Death Be Not Proud* - Redoux
The Present, May 1979
He's nearly within my grasp. A prize that has alluded me for years. I can almost reach out and snuff his breath like the flame of a candle. Squeeze the heart that hasn't known when to quit. And I can do it all with his partner right here watching.
Some people think I'm evil. That's not really fair. I'm just doing my job. Sometimes I end endless suffering. Or take someone whose turn is over. It's when I come for someone who hasn't yet finished the game - or who's barely even started - that I seem the most unfair. But it's not really my fault. I'm just following orders that even I don't always understand.
I've been sent after one or the other of them for years. But they've always escaped me. They've had the unfair advantage in my book. Each other. If they weren't pushing or pulling each other out of my way, they were unraveling riddles or riding in like cavalry in a B movie in order to save the other.
Humans can be so annoying. Their silly emotions like love and loyalty just gum up the works as far as I'm concerned. But finally the odds have turned in my favor. And if I take this one, it'll be so easy to come after the other. Two for one. What a rush.
A Rainy Night, December 1975
I'd been watching them for a while now. Starsky and Hutch. From the moment they came to my attention I knew they'd prove to be amusing. They weren't like others who always played it safe. How boring. Some people never really live until they realize that the shadow behind them is mine. But by then it's too late.
Not these guys. These two took risks and never backed down from a fight. They had courage. They're the kind who tended to rush headlong into me - unless they got lucky. Luck – love – loyalty. Whatever. All I know is, they've always gotten the edge.
All they had wanted that night was dinner. What they got was a hired gun with half a brain and a twitchy finger. (The life of any party.) I hadn't expected to be invited but there I was. Instead of linguini with clams, Starsky had gotten a bullet in the back. I pulled a chair up to a checkered cloth-covered table to wait in case I was needed, the smell of garlic and machismo heavy in the air.
Starsky was crumpled on the floor across the room and a gauntlet of gun-brandishing goons wasn't going to keep Hutch away.
"I don't know what business you have here tonight, but I'm going over to my partner," he told them.
"I say we waste 'em." Twitchy gripped the gun in his hand like it was his cock – tensing for release.
Then Hutch did something that made me sit up and take notice.
"If you're gonna blow me away you better do it now," he told Twitchy without blinking an eye. He was more worried about his partner than he was of me.
For a few seconds I thought my assignment would be rearranged and I'd be picking up Hutchinson before Starsky. But then the professor - the one with the few brain cells that still worked - relented.
I get surprised every now and then.
Hutch went over to Starsky where he lay curled on the floor. He checked him over and told him he'd been hit in the shoulder. I knew better. Hutch talked the goons into letting him take Starsky – carry him, that is - into the office of the restaurant where he bound up his wounds and did his best to make his partner comfortable.
I didn't know where I'd be needed most. In the office where Starsky was going into shock from blood loss or in the dining room where Hutch was trying to diffuse a massacre by his wits alone.
As it happened, I didn't get either one of them that night. I left with Twitchy instead. But I didn't mind. I had enjoyed the show. I figured there was plenty more action ahead.
The Present, May 1979
Hutch enters Starsky's room stiff legged, as if he's forgotten how to walk. His partner, no - his other half - is lying in a bed hooked up to a dozen machines, more dead than alive. He takes a chair and keeps watch, still and silent as (if you don't mind my saying so) me. I caress his cheek since Starsky can't.
Pathetic really. Back at the restaurant, he'd been a man on a mission. So much in control that he faced down hired killers with just his finger, as if that particular appendage held more power than their guns. Maybe it did. Where was his hubris now? Perhaps it had spilled out on the ground along with Starsky's blood.
24 Hours in March 1976
There was another time Starsky had gotten his notice. It had been come in a hypodermic needle delivered by a man with a sadistic laugh. I thought for sure we'd finally get to meet face to face. At first Starsky and Hutch tried to rob me of the sweet anticipation. The fear that grips most humans once they sense me jacks me higher than horse. I should have known they'd do things differently.
They joked about Starsky's pants, laughing in my face. They said they'd catch a movie at the Rivoli, as if they could keep me waiting. My patience wore thin. So I threw in some extra suffering for spite. Starsky curled into a ball of agony, the poison scorching his veins, while Hutch held on tightly, as if he could keep him from me. A sturdy arm encircled hunched shoulders, a hand clutched a corded thigh. Hutch stroked Starsky's hair, whispered assurances. He absorbed Starsky's pain and robbed me of my pleasure.
Who did they think they were dealing with?
I confess I was impressed by how long and bravely they fought. For a moment I was tempted to let Starsky get away. I thought maybe I'd turn my back just this once and let my charge slip through my fingers. Or maybe take Hutch instead. It'd be an even trade.
But wouldn't you know it? The next minute the very one who had laughed in my face, who said he'd go catch a movie, simply handed himself over to me.
In half-blind bursts of gunfire Starsky brought down the man who could have given him back his life. And he did it to save Hutch. Hard to believe but true. I was there in the dark watching it all with my own, well, eyes. Starsky must have known it, too. But he didn't care about me anymore. All he cared about was Hutch.
What did I tell you? Never a dull moment.
Back at the hospital Hutch leaned over his friend. "I have to go now." He spoke so softly I'm sure I was the only other one who heard. I wanted to tell him he was a bit mixed up. Starsky was the one who was leaving. Starsky knew I was there even if he couldn't yet see me. At that moment he only had eyes for Hutch.
Hutch fought on after everyone else had given up. The doctors, scientists, even their captain, had been ready with the white flag as soon as I entered the fray. They tried to tell Hutch, but he wouldn't listen.
"I don't care if we only have two minutes," he vowed. (I added 'stubborn' to a list of their bothersome traits.)
Long story short, Hutch got the antidote and Starsky got to live. Impressive, right? I thought so, too. As I went off to my next assignment I couldn't stop thinking about them.
The Present, May 1979
My curiosity gets the better of me and I follow Hutch into the elevator. The walls enclose us like a tomb. Hutch is lost and alone while I'm quite at home. Makes sense, doesn't it?
"Starsky's gonna die and there ain't nothing anybody can do about it." His eyes close in defeat.
I've waited so long to hear one or the other of them say those words. I feel a junkie's high. But it only lasts a second because he hasn't finished talking.
"At least from their end there isn't. I'm still here. I'm still alive. They haven't gotten me yet." He lifts that intimidating finger as if he's pointing it straight at me. "And until then, there damn well better be something I can do."
My euphoria fades. Why can't this guy just give up already? Maybe I should stay in the room with Starsky.
A Remote Hillside, February 1977
When I finally got a turn with Hutch, I'd been called in at the last minute. It was an unexpected twist of events. Some goon who thought to do me a favor forced Hutch's hunk of junk off a secluded mountain road. It tumbled down the hillside like a die tossed from a gambler's palm, pinning him underneath when it came to a stop. The best part was that no one knew where to find him. Rescue seemed hopeless.
I planned to take my time and enjoy myself with this job. I'll admit it. Starsky and Hutch had become quite a challenge and I was feeling giddy with my goal unexpectedly in sight. I made the sun burn a little hotter, Hutch's throat a bit drier. I pressed the weight of the car on his injured leg just to hear him moan.
"Hello up there! Can anybody hear me?" His calls for help bounced off the rocks, sounding suspiciously like my laughter. "I'm trapped in my car!"
Colonel Sonny might have helped him, but he'd been wandering too long in the wilderness. Sonny looked my way but had me confused with someone else. He trudged off singing about the glory of the coming of the Lord.
The two young punks came along next. They could have helped, too, if I hadn't distracted them with avarice. So simple yet so effective. They lifted Hutch's wallet but left his life in my pocket.
Starsky wasn't so easily side-tracked. ('Single-minded.' My list keeps growing.) He was a pit bull who refused to let go.
A radio whiz – the kind of nerd who grows up to make millions designing computers – had plucked Hutch's calls for help out of the air. Starsky listened to the kid when no one else would. Then he circled back around to the Colonel. Gave him a salute and told him Hutch was the key to the war. It didn't take a genius to break that code. For Starsky, Hutch was the key to everything.
Speaking of Hutch, I toyed with him as he lay there. I offered to ease his pain, quench his thirst if he'd only let me take over. But he wouldn't give in. At the eleventh hour – you guessed it - Starsky came galloping down the hill and sliding in the dirt next to him like coming into home plate. I'd struck out again.
He took Hutch's head in his hands. "We made it partner."
"We." Not "you" or even "I". They were a single soul inhabiting two bodies. That's what made this particular job so frustrating.
The Present, May 1979
Hutch's big hands are back against the glass. Such vexing things – glass windows. They let you see through but don't allow you in. And that's where Hutch wants to be. In the room with his partner where the doctors work on him and make notes on their charts. He wants to hold his hand, let him know he's there.
'I'm here, babe, I'm here,' we both say.
An Isolation Ward, November 1977
In another hospital, another window had separated them once. But then it was Hutch in the bed and Starsky with his hands on the glass. Hutch was dying from a plague. And although that little sucker might have kept me busy for weeks, I figured I'd find time for Hutch.
Starsky had other plans. He wanted to see his partner live to be 148. Why someone would want to stay trapped in their mortal shell that long is beyond me. (Well, maybe not beyond me, but you know what I mean.) After 100 it's all downhill to my way of thinking.
"Good partners are hard to come by," he pronounced as he marched back and forth under the California sun. "So every mother's son is going to go into the fields."
He rallied the troops to run down the assassin who just might be Hutch's savior. "If you don't find him in the woods, you go to the next hill. If you don't find him there you go around the bend to the pasture . . . you look under every rock. . . in every bush. . . up every tree. And then when you get tired and wiped out, you get your tails in gear and look some more."
His performance would have made McArthur proud. Trust me. I'd followed that particular general into battle enough times to know.
When Starsky came back by the hospital to check on his partner, I pressed down hard on Hutch's chest. "The name of the game is Hutch is dying," he wheezed. Amazing how perceptive the man was even in such a pitiful state. Starsky held his fevered hands until Hutch practically ordered him out of the room. And if I knew these two, it was more for Starsky's sake than his own.
Starsky had his work cut out for him just like I had mine. He had to check the sewers, hop in the holes and all that. I had to steal the breath, shut down the organs, then carry the soul on to its next destination. It all came down to how far we were willing to go to accomplish our mission. By then I knew Starsky would do almost anything when it came to Hutch.
Some say he made a deal with the devil, allowing a hit man to go free. A bargain made with blood. He played his hand well and they beat me again. Maybe they'd live to see 148 after all. Even I can't predict the future.
The Present, May 1979
His heart is cold in my hands now. It hasn't pulsed for over a minute. Now two. The doctors flutter around the room, useless as moths. For all their knowledge they've never been able to fully understand me.
Starsky and I face at each other at last. No more barriers lie between us. He stares me down with eyes the color of sapphires, sparkling with a thousand facets. He doesn't seem to realize the game is over and I've won. I feel an ember of warmth, a flicker of movement, in the heart I hold. I squeeze tighter.
The sounds of the doctors fade away while another sound grows. Someone runs down the corridor. His footfalls are a frenetic drum beat that grow more urgent the closer he comes.
Starsky's heart grows warmer, harder now to contain. Double doors surge open and his heart feels as though it's burst into flame. I can't help myself. I let go.
Somehow they've bested me again.
For a moment I'm angry. They must have cheated somehow. But anger is another one of those pointless human emotions I pride myself on being above. So I walk away. I'm not worried. I'll be back again someday.
Besides, they're so much fun to watch.
Fin
* Holy Sonnet X – by John Donne
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and souls deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.