Starsky's POV

I've heard people who say how they see a light at the end of a tunnel – or maybe the people they loved beckoning them across the line. I didn't have any of that. I had pain. My chest felt like someone dropped the Torino on it and my lungs were screaming for air and my head was aching worse than any migraine I ever had before….and then there was the pain of the shocks that forced my heart to beat again.

You've seen the movies and the TV shows; they put the paddles or the pads on the poor schmuck's chest and the doc says 'stand clear' so only the guy lying on the bed feels the searing burning pain of an electric shock.

They've done it to me twice now and believe me, it hurts like hell!

I've been there before. Staring Death in the face; wondering if it's my turn this time. The Grim Reaper; a hooded figure with a big black scythe…is that how you see him? Or maybe you see Death as a big grinning skeleton. I read someplace that the ancient Egyptians and some other guys – the Greeks maybe? –thought death was some kind of river you have to cross. The ferryboat arrives and the man in the black cloak beckons you aboard.

I think it's a big black abyss. You ever stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon? I did! Yeah, me, Dave Starsky, the guy who gets the heebie-jeebies looking out of a first floor window! I was getting my act together before I reported to the Academy…trying to get death out of my mind. That's what it seemed like to me. The big plunge down into a dark bottomless canyon; no wonder I pulled myself back from the edge every time.

Hutch once said I move like a cat. Cats are supposed to have nine lives. I've been figuring up and I don't have many more points on my tally. Hutch was there for some of the times; he knows about one of the others…but he doesn't know about the other time.

I wonder how Hutch sees Death. I wonder if he thinks Death is a friend or a foe.

I see him as a friend sometimes. There are times when I want to reach out and let him lead me into that chasm. It would have been so easy to let go…to step into the void and join the ones waiting for me on the other side; the ones that went before; the ones I loved and who left me behind; the friends I couldn't stop from going on ahead.

That's when I think maybe Death is a big dark black-winged angel. Lucifer, the most beautiful and vain of the archangels, condemned to Hell by his jealous boss.

Hutch is out there; I can sense his presence. I'll bet he's praying too. He keeps it quiet but he's still a good Lutheran boy at heart. In all the time I've known him he's never gone to church though – except to weddings and too damn many funerals. I don't think he really understood my attitude. He couldn't handle the idea of me celebrating Christmas; but he didn't understand. When I was a kid it was Hanukah and that was great but when I came out here and Uncle Al and Aunt Rosa did both holidays it was like being let loose in the candy store. Anyway I love all that…what did he call it?...euphoric sentimentalism? Something like that! Typical Hutch…big words to cover up how he really felt. So anyway I started to go see the rabbi again…it was after some neo-Nazi tried to gas me. I needed to touch home base again. What really threw Hutch was when I started wearing the discs. Now you have to understand that my partner likes to think that he's the brains and I'm the 'not inconsiderable brawn' in our duo but that's 'cos I let him. He's the one who sits cross-legged chanting 'Om'; I'm the one who meditates when I'm running in the woods near my place at night. I'm the one who reads about this stuff. This will make you laugh but it started with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance…that guy got me to thinking. Then I lost Terri and I was in this bookstore looking for a gift for Edith Dobey's birthday and I saw the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I figured after losing Terri I should take a look. I didn't buy it but I saw a book along the shelf about the I-Ching and I bought that. And that's when I started wearing the discs.

When I was a kid I wore a Mogadov around my neck and for my Bar Mitzvah my dad gave me a tiny gold Mezuzah to wear with it. They were supposed to protect me – but after he died I took them off. I figured God wasn't on my side back then. I still have them in a box in the bureau. If I get out of here alive I'm going to put wear them again….and the discs!

The buzzing in my ears is getting louder again. I feel a weight on my chest; feels like it's crushing me. I can't breathe. My lungs are struggling but I can't breathe.

Nothing. There's nothing there anymore. I'm floating and the dark angel is flying toward me. He's smiling and holding out a hand. He's flying alongside me now. We're flying over the edge and he's wrapping his wings around me. When I fall I know it won't hurt.

Into the chasm….

Did I hear someone say they'd lost me?

Shit! What was that? I hate shots…someone gave me a shot.

I can hear them talking. Someone is pressing down on my chest…ow! Whatever he's doing it hurts like hell.

Did I hear someone say prepare the paddles?

Owwwwwwwwwwwww!

Shit that hurt.

I can feel my heart trying to beat again. It feels bruised and sore and it is too weak to do it without help.

Oh god …not again! If they knew how much that hurt they'd find a different way of doing it. Cruel and unusual punishment…I guess at least the condemned man only feels it once.

The buzzing is getting fainter again. The weight is lifted but it is so sore.

The dark angel is smiling and shaking his head. He's flying away. There's another angel in the distance…I can see his light. My guardian angel is back to watch over me…Raphael the healing angel watches over me still.

I have another guardian angel here on earth. Hutch. And I'm his guardian angel; even if I don't make it I'll be there when he needs me. But I'm not going yet!

I can feel the machine dragging air into my lungs. If they'd undo the damn thing I know I could do it on my own.

The worst thing is that I can hear what's going on around me but I can't make them understand that I'm here.

No, the worst thing is hearing Hutch crying in the middle of the night.

He comes here every day as soon as he's off-duty. He tells me how he and Huggy are getting closer to whoever is behind the shooting. I know who it is…it's whoever was behind the drug ring we busted when my past came back to meet me in the shape of people who were supposed to be dead.

Here I go again – thinking of death.

So he comes in and sits by the bed and holds my hand. Sometimes he cups my cheek and strokes it with his thumb. He tells me how his day went and he runs it all past me just like normal times. We've always done that – run through things, thinking aloud and bouncing it off each other. Well there he sits and he tells me how he's been to see some high class model who got caught up in hiring the hit-men; how someone tried to finish him off right here in the hospital garage…someone who had already tried to get into my room. Yesterday he started telling me about some shyster lawyer and then he cracked up again. He tries not to break but I know him so well I can hear it coming even before his voice starts choking and getting shaky.

"Oh Starsk, it's so hard…." And off he goes. He sobs quietly but the tears drip onto my arm or my hand. Sometimes he puts his head on my chest and I get worried that his tears will soak through the bandages and wreck my stitches. It's hard for me too. I want to put my hand on the back of his head, or touch his cheek or maybe even take his hand and squeeze it to show that I know how much he cares. I want to sit up and cradle him while he cries.

But I'm still locked into this darkness. I'm still somewhere in a dark cave looking over the edge of a chasm and trying my damnedest to stay away from the edge.

I feel everything they do to me. The shots and the drips…it hurt like hell when they put that in the back of my hand. Nearly as much as the one they stuck up my cock back in 'Nam. This time I guess I have some kind of tube direct from the bladder – either that or I can forget having a sex life ever again. Forget having a life? I've been in this coma for how long now?

I lose track. Hutch reads to me from the paper sometimes – keeps me up to date with what's going on.

But I want to see the funnies for myself!

I need to sleep.