Chapter Ten

Back at the rental car accident and after Hutch was rushed into the ambulance, a paramedic treated Joe for minor injuries. The same was being done by another paramedic to the driver of the Fiat. After hitting Hutch's rental car, he had quickly backed up far enough down the road to not get seriously injured.

Next, Joe and the driver of the Fiat gave their statements to the police along with their contact info in case the cops needed to talk to them again. Then they were free to go.

The jeep and its pothead driver Tyson had disappeared, but some cops found both Tyson and his jeep about nine blocks away.

He was hauled off to jail and his jeep towed off to the impound lot. Afterwards, one of the cops mentioned to their partner though it was illegal to smoke marijuana, he had no problem with someone doing it, just as long as it was done somewhere safe and done responsibly where no one would get hurt in a vehicle accident or get injured in some other way.

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Inside the Bay City Metropolitan Division police headquarters, tired and wanting to go home, Captain Dobey was furious and the only excuse he would accept for Starsky and Hutch being late was if one of them came in and announced they were late because they'd been at the other one's funeral!

Then Starsky and Hutch's best snitch and great friend Huggy Bear called Dobey and told him about Hutch's car accident and their tardiness was entirely forgiven.

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Starsky POV

I was worried sick about Hutch!

Hutch... 'My' Hutch!

He was burned so severely it was breaking my heart in two. Not just in two. It was shattered into an unfathomable number of itsy-bitsy pieces!

While he was in the ER room and still being treated, Huggy Bear spotted me in the waiting room and gave me a bear hug.

"Hey, man. How's our brother doing?"

When I didn't answer him, "You'll see, everything will be okay!" Next patting my back in further encouragement that Hutch was going to make it and not die. That put me at enough peace so where I only looked like a half-crazed man when Dobey showed up.

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After Dobey's arrival, there was a period of normalcy as to what usually went on in the waiting room when Hutch or I were severely hurt and in an ER exam and treatment room. The frantic pacing, and Dobey saying "Son, sit down." And sometimes we did, and sometimes we didn't, and sometimes we drank the cup of proffered coffee.

I'd chosen to sit, just as I swallowed the last of my coffee, Dobey looked at his watch. Looking at mine, I stared at the second hand going around a few times when Dobey matter-of-factly informed me, "You know Hutch's age combined with how badly he's burned means his chances of living are still very slim."

Technically, I knew he was right, but still! How dare him to have told me that! I shot out of my chair and punched him in the mouth! It was bleeding profusely, but he smiled at me. "That's the fighting spirit! Keep it up!"

Then Huggy, who thought he best not get in the middle of things, realized what was going on.

Dobey did have hope that Hutch would pull through but also knew Hutch had a long road of nothing but sweat and pain up ahead. If he was going to continue to live, I would have to keep up that fighting spirit!

###

However, I had no intention of hitting Dobey again. Then I thought about how if Hutch really was going to continue to live, a lot of times I would have to use on him something called 'tough-love' and force him to do things he didn't want to do.

Didn't mean I was looking forward to it though, and it put me back into a bad mood and I harshly growled at Huggy, "You! You still have your bar and grill 'The Pits' to go run! Get lost!"

"Sir! Yes, sir!" And then Huggy took off and disappeared out of sight.

Dobey-I didn't expect the big guy to let me grouchily boss him around forever when he smiled again, taking a hankie out of his plaid suit coat, dabbing his still bleeding mouth with it, when an Asian-lookin' female nurse rushed into the waiting room.

"Is there a Mr. Starsky here?"

I didn't delay in the least bit calling out, "I'm him!"

Asked if I was familiar with how to get out of all my dirty clothes and wash up to become sterile, then change into some scrubs, I told her I did. Right after that, I was shown a place where I could do it.

It didn't bother me at all she'd decided to follow me into the changing/washroom and stayed right there next to me, making 100 percent certain that I knew what I was doing. Satisfied that I'd done everything right, she didn't deny me exit out of the room, nor did she hesitate to let me into the ER room Hutch was in.

###

Though, when I walked in there, I saw Hutch with his gown hiked up to his upper chest and I was afraid to ask anyone what for. Then with all that wet gauze on him, his penis with a urine catheter in it, this cloudy pee with strands of mucous inside the collection plastic bag hooked to the side of his exam and treatment table, he looked even more horrific than the last time I'd seen him! Despite the medical personnel's best efforts to save my best friend, it sure looked like they were doing him more harm than good!

Then there was Hutch telling me morbid jokes.

When I was a U.S. Army soldier in the Vietnam War, I told those types of jokes while the world was threatening to be thrown completely off its axis.

It wasn't right... Hutch telling them.

Nothing to do with Hutch being burned was right! But if I could get through Nam by telling morbid jokes, it wasn't going to kill me just because the Blintz, as I sometimes affectionately called him, was telling them.

Also, if that's what he needed to do to find a shred of humor in what wasn't a humorous situation at all, then so be it, and I laughed with him after he'd told me the fifth morbid joke. Though when the pain hit him again it stopped us from doing any more laughing.

Then, when thankfully he did conk out from the lightheadedness and fatigue and started loudly snoring….and knowing 40,000 alarm clocks going off at the same time and in the room wouldn't arouse him…there was nothing more there that I could do. This time I didn't feel guilty about walking away from him. And besides that, I was feeling faint and weary myself and desperately needed some sleep in the waiting room until the ER's head physician had time to come talk to me.

The waiting room was where I still found Dobey, his mouth doing much better, I found a half-way comfortable place to sleep, and so did he, after he'd used the waiting room's courtesy phone to check up on Edith and their kids Cal and Rosie.

Eventually, the head physician came out saying Hutch was stable and had been moved to patient room 105. Also said to tell anyone who wanted to bring him any real flowers to make his room homier to forget it! They breed microorganisms and burn victims are highly susceptible to infection!

Next told me to tell everyone who wanted to come to visit Hutch to keep all their mirrors at home. He went on to explain that intentionally there weren't any mirrors in the burn unit, and one time a visitor allowed their burned friend to see themself in a make-up mirror. The look on the doc's face told Dobey and me how that burned person emotionally and physically and mentally reacted to seeing themself hadn't been pretty at all!

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Dobey shifted in his seat in the hospital's waiting room looking tired and uncomfortable. Looking at his watch, he got up and excused himself, saying he had his partner called his 'wife' and their kids he needed to get home to. Before he did that he informed me, "It's with the understanding I'm going home to my wife and kids and get some sleep, but you're to keep me posted on how Hutch is doing and it doesn't matter what time of the night or day it is!"

Huggy then reached me on the courtesy phone and told me the same thing about keeping him posted on Hutch, and he didn't care what time of the night or day it was.

Adding, "Before I hang up I need to tell you there are no hard feelings about how you yelled at me earlier in the waiting room. It's totally understandable! Hang in there, bro!"

A bit later, I was allowed to go into the Blintz's room he'd been moved to.

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Hutch POV

Not realizing I'd been moved out of the ER and into a room in the burn unit I was dreaming that a man named Stone and some buddies of his had captured Starsky and me. Was holding us hostage inside of a damp and shadowy, and roach and other creepy crawly bug infested storage cellar until Stone's brother Hedge, and we'd arrested for heavily stalking his ex-girlfriend, was released from jail.

My hands were tied, and if mine were, Starsky's had to be too.

Poor Starsk…

I couldn't even keep him out of a bad dream. Then I realized something wasn't right. My hands weren't tied behind my back or in front of me. They weren't tied in a way they'd ever been before!

No longer dreaming, and fully awake, I saw that my (still fully bandaged with white gauze hands) were being held captive in the air on two poles.

My hands were killing me and if you've ever burned your hand on a hot iron... imagine the dial set on its highest setting. Then add another setting labeled 'Unbearable.'

Wait. I'm not done yet. Then add another one labeled 'Indescribable' and you 'might' have some idea how badly I was hurting.

I was terrified! And so much for morphine being the hospital's number one pain killer when it wasn't doing me a bit of good.- And then noticing I was in a new room and Starsky right there beside me was real and wasn't in any way a figment of my imagination, he could get me the drug I needed.

He 'had' to!

He just 'had' to! Although what drug I was going to ask him to get me would be like asking him to give me the entire universe and more!

Still, I was in this strange place and with a lost count of how many strangers. There were all these odd noises that didn't sound like what a hospital should.

On top of that, one strand of burned hair is enough to make a stomach churn. Several strands and combined with burned flesh is something awful! Knowing it was my burned hair and flesh that was making the repulsive stench, "Get me some heroin! Please, Starsk!" Totally forgetting that the pain from withdrawal from it was extremely awful.

Entirely remembering how an injection of the heroin had me flying higher than a kite in nothing flat, along with all the veins in my body singing the sweetest song I'd ever heard!

Starsky didn't even flinch a muscle, but so calmly yet so stubbornly told me, "Not even if hell froze over was he going to go get me some heroin…horse…junk…didn't matter what other names it was called, he still wasn't going to go get me any of it."

But didn't he realize I had more than my legs, hands, stomach, back, arms and face burned? What about my ears? Forget about my ears. My butt. Yes, 'my' butt. Oh, and shall we never forget that part of my genitals hadn't escaped being scathed.

"Staarsk..."

My pain-filled cornflower blue eyes looked at him as I asked, "If I couldn't have any of that drug, could I please have some more morphine?"

With a lot of compassion in his crystal blue eyes, he pointed at the I.V. in my right arm. Said, "I'm so sorry! Really, I am! But it's too early for a nurse to give you some more."

"Oh, Starsk. What did I ever do to deserve being burned?"

Not only my bandaged hands and still being held captive on the poles, but also the non-gauzed rest of me didn't feel like it could be touched without hurting. He found a place by only scanning his eyes across the front of my body. It was my throat, and he firmly but gently massaged it, and it felt like a blissful soothing balm to my whole body, and I sighed deeply in great appreciation for his therapeutic administrations.

When I couldn't help but cry because I was hurting and seemingly everywhere again, he stopped massaging.

Suffering, I didn't want to talk anymore.

Or to look at him.

Turning my head away from him I didn't move anymore. I just laid still - The night dragged on, the pain and anguish only increasing, and with a lack of sleep for not only me but also him.

And during the long night, neither the doctors nor the nurses had forgotten I was a patient. While they were busy checking me over Starsky and I tried our hardest to pretend they weren't there, but it was totally useless! Especially when they started talking about surgery and oh! Just to go somewhere and without a care and stand on top of a beautiful snow-capped mountain!