December 17th- Instant Karma by Sam KW (Samudee)

“I’m NOT getting into that!” Starsky adamantly stood his ground, refusing to move anywhere closer to Hutch’s Ford LTD.

“Why not?” Hutch asked, jingling his car keys.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes!”

“That heap of junk is the dirtiest car in the whole police garage.”

Hutch could have done without that reply. Starsky had a point, he decided grudgingly, but who cares about outward appearances. What matters is what’s lying underneath that rough and ugly exterior. Hutch stopped himself from saying it out loud because the interior of his car wasn’t any better. That didn’t stop him from glaring at Starsky, though. Unfortunately, Hutch’s scare tactics bounced off Starsky’s skin like ping pong balls.

Starsky walked away towards his spick-and-span, newly waxed, Torino. “Coming?” he asked, opening the driver side door.

Hutch never figured out why he always gave in to Starsky’s demands. He just did. He could’ve asked Starsky to fuck-off and drive in his LTD. Instead, he followed his partner, bristling with anger over the insults directed towards his car.

“You know, Hutch,” Starsky said, checking the side mirror for incoming traffic and pulling over to the left lane. “Drinking nothing but water can get a man killed.”

Hutch stopped drinking from his bottle and glanced at Starsky out of the corner of his eye. Starsky sometimes was too smart for his own good, Hutch mused. “Oh, yeah? From where did you get that bit of information?”

“I don’t need no college degree to know stuff,” Starsky said smugly.

“Sure! But did you also know that a man would have to drink about three gallons within a very short time to die like that?”

“That‘s exactly what you’ve been doing! How many bottles have you emptied by now, huh? Just hang in there until we get to El Chaparro. There are way better ways to go out with a bang.”

“Why can’t we eat at Sally’s?” Hutch suggested.

“Sally’s?” Starsky’s down-turned mouth and sour face would’ve made anyone think Hutch had committed an unforgivable sin. “You mean that place that serves white wormy things and green bits on green cream cheese and cucumber? You got to be kidding me. They ought to be punished for what they do to those bagels.”

“Those are bean sprouts and a spring mix. And no—that’s not cream cheese. That’s an avocado spread—and—”

“I don’t want to know the kind of stuff that gives me nightmares.” Starsky acted as if he got the shivers. “Who’d want to put avocado on a sandwich, huh?”

“What about guacamole? You gobbled up a whole bowl of it with chips at Oscar’s house the other day,” Hutch reminded.

“Guacamole and chips are normal food, Hutch. Applying that on bread ain’t the acceptable norm.”

Hutch tightened his lips and balled up his fists as he thought of a normal acceptable concoction he could make out of cucumber, avocado, cilantro and bean sprouts and pour down Starsky’s throat. He would throw in some desiccated liver and goat milk as well, just for his partner! 

“So where’s this wonderful place?” Hutch asked. Starsky had been overly thrilled about a newly opened Mexican restaurant he found, and was pestering Hutch to go there with him for lunch for weeks now. “If this is one of those pesky little cafes with fly traps hanging at every nook and corner—”

“Oh, come on, Hutch! Have I ever taken you to such a place?” Starsky asked, taking a left turn at the color lights.

“Do you really want to know?” Hutch snapped.

“No,” said Starsky as he tapped on the steering wheel, humming a tune which Hutch didn’t know. “Do you think I’m plan A or plan B?” he asked.

“What?” Hutch asked, not having a clue what Starsky’s mind was mingling with.

“With Megan, you know? I read this article the other day that said when it comes to relationships, four out of ten women have a plan B.”

At this rate, Starsky wasn’t on any of her plans, Hutch ought to have said, but didn’t. Starsky had cancelled two dinner dates and a movie night with her during the past two weeks. One of the causes was work related, but the rest were all Hutch-related emergencies. It wouldn’t take any woman that long to realize where Starsky’s priorities lay.

“Ok, here’s the place.” Starsky slowed down and pulled into an empty parking spot beside the road.

Hutch looked around. El Chaparro was on the junction of Ocean and Eleventh. Hutch realized that even if he had carefully and methodically lined up plans up to M or further, it wouldn’t stop him from following his partner’s one and only plan.

Their table was right at the window, and beside them were a couple of boys, drinking lemonade. Hutch counted six kids at the table, aged between five and sixteen. They all had their eyes on Hutch and Starsky as they slipped into their seats. Starsky winked at the children and the youngest one who was sitting at the edge touched two fingers to his forehead like a cub scout.

It didn’t even take a minute for Starsky to decide what he wanted. Hutch had hardly gone through the descriptions of the first couple of dishes. He wasn’t in a mood for fried or spicy items.

Their server, Juan, brought the drinks they ordered, coffee and water, though Starsky had confiscated Hutch’s glass of water saying that he had had enough.

“I’ll have the Fajitas Mixas,” said Starsky. “Can you make it devilled?”

“Ciertamente, señor,” Juan replied, smiling widely. He seemed to be very pleased with Starsky’s choice of entrée.

“I’ll have the Taco salad. Can you bring it without the Taco shell?” Hutch asked.

“Sin taco. Sí, señor.”

Starsky sighed impatiently. “Out of all the good stuff, you order just a Taco salad, and then reject the Taco? You are insulting these people. You know that?”

Instead of questioning Hutch’s choices, Starsky should’ve been appreciative of the fact that Hutch agreed to come to Starsky’s choice of restaurant. “Juan didn’t mind, so why should you?” Hutch asked. He would’ve happily spent the rest of the day sipping his water… Water! Hutch looked around for the restrooms. On days like this with his increased water consumption, Hutch had to use the bathroom more frequently than usual.

“It’s over there.” Starsky smirked.

“What?”

“The john.” Starsky smirked more, obviously enjoying being able to steal Hutch’s line.

Giving Starsky another Hutchinson glare, Hutch looked sideways to where Starsky had pointed and saw the baños sign. He quickly walked over to the restrooms.

Starsky added an ample amount of sugar to his coffee, held it up to his face, sniffed, and inhaled the rich aroma. He took his first sip, involuntarily closing his eyes as the heavenly rich taste and full flavor coated his mouth. He groaned softly. It was damn good coffee, and Starsky intended to fully enjoy his brew until the very last drop. 

“My Mom drinks her coffee just like that. She says, Mmmmmm every day in the morning.”

Starsky turned around and grinned at the little kid who was sitting at the other table. “You like your lemonade?” he asked.

The kid who seemed to be no more than five, shrugged his shoulders. “It’s all right. Could’ve been better,” he said. “It’s missing the zing.”

“The zing, huh?” Starsky managed to keep a straight face, swallowing hard to subdue the grin that was trying to break free. “Maybe you should tell them about it.” Right then he noticed Hutch briskly walking out of the corridor that lead to the restroom. He kept on walking at the same speed as he left the restaurant and went all the way up to the Torino.

What the heck? Did Hutch forget that we were here to eat? Starsky watched as Hutch removed his brown leather jacket, then the holster, and wrapped the holster in his jacket. He opened the Torino door and crawled halfway inside as if to retrieve something. When Hutch wriggled back out and straightened up and adjusted his shirt, Starsky noticed that Hutch was holding Starsky’s baseball cap. Hutch pulled the cap on to his head, and walked back to the restaurant with the holster bundled up in the leather jacket, under his arm.

What the fuck in the world was going on?

At the same time, a woman in a yellow t-shirt and black pants walked away from the restrooms at the same speed as Hutch did earlier. She almost ran up to a server and started talking nineteen to the dozen, angrily.

Keeping his head low, Hutch walked back to the table and slid into his chair. He placed his jacket beside him, and raised his index finger at Starsky. “Not a word,” he threatened.

Starsky looked around. There had to be some connection between that angry woman and his weird partner. The server seemed to calm down the angry woman and showed her to her table.

“Out with it. I wanna know what I’m dealing with here,” Starsky asked.

“This is the last time you are dragging me into this type of restaurant,” Hutch hissed.

“What’s wrong with the restaurant? Did you taste their coffee? This is the best I’ve had in ages. Now what did you do?”

“Why do you think I did something?”

“Go on. What happened in the john?”

“Don’t you have to go, today?”

Hutch didn’t have to ask twice because Starsky already had the urge to use the bathroom. He hadn’t even finished his first cup of coffee. “I’ll be back.” He pushed his chair back and stood up.

Starsky had no difficulty in finding the bathroom. Nor did he find anything different. Wondering what had happened with Hutch, Starsky finished his business, washed up and came back, determined to get the story Hutch was keeping from him.

As Starsky got back to his seat, Hutch seemed to wait with some kind of anticipation, as if he wanted Starsky to complain about something. Or was he hoping Starsky got into some kind of trouble?

“What?” asked Starsky.

Before Hutch could answer that question, the little boy Starsky talked to earlier walked quickly towards him and put his hand on Starsky’s coffee cup, glaring at Hutch.

“I am sorry, mister,” he said to Starsky, looking serious. “I can’t allow you to drink this.”

“Why not?”

“There are flies in this coffee.”

“Flies?” Starsky looked in the cup and gasped. “Holy s—” He clamped up, not wanting to curse in front of the kid.

The little boy carried the cup out of the sitting area, and disappeared into the kitchen. He returned in a few minutes. “I dumped it in the sink,” he said.

Juan was right behind him with their entrees and another pot of coffee. 

“I think you should get a new one,” Billy advised in a very grown up voice. “I know how important coffee is.”

“I sure will, err… what’s your name?” Starsky asked.

“Billy,” the kid introduced himself.

“Thank you very much, Billy. You are very sharp. Would make a good detective someday.” 

Billy, again, touched his two fingers to his forehead, and Starsky offered him a military-style salute, solemnly.

Starsky was sure he heard the unmistakable sound of Hutch’s eyes rattling around in his eye sockets. 

Hutch so badly wanted to scare the wits out of that punk kid. He could’ve just joined Hutch in the fun, just like a normal kid would do, but no! He ratted on Hutch and spoiled everything. 

“And you were just sitting here and never noticed those flies flying into my coffee?” Starsky blamed Hutch. “Some partner you are!”

“I took an oath to watch your back, Starsky, not your coffee cup!” Hutch spat back.

“I just can’t imagine how those damn things ended in my coffee.” Starsky scanned his surroundings, looking up at the ceiling and even under the table. “Three flies? All in my cup. And you never saw a thing?”

Hutch wanted to deny any wrong doing but he couldn’t with Billy staring at him across the table. Hutch became increasingly uncomfortable as he did his best to ignore Billy’s accusatory glances.

Starsky picked up his fork and stuffed a generous amount of the mixed Fajitas in his mouth and stared at Hutch for a second. Then he looked sideways at Billy, and back at Hutch. He chewed his food thoughtfully and swallowed hard. “You did it. Didn‘t you?”

Hutch tucked into the bowl of leafy goodness with all his might. He couldn’t even lie with that pesky kid at the other end listening to every single word that he uttered. To make things worse, Billy whispered something to the rest of the kids at his table. Now there were six pairs of eyes giving him menacing looks. Hutch grit his teeth, feeling like Grinch’s great-grandfather. Not that he saw anything wrong with the Grinch, anyway. “Did what?”

“The flies. How could you?” Starsky asked, disbelievingly.

Hutch glanced at Billy. He had to climb out of the pit he had dug himself into. “I was trying to teach you a lesson,” he said smugly. “You shouldn’t leave your food open when you eat at a place like this.”

No one seemed to believe him. Fine! Who cares! Hutch concentrated on his salad, hoping to get out of this damn place as soon as possible. Wearing Starsky’s cap and removing his jacket had saved him from an embarrassing disaster he could have faced earlier, and now this. Thankfully, Starsky had not asked about why Hutch had altered his appearance because he got distracted by the fly incident, but Hutch knew… Starsky never forgets.

“You would’ve just watched me drink the flies. Wouldn’t ya?” Starsky asked, angrily.

“Oh, come on, Starsk. Would I ever?”

“Yes! Yes, you would.” Starsky looked cocksure of his answer. “Come to think of it, knowing you, partner, you would’ve even added rolled up pieces of paper, or poured in the whole salt container, and even dusted a bit of pepper in my drink.”

Hutch remained silent. Starsky just knew him too well. Those thoughts had crossed his mind, indeed, especially the salt thing.

Finally, they were done with their meal and were ready to head out of the place. Hutch pushed his chair back and stood up, picking up his jacket and holster. Hutch was sure that Billy was mentally writing down each and every one of Hutch’s moves and filing it away in a very safe place for future use. Billy’s eyes roamed from Hutch’s head to somewhere around the vicinity of his crotch. In a flash, Billy covered his mouth with his palm, stifling a giggle.

Hutch had had enough. He stormed out of the restaurant, catching a glimpse from the corner of his eyes of Billy pulling Starsky closer to him, and whispering something in his ear.

Hutch didn’t even look back as he walked up to the Torino and climbed in to the passenger side. Before long, Starsky hopped into the car, grinning over at Hutch.

“I’m glad someone’s having a good day,” Hutch sneered.

“You know what instant karma means, Hutch?” Starsky asked, firing up the Torino.

“I don’t want to know.”

“You sure?” Starsky dipped his head sideways, still grinning, to Hutch’s annoyance. 

“Yes!” Hutch said. It had something to do with whatever Billy told Starsky that last minute.

“Well, then, how about telling me what happened in the bathroom.” Starsky checked for traffic, shifted the Torino into gear, and pulled away from the curb with a screech of tires.

“There’s nothing to tell.” Hutch was not in the least interested in sharing that bit of information.

“I see.” Starsky smirked. “So nothing made you disguise yourself by taking off your jacket and wearing my cap, so that that woman in a yellow tee wouldn’t recognize you. Tsk… tsk… tsk… You went in the women’s bathroom?” 

Without saying a word, Hutch glared at Starsky.

“You did, didn‘t ya?” Starsky’s grin extended all the way up to his ears.

“Who wouldn’t?” Hutch snapped. “Instead of putting the ‘men’ and ‘women’ signs on the respective doors, they had to go all the way to confuse the hell out of everyone.” 

“Really? What was so confusing?”

“On the first door, it says “Men” but there’s a big finger painted on it pointing to the second door. On the second door, it says “Women” with a big finger pointing at the first door.

“I didn’t even see the fingers,” said Starsky. “And I didn’t read the signs because they were in Spanish, anyway.”

“Then how did you know which was which?”

“The pictures on the top of each door,” Starsky said a matter-of-factly.

“How could anyone decide with just a pair of legs? I was going to the men’s one, the second door as pointed by the finger, until I saw the damn half-way done pictures. I mean why the heck can’t they put up a complete sign?”

“Ya—but it was pretty obvious—wasn’t it? What’s the big deal? One was of trouser pants, which was for men, by the way, if you ain’t sure yet, and the other was of two legs coming out of a skirt.”

Hutch quirked an eyebrow. “What skirt?”

“The triangular shaped thing they have in women’s bathroom signs,” said Starsky. “I mean, yes, it was a half-done figure but you can still see that it was the bottom of a triangle and—”

“Do you think a man can differentiate between triangles, rectangles, circles and octagons—”

“What octagon?” Starsky asked.

Hutch had to let go of the deep breath he inhaled, but couldn’t. Starsky was just pushing his luck a bit too much. If he ever mention another geo-fucking-metrical shape, Hutch would mold Starsky into an unidentifiable object and plaster him on to a restroom sign so he can be the one pointing fingers.  

“So tell me how you ended up in the wrong place,” Starsky prompted. 

“All I saw were signs with two pairs of legs on the two doors. In one sign, the pair of legs were standing very close and in the other they were far apart. So… well… women don’t stand with their feet far apart like that—”

“That’s gender discrimination, Hutch!” Starsky said with a mock gasp.

“Will you shut up?” Hutch barely contained his anger. If Starsky had gone to the restrooms before Hutch, he could’ve at least blamed everything on Starsky saying that he had ripped off the signs to get Hutch into trouble.

“So this woman caught you in their bathroom?” Starsky asked. “No wonder she was pissed off. Did you go in the sink when you couldn’t find the urinal?” Starsky broke down into an uncontrollable fit of giggles.

“Don’t be an idiot.” Hutch’s ears got hot. “You are enjoying this. Aren’t you?”

“You know what your problem is?” Starsky asked, turning into the Police station and heading towards the parking garage. “You just think too much that you unnecessarily complicate things for yourself.” Starsky offered his two cents before Hutch could say anything. “Then you ignore and don’t want to pay attention to what’s really important.”

“Important, huh? Like listening to what five-year-olds have to say?”

“Well—of course! That little kid is why I avoided drinking bugs today. He could’ve just kept quiet but he even—”

“I don’t care,” Hutch cut Starsky off.

“Okay,” Starsky jerked his head around. “Don’t blame me for not telling ya.” Starsky parked the Torino in the Police garage.

Starsky had tried his best to tell Hutch what Billy let him in on at the restaurant, but Hutch didn’t want any of it. A couple of others at the precinct may have noticed it as well, though not anyone wanted to approach Hutch with a ‘Stay out. Private property’ look on his face. Private property, indeed. Starsky pressed his lips to stop the laughter that was threatening to burst forth.

It was a good thing that they spent the rest of the day in the squad room finishing up their reports, which would give time for Hutch to blow off some steam and cool down. Cool down, for sure! Starsky chuckled. Why Hutch always got into this kind of trouble, Starsky never understood.

After filing all their reports for the day, Starsky and Hutch were finally done. Starsky sat on the table beside Hutch. “Ready to go home?” he asked.

“Yes.” Hutch stretched his hands over his head.

“Do you want to use the john before we go?”

“No!” Hutch snapped.

“Well—but you will have to do a little adjustment before we leave.” Starsky put on his most serious expression. He wasn’t going anywhere with Hutch like this.

“Why’s that?”

“Someone else will book you for indecent exposure.”

“Indecent what?” Hutch asked, a fire flashing in his eyes.

Without saying another word Starsky allowed his eyes to travel in slow motion along Hutch’s nose, lips, neck, chest down to Hutch’s hips, and a bit lower than that. He looked back at Hutch. “Going commando, huh?” he said.

Hutch’s eyes widened with horror as he looked at his crotch.

“That’s what Billy noticed. Your fly has come down.” Starsky winked and walked away from his partner. “Instant karma, Hutch. You missed a fly.”

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Notes: Many Thanks to Provencepuss and Duluthgirl for edits and comments.