My room in Memorial Hospital had become my home. I'd been here almost two months and a good majority of that time I was drugged half out of my mind.
It was the only way that I could survive the ever-present pain that radiated throughout my body.
In the few lucid moments that I did have between the pain medication doses Hutch would be there and I tried my best to focus on his voice talking to me in soothing tones, saying that it was gonna be just fine. That was the "lifeline" that I clung to.
They gave me morphine for my pain................there was nothing they could prescribe for his.................
I would wake up at times only to find myself being poked, prodded and stared at by a myraid of doctors and nurses and nurses aides. There would be the prick of needles being stuck in me.........tubes being taken out of various parts of my body only to be replaced by more tubes.
All I wanted was for it to stop hurting so much, for the pain to stop even if it was just for a few minutes at a time.
They had a tracial tube down my throat that prevented me from talking, they had to do that on the ground in the police garage because I couldn't breathe.
But it hurt my throat now and the day they took it out my throat felt raw, and it hurt to try to talk or even swallow.
I was trying to make my voice work but at first I couldn't.
Then my partner was there running his hand through my hair stopping on my forehead and saying, "Easy Starsk", I know you throat must hurt. Just give me a minute. He kept one hand on my forehead and the other was reaching for a cup of ice chips which he held up to my lips and said, "Open your month and swallow, the ice should make your throat feel a lot better".
I did as he told me and the cold did feel good to my sore throat.
This time when I tried to speak my voice worked but just barely.
"Hey, Hutch, I said. Please tell me what happened to me, Please!"
He said to me ever so softly........you were shot buddy and thats all you need to know for now. "But you're gonna be just fine and thats all that counts."
"And I am going to be right here with you each and every time you wake up."
"So for now you just sleep and let me take care of things."
"Kay, " I said. I couldn't stay wake any longer but I had to tell him.
As I tried to form the words, Hutch bent down close to me and he nodded and I think I saw a ghost of a smile on his face......"I know, Babe, I love you too."
I managed a smile of sorts and sank back down into a drug induced sleep.
Each morning when I woke up now I'd see my day nurse, her name is Maryanne and she would be wiping my forehead with a cloth and wiping the sleep out of my eyes. It felt good.
She really was a pretty thing, and I wondered if I'd ever again be well enough to enjoy the company and pleasures of a woman.
Hutch told me sometime later that she had been on duty in the Trauma Center's ER the day I got shot so it kind of made me extra special to her. No one thought that I'd live through that first night, but I did, and I became quite a "celebrity".
As the newspapers put it....."The Cop That Defied Death".
After I felt somewhat better she talked with me about Hutch.
OH, God!, Hutch.
All of a sudden my partner was "all alone". No one was there for him. Oh, I'm sure the Captain tried to get through to him and I know Huggy tried too but Maryanne said that Hutch was inconsolable. She said she didn't know how the man kept breathing. He was terrified, lost and almost out of his mind with impending loss and grief. He just knew I was going to die and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop it.
The doctors had simply given him no hope for my survival.
But we surprised them all, I made it even though my heart had stopped at one time.
I thanked Maryanne for arranging to let Hutch stay with me.
She made him promise that if he was told to leave, he would do just
that.
No questions asked.
She said he readily agreed, but deep down she just knew that he wouldn't go far.
After a few more days had passed Hutch said he dared to hope again.....
"Please Dear God" just let him live, whatever comes later Starsk and I can and will deal with it.......just don't let him die".
He said to me, "Starsk, all I wanted was for there to be a tomorrow for us".
Dobey and Huggy had offered on numerous times to sit with me and Hutch would always say, "No, I need to be here with him."
She said the Captain tried to get Hutch to go home and away from the
hospital for a while but Hutch shot back at him with,,,,,,,,,,,,,"I don't
give a damn about the rest of the world right now". "I can't think about
anything or anyone else
right now, every breath I take I'll take for Starsky".
Maryanne said, "David, you are lucky, that gorgeous hunk of a partner of yours has no time for the rest of the world."
Every day was filled with doctors, nurses, nurses aides, drugs, needles, pain.
But each day I became a little more aware of things.
Hutch was always there when I woke up and when I fell asleep and I suspect most of the time in between too.
I told him that he ought to go home and sleep his own bed for a change instead of in a chair in my hospital room, but he would always say, "I am home, Starsk".
He would sit with me for hours, he had started bringing his guitar to the hospital and he'd play song after song for me.
It helped.
Oh, but the first time I saw myself when they were changing my dressings
really shook me up.....all over my chest and stomach.....nothing but stitches,
and the bullet holes made indentations in my skin, the wounds were red-rimmed
and
swollen and almost every inch of my chest and stomach was bruised black
and blue. Railroad tracks everywhere that I could see. My breath was coming
in short gasps now and I thought the pain would rip me apart.
I guess the nurse noticed the change in the monitor above my bed and she gave me a shot.
And then the nurse's face was replaced by Hutch's. He was talking to me ever so softly........"It's ok Babe, just close your eyes".
"I'm right here."
"It'll be ok, you're doing just fine."
"Go back to sleep and let the medicine work".
I was exhausted once again, but I felt safe knowing that Hutch would
be right there like always.
Maryanne had told me a while later that my partner had chewed out the nurses for being so careless by letting me see my wounds like that.
He was angry because it has upset me so much.
She called him "My Protector" and after that one incident nothing like that ever happened again.
She said he reminded her of a coiled rattle snake ready to strike out at anything or anyone that he perceived to be a threat to me.
He had become my strength because I had none of my own right now and wouldn't have for a very long time...............but now we had more time.
He became my primary medicine, my prescription against all the pain, all the fear, and the doubts about my future.
Just want to say, "Thank You Lord". For I am alive and I am going to be just fine.
And tomorrow I am going home.