Blue Mood

He’s in a blue mood, my partner. I can tell by his silence, his absentminded smiles and his distant gaze. He’s not often like that. Usually he’s a cheerful, jolly jumper and beneath that surface is a deeply caring, sensitive, passionate, intelligent man. I used to think, when I first got to know him, that his ‘eternal-boy-way’ was a façade only, one meticulously concocted to hide whatever uncertainty was beneath.

But I changed my opinion as I learned that he’s really as cheerful and pleasant and amicable as he appears to be. He’s the kind of man people instantly take a liking to. Or – when a person’s working on the wrong side of the fence – fears because they recognise the fire in my partner. A fire that is the drive to make this place a better world and if possible, get rid of the scum of the earth in the process.

His humour helps him through dark times. Often enough death has crossed his path but he refuses to let it drag him down and destroy him. He accepts what happens to him, but not without resistance. He plunges in with both feet, lets himself get swept away by the current and manages to struggle and emerge time and time again, only to have come out a stronger person. Luctor et Emergo.

Just this morning he was injured in the line of duty. Injured is a big word for the minor injury he had – a gash, not deep, not ugly, not threatening in any way. The flesh of his right upper arm had been cut by a blunt knife, handled by a boy who was so scared of his own shadow that he was no match for Starsky.

The First Aid kit at the station was all that was needed. Some disinfectant, crème and a band aid and Mr Sunshine was as good as new.

But in the course of the day, though, he was growing more quiet and to himself. We booked the little punk and went out for lunch, but my partner was lost in thoughts and I had the feeling he was brooding on something.

“You’re no fun to be around with today,” I complained with a mocking laugh.

“Mm? What? O yeah. Sorry.”

Not much talk from a man who could chatter my ears off when in the right mood.

“Arm hurting?” A bit more serious this time. He didn’t seem to notice. “Starsk?”

“What?”

“Hello! Ground Control to Major Tom! Anyone home?”

He laughed sheepishly but almost instantly the veil of thoughtfulness came back.

“Does your arm hurt?” I tried again to get some conversation going.

“No. Not at all.”

“Then what’s on your mind?”

“Nothing,” he said and sounded surprised. I think he didn’t realise the world saw his mind was miles away. It couldn’t have been clearer if it signalled from his forehead in big neon letters. He shrugged once and offered me a smile. “Nothing. Really.”

I didn’t push. No use.

~*~

“Do you ever think about your own death, Hutch?”

Starsky’s voice comes to me from the driver’s seat of the Torino, his face hidden by the darkness of the night. A few scattered far away light sources are not enough to show his features. I can only distinguish a few dull glimmers in his face.

“No. Sometimes. I don’t know. You?”

“Sometimes. I think about other’s deaths more.”

“Me too.” I’m curious where this is heading. This has been on his mind ever since this morning and by now, in the anonymous cover of the dark night, it is time to vent what he has to say. His voice is calm, warm and thoughtful.

“That boy this morning – he'so young.”

“Fifteen.”

“Yeah. I had my gun ready. So had you. We could have killed him, right there and then.”

“No, we wouldn’t,” I object. “We’re professionals, we think before we react. That saves our lives. And his.”

“Still – it would have been just another name that would have gone into the books of oblivion. A small article in a newspaper, a grieving mother…”

He sighs.

“What’s on your mind, Starsk?” My voice is as soft as his.

“Death. D’you know I hardly ever think about dying myself? I expect nothing. Just one day – bang. Gone. I sometimes dread the way I’ll die, but I don’t fear death itself. When it comes, it’ll be more merciful than most people think it is.”

Where the hell does that come from?

“What I do worry about is you. Ma. Nicky. Huggy. The cap. His family. People I care for and love. Death is difficult for those who stay behind. You know that. And me too. Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt.” It is a joke, but in its context it has a deep true sincere tone to it.

“Starsk, why—“

He interrupts me. “It dawned on me this morning that that punk is luckier than he could imagine. He could very well have ended up very dead.”

This time I don’t speak. I wait for him to continue.

“Death is not a lonely place. It’s full of mercy, an end to pain and suffering, a blessing when waited for, a true closure of the book of life.” He rubs his eyes, tired, weary. Takes his time to think up how he’s going to formulate what more he wants to say. “I saw that boy’s eyes and I read his death. Not now, not today. But tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or next year. When his veins are leaking from the shots he gives himself, when his arms look like pincushions and his mind can only run little circles around the score of the day. Death will be kind then. It will be over for him, the unstoppable train of destruction finally coming to a halt.”

Starsky – don’t do this to yourself, I think, but I listen, fascinated.

“Makes me realise more and more that I love life. I love my friends and my family and I love to live. I enjoy this world, as rotten as it sometimes seems to be. I want to grow old, look back and know that I’ve lived a life that was good.”

I’m not sure how to react.

“Don’t you, Hutch? Don’t you want someone telling you life is in your eyes instead of hatred and destruction? Don’t you want someone standing by you telling you you’ve done the right thing?”

“Only if it’s you,” I answer, feeling awkwardly shy around my best friend. What am I supposed to say? That I’ll be there for him? He knows that. He needn’t ask. I needn’t say. We know, both of us. I don’t know what to say. I open my mouth to say something, but I fall back into silence. Sometimes silence says more than words.

And then suddenly the vivid Starsky is back. In the darkness I know he’s looking at me, probably seeing just as little as I do, but I hear a soft chuckle.

“What?” I say, feeling relieved that the strange atmosphere is suddenly dissolving.

“It doesn’t happen often, does it?”

“What?”

“That you’re lost for words.” Starsky laughs this time, warm and bright and breezy.

I think I’ve got my mouth open. I stare into the dark and don’t see much, but I catch some sparks in what must be his blue eyes. I’m trying to find something appropriate and witty to say, but it doesn’t want to come.

“I don’t get much practice,” I say in the end, and wonder if that choice of words isn’t particularly poor regarding the subject. “You’re not very often in a blue mood.”

“Nope. I’m not.”

“But when you are, you ARE.”

“Oh yeah. When I am, I am.” He laughs.

I don’t reply. Just ponder on the many sides that are hidden behind the kind eyes and the bright smile. Like an onion, each time a new layer is revealed. A passionate man, my partner is.

It is as if he’s been reading my mind.

“I’m suddenly craving for a burger, with lots of onions,” he says.

He doesn’t understand why that makes me punch him amicably.

A blue mood. Not really Starsky’s regular act, but it does reveal an awful lot of what he’s is all about, doesn’t it?

The End

Elsa, July 2004