This one is for Wes, friend, cousin and all-round good guy. You are sorely missed.
Pinpoint
(Starsky "The Fix")
After hearing the call that detective Hutchinson had been spotted, Starsky slapped the mars light on top of the Torino and hit the siren. The tires squealed in protest. He reached the intersection and turned sharply when he saw the black and white squad car. He flashed his badge and ID at the uniformed cop and was directed down an alley.
The Torino barely fit in the narrow passage. Starsky made a right-hand turn and spotted a cop kneeling next to a huddled figure on the ground. He stomped on the brakes and threw the car into park. He shot out of the car and around the front, taking in the scene as he went.
It was Hutch. He was wearing the same clothes that he had been wearing on the night that Starsky had seen him last. But now those clothes were filthy. "Hutch, are you crazy?" He muttered as he crashed to his knees next to his friend.
His nose took in the scent of old sweat and fresh sweat, of blood, urine and filth from the alley.
His eyes took in the sight of an abused and beaten figure huddled on the muddy ground.
His ears heard the soft pants, groans and the sound of soul-deep, gut-twisting agony.
His heart knew the truth. This shambling figure could not be Hutch, but it was.
He gently cupped the muddy and beaten face of his friend. He peered into those familiar light blue eyes. Those blue windows into his friend's soul. And he could pinpoint the instant that his heart broke. He swept it together in a hasty pile. He would glue it back together later.
He could pinpoint when Hutch knew that he knew.
He pulled up the dirty sleeve from off his friend's arm, shoving it up and out of his way in an almost rough fashion, needing to confirm his suspicion. The tiny tracks making a morbid trail up the inside of his friend's arm.
He could pinpoint when Bernie the cop knew.
"My God, he's a junky!"
Starsky knew because of what a paramedic had once told him, a way to tell if someone was on a narcotic. He looked back into his friend's swollen and bruised face and locked his eyes on Hutch's pupils.
The pupils were pinpoint in size.
The paramedic's words rolled over him.
"You can always pinpoint a narcotic"
Starsky knew that it is difficult to balance anything on a pinpoint. But he also knew that it is always easier to balance something when you have two.
Starsky could also pinpoint when the healing began.
When hope was pinpoint small.
It began it that alley.
It began with two.
It began.
Pinpoint small.