with the incessant heat, it wasn’t all that of a visionary stretch. Hell, all he needed was an apple. A big apple. And that made Starsky think of home.

True, New York hadn’t been home in a long time. Not really. He’d spent the last eighteen months hacking a cab there, but the two years before that had been spent in Southeast Asia, taking in all the sights and sounds of a pointless war. Even the six years he’d spent as a teen with his aunt and uncle in a western suburb of Los Angeles did nothing to inoculate him against the very void that was Bay City.

Then again, it probably had nothing to do with the place and everything to do with David Michael Starsky, who up until three weeks ago, was an aimless bird looking for a place to land. Looking down at his empty bottle, Starsky decided this bird needed to stretch his wings.

He stood up, dodged both a waitress with a tray of shots and the speculative stare of one of his wallet’s admirers and made his way to the bar.

“The same?” the barkeep asked.

Starsky nodded. As the man turned to grab another Coors, the front door to the bar opened. Starsky didn’t even turn his head to see who it was coming in. He was getting sloppy. And right now, he didn’t care.

Starsky was handing over a dollar bill when he felt someone sit down on the stool two spaces down. Without a word, the barkeep reached for another beer and put it down next to Starsky’s.

“You tryin’ to set us up for a date, bartender?” Starsky asked.

The man pulled a pencil from behind his ear and jotted something down on a paper next to the register. “Nothing kinky like that. Hutchinson here has a tab.”

The man called Hutchinson reached over and pulled the bottle towards him. Starsky didn’t look at his face, but noticed the wedding ring on the man’s finger.

“Another fight with the wife, doc?” the bartender asked.

“Something like that. Beats me how they start. I feel like my whole apartment is one big tiger pit. I think all she’s waiting for is for me to take one wrong step on the palm fronds and down I go.”

Starsky thought, “I’ve done that, I mean, without the tigers. But the pit, I’ve fallen in one.” He didn’t have a lot of memories of the days that followed his capture. The army chaplain told him it was probably for the best. Starsky thought that was good advice. He didn’t take the good reverend up on his other advice, the bit about giving himself over to Jesus. Not only was that not his religion, but Starsky was already pretty steamed about having to give it all over for Uncle Sam.

Starsky took a long draw on his beer. He gave the man a sidelong glance, noting his hunched shoulders and blond hair. Starsky returned his attention to his Coors.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hutchinson get up. There was jingle of change in the man’s pocket and shortly after, the sound of the Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman” was wailing out of the jukebox.

Starsky figured he didn’t need to be a detective to know it was Hutchinson’s choice.

“Been a long night?” he asked, gesturing towards the jukebox after the man had sat back down.

“You’ve got that right. You married?”

Starsky grimaced. “Not been that fortunate.”

Hutchinson raised his beer. “Here’s to your continuing good luck.”

“I’ll drink to that.” And Starsky did.

“You’re not from around here,” Hutchinson stated.

“Aside from my accent, your first clue was what?”

Hutchinson shrugged. “You just got a way about you. And maybe being an outsider here, too, makes me able to pick it up.”

The two men drank in silence for a while.

Starsky said, “You gotta be somewhere flat. Maybe Iowa or South Dakota.”

“Wrong there. Minnesota.”

Starsky figured it was close enough. He replied. “Yeah? Me, New York.”

A woman in a tight green dress sat down on the stool between them. She ordered a Pink Lady. Her voice made Starsky think of Betty Boop. Starsky heard Hutchinson snort.

Starsky picked up his beer and moved to the empty stool next to him. “You out here on vacation, or what?”

“More like ‘or what’.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

“What’s your ‘or what?’”

“Believe it or not, I’m going back to school.”

“Yeah? For what?”

“Gonna be a cop.”

Hutchinson swallowed his beer wrong. Starsky knocked him on the back. “Didn’t think it was that funny, but I suppose…”

“No, no, that’s not it.” Hutchinson wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “Sorry. I’m just…I guess I’m always amazed at how small the world is.”

“Yeah? You also a disenchanted Vietnam vet with the scars to prove it, looking for something to do with his life that doesn’t include the possibility of gangrene, Purple Hearts and C-Rations?”

“So, you picked a profession that’s just more sleepless nights, uniforms, carrying a gun, saying ‘yes, sir’ to the man, a lot of waiting around and people in the general population doing their best to kill you? And that’s to say nothing of the bad coffee.”

Starsky felt an anger rise up in his chest. It levitated to rest right under his diaphragm. “All things being equal, there is no way bein’ a cop could be worse, or even the same, as my stint.” He toasted his reflection in the mirror above the bar. “And pal, that’s even before the coffee got bad.”

Hutchinson was quiet. “Just Like a Woman” ended. Starsky heard the record drop and then Country Joe and the Fish’s “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Gonna-Die” started up. Someone in the far booth shouted, “Whoo hoo. Get it on!”

Pulling his wallet out, Starsky asked the bar tender, “We square?” The man threw a bar rag over his shoulder. “Even-steven, mister.”

He turned to leave and felt a hand on his shoulder. “Wait. I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, not like I thin you took it. I apologize. What I meant was, I’m also going…”

Starsky put his hands in the air. “Don’t sweat it. No offense,” he lied.

“No, really, let me buy you a beer. I’ve got an amazing coincidence that you’d…”

“No. It’s okay. I got a bus to catch.”

And Starsky left.

Ten years later, that story never failed to get a laugh.

“Starsk, the chance of the two of us in that dive? What was it called?”

“The Reef. I couldn’t tell if its theme was nautical or pharmaceutical.”

“Judging by the tang to the air, I’d say the latter. What a shit hole. Luckily, we found a better place to hang.”

Huggy put his feet up on the empty chair next to Hutch. “Damn straight you did.”

Starsky, Huggy and Hutch clinked their glasses together. Starsky took a swallow from his and grimaced.

“Water. I hate this.”

“You won’t hate me tomorrow, pal. For your first foray to the Pits, I think it’s just the ticket.” Hutch put a single finger in the air. “Your doctors would agree.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Starsky grumbled, rubbing his chest. He could feel the ridges there. Some were some hard. Some had a pull to them that made him wary. The scar on the lower right almost felt like a third nipple. How could a hole end up healing like a bump? For that matter, how could three holes not end up killing him? Starsky thought that would be a mystery he’d ponder on for the rest of his life.

He took another drink of water and looked around the bar. Tina, Diane’s replacement, was working on the ledger in the back booth. Wally was sweeping up and stacking chairs. Hutch, complaining about the lack of decent jazz on the jukebox, had brought a portable tape player. It was sitting on the bar. Turned up all the way, the tape player had a faintly tinny sound to it. Starsky wasn’t sure if Keith Jarrett qualified as decent jazz; the last twelve minutes of his vamping on a single chord was certainly making him feel like he was in a physical therapy session.

Hutch didn’t seem to agree. Either that or the soft look and closed eyes were due to some yoga thing. Starsky gave his leg a kick under the table. “Wake up, buddy. The least you can do is tell me what this tape is called.”

“’Köln Concert,’ Starsk. It’s considered a classic,” he said without opening his eyes.

“A classic what?”

“Music, dummy.”

Huggy nodded his head to the beat. “Gotta wonder what was in that guy’s head to be able to improvise like this for two hours.”

“You can say that again,” Starsky replied. “You like it, Hug?”

“I do. If nothing else, you got to admire the man’s instincts.” Huggy knocked back the rest of his beer. He patted his chest, looking for a cigarette. He pulled out a pack, looked at it, and then put it back in his pocket. “Sorry. Lookin’ so good, I forgot for a moment you was missing part of a lung.”

Starsky raised his glass of water. “I’d rather have a partial lung-otomy and a bottle in front of me than a colostomy, tracheotomy and perhaps a lack of autonomy.” Starsky grimaced. “I know they were talking about those things, and far more, in the spring.”

“A season for everything? Hey, that’s Deuteronomy.” Huggy laughed. 

“Hate to mess up your action there, Hug, but it’s not Deuteronomy, but Ecclesiastes. And shit, is lung-otomy even a word?” Hutch asked.

“I doubt it. But you understood what I said.”

“Sadly, yes.”

Wally shut off the light in the kitchen. Starsky could hear him lock the back door.

“Hey, Hutch. What do you say we wrap this up?”

Hutch smiled. “No problem, buddy. Tell you what? I’ll go get the car.”

“I can walk.”

“Sure you can. I’ll park it out front.”

Huggy collected the empty glasses and put them in the bar sink. He made sure the cash register’s drawer was empty and open.

“Huggy? Did you ever ‘what if?’”

“I do all the time. When you guys helped me out of a ditch after Diane was killed, well…you don’t have to be a mind reader to know that I was this close to not being here right now. So, thinking about ‘what if’? You’d be crazy not to.”

“Hutch says he doesn’t.”

“Then he’s lyin’.”

“I wonder, what if my dad hadn’t taken that last bus home? What if Nicky had been the oldest? What if my draft number was on the opposite end of the line? What if I’d married Tova Birnbaum and stayed in New York? What if I’d decided to become a plumber and not a cop?”

Hutch was holding open the front door. He said, “For one thing, you’d have a whole lot more money in the bank.”

Starsky made his way to the entrance. “What if I had pretended I didn’t recognize you when we were assigned that paper on ‘Policing the Modern City’? I coulda acted like I hadn’t talked to you at the Reef the week before?’ I coulda played dumb.”

“You mean, you didn’t?” Hutch cuffed the back of his head.

“Watch it!” Starsky batted his hand down. “I’m serious. Hutch, you’re the best friend I got in the whole world. It’s corny, but I can’t think of what my life would be without you.”

“For one thing, you’d never have to drive in my shitty car.”

“Shut up and be serious, Hutch.”

Hutch opened the LTD’s passenger door. 

Starsky didn’t get in. “There we’re all sorts of moments where all it would have taken was one different choice, one deviation, and…well, who knows what could’ve happened?”

“I know. I know when something feels right. And this feels right. Seeing you at the Academy that first day all those years ago was the first piece of the puzzle.”

“What was the second piece, blondie?”

“Making sure I got the seat behind you.” Hutch smiled and rolled the window down. “What a long, strange trip it’s been, Starsk. And to give you corny right back, I wouldn’t have wanted to take that journey with anyone else.”  Hutch smiled. “And you can take that to the bank.”

“I’d rather have that than a plumber’s salary any day,” Starsky said as he slid into the car.

 

Hutch shut the door.

Through the open window, Starsky heard his partner softly say, “Me, too, buddy. Me, too.”