The Sound of Silence
17 Mar 1999

by

SandyR

"Ya hear that, Hutch?" Starsky asked and looked over at his partner who was ensconced at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in one hand and the sports page in the other. When he didn't get an answer or even an acknowledgment of the question, he asked again a little louder. "Hutch, do'ya hear that?"

Again, nothing. This time he took matters in hand by crossing the room, dropping into the chair next to his partner and snatching the paper out of his hand. Taken completely by surprise, Hutch sloshed his lukewarm coffee over his hand and into his lap.

"STARSKY, WHAT THE HELL?"

"I said--"

Hutch sat his half empty cup on the table, held up his coffee stained hand and said "Wait a minute." He reached up and used his other hand to remove a small round object from his ear. He repeated the action with the other ear. "Now, what do you want?"

"I said, 'Do-you-hear-that?'" Starsky repeated with the kind of infinite patience he would show to a mental deficient child.

"Hear what? And give me back my paper." Hutch replied and tried to retrieve his reading material.

"Listen." Starsky ordered and held the newspaper just out of his partner's reach.

"Fine." Hutch sighed, fighting the twin urges to hide his face in his hands and weep or to simple beat Starsky senseless with the rest of the LA Times. Instead, he listened. But besides a few bits of bird song and the traffic noise that was the eternal background music for life in any big city, he could hear nothing and told his partner as much.

"Exactly." Starsky announced with a triumphant air, as if it explained everything.

"Starsk, " Hutch dredged up enough patience to ask with calmly, "What the hell are you talking about? I can't hear a thing."

"That's what I'm talking about! Silence. Nothing. For the last week, we haven't been able to hear ourselves think, what with the band practicing day and night. Until today, nothing. It's weird."

"Let me get this straight. You got me away from the Dodger's opening day line up just to tell me that bunch of tone deaf noise polluters have decide to give our ear drums a rest for the day? Starsk, I told they'd go home when they got hungry."

"I just think it's weird, that's all. I mean, they were so enthusiastic. And the band was growing all the time. They just added another keyboardist and even a harp." Starsky held up the scouts honor sign at Hutch's incredulous look. "I shit you not."

"Starsky, it couldn't go on forever." Hutch said as he rose and headed for the bedroom, removing his soiled clothes and flinging them in the general direction of the hamper as he went. "They're all busy people with homes, families, jobs. Lives." Hutch thought of the computer guru in 3J and added, "Well, most of them, anyway."

Starsky followed his partner and stood in the bedroom doorway as Hutch finished undressing. "I know you're right, Hutch. It's just that, now that they're gone, I kinda missed them. Ya know?"

"I know, Starsk. Only you could feel that way about that racket we've been living with for the last week." Hutch gazed with amusement and affection at partner's forlorn expression. "Only you. But I tell you what. If the quiet bothers you so much, what say you and me make a little noise of our own?"

Starsky looked up and smiled. "Now you're talkin', Blondie."

And they proceeded to make their own kind of music.

SandyR

(See what happens when you folks get quiet all of a sudden?)