Chapter 7

Hutch returned with mushrooms and blueberries and was relieved to find Starsky still sound asleep without any signs of distress. Sighing, he started preparing a meal with the mushrooms and beans. He was hungry he noticed, but that was not surprising after a lousy breakfast and an emotional morning. As quietly as possible he stirred the beans and cooked the mushrooms but apparently he wasn't quiet enough because he was surprised by Starsky's voice: "Dinner ready?"

Hutch turned around and saw the sleepy face of his friend, his eyes bleary and ready to fall shut again.

"Almost buddy" he smiled. "You had a nice nap?"

Starsky stretched and sat up "Yeah, no dreams anyway."

"That's good" the blond nodded "you wanna drink something?"

"Well, a beer would be nice," Starsky stood up and stretched again, "but as we don't have that, what can you offer me?"

"There's coffee if you like, or water or……a soda you bought yesterday."

Starsky thought about that for a second "I think I'll go for the coffee, need to wake up."

"Okay" Hutch poured him a mug and handed it to his friend "Careful, it's hot" he warned and turned back to the pan of food.

Starsky sipped his coffee and let his thoughts drift back to earlier that day. He felt better now, not haunted by the images he couldn't get out of his head most of the time and although they were therenow, the calming presence of his blond friend seemed to push them away a bit. 'God' he thought 'I just want to start a new life. Gimme a break please.'

Hutch's voice startled him and he spilt his coffee over his jeans. "Geez Hutch, look what you've done now!" he started vigorously to wipe the drops from his jeans with his hands. "What's the matter anyway?"

Hutch looked at the futile attempts Starsky made to clean up his jeans "I said that dinner is ready," and kneeling down next to the muttering brunet, he continued, "I don't think that will help very much buddy. Here, have a towel."

Starsky took the towel Hutch handed him and started drying his leg again "Could have burned my leg here, you know," he muttered, "or something more important."

Chuckling, Hutch filled the plates and handed the brunet one. "Here, eat something. I bet it'll make you feel better."

Still wiping his jeans Starsky took the plate with one hand and managed not to spill the beans. Carefully he placed the plate on the ground and checked if his leg was dry enough for him to start eating.

Hutch watched with amazement his friend's movements and started laughing when the other man finally seemed content with the results of his cleaning.

Starsky scowled at him and asked, "what's so funny, Blondie?"

"You are Starsk. Why bother about some coffee spots on your pants, huh?"

The other shrugged, "Old habit, I guess."

"Army habit?" Hutch stopped laughing and, a bit worried, he waited for Starsky's reaction to his question. He knew that his friend's army time was probably a forbidden subject but he couldn't help it, he was curious about it.

"Yeah." Hutch was a surprised to receive an answer "If I had ever showed up like this I'd have been scrubbing floors for a week………with a toothbrush!"

Hutch whistled through his teeth and still a bit hesitant about the subject he asked "Did you ever have to do that? Scrubbing floors with a toothbrush?"

Starsky nodded and grinned "More than once. But I guess, after the third time, I understood what they meant when they said that our shoes ought to shine and our uniforms should be impeccable."

"I guess old habits die hard" Hutch said and Starsky nodded "Yeah they do but some of those habits should better have died a long time ago." He looked at his hand that absentmindedly brushed the now almost dry spot on his jeans.

Hutch held his breath at the last words and waited if there was more Starsky would reveal, but the other man seemed to be lost in thoughts and Hutch expected those thoughts to be horrible. Although he had been safe at college, having fun with his friends and Nancy, he knew about the horrors of war and what it could do with people. 'Reading the paper about it was bad enough' he thought 'but being there and fighting there is a different story Kenny, you know that' He dry washed his face and sighed. "Don't forget to eat something buddy," food was a safe subject "It's getting cold."

"Hm?"

"Eat Starsk. It's getting cold."

"Oh…yes…okay" Starsky returned to the present and smiled a small smile "It smells good."

"It tastes even better, I promise!"

Starsky picked up a fork and took a careful bite. "Hey, this tastes really good Hutch, you're a good cook!" He took another bite and nodded in appreciation. "Yes, it's really good. You like cooking?"

"Yes I do and I cooked a lot during my marriage. Nancy hated it and if she'd have had it her way we would have been eating out every night."

Enthusiastically chewing Starsky nodded "I know the type," he said round a mouthful of food, "always afraid to break a nail."

Hutch snickered "Exactly," he agreed, "she couldn't even boil water without help."

"Oh man," the brunet grinned "she must have been real good in bed though. I think you'd have ditched her long before you did if she wasn't."

"She was buddy, she was." Hutch was surprised how much he liked this bantering, even now his marriage was the subject. 'Besides, 'he thought 'Nancy deserves all of this even if she's not here to hear it.'

"You're from Minnesota, ain't ya?"

"Yep! Duluth, Minnesota. Why?"

"Well, I thought I heard that back at the academy but I wasn't sure." He looked at Hutch intently "Was Nancy from Duluth too?"

"Yeah" Hutch answered, wondering what the questions meant.

"If you were both raised in Duluth, how come that she was so …so ...sly? I can see you as the innocent farm boy but she sure doesn't seem an innocent farm girl to me. More like a cunning bitch looking for a rich, easy target."

Hutch blushed at those words and annoyed he snapped "I wasn't that innocent Starsk! I've had my share of girls and….."

"I don't mean that Hutch" Starsky interrupted him "I mean, she knew what she was looking for and you just fell for her pretty face without asking a single question. Am I right?"

'How the hell did we end up here with our conversation?' Hutch wondered 'And who the hell does he think he is?'

Starsky grinned at him as if he had heard Hutch's inner questions. "Relax buddy, I just wanna know if I'm right. I won't condemn you for it."

"You know nothing about it Starsky. I didn't just 'fall' for her. I told you before that it was my father's wish and he always gets what he wants."

"Hmm, yes you told me that but I can't imagine you had absolutely no feelings for her."

"I guess I thought I loved her." Hutch confessed, calmer now. "Or maybe I told myself I did, just to feel a little in control of my life."

"I don't think I like your father Hutch."

"Well, you're not the only one Starsk, I don't like him either."

Starsky looked at him a bit sad "I'm really sorry for that Hutch. A son shouldn't have to dislike his father and a father shouldn't dictate a son's life. It's such a shame that your father doesn't see it that way."

Feeling a little confused Hutch asked "How is your relationship with your father Starsk?"

Starsky shrugged, "there isn't any" he said.

Surprised, Hutch stared at Starsky "What do you mean? How can you not have a relationship with your father?"

"That's easy enough," the brunet shrugged again. "He's dead."

"Shit!" was all the blond could say and Starsky smiled at that.

"Yeah, that's the right word for it I guess." He hesitated a second before he went on. "It's almost thirteen years ago but I still miss him."

Hutch nodded, not knowing what to say but imagining a very young Starsky without a father made him feel deeply sad for the blue-eyed, curly-haired man. He wanted to ask what had happened but didn't have the nerve to do it; it felt like prying to him and he didn't want to upset his friend with questions that certainly must be painful.

Starsky saw the emotions run over the blond's face and he understood his silence as if he could read his mind. "It's okay Hutch, I can talk about it. You see, my dad was a cop and I admired him. He walked his beat every day and I was so proud when he left the house in his uniform. Every night I waited for him at the corner of the street, just to walk next to him in his uniform and when we got home mom had dinner ready and he told us about his day while we were eating. Sometimes I was so enthralled by his stories, that I forgot to eat and mom told him to shut up till after dinner." He smiled at the memories and chuckled. "My dad may have been a cop but Ma…..Ma is something else. She was the boss at home and my dad never beat her in any battle."

Hutch laughed, glad that Starsky had these wonderful memories from his early childhood and grateful that he wanted to share them with him. His own childhood had been completely different, he realized, and though he had thought it to be normal when he was little, he now knew it had come very close to child abuse. He was never beaten but his father had tried to mold him into something he never was or wanted to be. He had used methods that didn't leave scars or bruises on the outside but the more on the inside and Hutch still felt them every day.

"Did your dad ever beat you?" he asked, curious how other fathers treated their kids.

Starsky grinned "Once and I deserved that." he stared in the distance, his mind back to that particular evening when he'd had the first and only beating his father had ever given him "I was a curious kid you know and my dad's gun was the one forbidden item in the house, so I had to take a look at it closely. He always kept the gun in a locked closet and one night when they were at the neighbors for an hour or so I saw my chance and went looking for it." He shook his head, still captured in the memory and Hutch held his breath almost seeing the young curly haired boy playing a very dangerous game. "Dumb kid I was then. I tried all the closets and finally found one locked in my parents' bedroom. I knew it had to be the gun's hiding place and I tried to open it but couldn't do it so I went looking for the key. I found it in my dad's nightstand and before I knew it I had the gun in my hand. Wow, did I feel great at that moment, stupid kid that I was, but I wanted to load it just to see if I could do it, you know. I had no plans on using it or trying to shoot or anything, I just was curious about it. I found the bullets in his nightstand and I loaded the gun, very proud that I could do it, but then I pulled the trigger by accident and you know I was so shocked by the sound that I pulled it again! God, I was so scared that I started crying and then my father came in and grabbed the gun. He was very calm and locked it away, not saying a word. That scared me even more because, you know, when my dad was angry he yelled and now he never said a word! Ma came in and I remember her being pale as a sheet and crying but my dad grabbed my arm and took me to the basement where he beat the crap out of me, never saying a word."

Hutch was totally caught up in the story and almost forgot to breathe. "Holy shit!" he said "You could have been dead!"

Starsky nodded "Yep," he said, "but instead I was black and blue and everything hurt but I never blamed him for beating me, I knew I had done something stupid and dangerous and you know what? My father cried almost as hard as I did and that hurt the most."

"How old were you Starsk?"

"Almost ten, my birthday was two days later."

"How long did it take before he wasn't angry anymore?" Hutch remembered the times his own father had been angry at him and had ignored him for days. He still felt the loneliness of those days and wondered if Starsky's father had done the same to his son.

"Well, after the beating he felt so bad that he forgot his anger I guess, but he found another way to make me see how dangerous weapons are."

"Yeah? How did he do that?"

Starsky looked at Hutch "It wasn't pretty but it worked. The next day he took me to the morgue and that was so creepy I just wanted to run away but he had his hand on my neck and pushed me through a door. Man, I can still feel his hand pushing me to one of those slabs and I can still see the kid that was lying there, shot to death and god, Hutch, I was so scared that I started puking my guts up" He shivered at the memory and his voice trembled when he continued "It is something I'll never forget. That kid was about my age and my dad said: 'that's what happens when kids play with guns Davey' and then he took me outside and I remember that the sun was so warm and I felt so cold." He wrapped his arms around himself as if to chase the cold away he'd felt so many years ago. Hutch ached for the little boy his friend once was but kept silent, waiting for the rest of the story, knowing he had not heard everything yet.

"You know Hutch" Starsky did go on "My dad crouched next to me and said "Never forget what guns can do Davey. They're not toys, they kill. I am so sorry I had to put you through this but it was the only thing I could think of to show you what could have happened last night." Starsky almost whispered now, the memory of that day so clear in his mind that all the feelings he'd felt then came back to him "We went home and never talked about it anymore and I never even thought about taking his gun again."

Hutch swallowed hard before he could say "Buddy, that was a very, very hard way to learn the dangers about guns. You were so young and to be confronted with death that way is horrible."

"Yeah, but it worked and it hurt my dad as much as it hurt me, I'm sure of that. He hardly spoke for the next two days and I saw him looking my way sometimes with such sadness and, I think now, regret that I'll never forget it for the rest of my life." He sighed a deep sigh "Too bad it couldn't stop me from doing what I did when I was older." He added softly.

TBC